brandon shoots the president?

cliquez ici for the official story; photographs are mine.

burundi slideshow

click the title to link to a wonderful slideshow i discovered about burundi, "bridging the hutu-tutsi divide."

hungry hungry

hippos!

is everyone aware that hippos kill the greatest number of people out of any animal in the world?! we've got lots of them here in burundi. (photo for aunt bev)

reflections

One. A woman removes the brush tangled around the limbs of her cow. A old man rushes along the road to assess the situation, but after having watched the cow stumble down the small drop between the pasture and the road, he will only discover what he fears most: the cow’s neck, bent awkwardly beneath the weight of its body, is obviously broken. It is quite possibly, though I pray not, their only cow.

Two. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, and I have not eaten since breakfast. An acute awareness of the void in my stomach reminds me that I’m rich. But the children yesterday, with distended bellies, do they feel the same? Is it less severe because they have grown accustomed to it? Or is it worse? Yet they are happy because they know no other life. Like normal children they sing and play and laugh, as their stomachs continue to swell. And so do our stomachs swell, due to very opposite, though connected, reasons. The injustice in the fact that we kill ourselves by over-nourishment is perhaps also a form of justice; but it’s still not fair.

On a lighter note:

Three. I have recently discovered my least favourite kind of music, which I term ‘missionary old-country.’ And let me tell you, they love it here. ‘Old-country’ by itself is quite bad; but at least the old music that has endured to be heard today is arguably that which has been done ‘well’. Not so the missionary sort. And incorporating indigenous choirs or instruments only adds to the disarray.

Four. In part, I was thrilled to see that the governor’s office had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle curtains; until, that is, I realized that Donatello was the wrong colour