May 7th

     Today is our anniversary, 45 years.  We celebrated by eating a piece of fish, some rice and a green salad this afternoon at the restaurant on the lake, Club Lake Tanganyika.  Wow.

     Yesterday, Gary drove our truck to the missionaries house, about 1 1/2 miles away and parked it there.  They are not barricaded in, so with the truck there, we can now have access to it and attempt to do some work.  He drops me within 2 blocks of our apartment and then goes to the missionaries.  After parking it there, he walks to our  place, about a half hours' walk.  Not particularly convenient, but it beats being a prisoner in your own home!

     We are losing 8 of our 12 missionaries on Tuesday.  The mission is removing all the sisters and 4 of the elders from Bujumbura.  The remaining elders will go to Uvira to do missionary work until conditions improve around here.  The mission president has cancelled his plans to visit us in May due to the trouble in the streets.

     Today 3 people were killed in protests.  In Kinama, a young militia guy (Imbonerekure)  threw a grenade into the crowd of protestors, killing 2.  The crowd subsequently caught him, put tires over his head, doused them with gas and burned him alive.

     Monday afternoon the U.S Embassy has called a meeting for all U.S. citizens.  They also sent a warning on e-mail of possible terrorist attacks against Westerners and places that cater to Western people.

May 8th

     This is a picture of me as we walk to our truck.  It was raining all morning which slowed down the protests.  Love this umbrella!  It reminds me of a children's story called "Little Black Sambo."  Anybody remember that story?

          Today we spent 3 1 1/2 hours at the Congolese Embassy trying to find out where a passport is for a young man who applied for this passport last August.  We finally discovered it had arrived sometime in April.  We have made repeated trips to the Embassy since mid September looking for it. We actually got to see it , but they wouldn't give it to us.  One man said the money for this passport had not arrived in Kinshasa, so we couldn't have it until we paid for it again.  HA!!  Kinshasa wouldn't have made the passport and sent it to Bujumbura if they had not received the money for it.  Methinks this jerk is just trying to get us to pay for it twice!  We have the receipt showing we paid for it, so we shall see.

     More violence again today.  Two cars were burned and people injured.  This is one of the cars that was burned.

Someone blocked this road with a ???????

   
May 9th

We were notified by UPS that a package had arrived for us, but they were not delivering because of the protests and ongoing unrest.  So we drove to UPS and picked it up.  Thanks, Kim!  We also are having no garbage pick-up, no lawn mowing because of barricaded streets.  Could end up with piles of trash and very long grass!

Tonight we took our 8 missionaries to dinner as our final time all together.  You get so attached to these cute young missionaries that it's hard to say good-bye.  We won't have any young missionaries in Bujumbura till things settle down.  All sisters are being pulled,  and the remaining 2 elders here will go to Uvira.