Here are a few things that wouldn’t happen in too many other countries:
- It takes 4 weeks longer than expected to get your car back from the garage because the only reputable garage in town has no electricity and doesn’t want to waste diesel to turn on generator for your piddlely, dinged-up door that doesn’t close.
- There’s an attack on a bar 5 kms outside the capital (yep, that would be Bujumbura) that is known to have many patrons from the ruling political party, and 36 persons are killed by unidentified assailants (Google: Gatumba Massacre). However, because the ruling party doesn’t want to admit that there is an armed rebel movement developing in the countryside, the President makes it illegal to discuss the attack in any type of public forum for one month. No radio coverage, no TV coverage, no news at all until the official report of the massacre comes out. It made international press at the end of September 2011, and we don’t hear a peep about it anymore.
- The best place to buy strawberries in the capital is from a barefooted fruit vendor who walks between the cars coming to pick up children at the Belgian school. Put in an order the day before to be guaranteed good Goma cheese (cheesemakers in the city of Goma in Eastern Congo are known as the best – it’s similar to Gouda, sorta) and fresh, large-ish sized strawberries.
- When you go for a pregnancy appointment with a “Belgian-trained” gynecologist (the term all expats yearn to hear around here) at the “best” hospital in town (supposedly Hopital Bumeric), you have to ask to if he would please check your blood pressure. Not once has he measured my belly, asked me to step on a scale, told me what blood work I need to be done, na-da. Every time, though, he does look for my “file” (i.e. a pink piece of paper in a binder with handwritten notes on it), and I explain that they never made one for me. Every time he can’t find it.
- By mid-September every year, you’ve met more new people than you met in six months living in a non-expat environment. Most people working as expats move during the summer, which means lots of goodbyes each June (yuck) and many hellos each August (fun). This round has been especially fruitful for us as several English-speaking and Dutch-speaking families arrived with kids the same age as ours – hurrah!
- It’s OK to do your 28-week glucose screening test with 2 Fantas and a pain au chocolat rather than the standard, doctor-issued glucose solution, which isn’t available. Of course, don’t expect any accurate interpretation of results…
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Burundi? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Burundi in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely