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A group of Kenyans have translated Facebook into Swahili to make it more accessible and safeguard the future of the language, and other people are doing the same with Hausa and Zulu. Pretty cool! Now all I want to know is who translated it into Pirate…

There aren’t that many capital cities in the world where you can be driving home and see a traditional dance troupe, made up of young students, practicing by the side of the road. But it happens in Bujumbura. It’s the first time I’ve seen any traditional Burundian music, but it is literally, jaw-droppingly incredible. They balance enormous heavy drums on their heads and march around with them, playing in rhythm while kicking their feet. Then for the second section, they put the drums down, and take turns dancing and jumping in the middle – jumping literally metres into the air; check out these videos, especially the jumping guy at the end of the second one. All I can say is that the world better watch out for the Burundian High Jump team!

Drums and Dancing in the City

After the practice Pierre Claver, who knows everybody, introduces me to one of the performers, Eddie. He tells me that the group was formed by students in secondary schools and at the university, and that they get paid upwards from 200,000 Burundian Francs (about $165) per performance, and that they are using it to support themselves, and in some cases their families as well, during their studies. Eddie himself finished secondary school last year, and has taken a year off, but plans to enrol in the university next year. He also tells me that they have been invited to perform worldwide – but have not yet been able to do so due to being unable to get visas, but that even if he could stay in the US, he would always come home.

Drums and Dancing in the City

However, perhaps the most inspirational part of the performance came at the end, when someone on crutches got up to dance, beating the drums and dancing on the crutches as a full part of the troupe. The to me demonstrated more clearly than almost anything else how people with disabilities can participate in almost anything – even activities that depend on enormous levels of physical fitness and ability.

Drums and Dancing in the City

Drums and Dancing in the City

I found this article on the BBC a few days ago, about how the narrative of D-Day as a great success often fails to consider the stories of those who suffered as a result of the invasion. The author points out that this should not diminish from the importance of D-Day in defeating tyranny and bringing peace to Europe, but that if we ignore these sobering narratives, we not only deny the people who tell them the right to voice, but we also deny ourselves the right to fully understand our own history; our own story. This is a reminder of the fact that nothing is ever simple, but it also reminded me in many ways of what The Advocacy Project and Survivor Corps are trying to do; no matter how far a groups’ narrative deviates from the national ‘story’, people have a right to a voice, and a right to have their needs and their story taken into consideration. No-one should have to feel guilt for expressing their story and the troubles they have faced, and helping groups whose narratives are in some way marginalised is what we are trying to do.

There is very little about Bujumbura that looks like a country emerging from a civil war. The buildings are shiny and new, the main roads smooth, it has a snazzy new airport terminal, new buildings are going up everywhere, and the people are no different from those in any other small African city. This is fitting; Burundi has made enormous strides in the last few years, successfully integrating some rebels into the army and demobilising the rest, holding successful multiparty elections, and expanding free primary education nationwide for the first time.

Looking deeper, the impact of the war is clear. There are the physical hints; like in Northern Uganda, every other car bears the logo of an NGO or international organisation, and Burundians seem to use the word ‘Peace’ in signs for everything from supermarkets to Forex bureaus. It is also clear in the lack of development in the city; compared to other regional capitals, such as Kampala or Kigali, Bujumbura is tiny, and underdeveloped. While driving home we see people washing in the drainage ditches in the middle of the road; a sure sign of poverty. But more importantly, when people talk, they refer back to the war. Pierre Claver, the country director of Survivor Corps, who I will be working with this summer, tells me that all of his siblings abandoned the Catholic Church for Protestantism, ‘because of the war’. I share a Primus (or seven) with my hosts, Nana and Bryan, and some of their friends, and the conversation turns to the war – talk of bullets overhead, bombs landing, and arrests for breaking curfew. In the afternoon we meet General Joseph, a former rebel now working for the government on the DDR programme. I am expecting someone middle aged or older, but to my surprise he is no older than his mid-thirties; war makes young leaders. He is, however, fascinating to talk to; he tells us that they are currently working with between 33,000 and 35,000 former combatants of all ethnicities, ages and genders.

We also met Eric, director of CEDAC, an umbrella organisation for former combatants, a massively motivated man who is working for free alongside his studies, committed to promoting reconciliation between former combatants of different sides, and their victims. He talks about the need to get the two sides talking, to provide economic alternatives to violence, and about the Peaceful Elections campaign, where former combatants are trained to promote the importance of democracy and peaceful elections.

Both of these early meetings have left me profoundly optimistic about Burundi’s future, But perhaps the most hopeful sign came in the conversation with my hosts, when Bryan’s brother, who lives in Canada and who hasn’t returned to Burundi in the last ten years, told me that he has been back twice in the last two years, and is thinking of returning to Burundi with his family. Although I am aware that the situation will appear differently in rural areas, I am very much look forward to meeting some of the survivors who work with Survivor Corps and CEDAC, and helping tell some of their stories about the work they are doing to promote peace in the country.

I’m coming to the end of my preparations to go to Burundi – the visa was obtained in Geneva, but everything else has had to be done in the less-than-a-week I’m in the UK for. The least fun part came on Friday, when I got my vaccinations done. Since I’ve had just about everything under the sun, I was pretty sure I only needed two – Polio/Diptheria/Tetanus, and Typhoid. Turns out I also needed Hep B, Rabies, and Meningitis ACWY. I’m leaving tomorrow, so I had to get them all at once, two in the right arm and three in the left. I left feeling somewhat sore, particularly in the right arm, and feeling that the nurses comment that “you might feel a bit tired, and it’d be a good idea to lay off the alcohol” might have been a bit of an understatement. I also decided that at £300 for the summer, Malarone was off the menu, so it’s a couple of months of doxycycline for me – if you don’t know what that means, see here, and be sympathetic. All I can say is – I’m glad I’m working for an organisation I believe it, because I wouldn’t do it for anything else!

For the last few days in London we had training for the Fellowship, where we learnt how to operate the blogging sites, Google websites, how to shoot and edit film, and generally how to conduct ourselves. Most of it was OK, but the video editing will be a bit tricky – so look for all the syncing errors in my first offering, which will hopefully be up here soon! On the whole it was pretty helpful though, and gave me a much clearer idea of what’s expected from me and how to deliver it. It was also a great opportunity to bond with some of the other Fellows – Elisa, going to DRC, Fanny, going to Serbia, Christina, going to Prague, and Rebecca, going to Columbia. It was great to talk about what other people will be doing over the summer, and, since it was European election day and I was already on a European high, it also reminded me what I love about being from Europe – the fact that we’re all so close together and we can travel to each other’s countries and meet people from other cultures so easily.

Even more exciting, I’ve finally finished my school work, so all I have to do tomorrow is pack my clothes, get some money and travellers cheques, find a surge protector and some rechargeable batteries, make sure Pierre Claver knows when I’m arriving, scan my passport, go to the big Waterstones to find out if the new East Africa Lonely Planet is in stock yet, meet my sister for coffee to make sure she hasn’t forgotten what I look like, and get to the airport early enough to get through the Heathrow queues…! Somehow I think that the complimentary wine on Ethiopian that Lisa talked about is going to be very welcome!

Edit: Note to self, BUY GAFFER TAPE! If it can fix a car window and a broken heart, I need it in Burundi!

To say that Burundi isn’t well understood would be something of an understatement. Even as a long-term Africa specialist I had to look up the capital before my interview for The Advocacy Project. So, just so everyone knows what I’m talking about….

A potted history of Burundi:

Following independece and a coup by the Tutsi-led military in 1973, ethnic tensions gradually increased, culminating in the murder of the democratically elected President in 1993. Although the coup was officially called off, the constitutional crisis took months to resolve – and just as agreement had been reached, the new president died in the same plane crash as Rwandan president Habyarimana, sparking the Rwanda genocide. These events sparked massive massacres of both Hutu and Tutsi, and a myriad of armed groups emerged in the ensuing war. Peace talks in Arusha in2000 produced agreement, but it was not until 2006 that this was fully implemented, when the final rebel group joined the peace process. Since then, demobilisation has been underway, but violence has not been eliminated. Elections are scheduled for 2010.

The country is often compared with neighbouring Rwanda; both countries have undergone decades of ethnic violence between Tutsi and Hutu – but whereas Rwanda’s civil war ended fifteen years ago, Burundi’s only came to an end in 2006, when the final rebel group agreed to join the peace agreement. While Rwanda has been flooded with aid (and it shows in the state of the roads), Burundi is still very much ‘off the map’ – something that also shows in how little it has been studied. Rwanda is seen as an important US ally in Africa, while Burundi isn’t very important to anyone. And while Rwanda’s war ended in military victory for the RPF under current president Kagame, Burundi’s ended in a negotiated peace, and the country is taking steps to restoring democracy. I’ve studied Rwanda a lot in the last few years, and I’m pretty familiar with the history and the issues there – but I know very little about Burundi. Finding out more so that I can compare the countries better is going to be part of the adventure!

Where do I fit in?

I am travelling to Burundi as a Peace Fellow for The Advocacy Project, where I will be working with Survivor Corps Burundi. Survivor Corps are active all over the world, primarily working with disability rights and on campaigns to ban specific weapons, but in Burundi they are widening their reach to work with female ex-combatants who have been victims of gender based violence. This fits in with loads of stuff I’ve studied in my degree, especially the ways in which women can be marginalised by donor communities, and the extra difficulties female ex-combatants face in reintegrating into their communities, so I’m really excited to be working with an organisation that tries to make their voices heard. I’ll be profiling some of these survivors on this blog, as well as some of the community organisations that Survivor Corps work with, and hopefully I’ll be able to tie it in with some wider issues to do with aid management, post-conflict reconstruction, and donor priorities.

Please feel free to come back or make comments; pour les gens de IHEID, ce blog est un éspace bilangue, donc les commentaires en français sont bienvenues!