On The Ground Running

It's night time here in the capital city of Burundi, and we've finally reached our destination with a productive day under our belts. We made it to Bujumbura about 24 hours past our original arrival time, but hit the ground running as our water project manager was waiting for us at the hotel (with Albert's bag in tow!). Jean Bosco - an acquaintance of Gilbert's who has previous experience working with NGO's in the scope of water - has been a big asset to the work of the Foundation. He helped see the Nyamwango/St. Andrews project through in quick time and also drew up the plans for our first Songa project.

You have to understand how hard it is to work in many African countries because of the trust issues. As a small non-profit that reports to the US government each year we have to keep track of every penny that is sent out and make sure that it is going to where it is being sent. And we owe it to our donors. That means you need a project manager who won't be tempted by corruption or to funnel even just a little bit of the money elsewhere. Not that it's not hard anywhere in the world, but in a country that is routinely labeled as one of the world's ten poorest corruption is everywhere. Luckily we have Jean Bosco who understands this and knows his chances on any future projects depends on it.

We also spent time today talking with our friends from Great Lakes Outreach - an umbrella organization for a myriad of non-profits in Burundi. They were helpful in providing some keen insight on bringing a large group of people for a work trip.


We're excited to get out tomorrow and take some photos as well as meet with a few other partners in Bujumbura. The view is quite spectacular as the city is nestled between the Burundi mountains to our east and the Congo mountains to our west, with one of the largest lakes in Africa in between. The picture you see is the view we had as our plane was arriving. It's green and lush throughout the country - a very tropical climate just below the equator.