V 1 N. 20 An Embassy Adventure in Burundi

 

 

 

The following piece was written about 2007 during one of my regular trips into East and Central Africa to train community mediators.  I would travel for six weeks from country to country teaching seminars organized by the local Quaker community through their organization the African Great Lakes Initiative.  At one point in Burundi I had to go to the American embassy to get some pages added to my passport for several new visas I needed.  Then I went across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The folowing are two little adventures along the way.  A third brief story is on buying eye glasses in Burundi.

An Embassy Adventure in Burundi and Crossing the Border into the  Not So Democratic Republic of the Congo

by George Brose

 

Final bits and pieces of things I did and saw but didn’t fit into my earlier letters.  It went extremely fast and even more so when I realize that today is Wednesday and on Monday I’ll be back in my office in Springfield, Ohio wearing a necktie after 6 weeks of liberation from that western  curse.  We are allowed to dress down at work on Friday’s and I have some flashy African shirts to hang on me then.  I’m ready to come home.  Not sure I’ll be needed out here again next year which is a good thing, because I feel that there are enough local trainers who can do the job now.  There will still be a need for funding further training but not a great need for ‘foreign experts’.   Where shall I go next year?  Will Zimbabwe be ready for an aging mediator?  The African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) does not have any contacts down there.

 

 

 

Inside the American Embassy in Bujumbura. 

 

I managed to get through three layers of security and into the consular section of the embassy on a Tuesday.  You only get a shot at it on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  Once they had me in there, I knew  there was no getting out until they said I could. Hoped I wouldn’t have to wait in there until Thursday.  All the way inside, not a single American made personal contact with me except maybe  indirectly on a TV monitor that could identify me by some secret electronic device.  The first ring of guards were Burundian, and well armed I might add.  The next outside ring of protection was also manned by Burundians, and the third ring inside the first door was still covered by Burundians.  I guess that way if any malcontent Burundians decided to storm the embassy and got themselves killed, it could only be blamed on Burundians killing their own, which they are very experienced at doing.  American staff could  then walk away uncriticized.  “Hey we didn’t know what those guys were capable of.  Blackwater said they did the background checks.”   If anyone from the NSA is reading this, please note that I have not fully described the rings to give away any of my country’s secrets other than the Tuesday/Thursday schedule.  All other days of the week, check the golf course or the beaches for consular officers.

 

Finally got to a thick plate glass window where I was able to speak to a pleasant British woman with a lovely accent.  Wait a minute, didn’t we liberate ourselves from y’all?  Spared me having to deal with a New Jersey screech and a diplomatic attitude.   I sifted through the reading material on the coffee table in the lounge.  Nieman Marcus catalogue, latest speech from the president of Ghana, and an agriculture journal specializing in bull semen this month.  Homing instincts led me to the Nieman Marcus catalogue hoping for some sexy ads.  Alas all the models look like androids on crystal meth.

 

Meanwhile a lot of people who knew the magic code, had a micro chip embedded in their forehead,  or were recognized by an invisible guard at security ring number four could walk through a prison strength door and into  the waiting lounge and on outside.  Obviously a military operation of some sort was in progress, because four people in  uniforms  two  navy(one of the female persuasion), one airforce and the fourth army came out all revved up like they were going somewhere important.  There was a big black SUV outside with a diplomatic flag on the fender, the ambassador?  I have no idea who the ambassador might be woman or man.  In a small country like Burundi,  it could have been one of those androidian models from Nieman Marcus.  Discussions were going on about who would ride shotgun.  Then talk about where they were going.  Sounded like it was two blocks away.  Should I be worried?   Was there an imminent threat from Al Queda?   I had just walked those two blocks alone and unarmed, holy shit!

 

Finally I launched an icebreaker.  “What did you guys screw up to get stationed here?”  That got me a lot of cold stares.  Careers obviously were on the line.   Only later did I realize I could have gotten a hot lead enema from these guys and gal.

 

 

Chinese Army on Bad Road to Nowhere

 

Between the Burundi capital of Bujumbura and Uvira, the first big city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo lies sixteen miles of roadway, two border checkpoints, several MONUC (United Nations Military) fortresses, manned by Pakistani troops, smugglers disguised as taxi drivers and three wheeled bicycles manned by polio victims also in the smuggling game.  On the Burundi side of the border a small town of Gatunda lies alongside  beach resorts for the diplomatic corps and aid worker communities. On the Burundi side the road is paved and there appears to be some infrastructure.  Once you enter into the DRC, all bets are off.  Patrols of MONUC, run up and down the rutted and pock marked dirt and gravel road.  Did an artillery barrage do this or forty years of non maintenance?  The Pakistani’s I assume are counting their worry beads, glad they aren’t running up and down the Swat Valley looking for terrorists.  Somewhere out of all this confusion and mayhem, a small team of Chinese UN soldiers is working a mechanical shovel trying to repair the road, but making a bigger mess of it.  When my overheating taxi gets up to the repair crew, the shovel has half the road blocked by its presence and the other half blocked by its digging.  The operator appears to be getting on the job training (OJT) , because I don’t believe a tank could pass the open half of the road where he obviously has been digging.  Suddenly a Chinese sergeant orders us through.  I see no opening nor does a Congolese policeman who runs up to the mess and starts picking up boulders and tossing them off to the side.  The arm of the shovel is elevated now and the sergeant is insisting we drive under the elevated arm so thoughtfully held there by the nervous trainee.  We approach slowly.  The Sarge’s name tag is in Roman letters, probably by some MONUC directive.  His name tag reads  Sgt. I. P. Wang.  I’m not making this up.

 

By a miracle , we pass unscathed to head out of the DRC and onto the Buj.  Each time the Burundi cops stop us for a shakedown, the taxi heats up worse.  I know now that a 92 Toyota Corolla station wagon with hundreds of thousands of miles on it, really doesn’t need a lot of oil to keep running.  We make it into Buj with pistons and connecting rods to spare.  I ask to get off in the middle of town to avoid a final calamitous breakdown. 

 

Buying Eyeglasses in Burundi

 

Travelling last year through Burundi, I learned that eyeglasses are relatively cheap.  In fact there are many optical shops in the city, most run by the Indian community.  I stopped in one and noticed they had a very stylish selection.  Talked with the proprietor, a very pleasant fellow and asked about prices and delivery.  His price was good and delivery was ten days to two weeks.  That fit my schedule as I’d be leaving the country in two weeks.  He copied my prescription and did bifocals instead of tri focals which I had been using for a long time.  The order was then emailed to a manufacturer in India where the lenses are made and fitted and then air freighted back to Bujumbura.   Sounded like a winner to me except my hosts scheduled me against my insistence to go straight back to Kigali, bypassing Bujumbura.   I asked one of the Quaker ladies to pick up the glasses for me, giving her my receipt.  The owner had said that if I didn’t show up he would send them to the States as I had paid in advance.  The lady was my back up plan just in case.  She could also pick them up and mail them.  After six months , I gave up the ghost about getting the glasses and just about forgotten  them.   But when I came through Bujumbura this year, I made plans to try to remember where the shop was and go ask about the glasses.  I talked also to Joyce the hamburger lady to whom I had given the receipt to pick up the glasses.  She said she went numerous times,  but the manager wouldn’t give her the glasses, saying she must have stolen the receipt.  Eventually she gave up, but she insisted on going with me,  so that I could inform the owner that she was not a thief.  I was willing to do this for her pride and also to see if the glasses were still there.  When we walked in, he saw her and was about to exit quickly then saw me, and said, ‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for you Mr. Brose.  I sent the glasses to your home but they were returned.’   I verified with him that Joyce was indeed not a thief, though he seemed to take no recognition of this.  But it satisfied Joyce to hear me say it.   After a year to the day, I got my glasses.  Irony is they don’t seem to be very easy to get used to.  I’ll have to have them checked out at home to see if there is anything that can be done. 

A comment from an old Peace Corps buddy.

George, 

I very much enjoy your essays. Thank you for all of them. 

A year to get a pair of glasses has to be a record. 

I may have set a record in the opposite direction. 

Sometime in late 1966 or early 1967 I was in Dar and couldnt check into one of the dirt cheap places I favored and was darned if I was going to pay for one night at the Twiga, let alone the East African. 

To save money,  I did what any 23 year old idiot would do. I went down to the harbor, found a stone bench, took off my shoes, put them under my head and laid my glasses on the ground. In the middle of the night I woke to find my shoes and my glasses gone. I still had my wallet. And my life. 

I spent the rest of a fitful night trying to sleep at the door of an optical shop near the Askari Monument. When the shop opened I was of course literally on their doorstep, with, by good luck, my prescription, which was in my wallet. 

By noon I had my new glasses. And a pair of Bata sandals. And a resolve never to sleep in the open in Dar es Salaam again. 

Charles