on an added note...
How funny is it that the Titans offices are at Baptist Sports Park? That pretty much sums up Nashville, come to think.
"Africa is, indeed, coming into fashion." - Horace Walpole (1774)
How funny is it that the Titans offices are at Baptist Sports Park? That pretty much sums up Nashville, come to think.
People are a little freaked out.
So the big day is here. What does the future hold for our boy Vince? Who will take him? Will it be Tennessee? So Houston doesn't want you? (And is obviously a tiny bit crazy? Note to Houston: defenses do win games, but that's not enough if your offense has no one who can run or catch the ball.)There's a very interesting piece on religious leaders' reactions to the immigration debate in the Dallas Morning news. This tension over the appropriate response to our country's economic dependence on illegal immigrants while wanting to have effective, legal enforcement of border security isn't going to go away - especially when you look at it from a faith-based point of view. My friend Leigh wrote an outstanding, thoughtful study for the BGCT a couple of years ago that addressed these very questions - write the CLC and they'll send you a copy.
Music notes for those of us not lucky enough to be at MerleFest on KGSR's dime:
There's a big rally on Darfur in DC this weekend. They have quite an impressive lineup of speakers, and some really awful musical guests.
The lake changed color. It was so strange and so sudden - Tuesday morning I sat there eating breakfast, watching the lake change colors in stripes. I thought maybe it was just me until my taxi driver into town took one look at the lake and yelped. Seems it was a surprise to everyone. (This taxi driver, Theo, also asked me if you had to pay a dowry to get married in America, or if it's free. He couldn't believe that it's "free.").
So then it was a question of what happened. It's hard to explain how different things are - Lake Kivu went from being the color of Lake Travis to the color of the Thunsee at Interlaken, or the Caribbean (so I'm told). I thought maybe someone dumped a bunch of chlorine in the lake or something. Finally, Eva told me yesterday that it's due to some algae rising in the lake. It happens every two years or so. Nobody knows why. Anyway, it's absolutely beautiful, if a bit creepy. The turqoise water contrasts with the blue sky, purple mountains, green grass, and bright flowers.
Perhaps I'm being a bit overdramatic. But, seriously. A tornado? Why? As Martin Bell says in this BBC article, it sometimes seems like everything bad is right here in this one little place:
"The same Constitution that refuses to privilege any religion, including Christianity, protects the rights of Christians to proclaim the gospel to all who will listen. As a result, paradoxically enough, we are a nation of Christians because we are not a Christian nation."We don't make unfounded accusations here at Texas in Africa. So I'm not going to join the chorus of scholars and other commentators who've accused the Bush administration of being a bit, um, over-zealous in blocking access to records that should be declassified under the 30-year rule. All I'm going to say is that I'm glad to see that the National Archives will be taking steps to correct an unfortunate situation.
Some odds 'n ends on Texas politics, etc.:
Sake is haunting us. The faces of those too-thin, sick children keep me awake at night. I stopped by DOCS to talk to Lyn on Monday and she showed me this verse that had come up in her Bible study on Thursday night. She just said, "this is it."
A good friend sent this link to Amy Butler's post on Allie. Amy is the pastor of Calvary Baptist in Washington. Gray, she calls it. The color of the sky, the hospital, the morgue, our hearts."The one true freedom in life is to come to terms with death, and as early as possible, for death is an event that embraces all our lives. And the only way to have a good death is to lead a good life.... The more we do God's will, the less unfinished business we leave behind when we die."
Allie's gone. I talked to the CPP last night. They've had a rough couple of days. Please keep Allie's family in your prayers. The funeral is on Tuesday at 10:30 at Calvary in Waco.
My attorney occasionally asks if I've seen any pygmies here in Congo. I'm not sure why the idea of pygmies is amusing to him, but, well, that's how it is. Well, Attorney, yesterday I saw some pygmies. But before we get to that, an explanation.
what you need to know is that, especially during the war, people had their land seized from them with no warning, others had to leave as refugees, and both groups are currently going back to homes to find that their land has been confiscated. It costs $30,000 to have a land case heard at the provincial tribunal in Goma, so most of these people have no recourse whatsoever.
communal. It wasn't a matter of holding title to the plot of land your house sits on – communities owned their land as a group, with the local chief and elders deciding who got to farm what land. The land, though, is hugely significant to the community's identity. It's where they're from, what they live off of, and where their ancestors are buried. Losing it is tantamount to losing part of your identity.
people. Masisi is the idyllic, super-fertile territory at the top of the mountains. By all accounts, it looks like Switzerland. Most of the good cheese we get here in Goma comes from the Masisi.
Our visit took most of the day. We went to talk with the "Chef du Territoire," who's kindof like the county commissioner, and his staff, then visited a church to talk to a pastor about what they could do to help the deplaced people. The pictures of children above are from the neighborhood around the church. They'd all come in close for a picture, then scream and run away when it flashed. (Actually, some of them screamed and ran away when the camera appeared.)
Transit Center, where women from the Masisi and surrounding areas who have been raped come for counseling and to get referrals to the DOCS hospital in Goma. These women have seen the worst side of humanity, but they were still welcoming and enjoyed seeing their own pictures on our digital cameras. This woman named her baby Baraka, which means blessing. Think about that for a minute. She has more courage than I ever will.
corner of this picture). We're not even going to talk about the floor. Let's just say I was glad that I chose not to wear sandals yesterday. We learned some disturbing statistics about Sake from a young doctor there. 50% of women in Sake choose to have their babies at the hospital. In a town of 38,000, there were about 800 births in 2005. The number of babies who died in childbirth when the delivery happens at the hospital last year was 8. For babies born in homes, it was 15. So why do mothers not have their babies at the hospital, where the chances that their baby will survive are much higher? Because it costs $8 to have your baby delivered at Sake Health Center. And $8 is more than 16 days' wages for most people here, maybe more than that. No one keeps statistics on the average daily income of the residents of a small market town in the eastern Congo.
ou'd normally find in a third-world hospital, and they work hard and keep detailed records. They are feeding a huge number of people in Sake. Here's a picture of some women preparing Unimix, the UN's standard malnutrition cure. It's a high calorie, high-protein flour with vitamin supplements. You find it in the world's worst places. Sake qualifies.
but this is one of the worst. We visited two encampments of pygmies. They've had to find places to stay in a city where the chef du territoire told us there's no land. The first group have built these little shelters. They told us their very sad story about how their group came to be in Sake.
disappeared within five minutes of distribution. They were just gone, all of a sudden. They can't afford transportation into town to get health care, so they just suffer with whatever they catch. I talked briefly with a mother whose baby was clearly sick – he had a white and green growth coming out of his ear. It looked like mold on the food you forgot at the back of the
refrigerator. What's that mama going to do?
meeting room. They sleep on straw, like the little boy in the picture below right showed me before running away when he saw the flash from my camera.
Mr. Florida and I walked out of the DOCS compound and saw the pastor from church, who took one look at me and said I looked emotional. He and Lyn both have hope. They've seen the worst here and know that the only way to deal with it is to come up with a plan, get the money from somewhere, and help people to move on with their lives. Oh, and pygmies? They're pretty much like the rest of us. They want their children to be healthy and to have safe water to drink and enough food to eat and to go to school and to have a chance.
This has been a pretty crazy week. With so many visitors in town, it's been fun to have new people to talk to. I'm also doing some work for Heal Africa that's been quite the adventure. Explain this to me: Goma has so little healthcare, but there's a statistics bureau of the provincial health inspector's office that can provide a detailed list of statistics having to do with infant mortality and early childhood health - in TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. Nothing in Africa can be done in 24 hours. How does this work?!? And why can't the energy and enthusiasm of the statisticians be applied to actually getting needed medication to the population?
can get a cheap lunch, this Lebanese restaurant at the old colonial grand hotel, which is now a total dump except for the Lebanese restaurant. Every expat with an office on that side of town has lunch at the Lebanese place. Anyway, Allie, Gorilla Ben, and I all went back to work and then met up at Gorilla Ben's office to see the gorillas. Gorilla Ben works for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Goma and had told us that they had a gorilla sanctuary at their office. What Allie and I didn't expect was to see gorillas in the parking lot the second we drove through the gate, but there they were. And were they cute! Unfortunately, these young females have already experienced too much trauma in their short lives - the oldest one, here, is about 2 1/2 years old. Gorilla Ben told us that the fund got the three gorillas by confiscating them from people who are trying to illegally trade them - basically, they just take the gorillas when they find them. The littlest one is less than a year old. She was confiscated from the governor. That's right, the governor. So they named her after him. Serefuli was showing off for Allie and me by beating on her chest and the tree, and by swinging from the trees. It was pretty funny - the light wasn't good for getting great pictures, unfortunately.
gorillas that you find in Rwanda, but it doesn't make much different. They watch you and look at you like they know what you're thinking. The oldest one kept trying to get away from her caretaker (there are men who work for the fund that watch and guard the gorillas 24 hours a day) and would act like she was being subtle, looking for vegetation, and then take off towards us as her caretaker grabbed her arm and walked her back over to the ledge. The gorillas are really incredible. I read Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist a few weeks ago, and could only really think that she knew a little too much about the gorillas, but
it was so interesting to see in person the behavior she described. Allie and Oliver went to see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda on Saturday. She said it was pretty incredible - these huge silverback gorillas come stand right next to you. It sounds like an amazing experience; Wilco Ben and I are talking about going to see them next week. Hopefully it will work out, because as cool as the gorillas in Goma are, it will be pretty amazing to see gorillas in the wild.
survival in the wild are pretty slim. It's heartbreaking that people try to traffic in endangered species, especially in a place like Congo where it's really hard for conservationists to protect them. They have to do it all. Next week I am supposed to interview a guy who works for the Frankfurt Zoo, but who lately has been training commando units to protect the Virunga National Park and its animals. Think about that for a minute - this guy is your typical zookeeper, friendly and kind to animals, but he's training paramilitary forces to use lethal weapons to protect the gorillas and other wildlife in the park. Incredible. But it's the only way to protect these rare species, which only live in the Congo/Uganda/Rwanda border region. Yet another example of the far-reaching effects of a total lack of state authority. Nothing is safe here.
'tis the season for best wishes to friends who've made big decisions about The Future:
things that make me alternately sad and happy:

I had to head back to Karibu after that to get ready for my friend Gisele's birthday party at Chez HiFi (you'd say "high-fi," but here it's "hee-fee"), which was an experience unto itself. Gisele is awesome and I figured it would be fun. Turns out I was the only expat she invited, and the only expat at HiFi. I wasn't ten seconds in the door before a guy walked up and said, "I love you." But it was fun, especially when Gisele decided it was time to dance. The DJ very thoughtfully decided to play the hit song in Africa this year, "African Queen," while we were on the floor, so everyone at HiFi watched. It was something. Here's her friend dancing.
Gisele and her friends found a moto-taxi to take me home, so there I was, zipping along under a sky that defies description. To the northwest, the volcano was glowing red, overhead we could see the Milky Way, and to the south, over the lake, flashes of lightning from a huge electrical storm lit everything up every few seconds. I got home, made some French onion soup, and the ipod hit the perfect song just as the sky and the power dropped out in a heavy tropical storm. What an Easter.






After lunch, Gorilla Ben, Sam, Suzy, Oliver, Allie, and I decided to go out to visit the volcano fissure, which is just outside of Goma. Totally wild. See, when the volcano erupted in Goma in 2002, lava didn’t come spewing out the top of the cone like you'd expect. Instead, it opened a second crater on its side, which caused some damage, and, elsewhere, split open the earth. The fissure we visited is the main source of the huge lava flow
that ran through the center of Goma.
and all of a sudden the earth opens up and starts spewing lava into the sky. You can get a sense of how high it was from this picture of Sam.
climbed to the top of the lava hill and got the kids to dance and goof off, while Allie and I talked to this little guy, whose name is Justin. He was cute and polite and very curious as to why we wanted to climb all over the rocks. Most of the children out there spoke Kinyarwanda, which is very interesting - that makes them outsiders in the DRC, even though they were probably born here.
Sunday my alarm didn't wake me up, so I was a little bit late to church. Not that it matters – people are regularly an hour or more late to the three-hour service. Transportation is a problem on Sunday mornings. But today the place was packed, so I was seated on the back row, with all the mothers with small babies. So I didn't get quite all of the sermon due to the fact that someone else's child was on my lap. But the sermon ended when the pastor started to sing, acapella, in French, "I'd rather have Jesus / than silver or gold / I'd rather have him than riches untold." Which means a lot when much of your congregation is undernourished and struggling to survive. I've always loved that hymn and was so glad to get to sing it on Easter Sunday, but I'm never going to hear it the same way again.
Another thing that was cute and absolutely hilarious was the youth presentation, which lasted about 45 minutes. They've just finished their first trimester of the youth ministry, which is divided into two classes: ages 3-8 and ages 9-15. At first they sang songs and it was pretty much like what you see at home when the children's choir performed. But then the teenage girls started doing slam poetry about Jesus. It was great, but they were so topped by the next "act" – a group of 4 boys and one girl, all about 8 years old. The choir sang this reggae song and the kids, one by one, rapped, mostly about the devil. Everyone laughed at the boys, but the girl brought the house down. She rocked.
with everyone for lunch. Here are some pictures from hanging out, including the church and some of the kids who live on the church grounds with their mothers, who are all recovering from being victims of sexual violence. They all know and love Mr. Florida and sometimes follow him home, which involves walking about a mile there and back. E had some candy to hand out, which of course they loved.
About the same time, I met Sam and his girlfriend Suzy, who both work in Rwanda and had come down for the holiday weekend. Suzy is a German medical student and is doing research at the DOCS training center in Rwanda. Sam is from South Carolina and runs a couple of businesses in Kigali. First thing he says to me: "Is that a Southern accent?" We of course had quite the time. The Lusis, who run DOCS, invited us all to lunch at Karibu, but we had some time to kill and therefore went back to the Lusi house, which is where Sam and Suzy are staying.
like anyone's going to attack Goma from the water. More likely they were working on their tans.)
This is going to go down as one of my craziest Easters ever, and it's going to take a week's worth of posts to get it all down. Sorry in advance, but at least there are pictures!
Between passing subversive mix CD's to the Cedar Park city elders and scoping out the lineup for Merle Fest (The Librarian's years and years of entering KGSR's Select-a-Set weekends finally paid off. She actually won. We are jealous beyond all reason.), my Attorney has pretty good taste in music. I knew he and the Librarian and I were going to be friends when, after I first moved to Austin, we learned at church that we'd all been to see the same bands at the first ACL festival. (Actually, so had everyone in my Sunday School class, which was a good part of the reason I joined, but that's another story) That said, here are my Attorney's suggestions on some up-and-coming bands, albums, and tracks you might enjoy:Tracks
And it's not a litigator-recommended album (yet), but the new Calexico album, Garden Ruin, is pretty good. The Pitchfork kids like it. Texas in Africa luuuvvvs the last track, "Landing Field." You should too.
This story about a visit to Washington by kids from the Texas border who have little hope of ever escaping poverty made me cry. A good thing to think about on Silent Saturday, along with this piece from Ethics Daily, and this from the Four Quartets:
William Sloane Coffin passed away this week. He is one of those individuals whose life speaks for itself, but you can read what Buckley has to say about him here and the YDN summary here.
Ex-Roommate sends notice of this guy's effort to raise money to help with relief efforts in Darfur. He's been growing a 'fro for 22 months and is letting donors vote on the new cut. If you have some extra cash, give some money to the International Rescue Committee and vote for the Friar Tuck! Although the Krusty look would be pretty funny, too.
Emily tagged me with the following instructions:
That was fun. I am tagging:
1. Jess before she moves to Ann Arbor
2. Chrissy at her fun musings site
3. Ayesha while she's not chasing generals around India.
4. Jesus at WWJB?
5. Brian before he makes a decision about grad school.
6. The Cotton Palace Princess (as IF she's actually studying for exams)
Happy day, I managed to get on a computer at exactly 9:30am Austin time, right when ACL tickets went on sale. Get 'em now, y'all, the price only goes up from here. Kasey Chambers, Son Volt, the Flaming Lips, AND they're promising some actual shade this year. It's always a blast. Those of you not living in Austin officially have an invitation -- and a freeand place to stay!
It's Maundy Thursday, which means it's time for the Four Quartets:
Some readers of Texas in Africa are aware of the longtime "battle" between myself and a certain CBF missionary currently residing in sunny Birmingham during which we try to locate the worst "Christian" products available on the market. These are usually pretty tacky examples of people using God to make money and we've both aquired a number of unusual products over the years, ranging from Pope-Soap-on-a-Rope to a handcrafted, "One Nation Under God" quilted wall-hanging, along with some products that are unmentionable.
Well, no wonder it's seemed like something's been up lately. Notice how there are no details whatsoever of what/where in the article, though?
Every time I think there can't possibly be anything worse in this country, there's another article like this. Six year olds working in mines.
Nothing to blog about today, except for the various scary bugs that are trying to take over my apartment. In the last 12 hours, I've killed the largest spider I've ever seen and surrounded a mob of ants in the entryway with the Wonder Chalk of Death. I'm ready to come home.
What does this look like to you? Twenty dollars? The cost of a t-shirt at the Gap (if you're lucky?)? Dinner-and-a-movie for two at the Alamo? Cold, hard cash?Son Volt is coming to ACL! As are the NP's. And the Flaming Lips, if you care about that sort of thing. At least that's the rumor. I'm not sure the NP thing is true, though, since they already have a scheduled tour date on September 15. But you never know. Would rather see Neko Case solo if it were my call.
Wow - did you read Gary Wills' piece in yesterday's New York Times? It's based on his new book, What Jesus Meant, and is a powerful reminder to both Republicans and Democrats that no political party can or should represent the Kingdom of God.
"Holy is the week...
Oh, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy day! Just when the Ex-Roommate's taco seasoning rations were running low, I found this at Shoprite in Kampala. And I am hoping against all hope that "Mexican Spice" is chili powder! And plus, Kampala has a store called Game, which is, like, totally Wal-Mart. Electronics, hardware, camping goods, clothes, everything, in air-conditioned comfort. Not that I needed any of that, but it was fun to walk around.
I woke up in the middle of the night in Kigali to an earthquake. Yes, an earthquake. As if this place didn't have enough problems. At first I wasn't sure what was going on, especially since Friday night is the night I take my anti-malarials, which can have all sorts of nasty side effects, including inducing hallucinations in a small percentage of users. But, no, it was in fact an earthquake. Really strange feeling - there's motion that you can't place and there's nothing you can do to make it stop. I felt a little queasy when I woke up this morning.
Please keep my Uncle Steve and Aunt Becky in your prayers. There are wildfires in their town, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and they can see the flames from the upstairs of their home. Please pray that the fires would be put out quickly, that no one's farms and homes are seriously damaged, and that the fires don't cross Highway 47 towards them.
The GA's (the girls' missions education class I help teach at church) sent the cutest email ever. Here are things they had to say:
I miss them so much! Although I did not miss the cookie sale...
Oh, Kampala. It's a nice city. It's a real city, with restaurants and shopping malls and banks and hotels and grocery stores and all those lovely things. Good to have a break. Last night I went out for unbelievably good Indian food at a restaurant with a waterfall inside. Then had breakfast this morning with my friend Melissa's sister Stephanie who is a missionary here. Here's proof for Melissa that we did in fact meet! :) Stephanie had some CUTE pictures of Melissa's daughter Lauren. It was fun to see some familiar faces while making a new friend.Right, so I haven't been blogging:
Sorry for not posting this week. After two days of having almost no running water, I left Goma Tuesday morning on a bus to Kigali, then managed to get onto a flight to Entebbe about three hours later, so things have been a little crazy. It was 10pm by the time I cleared Ugandan customs and got into a hotel room, but waking up to this view of Lake Victoria made it worth the trip. I am sooooo glad to have been able to fly with Rwandair Express. They are a good, safe airline and it was worth $125 not to have to spend today on a bus.
bank, and have been running around all day. I am staying at the Speke Hotel, which may be the oldest hotel in Uganda. It has air-conditioning and is modern, but also has a lot of colonial charm. You can see my adorable little balcony in this picture. Plus there's a replica of the Titanic above the reception desk. Not sure why you'd want to equate your hotel with a sinking ship, but it's charming -- and there's plenty of water! I'm glad to be in a place that's sane, less expensive than Goma, and English-speaking for a few days. Plus they have bookstores and movie theaters!
April may be the cruellest month, but it's the best time of the year in Texas. What a great title for a book:
UCLA and Florida. Who'd've thunk it? Daddy says that there's attention in the press stateside to the fact that a couple of players are the sons of Cameroonian princes and chiefs. Here's the thing about Cameroon: everybody's a prince. Or a king, or a princess, or something else. I'll never forget Tom's admonition to me one morning there when we were expecting a visitor: "It's 'Your Highness.' And don't touch." I have no idea how many princes, chiefs, and lamidos we met while traveling through the country. Or at the 4th of July party. Cameroonian law allows certain matters like property disputes and inheritance cases to be adjudicated by local authorities, so the chieftaincy system has survived with more authority in the country than it has in some other places. And due to the still very prevalent practice of polygamy, princes are a Central African Franc a dozen, to be more precise.
Here's a picture from my visit to one Cameroonian "royal" - the Lamido of Ngaoundere. A Lamido is a kind of chief or prince in the Islamic north of Cameroon who has jurisdiction over a city (in this case, you guessed it, the largest city in Cameroon's north, Ngaoundere). You can't see the Lamido in this picture - he's to my left, sitting on his throne. Which also happened to be his bed. Yep. That's me trying to keep a straight face while listening to Dr. Kinni talk about American values with the Lamido.
What a weekend. What I learned this weekend is that 1) I am way too old to stay out dancing until 3 in the morning, and 2) driving in Goma is scary. I am exhausted, and we didn't even have a time change. We'll see if it happens next week - most of Europe switches on Palm Sunday, but I can't see why Congo would observe something as pointless-on-the-equator as Daylight Savings Time.
If a tree falls in Goma and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? There was a big storm Thursday afternoon, but I think this happened a day or two before. They don't have a saw and are therefore hacking the tree apart, bit by bit. It's pretty incredible.
The view from my back porch
This might as well be called "75 Things I Miss About Texas." These flowers in the Karibu garden are almost bluebonnets, but are a poor substitute for the real thing.It's April Fool's Day! It's also the day that I am now free to appear on another game show! Exactly two years ago today I was a contestant on The Price is Right and my non-competition agreement has finally expired. Yahoo! Anyone want to try out for The Amazing Race? (By, anyone, here, I mean, Skip?)
You've got to read this piece in Christianity Today. This is my favorite part: