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Burundi Blog
After several years of valiantly trying to put together a complete delegation, GCJ acknowledges that we just haven’t gotten a sufficient number of delegates to support a full Journey experience. A combination of factors such as the uncertain and difficult economy, concerns about travel in light of environmental impacts, stability in central Africa, and other unknowns along with the personal challenges of the volunteer Project Directors pulling then off the delegations have all combined to bring us to this choice point. There will not be an official GCJ Burundi delegation — thought we are supportig the efforts of several committed delegates in their putting together a small exploration, which will be supported and hosted by our partner Prosper Ndbashuriye and his organization, JRMD (Youth in Construction in a World of Destruction).
In the meantime GCJ is exploring the development of other aspects of our work and mission:
–mentoring other groups to incorporate aspects of our model and insights from our experiences
–writing about grassroots citizen diplomacy
–localizing the Journeys by developing relationships across difference in the local community
Two quickies:
I don’t care, I’m counting it. Yesterday Prosper took us to the border of Congo. We came up to the border crossing. There were policemen and customs agents there, they dropped the “barrier” – a string no bigger than a thick twine – and let us into the border area. Prosper looked around for friends of his, and sure enough he found a customs guard who he knew, and a border policeman.
I don’t know why, I was pretty nervous. Congo, man, that’s the real deal. I’ve read so much about trouble in Congo that it just sounded intimidating. People seemed to be pretty easily going back and forth. Plenty of people were crossing the border with the ever-present overloaded bicycle loaded with goods to sell. There’s a bridge that is no-man’s land, this side Burundi and a little past the far side, Congo. Prosper’s friend the border guard led us past a real barrier, a steel gate, to where we could look the Rusizi river into Congo. We looked across at the flag, we looked at the “Welcome to Congo” sign over the bridge, but Prosper’s friend said we couldn’t cross. We asked if we could take pictures, and he said, “I’ll show you a spot where you can photograph from”. We went there, and gave Prosper all of our cameras to take pictures of us standing together by the Congo border. I don’t think you can see the sign, you can probably see a bit of the flag.
We didn’t cross the border, we certainly weren’t there long .. but I’m counting it. Damned right. It goes on the list.
Countries in Africa that I’ve visited now include Burundi, Ethiopia, and Congo. I’m counting it.
More music.
Prosper had another treat in store for us this afternoon. After a (too brief) rest at the hotel he took us back to his office where the music group that I hauled all that gear for was to put on a special show just for us. I neglected to mention, when talking about Church, how oppressive the humidity had gotten. All during church the air was thick enough to drink through a straw, and I sweated so much I thought I was melting. While we were driving to Prosper’s office it broke in a storm.
So picture it, we’re sitting in a yellow stucco room with a red cement floor. There are maybe twenty people sitting around the perimeter of the room, there isn’t room for any more people. To our left are singers, 3 young men and 5 young women, plus a few who aren’t quite ready for the group yet. To our right are the keyboard player and a guitar, and the pastor and a guy who I think was an assistant pastor. At the far end, a drum kit, a bass player, and another guitar. Along our side, Bob, me, Leduc, Wes, Prosper. And outside it’s pissing down a tropical rain, when the music is silent you can hear the rain pound on the roof.
People, first off. Throngs and throngs of people, almost every where you go. Poor people, walking, bicycling, shoved into buses, dealing for bits of this or that. People standing about in groups, or sitting about. Poor people. Everywhere. Sometimes we go to a relatively fancy restaurant, usually attached to a hotel. There we don’t see so many people, usually just a few, wealthy, often white. I’m tired of having dinner with rich people, but that seems to be the only option. That or eat at the hotel which the others find boring.
Children, of course. Ragged, adorable, some with tummies sticking out, some with snotty noses, some covered in dust, some with sores or scabs, always their eyes watch you. The US Embassy today told us that 10% of the population of
People carrying babies. Women of all ages, as well as any child older than about 6, is likely to be packing a baby on their back. From the front, you see a wrap of cloth around the baby-carrier’s midsection and two little feet sticking out. The babies are wrapped tightly against the person’s back; all that pokes out is the head and the two little feet.
Dead yovo clothes. In the book “The
Fanta. I think there might be Sprite available. Bob always asks for soda water but rarely gets it, sometimes they have Schweppes, sometimes sparkling water. Otherwise, the soda choices are coke or fanta, in 2 flavors. Fanta Orange is as you would expect, Fanta Citron is a pale yellow-green soda, with a sweet lemon-ish taste. Soda is always served in scratched and scarred bottles that have probably already been used 300 times. You can also get bottled fruit juice, or Primus, Amstel, Amstel Bock, or Heineken beer. That’s about it. Oh, you can also get bottled fruit juice, most places.
Food & shopping. It’s tough here. I don’t know how this compares to Ghana or Nigeria, but it’s tough. Any restaurant we go to seems overpriced to me – we spent $23 each tonite, sharing the tab and paying for Prosper. And it wasn’t very good. Personally I’d just as soon eat something mediocre in the cafeteria for $7 (but everyone was complaining of it getting tiresome). We’ve had some STUNNING entertainment – the church, Prosper’s singing group, the Burundian drummers, the zoo – but it all feels serendipitous and tentative. We’ve gone shopping for trinkets and it’s sad how little choice there is.
Bicycle taxis. Most bicycles have a padded platform behind the saddle. This is for passengers or goods. You see men in business suits, women sitting primly in African dress, or more often people in dead yovo clothes riding along on the backs of bicycles.
Just as often, you see people carrying the most incredible loads on their bicycles, or on their backs, or on their heads. Yesterday we saw someone carrying foam mattresses on his head. The foam pads were large enough to sleep on, and several inches thick. All together, they were easily 5 or more feet tall. It looked like he was carrying a small car on his head. People carry loads of timbers, rolled up corrugated metal roofing sheets, barrels of beer, bunches of bananas, bunches of pineapples, boxes and crates of all shapes and sizes in the most incredible ways. They really do carry huge loads on their heads, 5 gallon jerry cans are pretty standard. I counted the other day; the carrying capacity of a bicycle for cases of bottled soda seems to be thirteen – five on either side of the back wheel and three above the back wheel.
Kalashnikovs. There are police in blue jumpsuits everywhere you go. There are nearly as many soldiers in camo. As you drive around town, you see pickup trucks with benches going down the middle of the bed. The benches are often filled with soldiers or police. And they’ve all got Kalashnikovs. Somehow all this protection doesn’t actually make me feel that much safer. I’ve heard the police and military described as sometimes just a different armed and possibly hostile group. And they’ve all got Kalashnikovs.
Ragged buses, taxis, trucks. Trucks belching smoke as they lumber along, buses going crabwise down the road because the front end is so out of alignment. or listing 10 degrees to starboard. The buses are usually jammed full of people. A public bus the size of my wife’s minivan is here transport for 18.
We very nearly witnessed a bus tragedy yesterday. On the road to Carama we were stuck behind a bus for a bit. Prosper said, “Oh, la la, look at this, it’s so unsafe this bus.” It was belching smoke, and the rear end was sometimes tracking the front end; sometimes not. And of course it was packed full, they don’t take off if they can’t pack up a full load.
They were going slowly, and so Prosper honked and passed them. A little further down the road, we saw an accident. A taxi driver had knocked down a bicyclist. I was quite nervous about this, I’ve read about street justice being meted out to people who were caught stealing or causing accidents. A huge crowd had gathered, at least a hundred people; curious, mostly. The crowd didn’t seem to be boiling, it seemed to be a petty problem, so I was starting to calm down. The bicyclist wasn’t showing any obvious damage, no one seemed motivated to drag the taxi driver out and beat him. Prosper was working his way around the problem, nudging the car through the crowd to the left of the accident, tooting the horn and moving very slowly.
Suddenly, Prosper said “OH NO!” and we all looked up to see the very same bus we’d passed a few minutes ago barreling along toward the crowd, toward the taxi. He was trying to stop but he didn’t have the brakes to handle such a stop with such a load. I turned my head away and covered my eyes with my hand, I thought for sure there would be death here. The bus slammed into the taxi (running over the poor original guy’s bicycle AGAIN in the process) and somehow everyone had managed to scurry to safety. He must have reduced his speed enough, I didn’t see anyone getting off the bus bleeding or obviously hurt. As far as I know, there were no serious accidents at all. But we didn’t stick around to find out.
Climate – it’s hot and humid, but not as bad as I’d feared. Think Hawaii, more than anything. Well, Hawaii without the ocean breeze, without the cleansing rain. Hawaii with a constant smell of smoke in the air and a layer of haze that just never leaves that’s made of fog, smoke, dust, and who knows what.
Security – while there are police and soldiers everywhere (all packing the ubiquitous Kalashnikov) they seem quite benign for now. We went up today to the school that Prosper is building in the province of Cibitoke. The province is on the border of Congo. A year ago, another visitor said they had to pass many military checkpoints to get there. Leduc says that 3 months ago there was heavy fighting in that area and the road was to all intents and purposes closed. Today, the road is open to anyone willing to face the bonecrunching potholes.
Bugs – Again, not as bad as I’d feared. I’m usually a pretty tasty morsel for mosquitos, but I haven’t seen (or heard) them in throngs. We use mosquito nettings at night, but I think my hand presses up against it because I almost always wake up with a new mosquito bite or two on the back of my right hand. Maybe it’s the spider who lives in my closet who’s snacking on me nightly. If so, I’m glad to feed him if he’s keeping the mosquitos down.
Distances – are mostly small. The hotel Prosper has put us at is out of Bujumbura city center. It’s a nice place near the edge of Lake Tanganyika. It’s simple, but (to me anyway) completely adequate. It’s maybe 5 or 10 minutes to Prosper’s office downtown, and maybe 10 or 15 minutes from there to Carama. Maybe 15-20 minutes to the airport.
Roads – are abominable. Really really bad. The main roads through Bujumbura have sections where the tarmac is completely worn away and you bump and jolt your way along like a carnival ride. Peculiarly, while the cars travel on the right, like in the US, the steering is also on the right, like in England. This is a really stupid idea, because the driver is on the curb side rather than the center side of the car. In the constant weaving in and out, passing trucks, slower cars, potholes, pedestrians, or whatever, the driver has a worse view of oncoming traffic than the person riding shotgun. This can make riding shotgun a harrowing experience. Whenever I ride shotgun I try to maintain a peaceful acceptance. The speeds are generally not high, and accidents are probably not usually fatal, and the driver must know what he’s doing. Right? That’s what I tell myself, anyway. I’m actually more concerned for the bicyclists and pedestrians that we pass with what seems like millimeters to spare, it’s amazing that we don’t see carnage of bicycle riders and pedestrians who were too slow everywhere. When Wes rides shotgun he jokes and makes a girlish “AAHHH!” when we make what seems to be a close call. It’s usually pretty funny but it can be a bit distracting to my otherwise zen-like calm.
Language – French will really take you a long way here. Lots of people, especially in Bujumbura, speak French. In the countryside, French is less helpful. It’s easy to pick up a smattering of Kirundi (Hello, thank you, peace) that will get you in peoples’ general good graces, although maybe they’re just laughing at the stupid white guy. Kiswahili is also used a bit – particularly the word “musungu” which is a semi-pejorative term for “white man.”
Thursday
A few days ago, Bob was finally able to contact one of his “private contacts”, a fellow named Godefroid. Godefroid’s office is actually in walking distance of the hotel here. He and Bob spent a few hours together. That evening, Bob told us that he’d been pretty excited by what he heard, that Godefroid has some really heavy stuff going on and that he volunteered to get some of his friends who are professionals in Bujumbura to join us tonite for a brief meeting.
I tried to steel myself up for what has become a fairly typical program. People come in, they tell us how they’re helping the poor, the neediest of the needy, and if we can’t help directly can we please make their case known in The Land of Plenty?
It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. Godefroid’s project is all about truth and reconciliation. He and his small group of 15 are attempting to drive a truth and reconciliation project in
The first step of the project is to use a
It goes beyond that, the ultimate goal is to get the murderers as well as the victims to tell their stories, not for retribution but because they believe that as long as the murderers are sitting alone in their guilt that no one can be at rest.
Powerful stuff.
Bob started asking around the group, as though it were a GCJ delegation, “so, tell me about your work, your life. What’s it like to do your job in
The lawyer had been a student of the anthropologist in
The anthropologist was the only one who said he is unhappy with his work. He just doesn’t have the resources to do a good job. He has no textbooks, no computer, nothing to do for a class of 50 to 200 kids but talk and write on the chalkboard.
The lawyer was especially passionate, his words tumbling out rapid fire, sometimes piling up in a near stutter. He talked about how the judicial system is completely controlled by the executive branch. The anti-corruption group is the highest paid group in the justice department, and they are forbidden from challenging anyone in the government (i.e, the corrupt ones). I worried a bit, if it’s permitted to speak so freely in this country. He said that when he took his post he was the ONLY Hutu in the judicial branch.
A smaller, younger man joined us part way through. He seemed quite young, perhaps early twenties. He said he understood English but didn’t speak it well, so he told his story in French. He didn’t want to talk much about his job, he’s recently started a job as a lecturer in anthropology at the university. The other anthropologist is one of his PhD advisors.
He has a bit of a baby face, with a spare moustache and soft brown eyes. His mouth pulls up often into something like a smile, but the story he told was not one of smiling.
He was born in 1972 (easily 10 years older than I’d have guessed). 1972 was the first year of Hutu/Tutsi violence. In 1972 his father and his brother were killed and his mother was stabbed while he was in utero. All of their possessions were taken. Someone picked up a bottle cap from a Fanta bottle and said, “They didn’t have THIS much to live on.” Somehow (details mercifully skipped) by the grace of god, he was able to get his education all the way through university. He got a job in government as a foreign officer but left to go back to school because he has a deep thirst for intellectual and moral growth.
I stand in awe of such suffering. I stand in awe of this quiet man’s half smile. I stand in awe of this man, this man and his friends seeking truth not for punishment but so that all of
Godefroid just wants to get the word out. Here’s another African hero, we’ve met so many in the past few days. Here’s another. I’m a little hesitant to put much identifiable information here, although they said they are no longer clandestine. I told them, though, that I’d recommend any of them who are interested to be delegates or town hall members next year, and at the very least I would be sure they were invited to present to the delegation as they just presented to us.
We started with a meeting with the Pygmy Association. We got there at
(reference note: I think that the Hutus and Tutsi refer to themselves as Bahutu and Batutsi. Or, for women, Wahutu and Watutsi. So I think the American dance of the early 60s, the Watusi, may be named for the women of this country)
We learned about the plight of the Batwa. They are the most marginalized of the three major ethnic groups in this country. They are approximately 1% of the total population. So that compares to what? The Eskimo population in US? Probably smaller than the total native American population. Some say the Batwa are the oldest people here, that the Hutus pushed out the Batwa and that the Tutsi came along later and started pressuring the Hutu. Who knows what balance of peoples would have been found here if the colonialists had come 100 years later?
The Batwa are traditionally hunters, so I imagine that they are less tied to the land than the Hutu crop gatherers or the Tutsi cattle ranchers. Which leads to their further marginalization.
In the Hutu/Tutsi violence, the Batwa were mostly independent. That did not, of course, completely protect them from the violence. In some cases they were simply caught in the crossfire. In some cases, they were in a Hutu or Tutsi neighborhood and had to adopt that loyalty to survive – which of course made them vulnerable to the other side. In most cases, I think, as in any society under stress like war, the most marginal people get marginalized further.
In brief, any problem that you see in
She told of how it’s typical for a Wutwa (I think that’s the term for Batwa woman) to be married at 14, and it’s not unusual for a woman to be a grandmother before she’s 30. She told how they’ve been able to get 3 graduates through university, and have 4 currently attending.
She didn’t directly ask for our support, but of course she needs it. She asked that we tell her story; that we try to find others who can support her.
Our next appointment was with Sister Connection. This is an outfit that Wes has heard of, one of his many pastor friends spoke about them at a conference. Wes had insisted that Prosper set up a meeting. When we got there, of course, the woman who runs it is a good friend of Prosper’s.
Sister Connection is housed at
We went into a very nice ante-room, where we waited for our hostess. Justine had joined us (more on her later), she is the woman who manages Susan Bradbury’s microfinance project. We’d met her briefly before at Carama.
Justine joined us as we were ushered into meet our hostess. I don’t think we got her name, but from what I remember reading on the web her first name is “Joy”. From the web, the story of Sister Connection is that a woman in
Joy is another soft spoken woman. There’s something very submissive about many of the adult women we meet here, they speak softly with their head tilted forward as though they are trying to hide their mouths. They may say forceful things, but their demeanor is often submissive.
They focus on helping widows and orphans. They have several programs, from direct support (like Save the Children you can sponsor a Burundian widow for $30/month) to building houses, to “special needs” support for people who have a specific crisis. Joy’s husband is president of the university. They got a donor to the university to make a deal where he’d build a music center (currently housing the library) as long as Sister Connection was given an office on campus in perpetuity. So their costs are extremely low.
They way they build houses for widows is quite different – Prosper has a whole operation dedicated to putting a cookie-cutter house completely built on a piece of land. Sister Connection provides a direct grant – here’s $600, here are some contractors we trust, you can go build your own place.
She shared with us some of the list of widows who are awaiting support. The stories were heartbreakingly tragic. One woman’s husband had been killed, she’d been beaten and raped, her children’s birthdates were all after the date of her husband’s death so they are probably children of rape. She’d spent a year in hospital and is now struggling to make her way.
Another woman, best I could tell from the notes, had had her husband and most of her ten children killed, and then later when living with a daughter, had many of the daughter’s children killed.
We returned to the hotel, where I had the chance to talk with Justine. I wanted to understand, how does the microfinance project work?
Justine is a very trim woman, short and slender. She seemed to be telling Wes at one point that she’s 50 years old but I wouldn’t guess her at more than 35. She is very business like, in a blouse and skirt. Her hair is trimmed fairly close and in a slightly angular style. She usually seems serious, even somber. When she rubs her eyes, you can see lines of deep sadness around them.
We talked about the microcredit operation, about the successes and the failures. It seems to really be giving people just a wee help up out of the worst poverty. The loans are only $50, and charge about 8% interest. As I understand from Susan B, she pays Justine about $150/month. I would expect that to be a pretty hefty salary for this region, but it’s apparently quite a struggle for Justine to make ends meet. She has to take her transportation costs out of that amount, and that can mount up. She takes bicycle taxis sometimes to Carama. Recently she fell from a bicycle taxi and had to spend some time recuperating. She struggles to send her children to school, she doesn’t have a proper house of her own (which I interpret to mean: she has a place with mud brick, thatched roof, no stucco, no doors and windows.)
I’m not doing justice to this story, and I think I need to stop now. Justine broke my heart, she’s not just a name or a tragedy on a piece of paper, here’s a bright woman who seems very successful and western and modern. The amount of work that it takes her to keep up is staggering, and her ability to get ahead is so slim.
I was ready to wrap up the meeting, but it was at loose ends – Prosper had dropped her off here, how would she get back? Would she have time for lunch? It became evident to me that she was on her own, she would have to find her way back to town on a bus or bicycle taxi or by foot. She would probably skip lunch. I asked her about that directly and she said, “Oh, yes! I forgot all about lunch!” and was totally unconvincing. She didn’t forget. How could she forget?
So I insisted, you must stay for lunch, I’ll buy you lunch, I’ll give you money for a taxi. The hotel was in the frenzy of setting up for the children’s lunch, so I said, we’ll try to eat before the children come storming in (for the art camp).
We had a nice lunch. The lunches here, with the locals and especially the kids, always surprises me. A little six year old kid can pack away a plate of food that would have me choking. I guess it has to last them longer. Justine, likewise, loaded up a large plate of food for such a small woman and patiently put it all away.
I had left the table for a minute, and when I got back Bob had joined Justine and Leduc for lunch. I guess Justine had asked something about Bob’s religion and he was drawing a diagram – Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, all followers of one book. Justine didn’t like this, Bob, you must follow Jesus. How can you not follow Jesus? She asked me, where do I fit on this picture? I said, “I’m not on this picture, I’m on a whole different picture.” That made her very sad. How can you not follow Jesus? I tried a little version of a universalist god-spirit but she was having none of it.
“Well, you are both very good people so I know you will go to heaven,” she said. Then she said, mostly to me, “I am a very poor woman, I cannot give you a gift, but my gift to you is that I will pray for you to find Jesus.”
That’s the most precious gift I will take from this place. I don’t expect to find Jesus, but Justine’s prayers will be with me.
I’ve been to religion before. I’ve been plenty of times. But before today, I’ve never been to Church. Today was Church.
We walked in to the service in progress. Apparently they’d been singing already for an hour or more when we got there and there was plenty more to go.
And sing they did. They sang a song that sounded like “alleluia”, they sang “Yes, Jesus loves me” in Kirundi. They sang and sang and sang. I realized as soon as I started writing how poor a tool words are to describe the beauty of the singing. Fortunately I got an audio recording of the whole time we were there.
The church is a simple building, probably mud brick covered in stucco/cement. The roof is made of metal sheets, the roof supports are raw timbers. We’re up in front, facing the congregation. We’re sitting with the pastor, the assistant pastor, and Prosper, looking out at the flock.
I wish I could say why or how this struck me so powerfully. I was near tears for most of the first half hour. The music just reached me in a way that was powerful beyond words. The people were all well dressed, as well as they were able, in their Sunday best. So it wasn’t like we were seeing the poverty that’s surrounded us all week up in our faces, but this music just got to me. I saw Wes with tears in his eyes too, and Bob said he’d teared up as well, so it wasn’t just me.
After awhile, there was a break in the singing. The pastor came up to speak – no, to exhort, to praise, to shout. He skipped back and forth across the stage, this little short man with a serious face, he got fired up and roared like a lion. I don’t know what he was saying, but it was inspiring just in the sound of it.
Then they started the SERIOUS music. We had the children’s choir, the youth choir, the men’s choir, the ladies choir, and then the special choir. Each in turn would start singing in their seats, then file up to the front and let loose. Wes spotted one older lady dancing and went down to dance with her for a bit.
The assistant pastor translated the meaning of each song. Each song said: God will support you in your suffering. The path to safety is through god. This is a church that is about providing a very real comfort to a very suffering people. This is a church that knows hunger and pain and insists on joy and on faith. We read Revelations 3:10-13 and it told about how god will protect his people through the end of time.
This was Church. Have you ever been to Church? If not, then you just don’t know. Ahh, listen to the music. I can’t tell you about it. Listen.
Prosper had told us we’d each be expected to speak a bit, and I was first up. I had been worried at first that I wouldn’t be able to speak without choking up in tears, and if I’d been asked to speak right after we’d arrived I would have failed. But a bit of equilibrium had returned, and although I was a tiny bit rocky at the start, I got on a roll, and said some things that seemed ok. I got some good response from the audience. I turned it over to Bob who said some very thoughtful things. We skipped over Wes, because he was supposed to preach, but Prosper spoke up about the 40×40 and the 10×10 and the good work of Wes’s little church, and how Wes had welcomed him into his home and church.
The pastor asked us our blood types, which seemed odd. But he was making the point, Prosper and I are both A+, we have the same blood, we are the same.
Then Wes got up to preach. He did an excellent job, talking about the great feeling of sharing with these wonderful people. He started to tell about his journey with god, through rebellion and reconciliation. …I’d thought Wes would be the warm up act; that the pastor would speak after Wes at some length, but when Wes was done the pastor made some few comments and wrapped us up with another song. We were invited to be in the receiving line, shaking hands with hundreds of people as they filed out.
It was of awesome beauty. But don’t take my word for it – listen to it yourself. Listen.