Reflection 4 – What a difference a year makes…

Ok, 3 reflections in 12 months, that’s f’ing pathetic, so here goes round four, just under the 12-month deadline. So I thought I’d strike a lighter tone and start off number 4 with a riddle:

What has four legs, green scales, is 140 years old, 8 meters long and eats people?

Gustav, the man-eating, last of his kind crocodile.

I’m back in Burundi, and after telling the Gustav, man-eating crocodile story everywhere from a bike trail in Rehoboth beach to the Mexican wolves pen at the DC zoo, all to incredulous stares and doubtful cross-examinations, I think it’s high time I got to the bottom of this African myth of Lock Nessian proportions.

So Gustav is a crocodile; he eats people. And every time he’s back at our end of the lake, the radio stations flash warnings about swimming in certain areas, particularly around dusk. Many of you have heard this story, and most of you don’t believe it, but here it is for those of you who haven’t. And for those craving more, there are a dozen more stories… just like this one. I haven’t seen JAWS, so if this is a blatant rip-off, do let me know.

Sometime in the last 1990s, in the middle of the Burundian crise (civil war), a Belgian diplomat was relaxing on the beach with his wife and daughter. All of a sudden, this mammoth crocodile comes bolting out of the water, chomps down on the daughter’s leg, and drags her screaming into Lake Tanganika. They found the body on the lake bank the next morning… Gustav, as he is known here in Burundi, doesn’t like raw meat (table for one at the Sushi bar). Shortly after the incident, the diplomat’s wife commits suicide, and the diplomat returns to Belgium, his life in ruins. So how was Burundi? Well, my daughter got killed by a (wo)man-eating crocodile and my wife committed suicide, but the weather was great.

Now, why am I telling you this?????? Honestly, I have absolutely no idea. But since I’m crap at blogging, I thought I might try story telling. So do YOU believe this story? I’ve verified it seventeen different ways, but without any names (besides Gustav), dates or facts, it’s a bit like Lake Tanganika at dusk, that is to say, a bit murky.

So on a Saturday evening at dusk, much like the one in the story, I’m starting to question some things, things that are, for lack of a better segue… murky. And since I’ve promised several folks that I’d update the blog, perhaps even weekly? (shock, I know), here’s what’s going on:

After a glorious six week trip to the US, touching base with old friends, celebrating my dad’s retirement, my sister's graduation, taking my mom out to dinner, speaking at the UN!, catching up with my awesome sibs, and some good old fashioned DC fun, I’m back in Burundi. And as tomorrow is Kigali, Tuesday’s Bujumbura, Wednesday’s Nairobi, and I feel like I’m about to be whisked along on another whirlwind tour of the Great Lakes, I’d like to pause and reflect. Because that, after all, is what these internet sharing times are all about.

The week in review: landed on my feet last Friday, after two days of flights, almost lost baggage, and a welcome back get together at the local rasta bar. If I love Burundi bumpterstickers could be personified, they’d be a bunch of Burundians, Congolese, French, Belgians and Americans dancing their asses off to Bujumbura’s best singers karaoking on a stage in a palm-tree-filled rasta bar at the edge of town… I finally found where the sidewalk ends.

So I’m feeling a bit in between as it were, and sitting in front of the same laptop in total darkness in Kigali (yep, just changed countries on you!), the second week back is looking to be about as crazy as the first…

Tomorrow starts a three-day evaluation and planning meeting for our regional live youth radio talk show here in Kigali, so my colleague and I are here for the first morning before meeting with some donors in the afternoon. Then it’s back to Burundi on Tuesday, then off to Nairobi for some more donor meetings on Wednesday. It’s been a year since I’ve been back in Kigali, and a lot has happened since that first trip… personally and professionally.

And yet, I feel quite the same. I suppose a bit more mature, maybe even a little smarter, but still the same Graham. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Same, same… but somehow different.

Maybe by next year’s trip I’ll have this Gustav business sorted out.