A Thread to Burundi
Cogges and the church at Gasenyi
The ride ended on the Friday, and The Hills of Burundi ends with it. But on the Sunday, before flying home, I went to church.
Gasenyi is an Anglican parish in the hills above Bujumbura. My own church — Cogges, in Witney, a mile from my front door — has been joined to it by a thread going back thirty years. I had known the name for most of that time without ever expecting to stand in the building.
That morning deserved a telling of its own, so it became a short essay rather than a chapter: the story of the two churches, the people who quietly held the thread at both ends for three decades, and what it was actually like to arrive at the far end of it. It reads on its own — you do not need the book first.
The Dorcas Dress Project
One thread leads to another
The Dorcas Dress Project runs sewing hubs across Africa, Burundi among them, training makers and paying them properly for what they produce. The dress is designed around the constraint: the cut, the pleats and the ties do away with zips and trimmings, so it can be made well in places without complex machinery.
Their Burundian hubs work alongside Great Lakes Outreach — the charity the ride was in aid of, and the one behind most of the Burundian leaders the book is about. Worth a look, and worth buying from.
The ride was in aid of Great Lakes Outreach. The full account is in The Hills of Burundi.