On the ground

I had a heck of a time communicating from Burundi. With ANYONE. Things just don’t work well over there. Here are a few observations.
The food was interesting because we had the exact same menu every day for 10 days: rice, peas, cooked spinach, fried bananas and a red gravy with chucks of beef in it. No bread. No dessert. It tasted fine, but wasnt very imaginative.
We went on a river/Lake Tanganyika boat tour and saw hippos and a huge crocodile. All other animals we saw were either in the zoo or on the farm. The farm is the homestead of Johan’s greatgrandfather. It is in the mountains. The roads to get there are absolutely terrible. Although I really enjoyed being at the farm, I won’t go again because the ride is so painful. They grow corn, beans, avocados, bananas, squash, spinach, and taro on their farm, but it is all cultivated by hand, so they might have 15 acres total. They also have cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and cats. There were countless relatives who came to gawk at Johan. It made him act like The Little Prince.
The bugs were practically non-existent. We brought 4 kinds of big dope and used it only twice. It is so hot that no one wears pajamas. Well, I don’t know that for sure, but I didn’t! Even a sheet was too much. We had mosquito netting around our beds just like in safari movies.
The weather was hot in the city but pleasant in the mountains. We played basketball one day (with the dozens of grandsons) and soccer another and I got totally drenched with sweat. It thundered and rained nearly every night, but there was hardly a sign of it by morning.
Burundi is 8 hours ahead of Iowa.
We saw no fish, but we ate fried minnows at a party one night. 99% of the vehicles are Toyotas. The rest were Nissans. And there is rumor of one GMC truck in the whole country.
There are no stores per se, just little shops along the road. We did go to the Second Vast Supermarket and I found a Mountain Dew.
The ladies all wear incredibly fancy and colorful dresses that look like bridesmaids dresses or prom dresses. They are long and must be very hot. They wear these every day of the week but save the best for Sunday, along with hats. At church there were a dozen choirs or more, and at least a dozen preachers sitting up front. Only 4 or 5 of them spoke, however. In Kirundi. I had a translator at my elbow translating every word. I kind of got the gist of it after an hour or two.
The people are extremely friendly, both to me and to each other. There is lots of laughter all day long. And singing. And praying.
The bathrooms were pretty much like European bathrooms, with a bidet and an unenclosed shower in the bathroom. But the water was undependable, as was the electricity, so taking a shower was an adventure, and often finished with buckets of water. All room temperature. No hot water.
No pets, but lots of dogs around. In the city the family had a watch dog that only came out at night. They also had 2 chickens and a rooster.
Body odor is pervasive, in both men and women, and very strong. I kept checking my underarms to see if that was ME I smelled, but no, I was fresh as a daisy. Worse than that, though, is the pollution. Nearly everyone cooks with wood fires, and the atmosphere is terribly polluted. We never saw a blue sky the whole time we were there in the city. At the farm it was much better, but you could still see an orangish brown cloud hanging over the city. You smell smoke all day long and you breathe it. I coughed a lot.