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6.25.2010PACKED
Praise be to the Lords of Gallifrey and their fine provisioners.
It all fit. I am quite sure that this is one third of what I took on the last two trips. Never the less - this is what is going to Africa. A few select pieces are going for their second go. Only my magic traveling vest is going for a third time. There is a dress that was mailed to me from the Congo that will go with, and return to Abeka and go to Sunday morning worship there to what I presume will be great acclaim. There will be a fine bit of silk that was purchased for me in a bazaar in Istanbul that will get to see Africa. Here is the list: 3 dresses 2 pair slacks 2 light sweaters 1 silk wrap swimsuit for Mombasa 20 pieces of various foundational garments 7 long skirts sleepwear 11 blouses 2 camisoles extensive med kit extensive Vanity Kit Blow dryer that works on 220 Outback crushable leather hat with stampede straps 4 pairs of shoes ( 3 dressy in gold purple and black) my own pillow towel (never travel the galaxy without one!) 5 books and 2 pair reading glasses shopping bag of presents duct tape and Ohio Forge multi-tool (my dad's wisdom) clothes line and pins 27" inflatable globe Lembas in the form of odwallas and goldfish camera, and ipod a torch and spare batteries pocketwatch and sunglasses a couple of good luck charms It appears to come in at 35 pounds. Not even a Marine pack 6.15.2010Almost Ready Use the 'facilities' Madam, and pack a little food to share, 1200 miles is a serious journey. Feel free to hold a prayer meeting on the bus anytime you like. Here is my prayer list: as of today *Smooth connections through Washington DC, Addis Ababba and Nairobi. *Blessed Bus connections in Kampala and KIgali *Finding my former students and Les Vulnerables in Kigali. *Peace for the elections in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi *Students for the Institute: there has been a teachers' strike and their vacation may be cancelled. Time for teaching them will surely have to be adjusted. Stay flexible. *Peace in Burundi: News reports this weekend speak of "scattered grenade attacks in Bujumbura" few injuries, no one seems especially worried. You know you are in Buja when grenade attacks are treated like localized thunderstorms. 6.09.2010And some days it is worth itA Hand written Thank-you note from a student I had last fall: 6-2-10 Hi peggy, Before this school year is over, I wanted to thank you for having me in your Psy of Human Relations class. After attending this class my relationship with my husband improved and now we are expecting our first child at the end of this month. Thank you for all the tips you gave in class because if it wasn't for that I don't know how my relationship would have been. Thank-you (Student name)ok - I still want my paycheck - but the whole school's budget can't touch that! 6.03.2010First Burundi Election Report David Zarembka's report on the first of the summer's elections in Burundi Dear All, I arrived in Burundi on May 26, two days after the first of five scheduled elections in Burundi. This first election for community leaders was supposed to occur on May 19, but was postponed twice due to the difficulty of getting the materials to all the voting stations. While I was there the election results were announced. There was an amazingly high turnout of registered voters - 92%. The ruling party obtained 64% of the vote even though they lost in the city of Bujumbura and the area surrounding the city. To make up for this they obtained an extremely high 90% plus of the votes in up-country areas. The voting, by the way, was not for a candidate, but for one of the forty-three parties. I have not yet analyzed the implications of voting for a party rather than a candidate, but in an area where parties come and go and have little to distinguish them from each other, I find this “strange.” The second highest party received 14% of the vote. The most poignant comment that I heard was when I went late in the morning to visit the Friends’ Women’s Association’s Kamenge Clinic. There were no patients. When we asked why, we were told that people were afraid of what would happen in the elections. They were hoarding their money and came to the clinic early in the morning only if they were very sick. In other words, the level of fear of the possibility of renewed violence was uppermost on people’s minds. The HROC office was a buzz of activity. In addition to the Burundi Election Violence Prevention Program that HROC is conducting in nine communities, HROC also became the lead organization for the Quaker Peace Network (QPN)observers. Nine organizations, eight Burundian Quaker and one Mennonite, had banded together to do election observing in Burundi. They had a total of 235 observers of which 72 were participants in the HROC program. While I was in the office, people continually brought in the five page forms that they had filled detailing their observations. Jess Brown, an intern from Canada, was busy entering all the yes/no/blank data on a spreadsheet. The comments in Kirundi needed to be read and analyzed by the Burundian staff. The HROC staff participated in the training of all 235 election observers, plus the citizen reporters and the Democracy and Peace groups from each of the nine communities. Adrien Niyongabo, HROC coordinator, mentioned to me that the information that they were receiving from the nine communities where the program had been working for more than a year was far superior to the information received from the other QPN observers who had taken only the basic election observer training. Since they were still processing the considerable amount of information collected, I was unable to get specific conclusions from the QPN observations and in particular the HROC observers. Adrien had been asked to make a public statement for QPN on the election (see the report below in for other observations), but he felt that this was premature and declined. The next election is the presidential election scheduled for June 28. Below is a brief report from Andrew Peterson, AGLI’s resident analyst for the elections. You can read his on-going blog, All Quiet on the Quaker Front, at http://www.quakerfront.com/. Peace, Dave 6.01.2010Messages to a Refugee Planet Now Taking Orders! Messages to a refugee planet is a collection of Gospel Ministry given to Peggy between 1996-2004. It consists of nine messages, an essay on preaching, and a selection of Peggy's work with scripture translation and paraphrase. The messages cover Genesis to Apocalypse, and represent a generous, free, post-modern exegesis. As quick and uplifting a trip through the Bible as you are ever likely to take! 110 pages, $10 USD plus $2 postage please add $1 per copy for paypal orders. for e-book options please see unction.org 100% of proceeds will go to release Peggy's ministry in Africa this summer. Orders being filled from June 3-21, and then unavailable until fall. Only available directly from the author at this time! |
