two weeks

These last two weeks went by very quickly and very slowly at the same time (if that makes sense). Sorry for the extremely late blog post, we had power at work for only a few hours two weeks ago, and last week I had a meeting, then was sick, then it was Thanksgiving, and now it is Monday again.

Bujumbura had been having problems with power, but I was told that they borrowed some money from the world bank to pay the DRC, who apparently supplies a large portion of our power. So, now we are supposed to have power everyday starting in the morning and ending around 9pm. This has been true so far, and I am very thankful for the ability to get work done.

This is a crocodile at the musée vivant, our local zoo. We went there for a visit two weeks ago. The zoo is very small but has some crocodiles, snakes, two chimpanzees and some sort of small cat. This zoo is also pretty sketchy, the cages are not that convincing, and we have heard some stories. I was told that one of the chimpanzees escaped a few weeks before we arrived in Burundi. It then made its way to the Catholic cathedral in town and disrupted morning mass!

This is the chest high fence that stands between you and one of the full grown crocodiles. Some expats told me that they have climbed into the cage to have their pictures taken while holding the crocs tail!

Last week was a very productive week at work even though I was there only three days. We finished one project, almost completed two others, and we started recording another choir. It’s amazing what you can do when you have consistent electricity!

(This is a picture of the lake and the mountains of the DRC. This place is a 15min walk from my house!)

I also asked my parents to send some music software that was at their house, and it recently arrived and was installed, and I’m very excited about it. I didn’t have a serial number for one of the programs, so I emailed the company and surprisingly they gave me a free upgrade to the newest version of their software! It is only a light version of the full product, but it is the software that I use on my personal computer and the studio will definitely benefit from many of its features. I had to download the update though, and when I started it said it was going to take 21 hours to download! I had to terminate the download because it would never finish. Thankfully, I had the opportunity on another day to use a different connection during a time of low usage and it only took 3hrs. I am very thankful that everything worked out in my favor because there was so much potential for things to go wrong.

Buj Wedding

This last week was bad for internet connections. Thankfully last Monday I could post because I didn’t have much luck the rest of the week. Even on Sunday when I went to a café their connection wasn’t working. Oh well what can you do.

Thankfully we have power today! I about wet myself with excitement when the lights came on.


I can now post about the wedding I attended last week.




The wedding was similar to a western wedding, there is no doubt that Burundians adopted the western way. The minister gave a message and the couple exchanged vows and rings. It was funny when the couple was exchanging their vows because they were swarmed by the paparazzi. A group of guys with cameras and video cameras surrounded the couple so that we couldn’t even see them while they were exchanging vows.



The couple and everyone then drove off to the reception. At the reception there were the Burundian drummers and the toasts.






The day after the wedding there is another ceremony called levea de voile. At this ceremony the two families meet at the newly married couple’s home.

The bride’s family comes together and enters with gifts.




There are toasts and each side says how appreciative they are of each other. Then the musicians sing some songs and then we all go home.



I was told that there used to be many more ceremonies in Burundi. One of the previous presidents did away with some of them because the people were always drinking and eating. It sounds pretty great to me.

MCC team retreat

We had the wonderful opportunity this week to have a team retreat up-country.

We had a rough start with some car trouble just outside of town, but eventually we all made it up to the lodge.




The place we went was about 45min away, but it felt like we were in a different country. There were beautiful rolling hills and it was cold! (I wore a sweater most of the time) The place we went was called Ijenda, and our team took over a little lodge that had a wonderful view.



This is the view from our rooms!

The purpose of our retreat was to bring the MCC team together for discussion, relaxation and spiritual renewal.







A cow and some goats (true burundian wildlife)


One of my favorite parts of the trip was the hike we took though the hills. It was a pleasantly overcast day with moments when it sprinkled rain; I was basically in heaven.





The Burundian SALTers (Robyn, Yoland, Me)













This is me in a tea field!


Also, I had the privilege of attending two marriage ceremonies this weekend. Hopefully I will post a blog about that later this week, after I load all the pictures on my computer.

hmmm.....

What did I do this week? Well, the power was out for most of the days that I was at work, so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. I ended up going home early a few days. I would then go into town to a café so that I could use internet. I can’t complain because it is fun to drink coffee and facebook chat with friends and family.

One very exciting thing did happened last week. Well, maybe not that exciting for you to read about, but it really made me happy so I am going to tell you about it. Our monitor speakers have been up on the top shelves since I arrived here. This isn’t the ideal location for them to be

because you can’t hear the music accurately. I have been asking since I arrived for them to be moved down for me. This involved drilling some holes and moving the shelves, so it was something that I was unable to do myself. After asking and asking and asking the shelves were finally moved on Friday! Yes! And as soon as I moved the speakers down and hooked everything up the power went out. Ha ha.

Today we have power at work, so I am enjoying my new speaker set up, and I’m doing my best to get as much done as possible. On Wednesday the MCC team is going up country for a retreat. I hear that it is cool where we are going so I am really excited, but because I will be missing work I have to work extra hard today and tomorrow.

I thought I might add a picture of what a typical meal looks like.

From left to right is: rice, fries, beans, and a sauce. Sometimes the sauce has meat in it (usually at dinner) and there could also be peas or cabbage instead of beans.