This past weekend I went to Bujumbura, Burundi with Carey and Leigh, two of my friends/ colleagues. Leigh has a friend who lives there so we hopped on a bus on Friday and rode down there. The bus ride is incredibly windy on narrow roads, but it is also incredibly beautiful and even though I was car sick, I didnt want the ride to end. During the whole trip, I looked out the window at the small farms and hill terracing. Although I have said it many times, it continues to blow my mind how every square inch of land is utilized here. Despite the ingenious way of terracing the hills however, erosion is definitely present. Alongside the road, I could see the places where there have been mudslides. There are so few trees left on the hills that there is nothing keeping the soil in place other than the terracing. Kagame really needs to address the deforestation of the land, both for economic reasons (keeping national forests as tourist destinations) and for land management.
But I digress. After a few hours we got to the border crossing (apparently the fact that we were white really threw the Burundi border patrol for a loop. Our bus driver, Edmund, had to go into the office and demand our passports back. I really love that that was even possible. He just went into the office, no security, no check, just walked right in the door and said that they had held us up long enough, we were all nurses and we needed to be going thank-you-very-much). Once we had crossed the border, the difference between Rwanda and Burundi was quite stark. Although overall the quality of life is probably not too different, both countries are quite poor, Burundi was quite obviously dirtier and less organized. The roads were packed with people walking whereas in Rwanda there are usually sidewalks or something close to that and the hills, although cultivated, were not nearly as well organized and there was much more jungle and brush surrounding the farms. After another two hours or so, we came around a turn and there were suddenly no more hills. The hills sloped down to a large plain and in the distance there was a gorgeous blue lake. It still took us a while to get down to the bottom and into the town, but we were there!
Buj is very nice, more chaotic than Kigali but also smaller. So though it has lots of traffic and rule breaking and horn honking, it still manages to maintain a small town air. The first day, second, and third we went to the beach on the lake which has white sands and small trees sort of like palms and when you look across the water, in the distance you can see the green mountains of Congo ringed by clouds and mist. The beach hasnt really been developed yet so there arent too many people on it and no one hassling you to buy cloth or food or necklaces or whatever. People just leave you alone to sleep on the beach. When we got hungry we went to a small restaurant just down the beach that had a pool and pizza and tropical drinks with little umbrellas. That was pretty much our life for three days. All in all, a wonderful vacation.
