With a full three weeks under my belt and heading into the final one I thought I'd write a bit tonight about the things which are not what I expected. Any of my students know that expectation managment is a key theme for me. Before coming to Burundi I talked to people who had been here, read what I could of the news and the history all in the name of managing my expectations of life in Bujumbura. Here are the things I missed.
1. Yes the stars are different but I can't see any more of them than I could in Chicago.
This is maybe one of the biggest disappointments. I thought Africa, developing, not as many lights, many more stars. I was not counting on the haze of a hundred garbage fires burning, mixed with the exhausts of however many hundreds of thousands of cars, buses and motorcycles equipped with maybe not the latest in exhaust technology. And it is after all a city with lights for many of its 800,000 residents. So I have not learned to identify the Southern Cross.
2. Perpetual dance party next door.
I've mentioned it several times I know but you have to understand that in the evenings when I write these blogs it is the soundtrack of our lives. The driving beat of western techno-ish dance music. At least once a night we hear a song sung by Celine Dion, which if you think about the whole French thing makes a kind of sense. John says that last year it was not like this. I guess peace has to have a downside. Ironically, it's more noise.
(I will pause in my list making to tell this story from last night. I was writing an email to my friend Ian about my fond memories of farm sitting for my friend Eva- hi Evs! I was speaking specifically of the charm of evenings lit by kerosene lamps. I typed the sentence, "Now it is time to light the lamps." And everything went dark. The entire city lost power for about 20 minutes. The dance music was silenced. It turns out there are crickets or some chirrupy night insect. I'd never heard them before. John lit a candle, there was rare quiet, just like back on the farm.)
3. It's not that hot.
In fact the weather has been more consistently pleasant than any given 3 week span of Chicago summer. Yes the equatorial sun is strong but that's what hats and shade and sunscreen are for. I listened tonight to Vanessa explaining sunscreen to Jean-Yves. It was pretty hilarious and somehow lead to a discussion of what had happened to Michael Jackson's skin.
4. Omnipresent Internet.
The workcamp handbook talked about internet being available via internet cafe so the way I pictured it, every 3 days or so I'd pop in for an hour, write a quick blog and catch up on any news from home. Little did I know that our digs were about to be upgraded- thanks to a bunch of donated laptops and a wireless router, portions of which we each brought in our luggage. So here we are from 7pm on with hot and cold running internet. Consequently I am blogging more and reading less than I'd thought. We've only played cards once. Hence also my midterm yen for more missives from home.
5. I've already talked about the cooking and cleaning thing.
I will throw into the general category of food that I was not expecting to eat quite so much. The Burundians are very concerned about being good hosts and so we get 3 hot meals a day. And if a Burundian happens to be eating with us and we don't eat mounds of food they want to know if we are not feeling well. Elie talks about the African stomach. He says if you offer food to an African he will keep eating as long as there is still food on the table because he is never certain when he will eat again. Someone else told us the same thing. We were offered Fantas that day we waited out a rainstorm in the park and Vanessa and I both turned them down. Vanessa explained that she'd just had a Fanta an hour ago. The young man said if someone offered him 20 Fantas he could drink them all because what if there was no Fanta tomorrow? Did I tell that story already?
6. Mosquitoes only really bother us at night.
During the day we lead a relatively bug free life. And in spite of what I was told, even the night mosquitoes are not superfreaks impervious to all but 100% DEET extreme condition repellant. Regular old 25% is just fine.
7. I don't actually notice water going the other way down the drain.
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