So I am navigating multiple suitcases and carry-ons, multiple airports and flights and with two children flanking me. I’ll be trying to keep it all in the original and upright position… because the Nikondeha Trio will be in transit for 36+ hours!
The good news – my kids love to travel. They love the backpacks I load with surprise snacks and activities (Mad Libs are a first this time!). They enjoy the movies and games onboard the international flights. And, God bless ’em, they love plane food. They’re reliably good travelers, so I shouldn’t worry, but as a mama I think I always hold my breath a bit, trying to keep us all together as we taxi between terminals, locate our gate and settle into our seats (three times over).
Today’s our annual trek to Burundi, place of their birth and my second home. We look forward to a summer filled with family, pineapple ripened to sweet perfection, drummers beating throughout the city like a heartbeat and days soaked in sunlight from beginning to end. There will be birdsong in the morning, afternoons on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, evenings out on the porch with friends where the laughter will make our bellies sore with goodness. The call to prayer will punctuate the day (and mosquitoes the night). The colors, sounds and smells will all remind me I’m on red soil.
Claude and I will be close enough to hold hands. We’ll host a bevy of friends from Canada, Australia, South Africa, Luxembourg and America. My in-laws will stay with us for part of the summer. We’ll travel to Matara and dance, then to Bubanza and drink from fresh wells. We’ll be in and out of Kazoza Community Bank, watching people access banking services and grow the local economy. I imagine all the great conversations with Claude as we host another summer full of good news.
My Burundian summers are also times when I dive deep into books, ideas, words. Plenty of books accompany me to Bujumbura, and there’s a reading chair awaiting me. This is when I read commentaries from cover to cover, tackle tomes like The Theology of Liberation and meet new authors like Ched Myers, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Reza Aslan. There will be familiar friends like Walter Brueggemann, John Dominic Crossan, Natalie Goldberg. There will be the poetry of Rumi and Wendell Berry and Mary Karr. This space is generous to me each summer, so fertile for my mind and gently on my soul. I long for these quiet hours hidden away in my Burundian cloister among the palm trees and birds of paradise. Sometimes Burundi does beckon…
We’re in transit now, but anticipate our arrival. My hewe awaits – and after hours crossing the globe there’s nothing more satisfying to my soul than his smile and that first embrace.
NOTE: TransitLounge tribe – I will be amid Amahoro Africa Gathering the last week of May. Caris Adel has graciously offered to host the link-up for Colossians Remixed over at her place, so watch for tweets or check out her site!
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