Witnessing a Local Catastrophe

The Bujumbura Central Market on fire.  (Photo not taken by me--looks like it is from the Kiriri hillside.)

“In Burundi, markets always burn down on a Sunday morning.”  This observation is offered to me on Monday morning in the aftermath of a local catastrophe--the complete demolition of the Central market in Bujumbura.  Astere, an acquaintance of mine who had until yesterday a market stall in which he sold T shirts and shorts his brother would bring from Tanzania, clicks his tongue and shakes his head.  I am not sure what to say.  The word on the street is that the fire was no accident.  Not terrorism, but something by which someone will profit, probably in a rebuilding project. 

The ordeal began about 24 hours before when I woke up Sunday morning to a rising column of black smoke visible from our back porch.  There was ash on our driveway and car, but from our house it appeared to be some kind of small fire in the neighborhood.  We got ready for church and when our day guard arrived he asked if we had heard the news.  I said no and he told me the Central market was on fire and burning out of control.  We ran out to look again at the tower of black smoke and realized that although it was at least 4 kilometers away it was enormous.  The image of a tower of smoke rising up on a clear morning did conjure up a haunting reminder of 9/11, and probably in terms of per capita income the damage to Bujumbura is comparable.  In fact, until this, the central market here had the distinction of being one of the largest covered markets in Central Africa.

View from our porch.

 We did go ahead and drive to church although we avoided the center of town and hugged the lake.  We were a bit worried that no one would be there because the market area is also the transport center for local buses, but most people were there.  Everyone knew what was happening and we prayed for those who were affected and for protection of the Burundi economic system which will be negatively affected by this devastating loss. 

When we returned home the smoke was still rising and there were helicopters shunting water back and forth from the lake in a large sort of cask.  I tried to listen to the radio but most of the news was only in Kirundi.  From what I could understand, the cause was unknown.  The Vice President announced the establishment of a commission to investigate the cause and is expected to release a report soon.

I sit with Astere in my office on Monday, and reflect on the events of the past 24 hours and hear him recount his own attempts to get to the market to recover some merchandise.  He is wearing a pair of pants that is all that is left of his stock.  He had actually taken it out for a customer the day before.  Others were not so lucky, at least one woman died when she returned to recover 500,000,000 Burundian Francs she had locked up in her stand.  ($312,000)

He is actually lucky as he has two income streams having recently acquired a car that he uses as a taxi.  He tells me he will not go back and restart his market business again.  Those who are less fortunate will have to figure out what to do next.  This is barely a culture that uses banks, or credit cards, but fire insurance and other social safety nets are nonexistent outside gifts from the international foreign aid community. 

Astere is telling me the rampant rumors that the fire got out of control quickly because there was an accelerant that was spread around and that some vendors were supposedly even warned about the blaze the day before.

I have to say I remain skeptical of Astere’s rumors.  The Central Market did not have any safety features built in, and was extremely crowded full of wooden stalls where fabric and clothing were stored.  Even without electricity, one could imagine some kind of small fire from a charcoal stove or phone cord catching a stall on fire and having that burn out of control.  But I am also skeptical that any fact finding mission by the Vice President will give us any insight into the real cause.  This is not a country where people really want to dig deeply to know the truth about most things, and I further doubt that there are any arson forensics teams with sophisticated enough capacity to make a determination anyway. 

Rumors are rampant here and conspiracy theories abound.  For instance, it is a commonly held belief by many in the region that AIDS was an illness deliberately planted by white people to control the population of blacks.  There is also a fierce belief in the Illuminati (a Satanic cabal of world political and financial moguls that control the world) and their manipulation of world markets to keep Africans poor.  I had a customs official actually ask me at the border, after seeing my passport, if it was true that the Illuminati controlled the entire US entertainment industry.  I told him I did not believe in the Illuminati although there are powerful monied interests that exert quite a bit of control in our country.  He did not seemed convinced and either thought I was naïve, or else was part of the Illuminati and was covering for them.

By the same token, many mysterious deaths of infants and young children here are explained away as witchcraft even though the complete inadequacy of child and maternal healthcare to treat preventable illnesses could very easily explain the high infant mortality rate.

All that to say, I don’t know what the cause of the fire was nor do I think there will be any conclusive finding.  I think the likehood of it being an accident is just as plausible as some kind of deliberate action.   Don’t get me wrong, I do know there are many here who would gladly do something to profit for themselves at great cost and suffering to many, but the ones who do that are generally fairly shielded through political connections from consequences for their actions and are almost never exposed to justice.    What I do know is that it is a local catastrophe that will have ongoing consequences for the economy for some time.

I'm the designated dog-walker

Despite this event, our Sunday was not entirely abnormal, we did in fact go to church, I helped Rebecca in Sunday school, and in the afternoon we went to small group.  I did notice that the smoke rose throughout the day but by evening seemed to be pretty much out.

The earlier part of the week was also blessedly normal as far as routine for Rebecca and I.  We were both home all week, the first time in months.  The kids were not sick and went to school without incident.  Our weekly routine includes certain rituals: a morning swim for Rebecca and I, an evening walk with the dogs on the weekdays, tea time on the porch as a family on Mondays and Saturdays.  Oren does karate on Tuesday and Thursday and soccer on Wednesday and Friday, I teach ballet Friday afternoon and evening.  We also go out for icecream as a family after karate on Thursday.  There is one store in Burundi that sells softserve.  (It is a machine brought from Dubai).  It is a big treat that the kids really look forward to.

Some variations in the routine included visits from Melody Musser who was in town at the beginning of the week.  She did some work with me on a new 3 year project proposal for a Peacebuilding Institute.  She left to return to Gitega on Wednesday but Teri-Lynn Jordan (our SALTer) arrived on Friday from the Hope School in Mutaho.  She needed a break for a few days as her assignment is very isolated and her living situation is very simple.  To come down to our house in Buja is like coming to the Hilton.  (Her blog about life at the school is here.)  By the way, she has created a Facebook page for the Hope School where she works.  (The link for the Hope School page is here.)

field visit.

She seems to be doing well and always has many stories about life there and teaching.  We were excited to hear that the school has broken ground for a new library which should be completed in the next several months.

Rebecca went on a field visit to one of our partners who runs an AIDS clinic and watched them running a training on taking meds regularly and how HIV is spread.  She was sad to see that the biggest challenge for those taking ARVs is that many cannot afford to buy enough food to be able to take the meds with a meal and consequently cannot keep them down without suffering extreme nausea.  Even with free meds available, poverty continues to make the actual effective use them nearly impossible.

Other variations to the weekly routine have included a late celebration of Advent with the children because we finally received our first Christmas package in the mail this week! Included inside was our chocolate advent calendar from Gramma Jean. We decided to have a week of Advent during Epiphany. Oren, who really loves solemn ceremony, has helped us find our way: 4 advent doors per night (with one chocolate for each of us), 4 lit candles, all other lights out. And Oren did the reading of the Christmas story, sounding things out fairly well in English!

Isabel's cake

Friday was interesting as Teri-Lynn joined one of my classes for ballet.  She has not been before and it was great to see a well-trained dancer in class.  I have mentioned before my surprise at how many people with dance training find their way into development work and end up in Third World countries like Burundi. 

In the evening Oren and I had a father-son night and went to a French film together being shown at his school.  (actually it was ParaNorman)  He was quite scared but really liked the chance to have me alone.  (The kids are in a pretty intense sibling rivalry phase this year.)

water balloon fight

Saturday we enjoyed seeing a large number of other missionary families at Isabel's Birthday.  (Isabel is the daughter of Tim and Jeanette (South African friends.)   I think just about everyone from

Rebecca has a few unrelated notes to add at the end here:

Our mechanic Musafiri stopped by the office saying, “Congratulations!”. “Why?” we asked. “Because you got one of your computers back!” “Yes, but how did you know?” Well, I was going to make a few inquiries for you with the street kids I know, but they told me that the mzungu had already gotten his computer back.” Cool? Creepy? You decide!

obligatory bouncy castle:-)

David wrote his name for the first time all by himself (in our sight) in Sunday school last week.

When one disposable diaper costs more than your daily food allowance for your family, how do you cope? I had some guesses, but finally got to see a mother change her child’s diaper in a poor urban neighborhood meeting this week. She had a piece of local cotton fabric, very colorful, folded over many times into a long rectangle, and then double folded at the front end, just like we did with our cloth diapers. She passed that through the child’s legs and then whipped out an old plastic shopping bag with the handles cut and stretched out. The back-side was tied around to the front, and the front side tied around to the back, and Voila! Plastic pants! Very good use of resources.