Amos Lee: The people on the street, out on buses or on feet – we all got the same blood flow.

Amos Lee's wistful lyrics tell a story of a changing neighborhood, an evolution of life as time passes, as money changes people's circumstances.  He reflects "but sometimes, we forget what we got, who we are, who are are not."

We do forget what we've got, don't we.  Or maybe we remember too much - and get wrapped up in these things we've got, forgetting (ignoring?) that across the globe, we are an anomaly.  Yet we hold our belongings as a sense of pride, collecting more and taking inventory.  Which easily feeds into us forgetting who we are, and who we are not - trading our true identities for ones we've crafted and built with our stuff, and have then faked others into believing.  

I imagine what the lives of my colleagues - outside of our almost uncomfortably close work-life imbalance - might be like, and then start to have occasion to put the facts to the imaginings.  I have created these pictures in my mind of how people here have grown up, based on what I see around me.  I dare not ask where people buy their nice clothes - there is no Gap or Ben Sherman, but rather all I see are dilapidated market stalls, or roadside stations with clothing - sometimes new - in rice bags or laid out neatly on tarps, or young guys walking around the city carrying shoes or belts to sell to passersby.  I am surprised when our vehicle stops by a colleague's family home to pick him up before heading to Kigutu - he lives behind a giant wall with a guarded gated entrance in an exclusive neighborhood.  He was educated in France.  He speaks three languages fluently.  I am embarrassingly reminded of how important it is to me that people have the right image of me - the image I want them to have, that in some ways I've crafted - and this encounter, which scolds me about misperceptions I've created out of nothing, reminds me of how beyond my control that all is.  As I type this, I am silently wincing, wondering why it matters at all.

As I watch life roll along here, and hear the new and mysterious sounds, smell the vaguely familiar smells, and feel my reactions to the chaos, wonder, danger, and energy around me progressively shift, I am also struck by this reminder, this truth that we do all have the same blood flow.  Why do I feel that these people are so different from me?  Is it this image I've created of who I am, which differs so vastly from who I think they are?    

A day in the life of most Burundians does however tell the story that, while we do all have the same blood flow, the realities of our lives are, as a simple point of fact, vastly different.  It's a stark reminder of what we've got - and in some ways, who we are and who we are not.  And to me, in this context, "who we are not" is not a source of pride.  I see my inner accusatory finger scolding me, imploring me to remember that at the end of the day, we are all people -  a simple and undeniable (and beautiful) truth.

So without further ado, a small glimpse into a day in the life ...

The day starts with cooking breakfast:

cooking in our houses is done outside over open wood-burning embers,
as in most households and restaurants

a brisk walk

a refreshing shower.



Errands fill the to-do list:



Swing by Home Depot to pick up some building materials for the weekend's home improvement project ....


Also need to pick up some underwear


Stop by the shoe store to feed the guilty pleasure ...


Drop some alterations off at the tailor ....


Quick trim at the salon



Out of phone credits, so a quick stop at the payphone to check messages ....


Also need to grab a case of bottled water.


Pick up a friend at the taxi stand



Have a nice lunch together at an old local stand-by.


Pick up the kids from day care (need the double stroller)



Traffic jam on the way home!




Whoops forgot to refill phone credits - stop by the corner shop ...

Now rushing home for the new furniture delivery!



Landscapers are there cutting the grass.

grass being cut by hand with a machete - the typical method

Finally at the end of the day, a moment to rest ... sunset.


In the chorus of the song, Amos Lee implores us: "... we got a chance, to make it right. Keep it loose, keep it tight."  It's up to us to decide what's important and real, and what's simply our own fabrication for the sake of striving so determinedly for that American ideal of setting ourselves apart.  Can we not just embrace that we've all got the same blood flow?  This small realization makes me feel a sense of camaraderie with Leance who runs the shipping-container kiosk across the road from my Bujumbura home, and Pierre who washes my clothes, my dishes, and my bathroom. Even if I can't communicate much with them beyond greetings and gestures and smiles, at our core there is blood flow.  And it does all flow the same way.

ZZ Top: Have mercy, old bus be packed up tight.

When Dusty and Billy wrote this song, I have to wonder if they were recounting an experience in Africa.

Though probably not, because unlike the opening line to this song, you never have to wait all day for the bus.  They come by every few minutes in fact – hold out your hand, wherever you are along the way, and if there’s room, they’ll stop; and often even if there is not room.  They’re all packed.  And I mean packed.  They are not the city buses you are thinking of, but rather small vans, much like an airport shuttle, so everyone is seated.  In theory anyway.  The four rows all have a small collapsible (and debatably stable) seat at the end, so in transit, not an inch is wasted.  And I mean not an inch at any given moment.  Rows that seat four will often have five or six adults squeezed in.  Yet that doesn’t deter the drivers from stopping or the porters from taking on passengers – people are arranged to sit on strangers’ laps, the porter will often stand, hunched over, for long chunks of the journey, his rear end maybe hanging out of the slid-open window or hovering in someone’s face.  I spent a good half hour of one bus trip basically on my knees, shins digging into the hump behind the driver’s seat, fighting to keep a portion of one butt cheek on the torn and taped-up seat behind me, as the passengers on either side slowly inched me out.  Periodically throughout the trip, the porter watches my arm as he gently pokes it – I think he’s waiting for a bruise to form under my thin skin.  Towards the end of this ride, the porter, the guy on my left, and the guy behind Claire engage in a conversation peppered with uproarious laughter and the word mzungo over and again.  I’m slightly uncomfortable imagining the unsavory content of the conversation; Claire assuages this by imagining they’re telling the mzungo version of “your momma” jokes.

The drivers are mostly maniacal and are on the horn – hard! (no polite “toot toot”s) – more than they’re off it.  They will come up behind a bicycle (carrying, say, a bed, or a bundle of 10-foot poles) with unfathomable speed, and then lean on the horn.  The cyclist doesn’t flinch.  The chickens and goats scurry out of the way.  Everyone knows the drill.  Dust-covered small children sit along the roadsides, inches from the buses roaring past.  One driver pulled on his seatbelt as we approached a military check point (they do spot inspections and occasionally check papers), and promptly removes it once out of sign of the soldiers.  Before I left for Africa, I received countless exhortations of “be careful!”  I assume my family and friends meant from alligators and snakes, or terrorists and bandits, or forbidden trans-continental love.  I don’t suppose they were referring to the bus.  But as it turns out, riding the public bus is probably the most dangerous thing I do in Burundi. 

The roads are trashed – the smooth portions are a brief respite from the jostling and jerking that colors most of the ride. 

And colorful it is.  While stops are made on an as-needed basis at the wave of an arm, there are a few pre-determined stops at the small towns that dot the route.  At these stops, the buses are swarmed with women and boys peddling their goods, elbowing each other out of the way to get the windows – baskets of fruits and vegetables on heads (“Madame Madame!  Mandarina!  Mille francs!”), platters of banana-leaf encased cassava “bread,” bunches of onions, hard-cooked eggs (also stacked on heads), peanut packets, freshly grilled skewered “brochettes“ (kebab), bunches of miniature bananas. 

The sight of a mzungo on the bus will elicit particular enthusiasm; I imagine they envision a profit in their future.  I love the excitement of these roadside transactions (and the prospect of having some fresh produce at my disposal) – but make it fast … when the bus is ready to go, it goes, whether or not your hand is out the window in mid-exchange.  As the bus takes off, the porter is without fail still hanging out of the open door – he eventually piles inside and slides the door shut with an authoritative slam.  

There is of course no schedule – as soon as they’re full, they go.  The city buses operate from the area just outside of old market in downtown Bujumbura, which sadly has recently been rendered inoperable by a fire – arson is suspected.  We can take these buses back and forth between downtown and our house in Buj. The chaos is dizzying.  How anyone knows which bus goes where, I have no idea, but everyone seems to know. The buses are parked so close to each other, one has to almost turn sideways to pass between them.  A guy is walking around holding two live chickens upside down by the feet.  Somehow, my colleague Peter finds the bus that will take us to our street’s corner – it costs just under 20 cents.

Catching a bus between Kigutu and and Bujumbura is less confusing, but no less chaotic. The very second we step out of a cab or a VHW vehicle at the depots (which are just the gas station or street corner where buses once began convening and have done so ever since), we are surrounded by young guys anxious to outscream each other and win our business.  On a journey this week to Kigutu with a Burundian friend, there is a fierce negotiation as we arrive at the solicited vehicle to discover the only seats left are in the first row, next to the doors.  Arnaud tells me he is insisting that the porter not add three more passengers to the already-full front row, which is of course common practice; at each stop, Arnaud gives the porter the hairy eyeball, ensuring the promise is kept.  The guy next to me has a giant television on his lap. 

As a sidenote to my friends in New York, I am apparently not the last living person with a tube tv; I now know there are two of us.  When tv guy exits at a stop along the way, I slide over toward the door.  As the porter goes to close it, people in the back admonish him “don’t break the mzungo.”

Claire and me - risking it all in the front seat.

If you’re lucky (and enjoy danger), you score shotgun, which keeps you immune from the fight for butt space or the violation of the sanctity of your own lap.  On a recent journey, my friend Claire and I were hurriedly escorted from our VHW vehicle to the front seat of a bus headed for Bujumbura, as two passengers disembarked.  I figured we had gotten lucky, not noticing that these two passengers simply climbed in the back to continue their journey.  I later remember my friend Gerard having an intense conversation in Kirundi (they always seem to be intense) from the front of our VHW vehicle through the open rear doors, with the porter.  Sometime later, I twig on and ask him if he negotiated that front seat for me – of course, he says.  He didn’t think I’d be happy in the back, strangers climbing over me, huddled among the masses.  I never cease to be touched by the way my Burundian friends take care of me.  

Money is exchanged informally at some point (no one knows when) along the way.  A tap on the shoulder and a rubbing of fingers indicates it’s time.  Money is passed from the back of the bus from passenger to passenger to reach the porter.  The two-hour ride from upcountry (any place outside of the capital, whether north or south, is “upcountry”) to Bujumbura is 3000 BIF – less than $2.

The vehicles are all in unbelievable disrepair.  The sliding side doors and exterior luxuries like bumpers hang on by a thread, everything inside is filthy, dusty, cracked, torn, taped, peeling, uneven, inoperable (ahem, seatbelts), wobbly.   In contrast to the dilapidation is the names of these buses.  Bright metallic letters shine on windshields with proud names like Bless of God (sic), God is One, God is Power Full (sic), Only God, Fils de Dieu (son of God), God Love Me (sic), Chance of God.  Others have seemingly random names like “Doucement” (softly) and Old Secret – I’m sure they mean something profound to someone.  Many of course are in Kirundi or Swahili, and I do see the word “Imana” on several – Kirundi for God.  Some have hilarious juxtapositions, like “In God We Trust” on the front, and “Lakers” across the back.  My favorite so far is “Elvis.”  Even in Burundi he’s the king.

I sit with a South African on my flight to Johannesburg.  He has worked in Angola, Rwanda, and presently Uganda.  We discuss the buses – his face expresses horror as he eschews the idea of ever riding the public bus in such countries (his stories about the buses in Tanzania are so outrageous that I now think Burundi comparatively safe).  My South African friends in Bujumbura would agree – they wouldn’t get on the bus if you paid them.  Well, easy for them – they have cars.  But we do not.  So travel between Kigutu and Bujumbura, if schedules don’t coincide with a VHW trip, necessitates the bus.   And without fail, have mercy indeed – old bus be packed up tight!

Tim Gunn: Make It Work!

You may be a Project Runway fan.   Even if you are not, you may be familiar with the inimitable Tim Gunn’s catch phrase “make it work!”  He utters this when a designer has produced something so abysmal, it seems impossible.  He says it when there is nothing else to say.

But the word “impossible” is of course relative.  Our version of impossible is often just inconvenience.  Africans give a whole new meaning to “make it work.”  Their resourcefulness astounds me.  The scaffolding made out of trees,

the efficiency with which mothers strap babies to their backs and then walk along busy roads with giant baskets skillfully and solidly balanced on their heads, the unthinkable items carried on bicycles and on heads – all just absolutely foreign to our western conveniences.  

Yes, there's a wee baby on her back.  Not to mention her toddler.

As we drive between the capital, Bujumbura, and Kigutu in the mountains, we pass countless versions of this.  People riding bicycles carrying unwieldy building materials; some carrying the same on their heads.  A man on a bicycle with what looked like a small jungle on his back – apparently cow fodder (yes, that's on the back of bicycle).

Women walking with tiers of flats of eggs on her head.  Eggs!  In layers!  Ok, they’re hard boiled, but still.    

The one that blew me away the most was a man walking with an inverted table on his head.  Not a cocktail table or end table, but a dining table.  And two chairs were neatly tucked underneath where they belong.  A table and chairs!  I wanted so badly to stop for this one and take a photo, but alas the circumstances.  

The photos here don't begin to depict the outrageous fantasticness that I've seen these few weeks - I've held off on this post hoping for better photos, but we seem to be always on the go, so this is the best I've been able to get.

Mattresses, furniture, bags of feed, a family of four (four!) on a moto, the dad driving with a box in his lap, the mom in back holding things out to the side with both hands, all on a hilly, rocky, dusty, mountain pass that barely had room for them and us. 

Unfortunately taken just a hair too soon, this was a whole procession of kids carrying tables on their heads -
you can just see the last few of the parade.

The whole family working as a team to get the new chairs home.

There was a goat giveaway at Kigutu recently – recognition for co-ops that have done exceptional work.  At the end of the speeches, the goats were divided up among the co-op members in attendance.  I look around - there are no vehicles, everyone has arrived by foot.  I ask my colleague, Peter, how they will get their 20 goats home.  He’s wearing a polo shirt, pressed jeans, and nice leather shoes.  He looks at me with a tilt of the head (‘you simpleton’ I'm sure he's thinking), and says “just like this” with an over-the-shoulder gesture.  These goats will be carried by these women on their shoulders and on their backs to get home.  I'm in awe.  I then recall that I saw one guy riding a bike with two goats tied on the rattrap.  Two goats! 

That reminds me of the time I had all sorts of things to carry, had to get the upper west side on a rainy day, which meant three train transfers and muddy, soggy train platforms, requiring a change of shoes, which I had stashed in my bag.  No, wait – I just took a cab.

But it’s all they know, right?  We would get used to it too, if we had to do it, right?  Well, maybe we would and maybe we wouldn’t.  And just because it’s all they know doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.  What I take away from this is the juxtaposition between how we pity the developing world and their plight, countered against how we should be in awe of them – their resourcefulness, their strength, their resilience.  These people do things on a daily basis we never imagine doing.  Where do we get off pitying them?  They should pity us.  And in some ways, they probably do.

I'm the boss of you.

I reflect on this and think about the few make-it-work moments I've had myself.   I find that I learn things out of necessity … like, how to toast bread with bare hands over hot open coals and only burn myself a little, that Dove bar soap doubles as laundry detergent in a pinch, the best way to ease into an icy shower, how to eat a messy openface avocado-and-tomato sandwich without a napkin (as it turns out, they’re hard to come by), how to ensure there is toilet paper when there maybe wouldn’t be otherwise (it’s not really stealing if I leave a good tip, is it?), that sleeping inside mosquito netting with a roach (yes, a roach) all night won’t actually kill me (he was the goner in the end).  No, indeed I survived all these things, and I’m also pretty sure I’m now the boss of the roaches.

I look at this list and fancy myself pretty victorious.  Yet I recognize that against the backdrop of what is going on around me, outside these brick walls and metal gates, my victories are relatively ridiculous.  The real victories are those achieved daily by the strong and courageous people living in this mountainous and alternately dusty and muddy country, who have learned survival techniques far more dramatic than my pedestrian day-to-day coping strategies.  They are truly admirable in a way our western culture doesn't always recognize, but rather writes off as a necessary evil of the developing world.  While we can always call a friend, or call a cab, or call a 'service,' or go to the ATM, they have to find a way, when all else fails, to make it work.  And they do.

Tim Carberry: I really need to go to the gym more often. That reminds me, I need to quit the gym.

Trying to FaceTime with Tim

This actually came out of my dear friend Tim’s mouth one day in February – priceless.  We all cracked up but somehow, in his Tim way, he was serious. At the time, I had no idea how these words would visit me almost daily here in east Africa.

The gym – that western answer to our sedentary lifestyle.  Which gym?, we debate.  Should I splurge on Equinox or be reasonable with NYS?  Core or Passport membership?  But what about my yoga fix – which studio is best?  Maybe I should add a Crossfit series, or a bootcamp.  It’s nice out today – maybe I’ll run the East River, or over the Williamsburg Bridge.  Or take a bike ride up the west side and watch the sunset.  Or maybe I’ll just sit on the sofa and eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s while watching Nashville.   And settle into a cycle of self-loathing.  So many choices.

Here in Burundi, I long for such choices, and an opportunity for such self-loathing.  Getting exercise here has proven one of my biggest lifestyle challenges.  Now, let me preface this by admitting that if I could haul my hiney out of bed early in the mornings, things might go a little more smoothly.  But let’s face it, this is me, even in Africa.

The challenges are two-fold:  freedom and privacy.  These will be recurring themes in posts to come, but today they underlie the issue of exercise. 

Option 1:  Running.  I will open with, I hate running.  Hate.  When I’m home in NY, if I must run, I run at night.  After dark.  When I can be anonymous, invisible.  And the dark is just an added comfort, because let’s call a spade a spade here – no one in NYC is looking anyway.  Which is good for me, because I’m the world’s dorkiest, slowest, loserest runner ever, period. 

If you’ve been following, you know that anonymity is not an option for me here.  Whether in Kigutu or in Bujumbura, running involves going outside the gate.  Where I am a spectacle.  In reading my posts, you may think I exaggerate this whole mzungo thing for dramatic effect (I would think that as a reader), but the reality is, it is exactly as I describe.  I asked a Burundian colleague recently why we are stared at so diligently – he thinks, then guesses: “Maybe it’s their only opportunity to see one?”

As an aside, some colleagues here recently told me that when they were little, they thought white people got hurt very easily – like, if someone simply touched us, we would develop a huge bruise or worse.  Thin skin, they thought.  I love this.

So, running has obvious drawbacks.  The earlier I go, the more anonymous I could be, but that’s entirely relative; there are always people out – lots of people.  And I refer you back to my earlier comment about getting up early.  Ahem.

Our rocky, dusty, diveted road in Bujumbura.

As well, I can only go so far once I leave the gate – I can’t just wander off, there are limits.  And in Bujumbura, the terrain on our neighborhood roads is comprised of rocks lodged into hardened mud, rich with grooves and divets - a less than ideal running surface.

But maybe there are ways around this, I think.  At Kigutu, I decide I’ll run up to the water tower and back down and do this a few times.  This is inside the compound, and no one is really back there.  Perfect.  But it’s muddy and slippery and I lose my footing more than once.  As I envision an imminent muddy faceplant, I decide this has the potential to really ratchet up my dork factor, and maybe also cause injury, so I consider a plan B.  At the top of the hill, there is some grass in front of the water tower, in a bit of a clearing.  Sprints, I decide!  I’ll run back and forth, like in lacrosse practice.  When I was 17.  Awesome.  Only, it’s just as muddy and slippery at the top.  I manage to keep steady – for three lengths.  On the fourth, I wipe out.  Hard.  Picture sliding into home base.  Only not like that at all.  So I’m now muddy, wet, and it sort of hurts.  I casually pop up and look around, evoking Danny Zuko trying to keep cool after a digger at track tryouts.  I think I’m alone, so I’m just going to go with that.  I calmly gimp down the hill, and go shower, defeated.   The large bruise on my hip kindly waits a day to form.  Thin skin.   

Option 2:  Yoga.  Certainly I can figure out how to do some sweaty yoga; this will cure my need for a fitness fix.  I find a website, download some routines (no easy task with our bandwidth), and have a plan.  My first go, I happen to be up early enough to hitch on with Claire.  We are in Bujumbura this day, and our house has a lovely large tiled porch with tables and loungey furniture – this area is in fact our workspace when we are working here in town.   But this early morning, we push some of the furniture out of the way, and set up her computer with a video.  Now we are swinging our arms, squatting and twisting, and holding warriors in the middle of our housemates’ morning activities (VHW workers are early birds), as they step over us, scooch around us, and generally wonder what this is all about.  One thinks we’re both on the floor looking at him in the kitchen during our closing twists on the mat; he begins to approach to ask what we need.  Awkward.

Another attempt was sunset yoga up in Kigutu – the sunsets are beautiful over the DR Congo, so I am pleased with this plan.  I find a corner of the porch that acts as the triage area for the clinic, but is now quiet in the late afternoon; I tuck in, inconspicuous.  I start my routine.  Halfway through, in mid Warrior II, I notice a group of ladies and their small children, en route up the path from the garden, who have stopped and are staring, transfixed, at the mzungo flailing her arms and intermittently standing like an ill-formed statue.  What on earth is she doing.  They remain a long time; I am astounded by their stamina.  They eventually tire of this and move on.  In the meantime, various flocks of my modest Burundian colleagues are walking back and forth behind me, as my down-dog and happy baby greet them emphatically.  Again, awkward. 

The triage porch.

A third attempt – again with Claire before breakfast on the aforementioned triage porch – finales with one of the maintenance staff mopping around us.  Any closer and my mat could have doubled as a slip-n-slide.  This is not quite working for me.

I seek out a little spot up on the site of a new construction project – beautiful view, and only within eyeshot of the kitchen staff.  I’ll let them laugh at me, I like them.  But it’s covered in cement dust and really just unmanageable.  Fail.  My friend Arnaud suggests a patch of grass past a small tree outside the dining area of our residence.  I’ll have to do this other than at mealtimes, so I choose sunset again.  But it’s not really flat, so the balance poses are hardly balanced.  I fall over.  A lot.  I’m sure there is an audience somewhere.   

The neighborhood pool, as seen from our balcony

Eventually I’ll find my groove (just in time to come home?).  But I'm acutely aware of how something that is mindless and effortless at home has proven to be a daily challenge here.  The occasional lap swim at the public pool near our Bujumbura house, or a brave and determined power walk through the neighborhood - well before dark - peppered with cautious greetings to every single person I pass, especially the giggling children (in my flip flops, btw, as my Asics, while now very clean, were also very wet after our house guy took the initiative to wash them) – these will have to suffice as supplements for yoga, which is now resigned to the embarrassment of spectators as my eagle doesn’t flow so smoothly into Warrior III, or as my side crow ends with my cheek meeting the ground rather suddenly.  

All this is coupled with the fact that the whole premise of exercise feels very strange here.  Many here have to walk miles, up or down hilly roads or paths, with large loads on their heads, to reach their homes or marketplaces or hospitals or churches or water.  Many can't afford any type of transportation so they are left with no choice.  I've seen people sweating and huffing while pushing heavily-loaded bicycles up steep hills.  People carrying furniture on their heads.  Tiny children helping their parents with the head-top load.  You don't see many overweight Burundians - their modest diet combined with the fact that daily exercise is a necessity keeps them not worrying about their physiques.  That said, there are running groups, so I suppose in Bujumbura it's not such a foreign prospect, but in Kigutu, it just feels indulgent, when the same people watching me exercise, later see me pile into the VHW vehicle on Fridays to head down mountain to Buj.  A strange contrast that makes me slightly uneasy.  But all that as it is, I still need to exercise.  

I’ve shared that living here has forced me to become quickly inured to many things – cold showers, bugs everywhere, constant bad belly, to name just a few.  So I add one more to the list ... embracing my epic proportion dork factor in front of an ever-present audience of people who are equally perplexed by mzungos as by their strange exercise practices.  This is just a fact of life here.  So I resolve to channel my inner African ... and grow a thicker skin.