we were going to be working at.After getting stuck at the Burundi boarder for two hours because our bus broke down, we finally made it to be happily greeted by 3 yfc workers. Two were staff members names Esther and Eve and the third was an American volunteer names Jackie. They took us to the rainbow center where we would be sleeping for the week which was an orphanage and guest house all wrapped into one. We ate dinner and talked to with Jackie for awhile until the country director Freddy showed up to to say hello.
We had a wonderful week there working and seeing the sites of Burundi including a very short step into the DRC(that a separate story in itself). Burundi is a very small but wonderful country that was in the midst of a civil war just like Rwanda's.It is Rwanda's sister country and they were once the same before splitting in colonization. While Rwanda's story has become well know, Burundi's story of conflict has become some what forgotten and as a country it is far underdeveloped compared Rwanda. While Rwanda's war lasted a few months Burundi's war has gone on for over ten years and officially ended in 2005. Now they still to this day have not come to full peace as there is still an active rebel group but had not seen a major attack since 2005.
The second night we were There we were sitting having dinner at the rainbow center and talking with a YWAM group from Northern Ireland doing their ministry in Burundi when we heard what we thought was something like fireworks. We realized quickly that it was not so when shortly after the sounds of machine gun fire rang through our ears. One of the guards ran in to tell us to come look outside. We ran out to see the red light of missile grenades flying through the air in different directions along with the flash of white light as they landed in the hills. After spending some time in prayer for peoples safety and for the country we sat and listened to the sounds of gunfire and exploding bombs until we fell to sleep.
The fighting continued through the night and the next morning we came to find out that the rebel group had decided to make their biggest attack in 3 years. We were never really in to much danger where we were because their attack was for the most part a political statement as they spent most of their time trying to bomb the presidents compound in Bujumbora. After breakfast we packed up our things and our friends Basco and Eve (yfc staff) took us and Jackie two hours east through the mountains and the most dangerous road in the country (only really at night) to a town called Gitega where we would be doing our work at the orphanage. Kinda funny but on the way in we bought grilled corn on the cob from boys as they ran beside our bus winding through the hills so we decided to do it again as we headed across to Gitega. We enjoyed it so much that every time we took that road (which was 4 time in the week there) we would
enjoy the snack of a little grilled corn on the cob to satisfy our appetite.We spent some time working at this yfc orphanage in Gitega. We spent most of our time doing physical education activities with the kids since this was quite the need at the moment and tried to teach some of the staff at the school there so they could continue to do this activities with the kids. Their were 23 kids at the orphanage between the ages of like 5 and 12. It was a wonderful experience to spend some time just having fun and loving on some pretty spectacular children.
Once back in Bujumbora, we had one final big dinner put on by Freddy with the yfc staff my group and the YWAM team since they were going to be spending some of their time working with yfc. We had a wonderful dinner that began with a traditional Burundian drum concert and some traditional foods and ending in splendid fellowship.
The next morning we packed up our things...went to one of the local churches and headed home.
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