I’m sitting on my porch, with the chill midnight air sifting through the screen; a light is on; my roommates are sleeping; and I’ve just finished re-reading the 6th Harry Potter Installment. I’m back from Kigali and in Burundi for a few hours, before heading to Nairobi tomorrow morning to, among other work-related things like fundraising, schmoozing and ass kissing, pick up a copy of the seventh and final installment.
It seems fitting as I start my last year in Burundi and my mind wanders why. So here goes number five:
On the way to Kigali from Bujumbura, as the bus crept up, then coasted down steep hillside roads, curling around turns, past villages and coffee fields and farmers, I plowed on in my lecture (reading), pausing every other page to gaze at the hills passing by. My mind began to wander to the lives of the people walking along the road or the thoughts of the young girl sleeping, thumb in mouth, clinging to her mother’s shoulder across the aisle, a plastic squirt gun dangling, then dropping from her limp hand onto the floor below. I thought about Rwanda and Burundi and the misery that these hills have witnessed over the past fifty some years, miseries that, despite any amount of reading, I will most likely never understand… And I hope that that plastic water pistol the little girl’s brother has just sprayed in my face is the only gun he ever holds… that she and he NEVER have to witness the miseries that haunt their neighbors’, perhaps even their parents’, dreams.
Just as I’ve plunged into the book once more, my nose almost pinned to its crease to avoid the smell of milky vomit (the girl has just spit up a half gallon of Rwandan milk all over my backpack and right puma sneaker – luckily the squirt gun took care of most of it…), the bus stops, and we find ourselves in a roadside village for a pit stop. Children are staring, blind men are begging, sellers are selling, and hawks are circling overhead. 10 minutes and a packet of wet-ones later, we’re back on the road, cruising around corners on the downslopes before screeching to a halt behind gasoline trucks chugging up the upslopes. And on one particularly long blank stare out the window, I had a bit of déjà vu (to go with the déjà mangé – already eaten – on my shoe). Without sounding too retarded, for some reason or another I remembered the first time I’d read the sixth Harry Potter book. I was, of all places, on a bus heading from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC, taking time out of my busy life to reminisce about the past and my place in relation to it. And logically (or illogically), I found myself comparing here to there.
In fact, picking up the seventh book in a supermarket in Nairobi, and sitting down at the Hotel 680 downtown to devour it over the weekend, I was struck by how important continuity is, particularly when your capital city hopping and border crossing faster than you can say, “Tuesday, it must be Brussels.” So I took the time (after all, how can you ever have the time if you don’t?) to read Harry Potter and his magic wand (or whatever the hell the last book is called) cover to cover, with a few hours of sleep and a failed safari excursion in between – did you know you can’t go on a safari without a car? Yes, idiot, that’s so there’s something between you and that lioness on the other side of the road. But I digress.
So let’s talk about here and there, just because I clearly haven’t gotten there out of my system. Yes, let’s. I seem to have all of life’s great distractions here in Bujumbura – Freedom fries (except they call them frites for short), beer, internet, gmail, e-cards, Smallville, Scrubs, books, digital cameras and other useless gadgets, equipment, crazy people, kind people, even some friends, and people that think I’m insane. But they don’t have my family, 83 North on a cool Friday evening, Yuengling, the Georgetown waterfront, Ben’s Chili Bowl, Ben’s casserole (pasta salad, but it didn’t rhyme), FC Blimey, Pops’ steaks on the barby, and other fine things.
What the hell am I trying to say? I’m trying to say that sooner or later it all comes together. And while waiving some magic wand isn’t going to make a case of Yuengling appear out of thin air, digging a bit deeper, reflecting a bit harder may make connections appear where you least expect them. Or where I least expect them. Heck, it may even help me to realize why I’m here.
I’ve joined a soccer team, and while it’s no waterfront league in Anacostia, (blimey) it’s a great way to get in shape and get to know the people I work with (but never really get to talk to) in a less African // American setting. And Africans are rigoddamndiculously in shape. So this Saturday, I’ll again put on the exponential SPF, strap on my reebok cleats, and punish my body for two grueling 30 minute halves of Burundian-rules football. If you score a goal with your foot – no points; if you score a goal with your head, 2 points; if you hit the post, 1 point; if you hit the cross bar, 5 points. And IF you hit the cross bar with a header, you still get 5 points, but you get to hear everyone on both teams do that Burundian high pitched, yet subtle aaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy sound, which pretty much is the equivalent of ssssnnnnnnaaaapppppp, or deeeeaaaaaamn. You get the idea.
And I must say that, for a Mzungu, I’ve done ok: two matches under my belt and already a pair of headers and three post goals – that’s 7 points. And speaking of lucky 7, Tuesday was the 7th, I just finished the seventh Harry Potter book (yep, I’m now back in Burundi), and it’s 7 minutes past 7 o’clock… ok, no it’s seven after six, and you’re distracting me… and those aren’t the similarities I’m talking about, anyway.
I’m talking about sitting down for a beer in a bar with your new teammates for the first time, cracking jokes about playing hung over and being out of shape; having dinner with your roommate when you’re both stressed as hell about the job and life and other usual things; or leaving the office at 7pm for the seventh straight night. Here’s different than there, but it’s really not all that different. And when crossing a border, it’s good to pay tribute to what you’re crossing from, what you’re crossing to, and why… if for no other reason than to keep the road open between them. After all, you just might need to find your way back, or somebody may decide they want to follow you. And sooner or later, those two places come together, whether physically (seriously, peeps, you are ALL welcome in Bujumbura!!!! N E Time) or just in your own, wandering mind.
And sometimes the catalyst can be as neutral as Harry Potter or just that wandering mind.
Like, for example, when you let that mind wander and you happen to have an internet connection… sometimes that Australian former peacekeeper-singer-songwriter you met one day at your office in Washington, DC and struck up an acquaintance / shared a few Guiness’s with has a website. By chance, that song you have in your head that made such an impression is on the site in mp3. So you download it onto i-tunes (yep, there’s i-tunes in Africa… imported) and are listening to it in your office in Bujumbura. And suddenly you’re back in your 4th floor Dupont Circle conference room listening to this Australian guy named Iain Campbell share his songs, documentary and experiences as an unarmed peacekeeper in Bougainville and getting that feeling once more in the pit of your stomach. And just because (maybe just for the purposes of giving this blog entry even an ounce of coherence; or maybe just because you’ve taken the time to explore that feeling), that song about a rebel’s wife brings you back to that dangling squirt gun, makes you think about those Rwandan and Burundian hillsides and their miseries and maybe, just maybe, why you’ve crossed over for one more year.
But then the song’s over, I’m back in my second floor Bujumbura office, and I realize that that’s probably just a coincidence. All the same, it was a great opportunity to think about the why’s and the what’s and the where’s... and think about how, sooner or later, even some of these blog entries come together (in one way or another).
Or if that doesn’t pass your bull shit test, it’s at least an opportunity to download a few of those long lost songs… let’s say a cross-bar header and two post goals worth… aaaaaaaaay!
*Here, for your listening pleasure (and to prove that I at least didn’t make up the last full paragraph of this rant and to plug one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met) is the website where you can download some good songs: http://www.iaincampbellsmith.com/ (I recommend ‘When She Cries’, but the rest are fun as hell). And check him out in DC!
**Oh, and speaking of border crossings (and just for fun and because Jesse Turnbull requested pictures), here’s an un-PC HIV message from your local international health NGO to all those East African truckers (see photo): whatever border you happen to be crossing with Harry Potter, just make sure he covers his magic wand. (Photo taken at the border between Burundi and Rwanda).
It seems fitting as I start my last year in Burundi and my mind wanders why. So here goes number five:
On the way to Kigali from Bujumbura, as the bus crept up, then coasted down steep hillside roads, curling around turns, past villages and coffee fields and farmers, I plowed on in my lecture (reading), pausing every other page to gaze at the hills passing by. My mind began to wander to the lives of the people walking along the road or the thoughts of the young girl sleeping, thumb in mouth, clinging to her mother’s shoulder across the aisle, a plastic squirt gun dangling, then dropping from her limp hand onto the floor below. I thought about Rwanda and Burundi and the misery that these hills have witnessed over the past fifty some years, miseries that, despite any amount of reading, I will most likely never understand… And I hope that that plastic water pistol the little girl’s brother has just sprayed in my face is the only gun he ever holds… that she and he NEVER have to witness the miseries that haunt their neighbors’, perhaps even their parents’, dreams.
Just as I’ve plunged into the book once more, my nose almost pinned to its crease to avoid the smell of milky vomit (the girl has just spit up a half gallon of Rwandan milk all over my backpack and right puma sneaker – luckily the squirt gun took care of most of it…), the bus stops, and we find ourselves in a roadside village for a pit stop. Children are staring, blind men are begging, sellers are selling, and hawks are circling overhead. 10 minutes and a packet of wet-ones later, we’re back on the road, cruising around corners on the downslopes before screeching to a halt behind gasoline trucks chugging up the upslopes. And on one particularly long blank stare out the window, I had a bit of déjà vu (to go with the déjà mangé – already eaten – on my shoe). Without sounding too retarded, for some reason or another I remembered the first time I’d read the sixth Harry Potter book. I was, of all places, on a bus heading from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC, taking time out of my busy life to reminisce about the past and my place in relation to it. And logically (or illogically), I found myself comparing here to there.
In fact, picking up the seventh book in a supermarket in Nairobi, and sitting down at the Hotel 680 downtown to devour it over the weekend, I was struck by how important continuity is, particularly when your capital city hopping and border crossing faster than you can say, “Tuesday, it must be Brussels.” So I took the time (after all, how can you ever have the time if you don’t?) to read Harry Potter and his magic wand (or whatever the hell the last book is called) cover to cover, with a few hours of sleep and a failed safari excursion in between – did you know you can’t go on a safari without a car? Yes, idiot, that’s so there’s something between you and that lioness on the other side of the road. But I digress.
So let’s talk about here and there, just because I clearly haven’t gotten there out of my system. Yes, let’s. I seem to have all of life’s great distractions here in Bujumbura – Freedom fries (except they call them frites for short), beer, internet, gmail, e-cards, Smallville, Scrubs, books, digital cameras and other useless gadgets, equipment, crazy people, kind people, even some friends, and people that think I’m insane. But they don’t have my family, 83 North on a cool Friday evening, Yuengling, the Georgetown waterfront, Ben’s Chili Bowl, Ben’s casserole (pasta salad, but it didn’t rhyme), FC Blimey, Pops’ steaks on the barby, and other fine things.
What the hell am I trying to say? I’m trying to say that sooner or later it all comes together. And while waiving some magic wand isn’t going to make a case of Yuengling appear out of thin air, digging a bit deeper, reflecting a bit harder may make connections appear where you least expect them. Or where I least expect them. Heck, it may even help me to realize why I’m here.
I’ve joined a soccer team, and while it’s no waterfront league in Anacostia, (blimey) it’s a great way to get in shape and get to know the people I work with (but never really get to talk to) in a less African // American setting. And Africans are rigoddamndiculously in shape. So this Saturday, I’ll again put on the exponential SPF, strap on my reebok cleats, and punish my body for two grueling 30 minute halves of Burundian-rules football. If you score a goal with your foot – no points; if you score a goal with your head, 2 points; if you hit the post, 1 point; if you hit the cross bar, 5 points. And IF you hit the cross bar with a header, you still get 5 points, but you get to hear everyone on both teams do that Burundian high pitched, yet subtle aaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy sound, which pretty much is the equivalent of ssssnnnnnnaaaapppppp, or deeeeaaaaaamn. You get the idea.
And I must say that, for a Mzungu, I’ve done ok: two matches under my belt and already a pair of headers and three post goals – that’s 7 points. And speaking of lucky 7, Tuesday was the 7th, I just finished the seventh Harry Potter book (yep, I’m now back in Burundi), and it’s 7 minutes past 7 o’clock… ok, no it’s seven after six, and you’re distracting me… and those aren’t the similarities I’m talking about, anyway.
I’m talking about sitting down for a beer in a bar with your new teammates for the first time, cracking jokes about playing hung over and being out of shape; having dinner with your roommate when you’re both stressed as hell about the job and life and other usual things; or leaving the office at 7pm for the seventh straight night. Here’s different than there, but it’s really not all that different. And when crossing a border, it’s good to pay tribute to what you’re crossing from, what you’re crossing to, and why… if for no other reason than to keep the road open between them. After all, you just might need to find your way back, or somebody may decide they want to follow you. And sooner or later, those two places come together, whether physically (seriously, peeps, you are ALL welcome in Bujumbura!!!! N E Time) or just in your own, wandering mind.
And sometimes the catalyst can be as neutral as Harry Potter or just that wandering mind.
Like, for example, when you let that mind wander and you happen to have an internet connection… sometimes that Australian former peacekeeper-singer-songwriter you met one day at your office in Washington, DC and struck up an acquaintance / shared a few Guiness’s with has a website. By chance, that song you have in your head that made such an impression is on the site in mp3. So you download it onto i-tunes (yep, there’s i-tunes in Africa… imported) and are listening to it in your office in Bujumbura. And suddenly you’re back in your 4th floor Dupont Circle conference room listening to this Australian guy named Iain Campbell share his songs, documentary and experiences as an unarmed peacekeeper in Bougainville and getting that feeling once more in the pit of your stomach. And just because (maybe just for the purposes of giving this blog entry even an ounce of coherence; or maybe just because you’ve taken the time to explore that feeling), that song about a rebel’s wife brings you back to that dangling squirt gun, makes you think about those Rwandan and Burundian hillsides and their miseries and maybe, just maybe, why you’ve crossed over for one more year.
But then the song’s over, I’m back in my second floor Bujumbura office, and I realize that that’s probably just a coincidence. All the same, it was a great opportunity to think about the why’s and the what’s and the where’s... and think about how, sooner or later, even some of these blog entries come together (in one way or another).
Or if that doesn’t pass your bull shit test, it’s at least an opportunity to download a few of those long lost songs… let’s say a cross-bar header and two post goals worth… aaaaaaaaay!
*Here, for your listening pleasure (and to prove that I at least didn’t make up the last full paragraph of this rant and to plug one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met) is the website where you can download some good songs: http://www.iaincampbellsmith.com/ (I recommend ‘When She Cries’, but the rest are fun as hell). And check him out in DC!
**Oh, and speaking of border crossings (and just for fun and because Jesse Turnbull requested pictures), here’s an un-PC HIV message from your local international health NGO to all those East African truckers (see photo): whatever border you happen to be crossing with Harry Potter, just make sure he covers his magic wand. (Photo taken at the border between Burundi and Rwanda).
