As many of you know, I spent the second half of September in Burundi checking on our projects and working on our vision for the future. I thought it would be a trip similar to most of the other trips I have made to Burundi over the past years. One-third of the trip would be reviewing and evaluating our projects, one-third would be brainstorming with our partners about future projects, and one-third would be networking with locals and field missionaries from the US, Europe, and Canada to find out what they are doing to help the people of Burundi. Some trips are easy and some require a great deal of physicality and even emotional endurance. Regardless, I always try to do two or three of these updates from the field. I haven’t been able to do one until now. I trust you will understand why by the time you have read this email.
We have been working in a Batwa village called Gahararo since 2012. We extended our work to the adjacent village of Ruganirwa in 2018. When I first visited Gahararo, we were told – and it was obvious – that the children of the village were starving. I do not mean that figuratively and I do not mean that the children were “just” malnourished. Children in the village under 5 years old were actually dying at the rate of three per month. Significantly more than half the children had a life expectancy of under 5 years. In fact, because of this shocking infant mortality rate, the life expectancy in Gahararo was under 30 years of age.
What I saw on that first visit to Gahararo was shocking to the core. We immediately implemented a porridge program in which we provided a large cup of porridge to each child every school day. As a result, we put a virtual halt to childhood starvation in Gahararo. Only seven village children have died of starvation since 2012.
I visit the village as often as I can, almost always twice per year. There has been a dramatic change in the village since we started our porridge program in 2012. The children have seemed healthier, happier, and more energetic. It’s been many years since I have seen Kwashiorkor (the distended belly that indicates end stage starvation) or the listlessness that comes with acute hunger. The children were always excited to see me and would hold my hand and parade me around for their friends to see.
I knew that Burundi is having some pretty significant economic and political problems, but nothing prepared me for my visit in September. It was not only physically challenging, but it was also emotionally draining. Much more emotionally draining than any of my visits to Burundi since that first trip in 2011 or 2012. That early trip was a shock to the system. This trip was equally so. I was not prepared.
Here is a sampling of the challenges I faced. To begin with, the children and even some of the adults in Gahararo and Runganirwa are starving to death again. Donatien and Onesphore told me that it’s not just in the Batwa villages we support, but in every Batwa village throughout the country. The entire country is on the very verge of famine. This is because of runaway inflation, a severe fuel shortage, and supply chain disruptions. Plus, because the adults are also starving, they are coming to take porridge with the children. The children are no longer able to get enough calories to keep them from starving. A doctor in the community was on hand during my visit to the village and told me that the starvation rate will explode in the next six weeks if there are not serious improvements in the village’s food security situation.
I had fabulous plans for Gahararo and Ruganirwa. I was planning a goat project for the village as well as to purchase communal land for grazing and farming. However, I had not been in the village for more than 10 minutes when I knew that we were going to have to put everything on hold – except porridge and school uniforms – until we address the villages’ food insecurity.
GCA has always been flexible in its approach to the projects we do. We had a good fundraiser in early September, but to make sure the people we are helping have enough food, I will need to ask you to please dig deeper to help us address this crisis.
Our efforts to meet the food challenges in this regard will have to go beyond only the children. Adults are going to die as well if we don’t feed them. Can you please help? By the way there are dozens or organizations, mainly from Europe and Canada, that are bringing resources to bear on the food crisis. As I mentioned, however, the food crisis is country-wide, especially in the hundreds of marginalized Batwa communities across the country. Unfortunately, many people in the developed world honestly do not care about an obscure place like Burundi, Africa. Heck, I know from my own ministry that most people don’t even know where Burundi is!
Other things happened that were also deeply disturbing. Our community centers are going gangbusters under the stewardship of my dear friend Victor Kwizera. In fact, I arrived on Thursday and on Saturday, Victor had an open house/community feast to celebrate the center. There were 300-350 people at the party and everyone was able to eat rice and beans. The event was standing room only. One of the families that came with their children lives directly across the street from our center. That Saturday, the mom and dad were there with their young children. The mom was pregnant and scheduled for a c-section 10 days later. The family’s children played while we spoke to the husband and wife about the center and her impending delivery of another child.
One of the children of that family is a 6-year old little girl. Two or three days after the party at the community center, the little girl was struck by a truck and killed. The family did not have the $20 necessary to properly bury the child. We took care of it and gave them extra money so that the family could have a wake and reception for the little girl. It was devastating to the family and painful for Victor, the other families attending the center, and for me as well. But just know that those who have donated to GCA made it possible for the family to properly bury their beloved child.
The little girl’s death hit me hard for several reasons. For one, she was the same age as my niece when she died in a car accident in which my mother also died. For another, very, very, very few Burundians can afford a vehicle. Walking is the preferred mode of transportation. There are no sidewalks so there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who walk right on the side of the road with traffic whizzing by. There are men, women, and toddlers walking inches from the bumpers and side mirrors of cars that fly by. Almost every time I am in a vehicle with a Burundian driver I literally beg them to slow down and cringe every time they pass a pedestrian. Sometimes, the situation becomes so stressful that I have to put myself to sleep so I don’t see the close calls.
There were other things I saw on this trip that I will never unsee. I will not paint a word picture of those things for fear that you also will not be able to unsee them.
Let me close this update by telling you that I will be sending you an email about the situation in Lebanon. One of our partners on the ground there needs support to help native Lebanese and Syrian refugees who have been displaced by the Israel/Hezbollah war. These are innocent people who are scared to death by what is happening and have nowhere to turn. I know from my time on the ground in Lebanon that the vast majority of these people believe that Hezbollah is a terrorist group that is responsible for the destruction their beautiful country is now experiencing. The people who are being displaced are Christians, Muslims, and Christians hiding as Muslims. They are all innocent victims of an escalating war. I know them and can vouch for this. Stand by for the next email.
Comments are closed