Life in Bujumbura

Posted August 12, 2008 By Jennifer and has no comments yet.

We are getting ready to leave Bujumbura, but wanted to say a few words about our experience here. This is the first time I have actually tried to live in an area of such poverty, and the reality was eye opening.

The selection at the market was slim, and even slimmer because we were trying to avoid unpasteurized milk and fruit we could not peel. Bread really was one of our only choices here.

But this morning we couldn’t even buy bread. The hotel, a small but very high quality establishment had simply run out. We had the same problem trying to buy minutes for Tammy’s phone, they simply ran out. Everything we see for sale looks as if it has come from other countries as donations. The things that are new are very expensive. We thought we wold look for a computer to leave with Flory, but the computer store only carries one model and it costs the equivalent of $1500 US. As a point of reference, a cup of coffee at this fancy hotel is about 80 cents US.

We were able to finally find soccer jerseys as gifts, but they are from the 2002 season. There simply is not a supply of things in Bujumbura for people to buy. It is a strange reality, to see things that are becoming modern but still so far from what they could be.

We checked the World Bank lists yesterday. Burundi is the 4th or 5th poorest country in the World, DR Congo is the third. I wonder just how bad off Zimbabwe is at the number one spot.

We will be on a plane to Addis Ababa in just a few hours, and home in less than 36 hours. It is almost sad to leave, and we are not sure how easy it will be to readjust to the luxuries we take for granted in the United States. We haven’t gotten too used to poverty though. We are both looking forward to the movies on the plane and plan to take hot showers as soon as we get home.

Categories: Burundi 2008
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Instead of a Safari

Posted August 11, 2008 By Jennifer and has no comments yet.

Since the Safari was not going to happen, we went with plan B – return to Bujumbura so Tammy could be that much closer to getting on a plane home. We packed our bags and headed to the bus station for the 4 hour dive. Flory promised it was shorter than the drive to Kigali.

Flory was wrong. It took close to eight hours, and we had back seats withe the wheel well blocking our feet. The woman in front refused to let us have the window open, and we could smell the exhaust from the van. I’m pretty sure we wrote about this before, so we won’t go into too much detail.

We arrived in Bujumbura alive and began the recovery from the mild case of carbon monoxide poisoning. We are at a beautiful Hotel that gives us internet in our room and has the most darling restaurant on the top floor balcony with a view of the mountains. American food, air conditioning, internet, Tammy didn’t even complain that there was no hot water. We even have the 24 hour french news channel on the TV.

Inside the Hotel

View from rooftop restaurant.

When Flory and Amina came to get us last night he asked about our hot water that Tammy had wanted so badly. We told him the hotel didn’t have any. He was shocked and went to the desk to complain and apparently he was right that something was wrong with the plumbing to our room. We had gotten so accustomed to not having hot water it didn’t even occur to us that something might not be working right.

So we have been in the room updating the blog, answering email and getting our bags ready to leave. We went out this morning to buy some gifts and made a visit to the Batwa village – it is like a native American reservation only for Pygmies; The government moved the people right outside the city in 2000 to try to accustom them to modern life and to begin education for the children. Apparently it did not go as planned. Instead of living in the brick houses built by the government the people built their own mud huts and have not joined the rest of Bujumbura society.

Here are some shots of us in the Batwa village, note the beautiful Congolese dresses Georgette helped us buy.

Meeting the children

Yes, she is an adult. Grandmother actually.

On the way to and from the Batwa village, we passed a garbage dump outside Bujumbura. It was next to a pond where the Batwa and some people living on the outskirts of Bujumbura fish and bathe. We saw people digging through the garbage, Flory said they were looking for bread crusts or anything they could eat. It seemed so common to Flory, but was another shock to the level of poverty we were seeing. He couldn’t believe this doesn’t happen in the US, or that people make good money disposing of the garbage.

Searching for anything usable.

Categories: Burundi 2008
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