Kamenge

I’ve had several opportunities in the past two weeks to travel to and explore a new neighborhood of Bujumbura: Kamenge. I’ve been to a meeting of our little youth group, visited the HIV/AIDS clinic of the Friends Women’s Association (FWA), and been to a wedding.

Kamenge is poor and mostly Hutu, about a 15-minute (sweaty) bus ride from city center. It’s a completely different world from Rohero, where I spend most of my time; there are few cars on the dirt streets. Instead, it’s pedestrians of all ages, bikes, motorcycles, and a stream of the telltale white, logo-stickered SUVs of NGOs. The bus stops at the market, which was destroyed during the Crisis. The hollowed-out and roofless building is now surrounded by wooden stalls, where people sell food, bikes, shoes, cloth, etc. etc. Much fighting took place in Kamenge, and people recall destroyed houses and tanks on deserted streets. Partly as a result of the fighting, the neighborhood is struggling to get back on its feet, and its residents face difficult living conditions. Kamenge is also the neighborhood where a large body of Friends live.

Just a hundred yards down from the market is the Friends Church, soil-red with seafoam trim, and bordered on one side by wooden scaffolding for the Church’s planned expansion to accommodate 2,000 people. Three of my four coworkers go to church there.

A little ways into the Friends’ compound is our garden, where a group of Tutsi and Hutu youth gathers every Friday afternoon. In addition to getting scholarships, these youths, mixed Hutu and Tutsi, have taken part in reconciliation workshops and other team- and leadership-building activities. They’ve experienced trauma as much as any other demographic, and are in need of healing. In the garden, we’re growing cabbage, onions, eggplants, and greens. I won’t be here to taste any of it, but I did admire the progress the group has made, turning the trashy and scrappy lot into neat beds of rich soil. I tried my hand at hoeing, but the teens just made fun of me and did my sections over. They garble their French as badly as any American 15-year old does their English.

Undertaking this reconciliation work with such a young group is an interesting idea and an area of exploration for the Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC) Program, which has so far mostly worked with adults. People talk some about how critical it is to avoid passing on the old divisions to their children, and seem to see their children as ready and able to transcend. So HROC getting this group together holds a lot of promise for future activities.

I also had the opportunity to visit the Friends Women’s Association’s clinic, which seeks to improve health conditions in Kamenge by providing HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. They strive to see the patient holistically, addressing nutrition and opportunistic infections for HIV positive patients. I also got to see how the HIV tests are done, and was impressed at how quick and easy the technology seems. The clinic is working to get anti-retrovirals and, once two more rooms are completed, will be a fully-fledged clinic licensed by the Burundian government. It was a real privilege to see such an inspiring project, and given the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Burundi seems an important initiative.

Finally, I got to attend the wedding of Maurice and Esther, members of the Friends Church in Kamenge. I was surprised overall at how similar it was to an American wedding, only far simpler and lower-key. The bride and groom were married legally in a government building before coming to the church, where they were greeted with choral singing, and two trains of dancing 10-year-olds who processed them down the aisle. There was a small sermon, which contained a fair amount of language about the wife submitting to her husband, which, naturally, set me on edge a little bit. After the signing of a marriage certificate, the whole party piled into cars to travel to different locations in Bujumbura, including the “Tree of Love” (a favorite spot, where it’s not unusual to see two or three wedding parties lined up for their turn to take pictures) and the beach. One couldn’t help but feel jubilant in the midst of this gathering.

I’ve been glad to be seeing this different side of the city, and will be working to find opportunities to come back.