Two snapshots of life in Burundi:

     We had the 2 recently orphaned boys and our Remy in the backseat of the truck while doing an errand downtown.  There was a man selling strawberries nearby, and Remy remarked he had never tasted a strawberry.  Neither had the other two boys.  These are young men from 18-21 years old,  and none had ever even tasted a strawberry.  We bought some and gave them to the 3 boys in the backseat, and from the slurps and happy eating noises, I think it's safe to say the strawberries were a hit!

     We have seen a new use for flip-flops.  There is a young man who works downtown trying to help cars park on the street, in the hopes of getting a small tip for his help.  This young man has no legs,  and to get around, he swings himself along the sidewalk, up and down stairs, with the strength of his arms and torso muscles.  He wears the flip-flops on his hands to protect them from the asphalt, cement, rocks, dirt, etc.  We also saw a young man totally bent over at the waist who was forced to walk on all fours.  He, too, was using flip-flops on his hands as protection.

And Two Good-byes :

     Our young friend from Canada, Jonathan, has been here working for UNICEF.  Tuesday we dropped him off at the airport so he could return home.  He has a scholarship to get his master's degree in refugee law at Essex University in England.

An interesting sidelight:  Jonathan is featured in the September edition of the Liahona (Ensign).

We are going to miss his "muzunga" face!   He is a lot of fun to talk to, and he often translated for Gary, as he speaks beautiful, fluent French.

The second good-bye is to Fiston, one of the candidate missionaries who has been living behind us.  

Today we took him to the airport so he could leave on his mission to Brazzaville, Congo.

We tried to talk him through everything he would encounter in this little airport and inform him about how to find his connecting flights in other airports.  He was amazed that there are actually toilets on airplanes and the thought made him laugh.  He is our chatterbox missionary.  So often you could hear his loud, happy voice chattering away in Kirundi out behind our house.