There are several things here that you see so often, I find myself using the word “ubiquitous” as I write. So here is a brief list of some ubiquitous things

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 Burundi is orphaned children. My mind is still boggling over that statistic.

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 village of Waiting” by George Packer, he tells the story of his peace corps term in Togo. There, white people were referred to as “yovos”. Here, the Swahili term “muzungu” serves. Most of the clothes you see here are American or European castoffs. The clothes they can’t sell at GoodWill they bundle up and ship to Africa where they end up on people’s backs. In Togo they called them dead yovo clothes – who would give up such fine things if they were alive? And that is what people wear. You see people walking around promoting everything from Beyonce to the Iowa State Wrestling Team, jeans with Fifty Cent on the pocket, Eminem teeshirts. I saw a little girl with “Achy Breaky Heart on her tee shirt today, the sleeves and hem cut and tied into a fringe. It looked good on her. Even one of Prosper’s staff, Mami, was wearing a Hertz polo shirt the other night.

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.

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