A city rebuilding from war - Bujumbura.
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
21
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Bujumbura,
Burundi
Saturday, April 14, 2007
The bus journey from Butare to Bujumbura was of the African variety - it should have taken four hours, but somehow or other managed to take ten. For starters, the minibus upon which I had reserved a place was full when it arrived, so I had to wait another hour for a government bus to arrive. Luckily I got the last seat on that, a fairly cramped one, but still a seat. The bus crawled at a slow pace over the Rwandan hills, until about an hour later we reached the border. All the bus's passengers fought to get at the top of the immigration queue, and there was plenty of queue-skipping going on. I had been well schooled in how to deal with this in India, and managed to wriggle my way back into the position I had originally deservedly held. A big Portuguese man who was on the bus with us did not, however, deal with these problems by joining in
Street scene 1
. He angrily barked at anyone who tried to skip, and miraculously put such a fear in the passengers that by the end an orderly, European-style queue had been formed.The moneychangers were the usual pressuring bunch, shoving money and calculators into my face, but I have gotten used to them by now. The best tactic is to just raise your voice with them until they stop shouting at you, then ask them to calm down, laugh, and they will laugh, and calm down. Then, pick one, and do business with him. I have actually come to quite enjoy the whole process. The Burundian immigration was quick and painless, apart from having to fill in an elaborate form asking me to specify things such as a "sponsor", and what animals, seeds, plants and minerals I had with me.
The journey from the border to Bujumbura was particularly beautiful, if very, very slow. The hills of Rwanda became mountains in Burundi, often uncultivated, covered in forest (thank God), and wild. The people looked very, very poor, and whenever we had to stop they peered curiously in the windows of the bus at the mzungus on board. Burundi has just come out of civil war, which started in 1993, and ended (technically, at least) with the signing of the Arusha Peace accords in December 2002. However, fighting continued until a ceasefire was signed last September (2006)
Street scene 2
. There are still rebel activities throughout the country, and for this reason not many tourists have visited the place. Thus, the locals are quite unused to seeing white people, and so we were quite the novelty. We had great fun waving at children on the roadside, and then sticking out our tongues at them, which they seemed to find to be the funniest thing in the world.The journey finally drew to a close with a final half-hour descent into the flat plains of Lake Tanganyika, beside which lay the city of Bujumbura. The city itself is very run down and underdeveloped, more so than any city I have seen in Africa. Its potholed, muddy streets reminded me a lot of Yangon, Myanmar. When walking around one had to keep one's eyes on the street ahead, or else you could end up falling into a hole, or walking in filthy muddy water.
On the bus I met a group of five other travelers. They were the Portuguese man, two Danish girls, two mad Israelis, and Brian, from Portmarnock, Dublin. It was nice to travel with such a big gang, they were all very friendly, and I immediately fell well into their group dynamic of banter and slagging. When we got out of the bus a big crowd encircled us, mainly of young men and boys, staring curiously at us. In the few minutes it took us to get off the bus and find taxis, two of the lads noticed that their small bags had been opened, and one of the Danish girls felt a hand slip into her pocket. When we did get into our taxi it was completely surrounded by people, looking in the windows at us, who followed us as it pulled off. A very strange experience - even in India I haven't felt to be so alien to local eyes.
We found the cheapest hotel we could, about $8 a night. Most hotels here start at about $20, because of the UN/NGO workers that have flocked here during and since the war. No doubt hotel prices are not the only thing that have seen rampant inflation since then, making life more expensive and difficult for ordinary Burundians in many cases. While out and about in town the following day I noticed many, many big UN-marked white 4x4s. I decided to carry out a quick statistical analysis of what percentage of cars in the city were those of the UN. Of a sample of thirty cars, eleven were UN ones. All big expensive 4x4s. I couldn't help but wonder why they couldn't use a few normal cars for those who would only need them for driving around the city - the $20,000 or so saved in each case could probably be put to better use.
The group of travelers I found myself with had met people in Rwanda who had given them a contact in Bujumbura, Laurent, a barman at Club Havana. We went out that night to try and find him, with success. He turned out to be a lovely guy, friendly and welcoming. Unfortunately he worked in the VIP bar of the club, so it was very expensive to drink there, but he ended up insisting on giving us plenty of free drinks, so it all balanced out. We also went there the following night, and this time he got us free entrance into the adjoined nightclub. Unfortunately, that night we didn't have the company of the two Danish girls, so as a large group of white men we were a prime target for the many prostitutes in the club. They flocked around us, rubbing and caressing, and were particularly persistent. I talked with one for a while, a Congolese girl, who had come here in hope of riches. She told me that in this club they have a door policy where anyone (female) who is considered to be too fat, or ugly, is turned away. You'll all be glad to hear that I returned to my bed alone that night.
The following day I went to the port to make enquiries about getting a boat to Kigoma, in Tanzania, my next stop. I was told that passenger ships no longer make this journey (something I already knew), and I asked if I could get a lift on a cargo ship. I was told, unfortunately, that large cargo ships no longer make the trip either, as they have been attacked by pirates who operate on the lake too often. I enquired about the smaller ships, and was told that I could get one, but that they, too, can be attacked by pirates (especially if a mzungu is seen to be on board), and also have a record of sinking fairly frequently. The final nail in the coffin was hearing that there would be no boats leaving until next Monday, the day I had to arrive in Kigoma. So, disappointed, I resigned myself to taking the bus.
I spent the rest of the afternoon talking with the harbourmaster, a charming, talkative, well educated fellow, with a degree in electrical engineering. He told me about his responsibilities in the port, and of how he had left Burundi in 1993, the year the war began, only to return to "a completely different country" seven years later. He described, in great detail, his business plan of mechanically separating bio-diesel from palm oil. He said that, given the right contacts in the Congo, he could purchase palm oil, in bulk, at $0.30 per litre. The separation machine would cost something in the region of $60,000, and that with this apparatus he could produce bio-diesel at a gross cost of $0.60 to $0.90 per litre. Each litre of this could then be sold on at $1.20, making him a tidy profit. He reckoned that two men operating such a machine for six hours a day could earn something in the region of $2,000 per day. He even asked if I was interested in working as a supervisor for him, and taking care of the Congolese side of the business. He said he wanted a white man to work as a manager for him, as he felt he could trust them to make sure the work gets done, a worryingly racist sentiment (he was African himself).
We had heavy rain for the few days I spent in Bujumbura, so it wasn't possible to do much except wander around in between showers, exploring a little. The town is fairly bustling, with a lively market in the centre. Apart from the very central main streets, paved roads are rare, and where paved they are so potholed that it would be better if they weren't. The rains made the dirty streets muddy and smelly. There are many beggars, often children of no more than three or four years old. I have noticed a distinct correlation between the number of beggars in African towns and cities with the number of aid workers there. The more "help" people are given, the more people you find who become completely dependent on handouts. I have heard horrible stories about children being forced into professional begging - for example: a child who breaks his leg often has it deliberately cast into a deformed position, so that it heals that way, making them a pitiful sight and hence a successful beggar.
Bujumbara, according to my guidebook, is a very dangerous city, and one should never walk alone at night, and take taxis for even the shortest of distances. On my first night there I had a very scary walk in twilight, only for about two hundred metres, not knowing if anything would happen to me. Nothing happened, but when one reads such things one can become paranoid. After talking to a few locals, however, I soon learned that such security concerns were no longer to be worried about. Frequent police patrols around the city keep "les petits bandits" at bay. So, as always, I chose to follow local advice over the mothering Lonely Planet cautions, and walked the streets at night, and never, ever had a problem.
The biggest annoyance in Bujumbura is mosquitoes. It's at a much lower altitude than I have been since Ethiopia (I believe), so very hot, and the combination of the rains and the nearby lake make it a great environment for mosquitoes. Before coming to Africa I was convinced that mosquitoes just didn't bite me, as I had rarely every gotten bitten no matter where I was. African mosquitoes, however, seem to be less fussy about where they feed, so I've had to start taking the precautions of using bug spray and a net at night. My room in the hotel was pretty useless at keeping them outside, and I spent half an hour each night trying to kill those that got in. They are extremely cunning little fellows, though, and will hide as soon as they suspect they are being hunted. One night I knew there was one inside my net, and spent twenty minutes shaking the bedclothes, trying to find him, but to no avail. I eventually gave up, convinced he had left. I was wrong, of course, and woke up with the bites to prove it. One evening, at dinner, I managed to get bitten twenty times on my torso and back - they must have either bitten through my t-shirt, or somehow have flown inside it. Catching malaria is quite a concern here; I have met three separate backpackers who have caught it, despite taking their prophylactics regularly.
I spoke once to two ladies about Burundi, its war, and future. They told me that although you don't hear about it from the country's self-censored press, they reckon that at least a hundred people die each day in the country from rebel killings. They are hopeful, however, for the future of the country. The fighting of the past few years has lost its focus as being a conflict of a tribal, or political nature, but instead it has become about people trying to get money, and power. Deplorable as this is, it seems to offer hope that people are tired of the old Hutu-Tutsi problems, and want to make peace. There will always be men who will try to profit from political instability - once things stabilize these elements can surely be taken care of. One interesting thing they told me that I hadn't heard before was that in 1993 the government had attempted to separate the country into Hutu and Tutsi neighbourhoods. People were forced to resettle according to their tribe, and those who ventured into the wrong areas would be killed. The ladies told me that this was unsuccessful as a project, and was abandoned a few years later. Most neighbourhoods now contain a mix of both tribes.
I asked the women about what they thought of the UN's presence in their country. They looked at each other, but did not say much. I asked again, telling them to speak from the heart. Both said that they strongly dislike the UN, and that it is a commonly held sentiment in the country. Although there were many UN military forces present all over the country during the last few years of the war, they only observed, and talked, and never intervened to stop the massacres that were taking place on almost a daily basis. They also resent the amount of money the UN seems to have, with their luxurious cars and houses, and they say that the cost of living in Bujumbura has risen dramatically since their arrival. In short, they said that their presence here has amounted to a whole load of nothing. The more I see and hear about the UN's presence in Africa the more I grow to dislike this group of organizations.
