From the Deacon’s Bench
January 19th, 2012
An Update From Burundi - Ms. Tula Holmes, who you generously supported for her mission trip to Burundi, has provided some words from her trip:
Shut your eyes and try to imagine that you are married and that you have three children. Now imagine that you live in a house that looks like a 8 to 9 foot yurt. The one round room of your house is the kitchen, the bedroom, and the living room for your family of five. Can you see it?
Now pretend that you sleep under a dirty mosquito net that was given to you by the clinic at the birth of your first child. It’s why you went to the clinic in the first place. You would wash your netting, or for that fact, your clothes, but you have no soap. You wish you had a bar of soap.
Your net hangs over a grass mat, which is where you and your husband, and all of your children huddle together through the night. Two feet from your sleeping mat are the black stones where the fire is built for cooking, and on them sits a charred pot. Above, there is no opening for a chimney. The walls of your house are made of sticks and dry eucalyptus leaves, and the fire smoke escapes through the holes between the branches. When you cook, your twig and leaf wall could catch fire, so you have to be careful. Of course you cook only once a day, because there is not enough food for you or your family.
There are other problems with your round little house. When it rains, you get wet, so you take off your clothes and put them in a cooking pot to keep them dry. You don’t have a closet. You don’t need one. You only have one set of clothes to wear. Your family’s clothes are stiff with red dirt, and filled with tears and holes. They hang like cleaning rags from the shoulders of your children.
Were you able to stay with me? To read my sad scenario is to read the story of the Batwa people. Known as the pygmies, they are the forgotten people of Burundi. With a life expectancy of 27, they are the poorest people on earth. Last week, I took your gifts of food and soap to the Batwa village outside of Ngozi, which is nestled in the beautiful mountains of Burundi. It was a long four hour drive of dodging pot holes, snaking around tight hairpin turns though coffee and tea fields, and eucalyptus forests. The Batwa were told of our visit, and eagerly awaited our arrival. Together we provided the entire village of 68 families with food for four days – 2 kilos of rice and one kilo of beans for each family. We also gave each family two bars of soap. They thanked you all, their friends in America, and they asked you to come visit. They don’t have many visitors. Peace, Tula
