50. Burundi, Bujumbura

Most countries would probably have been attractive after spending two months in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), but we particularly liked Burundi and Rwanda.  We could have no way of knowing that both countries would deteriorate into massacres and even genocide, in a few years.  When we were on our way through these two countries were among the four (the others were Cameroon and Senegal)that we considered “had their act together”, compared to the other 17 we visited on this trip.  In retrospect something they had in common was relatively little natural resources beyond agricultural production.  This was in stark contrast with Nigeria and particularly Zaire/Congo which are resource-rich but were mired in corruption and strife.

In Burundi food seemed readily available, the markets were full of beans and other nutritious products that were scarce in Zaire, and then disappeared once again when we entered Tanzania.  The phones worked, the post office was busy and efficient… Bujumbura was the first place since Spain where one could officially drink water right out of the faucet!!

We had had some trouble crossing the border as our boat was supposed to take us all the way to Bujumbura, but had us get off in Kalundu, which was still in Zaire.  Fortunately we had made friends with Kasongo, an official with the Zaire railway and steamer company, and he helped us get all the way to Bumumbura.

Our route through the region: pink - air, blue - lake steamer, yellow - hitchiking.

Bujumbura, Burundi, Thursday, 12 May, 1983

Now we could relax because every worry was taken care of--so we thought. Kasongo and his driver dropped us off at the market where Dan bought our usual necessities of bread and some of those “nice-looking bananas” (seditas). He then inquired about transport to our next destina­tion, and we set off to climb the hill to the Vugizo mission that Willners had recommended to us. From what they told us, it is a place run by a couple that has been here forty years. They are with the Brethren in Christ and apparently feel that providing hospitality for travelers is part of their mission. Willners stay there every time they come through, and Mr. W. had given us a letter for the Johnsons along with a message. We were tired, but we felt assured of a good place to stay.

We had not walked a half block when a white Suzuki jeep drove by and stopped to offer us a ride.  The man was happy to take us up the hill to Vugizo, and we conversed a bit in French before he told us that he works with ACTION AID and is Britanique. A switch into English made it a little easier, and he told us that he had heard there had been a lot of travelers lately up at the mission.  Sure enough, we had just taken our packs out of the back of the jeep and were surveying the positively gorgeous view of the lake when Mrs. Johnson hurried out to tell us apologetically that they were full up; she hated to turn us away; there was room for a tent, but the bathroom facilities were full, and they had sixteen people for breakfast that morning. I am sure the number of visitors is partly due to the fact that “Geoff[1]” mentions the mission in his book; Willners said he had not asked their permission to include it.

We certainly did not want to add to their overloaded premises, so when she suggested asking to pitch our tent at the Hotel Tanganyika and our benefactor offered to drive us there, we gladly accepted. We were already at the edge of town when Dan and I realized in shocked tones that this hotel was one we had passed on the way into town and that it is a good ways away from the center of town. Neil then offered to let us pitch our tent at his home, so we once again accepted gladly. The only thing we really wanted was a place to take a shower and wash our clothes.

Neil apologized for the state of his house because everything is being painted, but we felt so relieved to have a good, safe, quiet, private place to stay after a week of having little of those things that we did not feel very critical. We sat talking for a long time (one of the few times we have skipped lunch -- something we should try more often) took our shower (nice and hot) and then he drove us down to the Cercle Nautique for a drink. “Geoff” mentions the Cercle as a good place to go at sundown to watch the hippos come out of the lake, but we went earlier and did not see even an eye.

Neil Aldred is quite an interesting chap, British married to a Cameroonian. He has only had this job for five months. Before that he was in Kinshasa, Zaire, with the British branch of OXFAM, so Monique and their two children are still in Kinshasa and will move here at the end of the school year. It is uncanny how much he reminds us of Paul Robinson, not so much in looks, but in his gestures, his smile, laugh, etc. He has good colourful (ehem) English and tells stories effectively. He worked five years in Cameroon and has traveled a lot in different parts of Africa. Oh, he also worked in Malawi for a couple of years, but he and Monique found the country “too repressive”.

We ate our supper (he had leftovers while we provided our own) with great relish and thankfully sank into bed. The workers had finished painting one of the 5 bedrooms, so Neil invited us to use that. This house used to be a maison de passage for Action Aid for expatriots who work “up country”, but he has taken it over as the new director.

Bujumbura, Burundi, Friday, May 13, 1983

(DAN) It gets light here early, and we were up and about before 0600. We had a leisurely breakfast on Neil’s back porch. If it were not for another house right in front, he would have an incredible view. As it is, on one side of the obstruction you can see a stretch of the lake with Uvira and the abrupt mountains beyond; on the other side there is the swampy plain that stretches north of the lake. Yesterday as we were driving through the papyrus swamp, I remembered that The African Queen was supposed to have taken place in this area. They made their way down the rapids “in a river in German Equatorial Africa[2]” to a large lake where they were going to torpedo a boat. The last days they had a terrible time getting through the papyrus swamp. Can it be anywhere else?

Bujumbura and Lake Tanganyika, taken from Vugizo

We are enjoying our stay with Neil. We have actually been “solving” a lot of Zaire’s problems as he was Field Director of OXFAM there for two years, and we still cannot be­lieve that we are out.

We headed out before 0800 to start our traditional embassy-immigration pilgrimage. First stop was the Stars and Stripes. Consular services are only offered in the afternoon, but the most polite receptionist gave us a lot of information and a complete, accurate map. Then as we walked to Immigration, we got a chance to observe many of the stark differences between Bujumbura and Zaire. We met many people walking to market with copious amounts and wide varieties of food. Not all of the streets are paved, but the ones that are, are very well maintained. The number of Mercedes Benz and Volvos per capita, if anything is higher than Kinshasa, let alone the other Zaire cities we saw.

The people are different in appearance as well. Theoretically, we have been seeing Bantu subgroups ever since West Africa. Here, there are two dominant tribes are the Hutu and Tutsi (Watusi) which are of Nilotic[3] origin. Helena and I agree we have never seen so many very tall, very thin people before.

We found at immigration that we could extend our visa for a week, but we would have to leave our passports there over the weekend. That meant we could not do anything about extending the date on our Rwanda visa either. We did go to the Rwanda Embassy to inquire, and they thought it would be better if we went on to Rwanda and had our visa extended there. Our Rwanda visa is good from May 10-20. If we plan to stay a decent time here, then we would have no time in Rwanda.

Next we went to the market, best selection since Bamako, Mali: mango (finally, though not cheap) tangerines, lemons, passion fruit (granadillas), guavas, and bananas (unbelievable quantities of just ripe sedita bananas). There was a lot of vegetable selection, too.  We stocked up on what we could and headed back home.

In the afternoon we wrote, etc., and then Neil came home about 1600 and we continued our good conversation on into the evening. The movie, “Reds” was being shown at the “American Club”, so we went down to see it. Neither Helena nor Neil had seen it. He was at first reluctant to go to an American version of such a story, but I think he ended up liking it. It was interesting that just that afternoon we had been discussing Che Guevara (nothing to do with the movie). Neil has Che’s Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War which I have been reading. It has always amazed me when I have seen pictures of Che G. on tee shirts in Thailand, Iranians in Kansas, and billboards in Congo (Brazzaville) when he is such a dead subject in Bolivia[4]. When we spoke to the class in Kapanga, the teacher’s question about Bolivia was about CHE. Neil said that he as a sociology student in the sixties had a poster of him in his room. I asked him why the staying power. Neil’s answer: “1. he was a martyr and 2. he never was associated with the disillusion stage that follows revolution. He was always in the struggle and not in the ensuing bureaucracy.” In any case this just happened to fit right in with one of the themes of “Reds”: John Reed’s and Emma Goldman’s disillusion with the revolution after a few years.

Neil, our extremely kind host in Bujumbura

As we were on our way home from the movie, a hitch hiker stepped out of the darkness. He, naturally, was on his way to the Vugizo Mission up on the hill that is so crowded with travelers. A young Frenchman, he is here with a filming company of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in France. The view of Bujumbura and the lake from the mountain can only be likened to driving down from the Alto on the old highway looking at La Paz at night.

Bujumbura, Burndi, Saturday, May 14, 1983

(HELENA) We agreed with Neil that Saturday the 14th was a day of worse luck than Friday the 13th. Our first project for the day was to go to a photo studio to get some more passport pictures. Neil walked down the hill with us as he needed to get some food supplies. At the end of this block we saw a really neat bird: quite large, thin, with a long neck. It was standing so still that at first we thought it was not real.

Neil told us where to go for pictures (he actually told us the wrong street) so we left him and had our pictures taken by a (as Dan and Price would say) VERRA NICE young woman. Dan took advantage of the opportunity to see if she knew of anyone who might fix or buy the zoom lens we have been carrying around for eight months. She said to bring it back Monday when we pick up the pictures, and that way the patron could have a look at it.

There was not much business we could take care of since it is Saturday (we had already stopped by the post office yesterday and had gotten some beautiful wildlife stamps that were put out just this April, and the woman who waited on us was actually FRIENDLY) so we headed home.

First we stopped by the market to get a few things for the weekend.  We found the rice and beans section. There must have been some 8 or 10 varieties of beans there -- plain white and slender, brown with dark swirls, mountains of multi-colored beans -- all piled in huge baskets some 80 cm. in diameter. It reminded us of the markets in West Africa, especially Haute Volta where there were so many varieties of grain for sale. We also bought salt and sugar. This sugar looks terribly white after the brownish, course stuff we bought on our river trip in Zaire. We also bought more fruit and bread. For the first time in AGES (I guess since Spain) we are in a place with locally made cheese, but I am afraid it is for the European market and is quite expensive, about $8 per kilo. Mother, I have yet to make my empanadas because cheese is always a luxurious item imported from France or Holland.

A bean stall in the Bujumbra market.  A cornucopia compared to Zaire-Congo

Neil overtook us on our way up the mango tree-lined street that goes up our hill. He then had to take care of some business (this is where his bad luck came in) to do with importing a car and some motorcycles for Action Aid from Kigali, Rwanda. Something happened that is going to make the arrival of the vehicles three weeks later than expected, and thus their delivery of school materials “up-country” will be delayed. One of their projects is to handle British sponsors for some thousands of Burundi school children.

Dan and I had our lunch alone on the pleasant back porch (painted bleu ciel, a color Neil does not approve of but is there at his wife’s request) and decided to take the plunge on calling Daddy and Mother. Neil had said he would be glad to pay for the call “as a gesture of friendship,” but we think that would be a bit much. Dan dialed the operator, gave this number and the one in Winfield along with the corresponding names, and then we waited. After a couple of minutes, we decided that the proper thing would be to hang up and wait for the operator to call us back. The minutes got longer, and we began to wonder if we should not have hung up. Finally, after a long half hour, the phone rang and, voilá, we were talking. It felt SO good to hear those familiar voices and to hear Price’s good news about his job. We even permitted ourselves the luxury of giving them “our” phone number --at least for the next five days.

Immediately following the phone call, our Saturday 14th bad luck started in, Dan felt kind of weak, so he decided to go to bed. He felt hot and definitely had a fever and later felt a chill. He thought it must be malaria, so he took two Chloroquin tablets (a day earlier than our usual Sunday schedule) and stayed in bed. I started having all sorts of visions of Dan’s being laid low, needing a doctor, etc., etc., but for the moment it seems fairly mild.

 Burundi continues to be Francophone Africa. Whereas Zaire was a Belgian colony, Burundi was a “protectorate” that Belgium got from Germany after the First World War as was the case with Cameroon, Tanzania, and South West Africa.

Neil went to a concert of the Bujumbura Chorale, so we had the house to ourselves.

Bujumbura, Burundi, Sunday, May 15, 1983

(DAN) We had a pretty scary night. I was pretty sure that what I had was some degree of malaria[5]. We have heard some pretty scary stories about people’s dying from cerebral malaria after a very short sickness. Apparently this only happens when people do not take their Chloroquin (whereas we have been most faithful). Chloroquin does not really keep you from getting malaria, but should at least confine it to the liver. We had been warned before our trip that in Kenya and Tanzania there is Chloroquin-resistant malaria, however this has turned out to be the case all across Africa. Most everybody gets it to some degree. On the boat I felt lightheaded several times and had begun to wonder. By last night I was sure.  I took the weekly two pills last night, 12 hours early and took a third this morning. I still had a headache behind the eyes, so I kept pretty quiet all day, and by afternoon and evening I was feeling much better.  It helped to have Helena hovering about attentive to my whims, not to mention Neil has a good collection of mindless suspense stories. I got bogged down three fourths of the way through Che Guevara’s book. Most of his emphasis seemed to be on who the traitors were in each battle, how justice always caught up with them, etc. He also went on about what kind of weapons they got and who was a good fighter and therefore deserved a good weapon, etc. His constant mention of “peasants” (I imagine campesinos) is surprising to me. I guess that campesinos does not sound so bad to me as “peasants”, but it reminds me of people who feel it is always necessary to mention when somebody is black. So far he has missed the opportunity to philosophize on conflict or violence through his decision to take up a rifle rather than stick with the wounded.

By night I was well enough to have to find other excuses not to write in the diary.

We continue to enjoy our conversations with Neil. He is irreverent but well-informed. He can come up with some good quotes from George Bernard Shaw, etc. For example we have talked quite a bit about the sixties and the movements, the British side to it, etc. In Britain as well as in the U. S. most of the old radicals have mellowed by now. He told us that once in the sixties two radicals were interviewing Lord Something-Or-Other, the head of the Coal Board, and they asked him, “Do you remember the precise moment that you ‘sold out’ to the System?” And he answered, ‘About the same time as you yourselves will sell out to the system.”

He also voiced a large concern over a recent system that has been put into law by Thatcher’s administration. He says that there are now three classes of British citizens, and this is supposed to be the solution of the race/immigration problems in Britain. Only first class citizens have “right to abode” in Britain. He says that the laws are sexist as well. As long as he is living, his wife and children have first class privi­leges, but once HE dies, this is revoked; however if the woman is white and the husband is black, he and the children cannot hope to become first class citizens, etc. ( Dan.  I ran into these problems 5 years later, newly married to a British woman.)

Bujumbura, Burundi, Monday, 16 May, 1983

Eight months since we left Winfield, USA!

It has been a long day. We first went down to town to the Immigration Office. The woman had told us to pick up our passports Lundi matin, but when she looked for and could not find them, she told us to return demain. That did not suit us at all because we need our passports to try to get at least something done on our Rwandan visas. Well, she ‘lowed as how´ we could wait and see what the man at the next desk said. It is a very frustrating office to be in because there is a lot of traffic and no attempt at making lines. The phrase “May I help you?” was never invented, so one has to try to catch the employee’s attention without being pushy, all the while trying not to let the newcomers get ahead of you.

The man came, but waved us into the waiting room. I will admit, though, that when he did attend to us, he did a good job of it. He first looked in their book and saw we had been processed; then he looked through the woman’s desk (she was out to buy timbres-­stamps) and finally found the passports. Unfortunately, we were told to come back later because the woman needed to put the properly valued stamps on our visa extension. Dan wisely decided just to wait there, and the woman soon returned and processed the passports for us.

Next we went to Photo NOONGOZI to pick up our pictures. They were ready, but the young woman photographer asked us to return a while later to show the lens to the patron (owner). Next stop: Rwandan Embassy. The man who could help us breezed in after a while, but he breezed out almost before Dan could tell him our problem (our visas, gotten clear back in Kinshasa are dated May 10-20, in other words, NOW). “Come this afternoon.” By then we were pretty tired of being told to come back, but our efforts gradually began to pay off. We took the lens, the man looked at it, and we left it there so he could consult someone about it to see if it could be fixed or not.

By then it was noon, so we splurged and bought 6 eggs (when we got home, we found there were only 5, grrr) and some yogurt. We were pretty tired, so we left the major marketing for the afternoon. We trudged up the hill under a blazing sun and had the len­tils and spaghetti Neil had prepared.

We were back at the Rwandan Embassy by 15:30 and had to wait a while, but the man soon came in and--sass...... He simply wrote over the old date, changing it to”30-5-83” and stamped it. We shall trust that they will accept it at the border. Back at the photograph­ers, the man agreed to buy the lens. (We also got a second accordion addition put in our passports at the U. S. consulate. Them things are gettin’ perty thick.)

The market was EMPTY and had been for a good while; they must close up in the early afternoon. Back up the hill with a stop at a bookstore to get our first Newsweek in almost 3 months. Neil overtook us (the third time; we almost seem to be programmed to start home at the same time) and brought us the rest of the way.

For supper we had a pseudo-majadito... Well, at least we had rice with an egg. Eggs are quite a luxury at roughly $.20 apiece.

Bujumbura, Burundi, Tuesday, 17 May, 1983

(DAN) Today’s first stop was the Tanzanian embassy. Nobody was there, so we had time to fill out our visa applications. After a few minutes a middle-aged man in an African “Comrade suit” breezed through. He drove away in the black Mercedes, so he must be the ambassador. It has amazed us that no matter how poor the country or insignificant the embassy, there is usually a black Mercedes or two waiting outdoors. Tanzania right now supposedly has crippling economic problems. Our visas are to be ready tomorrow, only cost two dollars and are for 3 months, so we cannot complain.

Next stop was the photograph shop to pick up the money for the lens. Next our regular circuit of post office-market. The market here has the largest yet used clothing section with a very large open area covered with mounds of used clothing.

Used clothes section - Bujumbura Market. We did not realize it at the time, but this was a vision of the future, not just for Africa but for parts of Latin America.  The used clothes section is very important every Sunday in our local market in Bolivia in 2014

I had to take a picture, but not without causing a large commotion. When we were buying beans from the incredible beans section, I asked the man if we could take his picture. He consented politely, but a crowd gathered jeering and jostling me. When I aimed the camera, a kid actually ran up and stuck his hand in the lens before he disappeared into the crowd. I do not know if that was a diversion or not, but I caught a hand trying to go into the camera/money bag as I was looking after the kid. Then as we were leaving the area, Helena got kind of pushed around. It is simply not worth it to play tourists.

 

Bean vendor and companions - Bujumbura market.

We spent the afternoon writing and relaxing. We have decided to hit the road again on Thursday to Rwanda, and it is not likely that we shall have the likes of Neil’s comfort and privacy for long a while.

We are certainly back on the beaten tourist path again. We see quite a few people who look like travelers on the street, including 5 or 6 oriental youths. This is in contrast to seeing only one foreign traveler from Yaounde, Cameroon through Lubumbashi, Zaire.  That is one traveler in 3 months across 4 countries.

I do not believe we mentioned that the Zambian foreign minister (or something) was up here last week, and several times we were honored to witness the motorcade as it sped around town. It consisted of 13 BMW motorcycles, 9 Mercedes Benz sedans, black, and 8 Land Rover pickups chock full of soldiers. I was mainly looking at vehicles, but Helena noticed that each of the sedans had one driver and one passenger in the back seat. This when compared to a figure Neil has given us, is obscene. He says that it is officially recognized that only one out of three children start grade school here in Burundi. This is one of the big areas where Action Aid works in.

One of his expatriate colleagues, Adrian, was over for a while after supper with his wife. He is in charge of the agricultural projects which for Action Aid Burundi are mainly animal traction and hydroponics for handicapped persons. He had worked six years in Upper Volta and wishes he were back there. His statement was: “In Upper Volta I had many good friends, but here maybe two, and even then I am not always sure what they want.” He is cockney and quite colorful. She has just gotten a job as a correspondent for BBC. Neil is kind of worried because any undesirable report might have Action Aid out on its ear.

Bujumbura, Burundi, Wednesday, 18 May, 1983

(Ed: I wonder why their letters mailed in Bujumbura are postmarked “Usumbura.” Well, I just answered that one. In an old school atlas of ours, in Spanish, which is copyrighted 1963, most of the names are pre-independence. Along with Leopoldville and Elizabethville in Zaire it has Usumbura in Burundi. .  I guess they are still using old equipment in the post office.)

After breakfast (we would never skip that) we headed up the hill to the famous Vugizo mission. We had been up there twice, but as both times we were driven up by Neil, we did not know exactly which road was the shorter. It turned out that we took a long way, but it wound through a very fancy section of town full of exclusive houses and beautiful gardens. Even the hedges are something to behold--light pink, violet, and light orange bougainvillea, among others. We continue to see beautiful frangi panis.

Whereas there had been 16 people up at the mission when we had been turned away, this time there were only 5 --4 French people and Martin, the young Englishman we met the other day at the Rwandan Embassy. We talked a bit with Martin, and he said that he had had no problem when he had been through Uganda 2 or 3 months ago. We did not get much out of talking with the French people, but what we saw made us doubly glad we had not been able to stay there; a bunch of local kids were hanging around there, so there must not have been the wonderful privacy we have at Neil’s.

Back home I did some clothes washing (wouldn’t you know; it got cloudy and the water went off after only one rinse) while Dan finished a letter and went to town to see about our Tanzanian visas and to do a little shopping. He returned 3 hours later feeling a bit disgusted with the Tanzanian officials. They had told us to go at noon, but they made him wait while they ran up and down stairs with Cokes and lunch. The young man who had taken the applications yesterday told him to return tomorrow. “I’m sorry, but we want to travel tomorrow.” Someone else told him the same thing, but he persisted and asked a woman sec­retary who was standing there. She pointed to one of a bunch of men who were standing around outside watching one man repair a Mercedes Benz and said, “There’s your man.” Dan approached him, and he very reluctantly agreed to get the visa after first asking, “Can you come back tomorrow?” He came back down the stairs 10 minutes later, saying that it would be another 5 minutes. Half an hour later a lackey brought the stamped passports ­with a serious mistake. We had wanted to be sure to be able to get into Tanzania any time within the next three weeks, so we put our date of entry as a week from now. For some strange reason, they gave us a one month visa (fine) BUT valid only if we enter Tanzania within one week. Dan asked them to correct this, but it was by now closing time, and the man would only say to return tomorrow. Grrr.

Before heading home, Dan looked around for cartridges for our little CAMPINGAZ burner, but the only place that carries them said they would be getting some in on Monday.

So, it was a disappointing way to start our last afternoon in Bujumbura, but we managed to survive and even feel better. We spent our afternoon reading and writing and fixed quite a smashing dinner: rice with peas topped with a fried egg with fried bananas on the side, and half a mango apiece for dessert. Neil did not come in till later. He is still very excited about the box he received yesterday from England, mainly because it contained his radio. The trunk was to have been sent air freight three months ago, but somehow Action Aid did not pay for it until just recently. We were all amused that Neil’s brother had addressed it like this: Mr. N. Alldred - Bujumbura Airport - East Africa. But it got here.

We went to bed with everything pretty well packed. The road up into Rwanda is big and red on the Michelin map, so we have decided to try hitching tomorrow. We are not sure how hitching will be for the last 30 Kliks (as Neil would say) because “Geoff” says there is not much traffic and people often end up walking those 30 Kliks.

---

[1] Author of our Lonely Planet, “Africa on The Cheap”, first edition.

[2] Present Burundi and Rwanda.

[3] Aparently recent DNA analysis suggests that Hutu and Tutsi not only share a language, but they are both mainly decended from Bantu origins, although the Tutsi on average have more nilotic (but according to Wikipedia, not more than 15%.)

[4] Another irony is that Che spent over a year in the Congo, not too far from where we were, before he went to Bolivia.  His expedition to the Congo was as much a failure as the one to Bolivia, though he did survive to write the story.  In any case this African adventure for Che was never mentioned, either in the Congo, or anywhere else in Africa.

[5] In retrospect is was likely the first symptoms of filariasis, or elephantiasis, which was diagnosed once we returned to the US.