Cows, Goats, and Rebels… Oh

The conflict/war here rages on, making it hard to really get into a “flow” so we’ve been doing our best to access the situation and then accomplish what we can each day. One of the things that Brian and I have been able to accomplish has been to encourage and challenge the students at our university. We began with a two-day seminar that was open all the UEMI students, focusing on their hopes and dreams for their future by teaching the basics of formulating a business plan.

We followed this up with a three-hour class meeting for the students from the Community Development, Education Sciences, and Health Sciences faculties, focusing on how they can use their studies, and eventually their degrees to impact Minembwe and the world. Next week we’ll meet with the students of the Agriculture and Theology faculties.

With the Health Science students.

With the Education students; our future teachers!

Hats are Always a Hit.

In the midst of the ongoing conflict, one of our constant sources of joy is our relationship with the orphans. For a couple of years now, friends of ours from our hometown area in Washington State have knitted hats for the orphans.

Random Gunfire

Our daughter Demerey, a social worker by education and profession, has dealt with a lot of people who have suffered from trauma. Due that I’ve been living in a war zone for the past eight months, Demerey has voiced her concern that myself and others need to be on guard to, if possible, minimize our chances of getting PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Here’s a couple of examples of how I’ve been dealing with the stress:

From time we’ve arrived here in Minembwe, we’ve had night guards whose sole duty used to be to protect our gardens from cows, goats, dogs, and chickens, but now naughty soldiers and rebels have been added to the list. I recently reminded the night guards that if danger from the rebels gets too close, that the night guard needs to pound loudly on my window as I nightly wear ear plugs to eliminate waking up to random gunfire.

Speaking of random gunfire, last week, at about 8 pm, Brian and I both heard a noise that sounded like automatic gunfire. We meet each other in the hallway to discuss the noise and had a conversation something like this:

Brian: “Was that automatic gunfire.”

Michael: “That’s too close for automatic gunfire; maybe it was the neighbor trying to start his corn grinding machine?”

Brian: “He’s trying to fix his grinding corn at eight o’clock?”

We stand and listen for more gunfire or corn grinding but it’s quiet.

Me: “If it was fighting this close then we’d hear people screaming and more gunfire… I vote that it was the corn grinder.”

The next morning, we found out it was a nearby drunk soldier who got spooked.

Somehow… Michael