I’ve already blogged about the fact that there is no tourism industry in Burundi, despite its marketable assets. Today, via my friend Carol, I gained an insight into why that might be. She works in microfinance and will have some bosses from the US visiting next week, and was trying to find out if there were any excursions from Bujumbura that she didn’t already know about, so paid a visit to the tourism office, also a gift shop that sells postcards (woohoo), that is next to our favourite cafe.

She asked if they had any maps of the country that she could use; they offered to sell her one for 10,000F – with no looking allowed! Then she asked if they had any leaflets on attractions in the country. No. Then she saw a leaflet on drumming performances; she asked if she could have one. She could – but at a cost of 2,000F. Since she didn’t want the leaflet, just their phone number, she asked if they had any contacts or if she could just take the number from the leaflet. Again, no – not unless she bought it. They suggested she wait till the weekend and go to Saga Plage, where they perform on Sundays, and ask them for her number themselves.

All in all, it’s clear that whatever the Burundian Tourism Office is doing, it isn’t promoting Burundi, and that if you’re a visitor in Burundi, you better have sources for what you need to know, because there’s no helping you once you’re here!

There’s a bit of a hiatus in blog posts and profiles at the moment as I’m mostly working on the CEDAC website and translating stuff into French to go on the website, but should have something interesting to say by the end of the week, and in the mean time here are some news stories I found interesting…

This is just about the coolest thing ever – people making bicycles out of bamboo as a rural livelihoods scheme. Does anyone who knows stuff about bicycles (Jenni, Jude) know if these are likely to be any good? Where can I get one!

Cote d’Ivoire is climbing in the world football rankings – people here see Cote d’Ivoire as the best chance of an African team lifting the world cup in Africa, so go them!

There’s an election going on in Guinea Bissau; I try to be optimistic about African countries where it’s at all possible, but with Guinea-Bissau and indeed Guinea Conakry, I really struggle. But apparently Guinea-Bissau is a leading exporter of cashew nuts, so if you’re wanting to help the Guinea-Bissau economy then your options are cocaine and cashew nuts.

A South African rapist apologises to his victim; I found this story interesting – like many survivor stories, full of ambiguity, but it does show that both former-victims and former-perpetrators have a role to play in preventing further abuse, and it reminds me of CEDAC’s vision of those who destroyed the country helping rebuild it.

And lastly… African Americans tracing their African roots. Although I’m a little sceptical that after all these years a person can be said to come from a particular place – surely most African Americans have mixed heritage? Having said that, I think if the countries played it right it could have a really positive impact, not only in terms of tourism (I can just imagine the ‘rediscover your traditional culture’ bus tours!), but also in terms of personal involvement with local charities – e.g. they could raise funds for local development by asking people to support a local microfinance programme or raise funds to build a school/clinic/irrigation system in the area where their ancestors lived. I’d be interested to know what people thought on this one.

On Saturday myself, Brian, Adrien and an American called Pamela went for a road trip down to Nyanza-Lac in the very south of the country – nyanza meaning ‘lake’, and lac meaning, um, ‘lake’, meaning the province translates as ‘lake-lake’. It

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Once there, we had fresh grilled mokeke at a restaurant by the beach – a delicious Lake Tanganyika fish. They also have Sangala, which is very flavourful, and Capitaine, which is a perfectly good white fish, and some tiny little ones which are also tasty but a bit disconcerting to eat – eating their heads and their little eyes looking at you. I had a swim – amazing to be at the beach and able to swim – without salt. I’m definitely a convert to inland beaches, although I’m told there are crocodiles so I wasn’t about to strike out into the deeps! The temperature was great – cool enough to be refreshing but not in the least cold – and the wind means it’s a gift for windsurfing, and I’m told the waves are occasionally big enough to surf. Driving back, we stopped to watch the sun set, turning orange and glittering across the water, before dipping below the mountain

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It was a wonderful day out, and Nyanza-Lac is stunning. But, as ever in this country, there are sobering notes. The vast number of flags for political parties that flutter along the road speak not only of political pluralism and multiparty democracy, but also of a fragmented opposition that struggles to effectively hold the government to account. The kid giving us a thumbs up as we leave the restaurant has the pot-belly of malnutrition. As we judder over the holes in the road (happily I’ve remembered Africa Lesson #101 = if you’re driving anywhere, wear a sports bra), Brian tells me that some of these were created deliberately by the rebels during the war to slow you down – then they would shoot at you. Most notably of all, we have to rush our beers to get home for fear of the road blocks along the way. This country has spectacular assets to market to visitors – apart from the beaches, people keep telling me about plans to reintroduce gorillas* but until it has

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* Apparently many of Burundi’s gorillas were taken to Rwanda during the civil war to protect them, and the Rwandans are making vast amounts of money from them. Like Burundians’ insistence that the reason Rwandan coffee is good is because they steal it from Burundi, and the story that the Queen of England only drinks Burundian tea (or is it coffee – no one is sure!), I’m sceptical on whether this is true or even possible, but I’ll keep my ears open.

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