I arrive in Brussels for my three-hour layover to learn my flight to Burundi is cancelled. As there are only two flights a week to Burundi from my current location (Sundays and Wednesdays), I wonder what’s next, but find out the plane is going the following day. I spend a gray and cold but fun day in Brussels with a French-Canadian doctor, also en route to Burundi, and we do Brusselian things like indulging in waffles (yes, plural), drinking Belgian beers (Barbar, the Warrior's Reward!), and scarfing down tasty and tender moules frites.
We fly all the next day and arrive in the capital, Bujumbura, at 8.15pm, enveloped in muggy rain as we make our way down the steps and across the tarmac to the tiny thatched-roof terminal building. My bags surprise me by being on the luggage carousel, and I easily find my party on exit. We drive to the guest house, which has no power - this is apparently common. So we drop my stuff and go out for a bite. The city is more developed than I expect, and we eat open air (of course - this joint doesn't have an indoors) in a nice hotel downtown.
As I climb down from the pickup truck, I am startled to see two men had been sitting on the back, in head-to-toe cammo - literally only their eyes were uncovered - carrying AKs. These are soldiers, provided by the government, who live in a galvanized steel box of a shack at the base of our site in the mountains. Their presence took me by surprise as I never saw them get on the truck - the cammo apparently works well. They will be with us on the dusty two hour drive up the mountain the following day as well, and on any other drive we take. No photos, as it's prohibited.
My fresh and generous salad of tomatoes, papaya, feta, and fresh basil is delicious, and I have a few minutes to FaceTime with my ecstatic parents. I will be longing for this in the next few days when I arrive at the operational site to discover how painful the connectivity is.
The luxurious hotel meal behind me, we go back to the guest house where we honk the horn to have 24-hour guards open the steel gate to the driveway. I go to sleep, enshrouded in my mosquito netting, maybe with some mosquitos safely in with me. After two solid hours of sleep, I'm wide awake. I hear footsteps outside, roosters crowing in the distance. A flash of light out the window startles me at 3am, and then I hear a soft rolling thunder way off. Two plus hours into insomnia, the Muslim call to prayer starts, just before 5am.
The next day, I realize I will have to become quickly inured to things like warm UHT milk, cold showers, and, what was lunch on Tuesday? Oh right, spaghetti and bananas. One of my favorites. But having this beautiful tropical fruit plate for breakfast ($1 !) (yes, the oranges are green) with a delicious coffee at a hotel on Lake Tanganyika, while watching a family of hippos frolic about makes it all just incidental. I am so happy to be here as I soak up the warm breeze chatting with new friends.
The luxurious hotel meal behind me, we go back to the guest house where we honk the horn to have 24-hour guards open the steel gate to the driveway. I go to sleep, enshrouded in my mosquito netting, maybe with some mosquitos safely in with me. After two solid hours of sleep, I'm wide awake. I hear footsteps outside, roosters crowing in the distance. A flash of light out the window startles me at 3am, and then I hear a soft rolling thunder way off. Two plus hours into insomnia, the Muslim call to prayer starts, just before 5am.
A chaotic drive through downtown is filled with sights like these young boys rearranging banana bundles as big as themselves precariously perched on the back of a speeding truck, pregnant women with babies strapped to their backs carrying huge loads in baskets on their heads along a busy roadway, people transporting things on bicycles that made my jaw drop. A two hour drive south along the lake, up the mountains is filled with such developing world wonders - more on this later.
Our final destination, the Village Health Works compound on a mountain-top called Kigutu, is breathtakingly beautiful. The Democratic Republic of the Congo sits across the serene Lake Tanganyika, like it's no big deal.
The mountains behind me are green and inviting, the sunset amazing, and as the dark seeps in, the lake begins to pop with tiny lights as the fishermen settle in for their evening catch. As my friend Cristina might say, whoa life. New York City is an entire world away.
Our final destination, the Village Health Works compound on a mountain-top called Kigutu, is breathtakingly beautiful. The Democratic Republic of the Congo sits across the serene Lake Tanganyika, like it's no big deal.
The mountains behind me are green and inviting, the sunset amazing, and as the dark seeps in, the lake begins to pop with tiny lights as the fishermen settle in for their evening catch. As my friend Cristina might say, whoa life. New York City is an entire world away.
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