This is Part 3 of Mike's recent e3 partners church planting trip to Rutana, Burundi. Be sure to watch the 21-second YouTube video at the end of the post for an inside (actually outside) look at our hotel's kitchen.
When we arrived in Rutana we were escorted to our rooms. My
brother and I had our own rooms. I slept under a mosquito net and constantly
patrolled my room for bugs, mosquito’s, and spiders. Rutana is a very small
town. We were split up in 7 different locations. Although my dad said we were
staying in the nicest guest house in Rutana, my mom described the
accommodations as indoor camping. We had
cold showers. Some days no water at all. The toilets had no toilet seats. Not
surprisingly, the rooms were only $5 per night! One guest house had a big
enough dining room for our team so that’s where we had all our meals. No indoor
kitchens so meals were prepared outside over open fires. The menu for dinner
was the same every night and was what we have come to know as usual in this
part of
The hotel manager was very nice. He worked so hard all week to try to get our meals out on time. One morning I shot a quick video of the kitchen and took a picture. My mom said it was a miracle they were able to cook anything at all out there. We’re not quite sure where they washed the dishes. Our first night at dinner, the power went out just as we sat down. We ate by candlelight. I remembered to bring a flashlight with me so we could kind of see where we were going when we walked back to our hotel to go to bed.
