July 3rd

Ministry Partners,
  Usually our days tend to learn towards the complex.  We dart from one place to another knocking off things from our ever growing to-do list.  Today was our first simple day.  We drove from a town whose name I can neither pronounce nor remember and arrived in Changugu on the edge of Lake Kivu bordering the West end of Rwanda and The Democratic Republic of Congo.
  I like to think I enjoy a nice speedy ride.  I drove an ambulance and a fire truck with 1,000 gallons of water on it for a living years ago.  When we drove we were always just this side of being in control.  Our drive to Chengugu was a chance for me to experience being just on the other side of that line.  Picture a rally car race complete with spectators, although in this case pedestrians, lining both side of the dirt road you are traveling with too much weight and too much speed.  It's like that but with less maps, helmets and harnesses. 
  The road we took was under heavy construction as well which consisted of sections of the dirt road lined with groups of men hammering boulders with sledgehammers.  The boulders were smashed into rocks the size of desks, these were smashed into rocks the size of a small backpack.  They would then build a rock wall with the pieces using concrete that was mixed with shovels.  In the US construction would close the road down or at least work on one side of the road and switch traffic back and forth with flaggers.  Here it's much simpler as they follow one rule.  Avoid getting run over by the big trucks and you'll be fine.  As you drive, dust permeates everything.  It has a peculiar taste and odor, and the color of it, bright red or light desert tan sticks out like a neon sign in the city.  Everything that isn't freshly dug, however, is covered in green, deep green, dark green, yellow green and a few I think haven't been named yet.

This 30 second delay was our longest wait on the road under construction

  There are no maps.  My iPhone has a map but the only level of detail I'm able to pull from the local cell tower is about as useful as if I had brought the ornamental world globe I keep in my office at home.  It turns out the best way to ask for directions is to find someone who is walking and ask them if they can show you.  If they are also heading in that direction they hop in with you and you get a free local guide to your destination and they get a free ride for a couple of miles.  My mind wandered as we do this.  I considered that our preoccupation with murderers and car jackings back home would never allow us to do something like this.  The intensely friendly culture here however makes this seem as natural as not pumping your own gas back home.
There is no internet here as we settle in to our temporary new home for the next three nights.  The first you will see of this will be when we are driving tomorrow and we catch a cell tower strong enough to upload this.  The cell towers are like our modern day carrier pigeons.  The building is nestled in the hillside overlooking Lake Kivu.  Wooden fishing boats line the horizon and as night falls they begin to light up with lanterns.  The evening frogs and crickets take their cue and begin their songs enveloping you like a warm familiar blanket.  Even the ever present mosquitoes begin to feel like friends, well almost.
 

That none would be lost

Chad Robison

(Guest posting for Arlene)