After paying out money for fuel and landing fees here in Tanzania, I am ready to leave in the early morning for Burundi. Today will be a long flight as I have to travel northwest across the vast countryside and into a new country. Even though it will be long, I am excited for this flight because I will get to see so many new landscapes underneath my wings.
The further I go in flight, the more I leave the hot, humid coastline in Dar es Salaam and head over the mountains in the Mitumba mountain range – the same range that Mount Kilimanjaro is part of. In between that mountain chain and Muchinga range, I am able to fly over some prairie before I end up landing in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi. That city is located on the edge of Lake Tanganyika, which separates this country from Congo-Kinshasa, where I was a few months ago. Lake Tanganyika is known as the 2nd oldest and 2nd deepest lake in the world and 2nd largest freshwater lake. Though beautiful I’m sure, this lake seems to be big enough to effect the local weather. That factor and the presence of all of these mountains around me make me a bit nervous about what type of weather I could be encountering later on during my flight.
One of the biggest joys that I get when flying is the ability to be able to view the beautiful nature below. In a small plane, often times you have to fly according to ‘VFR’ flight rules. This means that your flight plan and flying ability must be based on how well you can see (especially when you encounter different weather conditions). In bigger planes, you often have to rely on your navigational system and fly under ‘IFR’ (instrument flight rules) flight plans. The advantage to VFR is that, since you have to be able to see the conditions on the ground anyway, you can’t go too high in altitude, so you get to fly lower toward the ground and see more of the details below. On the other hand, when flying VFR is you are usually not allowed to fly throughout the night, since you can’t visually navigate when it’s dark outside.
I would often have to fly VFR when I worked as pilot up in Alaska. During my three years of flying there, I often was able to search the terrain for local wildlife. Occasionally, I would spot a moose or caribou, but most often I would see black bears and grizzly bears. After awhile, I really began to learn where the local hangout spots were for these animals, based on the time of the day or the time of the year.
Now that I’ve been in Africa for a few months, I feel like I am finally getting used to the landscape here too. I am excited to think that I might see some wild animals on today’s flight. Let’s just hope that our little one engine plane makes it through all of these hours flying, otherwise I’m sure I would make a great appetizer for all of our friends below.
The other thing that I like about flying in a smaller airplane is that I am able to fly over places that are normally not flown over by larger jets. Here in Africa (and in Alaska too), I have been able to see so many places that feel like have had no human contact yet. I love flying over these places because it reminds me that there are actually still places on this planet that don’t belong to us yet and maybe never should.
If you are lucky enough to see the types of places that I am talking about, then you know that as soon as we aren’t around, these areas tend to be home to a lot of animals. Sure enough, when I fly over some untouched prairie land below, I am immediately mesmerized by the local habitat. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at down there, but as I dropped the plane lower I realized what I was looking at.
My heart starts pounding as I realize that what I see below are actually giraffes. I love zoos, but being able to see these giraffes in their own habitat and running around like crazy made me so excited. Of course, I tried to take pictures, but that is kind of hard to do when the plane is moving so fast and you are so far away.
There they are, just running around all over the place, like they own the land and don’t have a care in the world. Soon, I start to see more of them. I think I counted about 12 in all. I was the happiest man on earth to be experiencing that moment. Not many people get to see this sort of thing in their lifetime. In fact, I don’t know anyone personally whose ever seen a giraffe (as tall as they are) from above. What a joy my friends.
A few minutes later in the flight I am still excited by what I just saw, but still looking for more local creatures. All of a sudden I start to see a bunch of gazelles that are hunting below. Wow, what an experience! I actually started to feel guilty then because it occurred to me that I was invading their homeland.
Here I am enjoying this amazing opportunity to view them in the ‘wild’ and I am also realizing that just because it is an exciting time for me, they might not think so right about now. With all of the strange noise that they are hearing from my plane, I hope that none of them start to go into shock and/or get hurt because of my intrusion. Sometimes with animals, even though they might not be able to defend themselves against you, they do get agitated and might start to cause trouble in their group because they are so upset.
After all of that excitement, I start flying back into reality. Slowly, I start to encounter signs of human life again and less wildlife. At least it looks like, here in Burundi, the houses are located very remotely from each other (unlike a typical village or settlement that has many houses bunched close to each other). One thing that I keep forgetting to mention to you during this part of our mission is that, here in Africa, a majority of the landscape is very rural and remote and many people live in these remote areas that are not easily accessible.
Things like paved roads, electricity and water are often a major concern to everyday living here on this continent. If you have noticed, during my journal entries I have sometimes talked about things like local diseases and poverty. That is because these are daily realities for most of the people that I have encountered here in Africa. When you don’t have access to clean, running water, then that also means that sanitation starts to become an issue. When people are unable to have these basic necessities, than chances increase for disease to spread.
When you add to that the fact that many of the people that I’ve met live on less than a day, you can imagine the types of barriers that they are up against. They are more susceptible to natural occurrences like droughts or floods. Since most of the people here live a subsistence lifestyle (living off of the land), then they are dramatically affected by these natural disasters.
Even in some of the cities that I’ve been in, you would think that everyone would have more access to these basic necessities. However, you have seen through my journal entries that this is not always true. There have been many times that I have experienced the electricity shortages that they are forced to deal with. Even things like water aren’t available to all of the people in the urban centers. Since many of the urban towns are overpopulated, you tend to have a large gap between what the wealthy have access to and what the lower income populations are able to afford. In some towns that I have been in, up to half of the city did not even have running water. Often times, if you do want a luxury like that, than you are forced to pay more for it anyway because there is such a lack of sustainable supply here.
You can imagine how these ‘little’ problems that we don’t think about start to effect society. In addition to the higher risk of disease, food availability is also affected. Since growing food takes adequate water supply (and not too much or too little, as would be the case in times of flood or drought), then you can’t be very successful agriculturally. When an entire country is affected by things like this, then you start to see where the economies become affected. If a country has no money for development and/or economic improvement, then the daily life of the people won’t become any easier.
Now add to that all of the ethnic conflicts in this region. It is unfortunate that these realities are a fact of life for the many wonderful people that I have met along the way. And I don’t want to mislead you about this continent. It is a very beautiful place, rich in caring and welcoming and industrious people. However, there are also very real problems here too. Imagine how hard life can become under these types of conditions.
Here in Burundi, there has been ethnic conflict for many years. This country shares a border with Rwanda and, as many of you know, that country has also had ethnic violence and genocide in recent history. The fighting stems from two main ethnic populations: the Hutu and the Tutsi.
Burundi became independent from Belgium in 1962. From 1962 until 1993, an estimated 250,000 people died as a result of ethnic conflict. In 1993, a Hutu leader was democratically elected and later assassinated, which started further years of violence. In 1994, a new Hutu President and the President of Rwanda (also Hutu) were traveling together in a plane that was shot down. Both were killed.
These tragedies led to an estimated 300,000 civilian deaths and caused many people to flee Burundi, many of which sought asylum in Rwanda at the time. In 2004 the United Nations took over peacekeeping efforts. However, in 2008 there was an attack on a government-protected refugee camp where former combatants were rumored to be living. Forces for National Liberation (FNL), an opposition group, has been cited by Amnesty International as recruiting child soldiers, enacting violence against woman, and escaping prosecution and punishment of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Reportedly, the UN is now focused on reconstruction versus peacekeeping efforts and many of the refugee camps have been closed. This creates a whole other set of problems, though, as nearly 450,000 refugees have returned. The economy of the country has been destroyed and now there are reports of conflicts over properties now that people are attempting to return to the homes that they left during the conflict.
The media is also an area of society that has been affected by conflict. As the government of the country has been unstable and there has been a lot of ethnic violence, there have also been reports of journalists being harassed by the government for trying to provide balanced coverage of the civil war. For this reason, I noticed that some of them are still careful about what type of news that they cover and how they present it.
After I settled into my hotel and started work the next day, I got to meet some of these dedicated professionals. Thank you to Mr. Didier Bukura, editor of the newspaper Iwacu and his journalist Mr. Tierry Niyungeko. Both of them were very friendly towards me and willing to help out our cause.
Mr. Theirry Ndayishimiye, Director of Publications for the newspaper Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow) was also helpful. He was an excellent man who had significant knowledge about Kosovo, world affairs and especially about his continent of Africa. He graciously covered our story and shared it with the rest of his country, as did Mr. Kamaro Rene Dieudonne, from Agence Burndaise de Presse (ABP) Netpress. Mr. Diudonne was a wonderful man who was very detailed and dedicated.
At Radio Television Renaissance, I want to thank Mr. Jean de Dieu Nsengiyumva for his help with sharing our cause with the public and his government. He was a very humble man and a dynamic journalist. At TV Salama, Ms. Fides Ndagijimana and Mr. Canesius Ntirampeba were both wonderful. They were very precise, humble and focused during our interview and even came to the airport to film coverage of our plane.
At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Musoni Velo, Director of the European Division, was also very humble. He shared a lot of his time with me and we were able to discuss his government’s current position on Kosovo. He shared lots of details and insights with me, including the fact that he was asked as recent as late 2010 to update his boss about the details and position of Kosovo within the world (current statistics, number of nations that had recognized us already, our economic development progress, etc.). We spent a great deal of time talking about our personal experiences, professional lives, world affairs, etc.
After visiting so many countries, sharing information about my own country and meeting with many government officials now, my perspective of the world has changed tremendously. Understanding more about world politics has been of immeasurable value to me (both professionally and personally) and my eyes have certainly become open to many more details in this big planet of ours. With each conversation I understand more and more just how complex our world is.
Many of us remain unaware of these complexities or aren’t required to think about them on a daily basis, I know I didn’t have a clue before I started this mission. However, each area of our world is struggling with different circumstances. At the basic level, we all want food on our table and a roof over our head, but the higher up you go in government and bureaucracies, the more details, the more complexities get revealed.
More and more I am starting to appreciate what I have been able to do for our country in this respect, because it is through these one on one, personal conversations that I’ve had with so many people, that I have been able to raise awareness and educate individuals about our current circumstances. They too, have also been able to educate me about their own circumstances and through our talks, I am able to share that information with others. Folks, it is only through these intimate and honest dialogues that we are able to make change.
No matter who you are or what material worth you have in this world, we all must start seeing basic communication as a strength. If I have learned nothing else on this mission, I have at least learned how much power there is in not being afraid to have an honest dialogue with another human being. Many of the best experiences on this trip so far have been due to the way in which communication has happened (through a warm smile or a welcoming handshake, etc.). Conversely, some of my worst experiences on this trip have also been due to communication (remember all of that bureaucratic running around that I have to do at the airports because the departments all have different requirements, won’t talk to each other, etc.).
On the other hand (and as I have said before), the people that I have met here have shown me the true wealth of Africa. I have met intelligent, creative, dedicated and genuine people who are determined to survive and fight the odds. Many of the people that I’ve met wish for and work toward having a better life. Like I’ve also mentioned, after meeting so many people from so many countries, the one thing that I do know is that we all have one thing in common: that we want a safe, secure place to live and we want to be able to provide for our families. I believe that any changes that will come to the places that I’ve visited on this continent will come from the spirit and dedication of the local people.
Overall, Burundi is a beautiful, small nation, especially compared to their next-door neighbor – Congo, Kinshasa. Remember that country was about 200 times the size of our Kosovo, but here in Burundi, they only have a land mass about three times our size (though nearly 4 times as populated). It is a small country with much natural beauty. The weather was calm and the topography was very green.
In fact, here I am again wishing I could have had more time to get out there and visit the people in the rural areas and learn more about their way of life. Someday, I would very much like to experience the ‘real’ Africa, out there where people have to live with no paved roads, no running water, no electricity, etc. Oh well, I am a very lucky man already and I suppose that there is always something more in life to wish for.
I have all but one great memory of Burundi. The less than grand memory was because I noticed that I had a few neighbors at the hotel that I was staying. Right outside my door were a few snakes living around just waiting for me to go outside and greet them. On the other hand, that same hotel had reported hippopotamus sightings recently, so how could I let a few snakes ruin the amazing environment that I was in.
The next country I will visit will be Rwanda, another nation that has suffered from the horrible realities of genocide. I am sure that that experience will be hard on me, knowing that I will be walking on the same ground and soil of a nation where lots of blood has spilled in recent years. Though it will be hard, I also am aware that it is very important to know more about these sad realities of life and learn from the mistakes that we as humans have made.
For now though, bless you all here in Burundi.
