I had stayed up late, finishing some work and packing for
our trip to Burundi. The house was quiet when I moved into the living room to
sift through the laundry basket for clothes. My dog Mowgli followed, never more
than a few feet away. Out of nowhere I hear Lydia’s muffled yelling outside on
the porch.
“What are you doing
here? You don’t live here!” For a moment I think maybe she has a guest, or
one of the kids that follows us on the road found their way into our house.
When I approach the porch and unlock the door, Lydia motions for me to come
outside. There’s a man here.
He’s short and unalarmed, and definitely on something. He’s
wearing Hawaiian swim shorts and a Bob Marley T-shirt, leaning up against the
shoe rack like he lives here. He’s taken off his shoes and is holding them in
his left hand. Why the hell did he take off his shoes?
We both start yelling. Mowgli sees him and goes nuts,
barking and growling and planting herself between him and us.
What the fuck are you
doing in our house?
I come visit you, he
says.
No. No. You are not
visiting us. How did you get in?
I jump.
We have a pretty steep wall and tall metal gate that
surrounds our 6-bedroom house. Around the back, the porch serves as our living
room, and is also where Lydia’s bedroom door leads onto. Apparently the man
jumped the cement wall, walked around to the back and literally knocked on
Lydia’s door. At least he's polite.
At this point Carolien and Johanne have woken up, and we’re
all standing there staring at him, yelling “oya” which means “no” while Mowgli
barks incessantly. Rather than let him go or lead him outside, we decide to
find some of the other guards on the road to help us – so Carolien and Lydia go
to find help and Johanne and I stay there to watch him.
We stand there, apparently having become guards of this man.
Several times he tries to have a staring contest with one of us. Oh, it’s on. But eventually he gives up
and averts his eyes downwards. Every so often he shuffles his feet and moves an
inch or so, and we both yell “HEY!” in tandem, mowgli barks again, and he
quickly moves back.
Fucking idiot.
Mowgli’s guard dog trigger word is “hello?” I realized it
one day when I was alone in the house and walked around looking to see if
anyone was there. I’d shout “hello?” and she’d follow with “woof?”, “hello?”
“-woof?”, until she looks up at me quizzically like “I don’t know if anyone’s
here Kels.” Ever since then, every time I say it, she jumps to her feet and
looks around.
So every time the guy starts to look comfortable I say “Mowgli,
hello? Hello? Hello?” and she jumps to her feet and resumes the scary guard dog
position. Rwandans are terrified of dogs, and this man is no exception. He’s so
scared he’s shaking, and I know I’m taunting him but I don’t care. I’m sure
he’s regretting his decision.
If he runs I decide I’m running after him. I imagine myself,
mowgli and johanne chasing him around the side of the house and pulling him
down by his stupid Hawaiian shorts.
Lydia and Carolien end up finding several guards on the
street who come inside. The guard, who is employed by a serious security
company and is carrying a stick, walks in casually. Not ever to be impolite like
any Rwandan, the guard looks at the man and greets him. “Good evening” he says,
“how is the night? How are you?” They exchange pleasantries, which I’m sure
includes “so are you a thief?” and after some time the guard turns to us and
says, “yes, he is a thief.”
Six more guards come into our house, and each of them dances
and prances around Mowgli, terrified. They sit around chatting for some time
about what to do with him. He says we invited him in. He says he came to visit.
After much too long they take him away, and give us
instructions to go to the police station the next day. Finally we get to go
back inside and replay the whole thing amongst ourselves, giggling and shaking
our heads at the strangeness of it all.
He was harmless. I also don’t think he anticipated 4 angry,
completely unafraid muzungus and a dog. He jumped over the wrong gate, we
laugh.
We decide not to press charges, so they say they’re going to
send him to a “re-education” program. That’s Rwandan for “beat the shit out of
him.”
...................................................................................................................................................................
At 6:30am we head to the bus station for Johanne’s last
weekend trip to Bujumbura, Burundi. She’s moving back to Denmark and we’re all
dreading it. She’s been living in Rwanda for a year and bouncing back and forth
from Tanzania for 2 ½, and says maybe it’s time to go home. Maybe it would be good to actually settle
and not constantly have one foot out the door. It would be nice to not always
be counting pennies for plane tickets back to Africa.
We understand.
Originally one country, Rwanda and Burundi were built on the
same ethnic structure, and the same divisions and hierarchies set in line with
colonialist agendas. Ethnic tensions exacerbated by the instability in Rwanda
led to uprisings in the 70’s. The then tutsi government responded to violence by staging a genocide against over 200,000 hutus. When they tried
to make a multi-party government in the 90’s, a civil war began, this time with
mass killings of tutsis. Decades of instability, war and ethnic violence
followed, quietly unobserved in the shadow of Rwanda’s genocide and the world’s
indifference. The Hutu government maintained its stronghold, and the war
continued until 2007.
What was left behind is a tiny, landlocked country that
nobody has ever heard of. The 4th poorest country in the world, the
only foreign investment in Burundi has come as a result of the UN mission and
the increasing presence of UN staff. Now, several beautiful and outrageously
expensive hotels dot the country’s beautiful Lake Tanganyika.
Our hotel is on the lake, which looks remarkably like the ocean.
We have our own bungalow that’s two stories high. We’re the only guests, so we
eat and head out for drinks at a fancier, livelier spot. The fancy spot ends up
being too fancy, and we all quickly run out of money. We don’t stay out late
and instead retreat back to our bungalow for sleep. Just as I’m settling into
bed with my new book about 3 UN workers living in conflict zones, I spot
something crawling out of my pillow. It’s a scorpion.
Michelle and I jump to our feet and manage to catch it
between a flip flop and a sunglass case. Michelle hits it dead five or six
times, until its scorpion tail is detached from its scorpion body. It takes me
a while to fall asleep after that. Through the night, I dream of bugs and
animals crawling over me.
On Saturday, we wander into town in search of bottled water
and bus tickets. We pass the UN compound, which is huge and covered in layers
of barbed wire. Watch towers on every corner have armed men peeking out from
inside. At one of the entrance
gates, I notice a hand painted sign with a grenade, machete and AK47 with a red
X over it.
The city of Bujumbura is pretty bare, and we stand out more
than usual. We accidentally cause a scene when our taxi driver tries to charge
us 10,000 instead of 2,000 francs, or “dix” instead of “deux.” A crowd of
literally 40 people surrounds us, yelling in languages we don’t understand.
There’s no way in hell we’re paying that muzungu price. The people who’ve
become involved tell us 6,000 is a fair price, so we try to give it to the
driver but he throws it back in our faces. Too many people are involved now but
there’s nothing we can do. Throughout the chaos an old man keeps trying to sell
me pink flowers. No flowers, please. No
seriously, I don’t want any flowers.
Half way on our walk to the police station another bus
driver convinces the guy that we’ve given him a fair price, and he gives up. When
we’re walking away one of the men who became involved looks at me and says, “I am protector.” “Oui,” I say, giving him a thumbs up. Merci.
It’s always cute to see how so many people immediately jump
to our aid.
After that, we head to Bora Bora
- a beach restaurant that looks entirely out of place in Burundi. The turqouise
pool sits on a white washed deck, adorned with white washed beach chairs and
blue cushions. On the golden sand, pink mattresses sit beneath cotton sheets
that make the perfect amount of shade. It’s all very nautical and
contradicting. We spend the day eating and drinking and swimming in the lake. There
are so many natural minerals in the sand that my feet literally sparkle.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Back in Rwanda, the following week is standard. There’s
partner meetings about the widows project, and I sit for 6 hours repeatedly
asking “What? What did they say?” until my colleague remembers to translate. I
doodle on my notes…
75 groups
are currently undergoing entrepreneurship training.
They’ve
documented 93 legal cases related to land and property.
They’ve
helped 39 families to get back their property
10 groups
received loans from the bank
Supported Foundation Rwanda students by distributing school materials
At the end of the week, it’s time for Johanne to leave. We drink gin and tonics, eat banana bread and watch the sun go down on our porch until it's time to take her to the airport. “Go and have a normal life” I say, hugging her goodbye. We smile, knowing it’s too late for me.
Normal is a long way away.
