Another Brick in the Wall

Well my friends, a number of you have sent emails to say hi (thanks by the way) and have mentioned that you are behind in your blog reading. Can't imagine why. It's not like I go on and on for paragraph after paragraph about, oh wait. I guess I do. So I'll spare you the blow by blow account of how I learned to make a brick wall today. Here's the short version.

A lot of us were sitting in the shade watching the bricklayers work and waiting for the exciting moment when one of them would say "Amatafari" and then we'd all leap up and ferry a bunch of bricks for about 10 minutes and then sit back down to wait some more. Fortunately Red, probably with visions of us sitting around listening to the Burundians chatting in Kirundi for hours, boldly went where no one had gone before. To ask Samuel if she could learn how to lay bricks. Now laying the bricks on the ends was clearly a precision operation requiring 2 levels and lots of little taps here and there. This part could only really be done by the professionals but laying the bricks on the wall between the two ends is a little less exacting. They'd stretch a string (umagoze) taut from one end to the other and use this to make sure things stayed straight. Ultimately most of the actual brick laying was still done by the professionals but the rest of us could plunge our hands into the mud (budongo) and throw small blobs at the cracks between the amatafari and then slather more budongo all over the top once that was done. Along would come the bricklayers with their trowels poking and tapping at things, up moves the umagoze and the whole operation starts over. I wonder if the Masons will come after us now. Certainly Nurse Karen at the Northwestern Travel Clinic will probably have things to say about spending hours digging around bare handed in budongo made from Kamenge dirt and Kamenge water. A person might as well go swimming in Lake Tanganyika. I know, I said it would be the short version. And you believed me. House of Lies opens its first international franchise.

My Kirundi accomplishement of the day was learning how to conjugate I am tired (we are tired, you are tired, he is tired) even though I felt less tired than any other day this week.

Once we got home and cleaned up I took my journal out to the giant tree on the corner (an acacia? Andrew the amateur plantiologist thinks?). It has these huge gnarled roots that come up out of the ground like little walls and a few worn boards have been bolted to some of them creating little seating areas all around. I sat for half an hour or so and watched the traffic go by. A coulple of times men who'd seen me at Kamenge church came over to shake my hand and say good evening. Greetings and how are you's all being safely in the land of Kirundi I pretty much understand and can say.

Here are a couple of things I saw.
A man with a double decker crate of chicks balanced on his head.
A man with an armload of folded 2nd hand clothes in his arms. Stopped by another man who picks out a pair of pants and holds it up to himself to see if it will fit.
A dozen different white Land Rovers and Land Cruisers with the logo's of NGO painted on the doors and etched into the glass of the windows.
A bicycle, its gears squeaking as it toiled up the hill loaded with manioc.
A big group of fancy dressed folks- men in sharp suits, women in bright national dress, wraps draped over one shoulder, wait on the corner til they can cross. Nearest thing I've ever seen to Burundians hurrying when they cross the street.
Dozens of motorcycle taxis, drivers in helmets, passengers not, the helmet they're supposed to wear still tucked between the handlebars.

I really will stop now.