Crossing Cultures

Despite having lived 2 months in Bolivia, 2 years in Kenya, and 10 months in France, the cultural transition to Burundi has been the most significant. Likely this has to do with being exhausted after a difficult year in France and facing transition chaos for the umpteenth time - I finally discovered my limit! My brain's language center also seems to have attained its' maximum potential and the tonal Kirundi language has pushed it over the edge. It's so confused that I frequently throw words from 2 or 3 different languages into a sentence without even realizing it - and those languages could be English, Spanish, Swahili, French, or Kirundi! Only my teammates (who also speak those languages to varying degrees) can understand some of those crazy sentences! We even have an unofficial contest going on as to who will be the first to unintentionally use 4 different languages in a sentence. But it has been quite overwhelming to me to be thrown into this new culture and to have significant difficulty communicating beyond simple greetings. That and other stressors have led to me being a lot more frustrated by cultural differences than I have been in the past. 

And so it was a great encouragement to take a day off from Kirundi study and to read through my SPLICE notebook from MTI (Mission Training International). That was the 3 week course we took before going to France that covered many aspects of cross cultural living and provided essential missionary survival tools. As I read through the definition of culture shock and the manifestations of transition chaos and stress, I was relieved to discover that my experience is actually quite normal and expected! 

The chaos is inevitable in crossing cultures and may last shorter or longer depending on the person and other variables at stake. Recognizing difference is the starting point but we can do so with the attitudes of acceptance, openness, flexibility, trust in God, and hope or we can choose superiority, prejudice, rigidity, fear, & doubt. These attitudes lead us to the positive choices of curiosity, interest, optimism, empathy, acceptance and then entering their world and developing cross cultural relationships. Or we can criticize and withdraw choosing the fight or flight results and refusing to enter their world. During these last two months in Burundi, I certainly have made many of those negative choices in my internal attitude and external words and actions. Reviewing this chart has convicted me and reminded me anew that I have a choice in how I respond to difference. I don't need to react immediately from my own cultural perspective as to what is comfortable, normal, right, and good. By God's grace and strength alone, I can begin to enter their world and to embrace many aspects of their culture just as Christ entered our world and embraced us. Below are some pictures demonstrating opportunities to express openness and curiosity instead of judgement and frustration. 

 As the above and below pictures demonstrate, we attract a crowd everywhere we go. This is hard for me when I prefer personal space and not being called "muzungu"(white person) continually. I'm not in these pictures because I was avoiding the crowd and walking ahead. But, based on a friend's advice, I'm trying to hear "respected guest" when people say muzungu (cause that actually is what they mean). And Jesus welcomed the little children even when they were a bother to others - as John is welcoming the children in these photos. I pray for God's help and strength for me to do so, too! 

Sammy, age 2, joyfully greets all Burundians with "Yambu!" and "Sawa!" - Kirundi greetings. They absolutely love it and he brings great joy to all. I can learn a lot from him! 

This setting of the Catholic guesthouse in Banga has been great for beginning our Kirundi study and cultural acquisition. Hopefully we will make fewer cultural mistakes once we get to Kibuye next month after 3 months of language learning and cultural exposure - although I'm sure we will still make plenty. Of course, it's certainly renewing to have the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place! 

An interesting observation - making charcoal on the hillside. This evidently will smoke for some time (days) and then they will dig out the charcoal. 

Micah & Anna exploring the stream at the bottom of the valley

Leaping cow - impressive! 

Studying by candlelight - not exactly "normal" or "comfortable" based on my previous norms, but actually can be adapted to without too much difficulty - so long as the iPad and computer can be charged every day or two! 

We attended a special church service at Kibuye on Sunday welcoming the new district superintendent. Above is the Bishop and his wife making one of many speeches. Below is the new superintendent and his wife receiving gifts and being instated in his new position. I observed lots of formality and respecting of status and protocol during this 4 1/2 hour ceremony - also noticed the presence of the paparazzi (see above and below pics). As I only understood approximately 50 words in this all Kirundi service, I definitely agree with the SPLICE recommendation to suspend judgment and to simply observe curiously and openly.  

My favorite part of the service was the giving of gifts to the superintendent and the Bishop - primarily because the gifts were live animals! Two goats and many chickens (often in a wrapped box with their head poking out) were given. And now we know if we are ever given a chicken that it is very important for both husband and wife to pet every chicken in receiving the gift. There is a goat in the above picture being held by the guy walking on the left and a chicken below and a goat being petted by the superintendent in the second picture below. 

And, finally, we observe that the Burundians seem to work very hard. This is the land cleared for the Cropsey's house - progress continues to be made quickly. 

We move to the guesthouse at Kibuye in just 10 days! Please continue to pray for me to move through culture shock in a way that enables me to enjoy the positive aspects of both the expat and the Burundian culture and to develop good friendships in both cultures to God's glory. 

Life "Up Country"

We are learning the terminology for life and elevation here in Burundi. One goes "down" to Bujumbura. It seems that most of the rest of the country is considered "up". And as one descends several thousand feet in just an hour and a half to Bujumbura, the description of "down" becomes clear!  Bujumbura is located on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, 3 degrees south of the equator (latitude) and at an altitude of 2600 feet. We are currently living in Banga, Burundi at 6500 feet. High altitude is definitely the key to living essentially on the equator! We will continue living at high elevation when we move to  Kibuye (~5500ft) and the reported average temperatures throughout the year there are 53-64 degrees Fahrenheit! The equatorial sun does make it feel ~10 degrees warmer, but that makes it perfect. I'm so thankful to be living in a place where I need to wear a fleece in the evenings - ideal weather for me. 

Now, there are certain disadvantages to living "up country" compared to Bujumbura - more erratic water, electricity, and internet coverage, no ice cream, no ATM machine, muddy walks in the rainy season, and the necessity of traveling on the motion-sick inducing windy roads to do business and meet friends in Buja. But, thus far, the advantage of the gorgeous scenery and perfect temps makes up for those challenges. And hopefully our container (now on a boat off the coast of Oman) will arrive soon with an ice cream maker on it! (It's the little things...) :) Some might feel more isolated up here, but that's again the huge advantage to our team:  we brought community with us! And we look forward to adding Burundian friends to that community when we get to Kibuye as we are able to communicate more and more in their heart language. 

Lots of pictures below of life "up country":

Banga, Burundi

Teammates on a recent hike

  Adorable teammates sitting outside my house here in Banga 

Bridge traffic

We enjoyed a fabulous visit with the Stanfields last weekend (in the foreground). They were friends and neighbors in Kenya and currently live in Uganda. With 20+ years of experience as missionaries in Africa, they were a huge encouragement to us in understanding the nature of these beginnings and transitions. 

 Anna & I with the ubiquitous banana trees behind us

And, finally, I got to visit Kibuye yesterday for the first time since May 2011! It was a joy to see this place that will hopefully feel like home very soon. I loved touring the hospital, seeing new and familiar sights and people, and picturing life there.

This picture was taken at my last visit to Kibuye in 2011. Jason, Heather, & I are standing at the sight where we thought our houses would be constructed. Well, it's not exactly the same site, but the below guesthouse where we will live until our houses are finished is located quite close to where the above picture was taken. A lot has changed in 2 years! 

 I loved sharing the experience of going back to Kibuye with the Faders again. And I greatly look forward to November 2 when our whole team will move there together! 

 Likely for at least 6 months, my apartment will be the third one in the above picture of the quad-plex.

 Across the field behind Abi & I, you can see the hospital complex on the left and the church on the right. We're standing quite close to the guesthouse, so that gives some perspective as to distances. 

 Construction seems to be happening quite quickly. This is a new medical student dorm under construction. They just broke ground a couple weeks ago and have made significant progress. 

I was excited to see the above chart posted in the hospital. I will work on learning these Kirundi words this week! One of my big goals as a pediatrician here is to teach neonatal resuscitation. The infant mortality rate for Burundi is 1/16! APGAR scoring is certainly a start to recognizing distress in newborns, so I'm thankful someone already is teaching this concept in the hospital. 

 Proud & happy mother of healthy newborn twins above

 And work has begun in clearing ground for 2 of the houses for the team. Amazing to watch them saw these logs into planks with a handsaw! 

 This is the site of my future home. On the right behind me is the site already cleared for McLaughlins' home - complete with piles of bricks ready to begin construction! Looking forward to watching the progress. 

 These two pictures are of the well that will provide water for the hospital and our homes and other surrounding buildings. Again, the work here is occurring at a very rapid pace - for which we are very thankful! 

Beautifully green fields around Kibuye with corn, cabbage, beans, and peas all growing together. We look forward to starting a garden there soon! Now, to get the notes from the class I missed yesterday - certainly saw again the necessity of learning Kirundi as I walked around the hospital. Even the medical director preferred to give his greetings and speech in Kirundi! Please pray for us to learn quickly!

Full Speed Ahead

We’re approaching the two month mark here in Burundi and the matatu (local transport) seems to be going faster and faster! In the last week in Kirundi class, we’ve covered the present continuous, past continuous, future, future continuous, future antérieur, conditional, and past conditional tenses as well as discours direct/indirect and several other miscellaneous things. That encompasses months of French grammar learning - some of which we certainly don’t have nailed down in French, so, as our class is taught in French, it’s a review of infrequently utilized French concepts, too! It certainly feels like trying to drink out of a firehose at this point as my flashcards multiply but my memorizing capacity lags behind. 

On other fronts, things are moving forward at Kibuye with building projects including the construction of our homes and of a new student dorm, with beginning fundraising for hospital expansion, and with the internet project. Teammates have attended meetings at Kibuye weekly during our time here in Banga (2 1/2 hours away) to assist in these developments. 

We drive over this bridge every time we leave Banga! We also walk over it 6 times per day - a particular challenge for the youngest McCropders. So far it seems to be sturdier than it looks, though! 

Others of us have been completing applications in search of donated ultrasound machines, meeting with the architect in Bujumbura, analyzing our capacity for short term visitors, assisting in website development, and networking with other Burundian and expatriate NGO workers doing similar or complementary work. We attended a ceremony on Saturday for the dedication of a new building with ALARM (African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries). This formal event was also attended by the former president of Burundi! I appreciated the opportunity to observe cultural formalities, to meet other Burundians and expatriates desiring development of African leaders, and to practice my French and Kirundi - both languages proved to be important in communication and developing rapport with other guests. We also participated in a social gathering for expatriates on Saturday evening complete with line dancing - fun for this Nashvillian! I’m so thankful for the warm welcome we’ve received by so many and for the friendships that are developing in this new place. Ultimate frisbee two weekends in a row in Bujumbura was an especially encouraging gift for me! 

Bujumbura

And, finally, we continue full speed ahead with our plans for medical education and hospital work beginning in January. We met many of our fellow professors at Hope Africa University on Wednesday and now have a little better idea of where our colleagues are coming from and what hopes and expectations they have for our team of 6 physicians. We’ve begun discussions and plans as a team for clinical curriculum development now that we know when we will be responsible for the students up at Kibuye. There certainly is sufficient work to go around! I’m so thankful there are 6 of us! I’m also encouraged to begin friendships with colleagues at HAU and to collaborate with them in this shared vision. 

As the work continues here, though, my thoughts are frequently with my friends in Kenya as they mourn loss of life and security at the hands of terrorists. I have personally spent many hours at Westgate mall and recognize the locations where the tragic pictures were taken this week. I’m thankful to hear of the uniting of Kenyans and expatriates through this tragedy regardless of faith, tribe, or race. I recommend this personal story of one of many heroes. Also, this blog post by my Africa field leaders details the events and expresses my feelings well related to this violence. Please join me in praying for Kenya that justice and peace will reign. 

Missing Medicine

One aspect of transitioning to Burundi that has been surprisingly harder than expected has been not practicing medicine. We’ve heard from dozens of friends and colleagues in similar work around the world that they either 1) wished they had taken more time to study language when they arrived before beginning work or 2) never regretted any time they spent on language study. All expressed the same opinion that once hospital work began, language study was quite difficult if not impossible to make significant progress on and that few people were able to find the time to do it well. We appreciated receiving this wise counsel and I felt especially strongly that we needed to dedicate significant time to learning language before we started work. I saw the benefit any shared language had in developing rapport with nurses and other hospital staff, expressing compassion to families, and demonstrating doctor-patient communication to trainees. And those are benefits beyond the obvious utility of being able to communicate without a translator! 

Our language learning time began with 10 months of intensive French study in France. And now we have begun 3 months of intensive Kirundi study to be followed by 2 months of further Kirundi study on an individualized learning plan. The goal is to begin work at the hospital in January. I am still in agreement that this is the best way to begin our time (potentially 20 years) in Burundi. But Kirundi is hard! And progress is slow! It’s way harder than French - a third of English is derived from French and thus there are many words in French that are almost the same as in English. The only Kirundi words that are the same as English (that I’ve heard thus far) are “Alleluia” and “Amen”! (Although there are a few more that are clearly derived from French.) It also doesn’t help that our brains’ language learning centers are already pretty overworked and tired from learning French and trying not to forget it. 

All that to say, I’m tired of being a full time language learner! God is enabling me to learn languages but more than that, He has confirmed over and over that medical missions and teaching medicine is what He has called me to. I enjoy being a doctor (usually) and I feel He has knit me together for a career in medicine. And I miss having a patient in front of me and students around me. It’s sometimes hard to remember why we’re here in Burundi when we’re not yet doing what we came here to do. 

So it was a blessing over the weekend to have a taste of remembering the joy of medicine. We toured the Van Norman clinic (actually a hospital) at Hope Africa University in Bujumbura and saw a couple patients. I practiced a few simple Kirundi phrases with a mother of a hospitalized 2 month old baby - and was surprised and pleased to discover that the mother actually understood me! Her face lit up to realize I was speaking her language and I remembered how much I enjoy interacting with patients and families in their heart language. That’s why I’m putting forth this effort to speak this crazy tonal language - to communicate the love of Jesus to these mothers at their time of fear and discouragement. And then Saturday I spent a long time speaking with the local director of World Relief about some of their community health work near us. I really appreciated the opportunity to hear about the malnutrition and other evidences of poverty they see and how they are addressing that in the community. And, as a result, I have some new ideas of what to do with my 2 months of continued language and culture study once we move to Kibuye in November. These were encouraging encounters reminding me that this time is short and I will be back to practicing medicine soon and motivating me to continue the hard struggle of memorizing 16 noun classes with their various prefixes that change depending on the number of items, adjective, verb, etc.! I appreciate your prayers for perseverance! 

 I look forward to being back in this position soon - caring for patients and teaching students simultaneously - and hopefully able to communicate on some level with both! (Picture taken in May 2011 at Kibuye Hope Hospital, where we'll be working beginning in January)

Picture of Van Norman clinic under construction in May 2011

 Van Norman clinic now

 Drs. Rachel and Carlan helping to figure out some difficulties with the ultrasound machine (with a curious blond onlooker :)) 

 Tour of the lab at the clinic 

Cinnamon ice cream also helps greatly to make one feel happy to be settling in a new location! 

More Pictures

Pictures and commentary below from our 2nd and 3rd weeks in Burundi:

 I continue to be thankful to live in such a beautiful location. The above and below pictures were both taken from our front door. That was actually one of my big prayers when I first visited Burundi in 2011 - that I would experience natural beauty. I know God reveals His glory and creation everywhere, but it's so restorative to me to live in a place where the heavens and earth declare His glory in obvious ways. Burundi certainly does that! And we're looking forward to seeing how the scenery changes in the next few weeks as the rainy season has now begun. 

 Like many developing countries, there is a very wide discrepancy between what resources are available in the city (for those with means) and what is present (or, more likely, absent) in the rest of the country. Nairobi (Kenya), for example, had malls that would rival high-end US malls in both appearance and prices, but Kenya also has many citizens who live in extreme poverty and suffer from severe malnutrition. Burundi is significantly poorer than Kenya (per capita income of $400 instead of $1700) and has a much smaller ex-patriate population, so we weren't sure what would be available in Bujumbura. We knew we would miss Nakumatt (similar to Wal-Mart)! But we have been thankful for missionary friends in Bujumbura showing us around to the few stores that sell things like shampoo and conditioner (at high prices, unfortunately - $10 for each!) and we were especially excited to find some treat places like Cafe Gourmand above (similar to a French bakery), an Indian restaurant (below), and a Catholic co-op that sells delicious ice cream (including my favorite flavor - cinnamon!). It's another blessing to know special treats are available a couple hours away. 

 At the back left of the table above are Randy & Carolyn Bond. We overlapped with them in French language school for the 2nd semester and they will finish their French studies in December and then join us in Burundi early next year. We're excited to have another World Harvest team starting in Burundi and are thankful for the Bonds' friendship. Randy is a peds emergency medicine doc and toxicologist and Carolyn is an English teacher. You can read more about what they will be doing with Hope Africa University in Bujumbura here. 

 While Burundi is a landlocked nation, it does border Lake Tanganyika (longest freshwater lake in the world and second deepest) - pretty for pictures (Maggie and I above) and beneficial for shipping and fishing, but not recommended for swimming due to crocs and hippos! 

 Scenery on drive from Banga to Bujumbura

 Brick kilns like the one above dot the countryside in our region

 Bicycles are the most ubiquitous form of transportation - on mountain roads the above is a frequent sight as cyclists catch a ride uphill on the trucks. We wonder if we will see trauma patients frequently from this practice. 

 The highlight of last week was a visit by some very wise and experienced friends who gave us a cultural orientation to Burundi. We learned many practical things such as no whistling or yelling and also historical & broader insights. We are so thankful to understand more about this unique culture and also to have trusted folks to ask when we don't understand something. We continue to pray for Burundian friends for each of us who can guide us through some of the cultural differences and who we can mutually encourage. 

 A hike on Saturday provided an excellent opportunity to practice my simple Kirundi phrases - and to enjoy exploring with teammates (Micah and Elise above). 

 Houses on the top of the hill and banana trees

 Our entourage and language helpers. They were very happy to answer all my "What's that called?" questions. (Iki ni igiki?) One way we're studying outside of class is through a curriculum developed by a missionary lady here several decades ago. In Lesson 1 she teaches the verb for "to hoe". That wasn't on my list of most useful verbs to learn, but I memorized it anyways. But it seems Betty Cox knew what she was doing as we saw many people hoeing in their fields on our hike - you can see two kids carrying hoes above. And I can accurately say, "The woman hoes in her garden." Maybe not relevant for the hospital setting, but seems to be important for daily life in rural Burundi. 

The poverty is dramatic, especially at the end of dry season. Hopefully the hoeing and new rain will result in crops growing soon and more food being available for the hungry. 

Psalm 35:10 My whole being will exclaim, “Who is like you, O Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them.”

Psalm 140:12 I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy.