Bujumbura

Burundi

I have had a pretty amazingly good for the soul couple of days here, though for some reason I have felt uneasy the entire time. Having Lars and Bethany in from San Diego has been amazing. I needed to hang out with familiar faces and speak English at my normal pace more than I realized. Conversations on social justice, spirituality, politics, culture, language, media, health care, civil rights, the human condition, food, lack of food, land, lack of land, development, lack of development, beer, love, friends, family, passions and the dispassionate was like cool water to my weary soul.

Last night we went out to "karaoke", as Lars well described it, a cover band that plays a lot of African music that everyone is stoked on and your occasional "La Bamba". There seemed to be little age barriers and it was refreshing to be in a place where everyone was just relaxed and having a good time. Didn't catch the name of the place, but was one of the two places to be for after wedding parties (I saw 7 weddings yesterday alone).

Today we will be avoiding the regular muzungu hangouts and finding a coffee shop somewhere to continue our debriefings on the past 6 months of our lives that can sometimes feel like years. Tomorrow I'll hop a bus back to Kigali, and providing I do not plummet off a cliff, will start moving back towards the DRC.

The work I have seen here is good work, the people good people and I like the Burundi vibe in general.

Kigali-Bujumbura

Burundi

Ten dollars gets you a 9 hour bus ride, which is good, seeing as I paid ninety flipping bucks for a Burundi visa at the embassy. Anther American on the bus got hers at the border for 40, so, who really knows. I just did not want to get all the way to the boarder only to find out I could not get one there, as they told me I could not at the embassy. Ah well, whatever. 

A handful of guys are at the border eager to ease your transition of countries with changing money, snacks and sim cards. Sim card is 1,000 Rwandan Francs (not 3,000 as some tried to sell to me) and airtime is about 1,000 for 12 minutes. They take Rwandan Francs at the border, but that is because they are worth twice as much as Burundian Francs and they still ask the same amount. I didn’t mind, as I didn’t need much.

Belvedere bus ride was clean and too fast; I thought we would plummet off the cliffs (already adorned with many many crosses) as our tires squealed turning downhill corners. I put my earphones in and concentrated on my breathing… for about 3 hours of the trip.

The scenery was beautiful, so different from Rwanda. Hilly and winding with pine tree forests that descended into banana plantations that descended into fields of vegetation too far down for me to distinguish. There is a stark difference in development levels the moment you cross the boarder. The roads are still quite nice all the way to Bujumbura, however, the housing, people, crops, and every other indicator speaks volumes to the socio-economic state of Burundi.

As a rule of thumb, I do not drink water when on road trips, however, there were pleasantly two bathroom stops and not too shabby at 100francs a pop.

Arriving at the station, I was met with a police who took my passport along with others on the bus and quickly went into a room, I could not follow him and it made me nervous. I was greeted by about 10 members of the organizations we partnered with while I was working in Hong Kong, they were all smiles and cameras and I felt very welcome. We all found the room my passport had piled into and got through customs, for the second time. I hopped into their car and we were off. Chatting on the way to Pacific Hotel, we talked about their work, how the container shipped from Hong Kong has helped their work and other things that I will not go into in this post. 

The hotel is nice, clean, quiet, has wireless a nice garden and about a 50% success rate with hot water showers. Service ranges from helpful to unsure if they noticed you talking to them and the food is decent. Lots of upper class African men talking down to the waiters, which I never like. So long as you specify you want your beer cold, you are in for a fine time!