Bujumbura

Introduction
One of the things you hear when visiting Burundi is that all the vegetables and fruits are so delicious because the country never made the leap to the use of industrial seed strains. Instead, they have continued using original seed strains, and, as the argument suggests, their poverty and isolation have prevented them from becoming part of industrialized agriculture. A friend described the experience of eating bananas in Burundi as if we’d been eating chalk our entire lives in America. And it is like that, the mangos, tomatoes and bananas are unexpectedly delicious. It’s like we’ve been eating fruits and vegetables in a cheap simulacrum.

The obvious irony is that one of the world's poorest countries managed to preserve something as delightful as the authentic taste of fruits and vegetables, while the developed world was left to eat chalk. I wanted to believe this story, there was some magical cosmic justice at work here. But I’d also questioned this entire premise. Could this really be true, that this tiny African country could avoid industrialized agriculture? In my limited research I did find one report that stated that farmers in Burundi obtained 95.3% of their seeds from local sources such as their own stocks, local markets, and social networks for the 2017 season. So, maybe it’s true!

When you first cross the border from Rwanda into Burundi, there is a noticeable change within that slight distance. As you move into Burundi, you’ll see more people walking barefoot, pockmarked tarmacs, mud houses, tattered clothing, and ubiquitous police corruption. Burundi is a poor country, but the true extent of the contrast only becomes clear through firsthand experience. Both countries have similar populations, around 13 million, but the 2023 GDP of Rwanda was 13.3 billion while Burundi’s was 3.3.

Police corruption, non-existent in Rwanda, is the norm in Burundi. I drove from Kigali to Bujambura twice and both times experienced genuinely absurd levels of corruption. For example, there are probably six police road blocks between the Rwandan border and Bujambura. At each stop you are expected to pay somewhere between 2 to 12 USD. The police will pretend to inspect your car and will find something minor, a license plate bulb is out, and demand payment on the spot. What I learned was that the police were generally friendly and just wanted a little money for some beers. The second time I traveled there I took cookies and at every road block would exclaim - Noel inziza! Merry Christmas, while I handed them a box of cookies. Most just laughed and signaled me onward.

Background
Burundi and Rwanda historically existed as distinct kingdoms but were unified under the administration of Germany as Ruanda-Urundi following the European scramble for Africa in the 1880s. Oscar Bauman, a delegate of the German anti-slavery committee, was the first European to enter Burundi in September 1892. (Botte) The German colonizers were not in Ruanda-Urundi long, having lost all their African possessions after World War One, but horrific accounts of their actions are well documented. From Botte’s account, Rwanda and Burundi, 1889-1930: Chronology of a Slow Assassination:

From 31 March to 18 May 1908, Grawert leads a new expedition against the princes of the northeast. This expedition provokes the Rumanyamasunzu famine, which takes over the preceding famines and sweeps across the region.219 It reaches horrendous proportions because of the terrible losses incurred by the war - "the natives were slaughtered en masse with gun or machine-gun shots" - and the pillage of enormous herds - "4,613 head of cattle and 3,659 head of small livestock."220 The repression that follows the expedition itself - led by a sergeant and a few soldiers but sustained by royal troops - literally devastates the country: "the cruelties inflicted on these people for three months are indescribable. All the crops were burnt, the banana groves were cut down, the people killed ... scaffolds were built to hang people upside down, their hands and feet were cut ... women and especially young girls were mistreated in atrocious ways; some were disemboweled alive; children were torn from their mother's breast and thrown onto the rocks...

There are two chapters of Botte’s Rwanda and Burundi, 1889-1930: Chronology of a Slow Assassination that document hundreds of atrocities from that hidden history. A Military station at Bujumbura was founded in 1897 and in 1905, it became the Residence for the two countries.The League of Nations officially awarded Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium as a Mandate in 1922. The Belgians stayed for 40 years until 1962.

Architecture
Burundi’s traditional huts were built entirely from natural plant materials. The main materials used included straw for the roof and floor, bamboo for the structure and walls, palm for mats and spiral ceilings, papyrus for ropes and braided blankets, reeds for the walls and torus, thorny plants for palisade posts, and erythrina wood for entry posts, among others. Of course this approach to building was largely changed by the arrival of the colonizers.

By the 40s and 50s Bauhaus architecture became a common feature in Bujumbura. This style is characterized by reducing elements to their essential components, where everything serves a specific function. The result is a minimalist design that is surprisingly eye-catching. In Bujumbura this style is prominent along the city's main boulevards, where well-maintained buildings play a significant role in daily life. Even as you move beyond the city center, the style is still common in warehouses on the outskirts.

And just as Burundi's poverty saved the original agricultural seeds, so did its poverty save the colonial Bauhaus architecture that is still the dominant architectural style in the city. For example, Presse Lavigerie, just off of Uprona Boulevard, is a fascinating multicolored piece still in operation. At the center of the face of the building is a statue of Cardinal Lavigerie, one of the White Fathers active in the late 1800s.



Another piece of Bauhaus style architecture, just reeking of a colonial past, the Hotel Tanganyika, sits overlooking Lake Tanganyika. It was here that Burundi’s second Prime Minister, Louis Rwagasore, was assassinated in 1961. Until recently it was thought that Greek businessmen had killed Rwagasore. But new evidence has made it appear that Belgians, seeking to maintain some control over their lost colony, killed Rwagasore. Such is the history of Burundi, seemingly one assassination after another.



There are many other less noteworthy buildings, such as Pharmacy de la Vie, houses tucked away here and there and restaurants.




Close
Before I drove back to Kigali from Bujumbura I needed to purchase black market gas so I employed the help of a young man. I asked him what he thought about all the Bauhaus architecture in Bujumbura. He told me he hated it because it was a constant reminder that his country has accomplished nothing in 80 years. I don't know why but this made me think that if aliens had come to my hometown in Virginia 100 years ago, built some buildings, left, and we didn't build anything else, I'd probably feel the same way.