The Burundian Chronicles Begin

I arrived in Bujumbura on Friday, May 20^th. For those of who you who don’t know or don’t remember, Bujumbura is not only the capital city of Burundi; it is the only city. The country of Burundi is primarily rural and agricultural, with the exception of its relatively small (approximately 150,000 inhabitants) capital city.

My journey had taken me two days and two nights, but I finally made it to my final destination (actually next-to-last destination, for my final one would be Kigutu and the clinic). It was a far different feeling this year compared to the feeling that I had last year: my first time in Africa.

It all seemed so surreal back then, so out-of-my-scope of personal experience. The sights and sounds and the smells of Africa were all so foreign to me. My daughter, Jessica, age 29, recently spent six weeks in Ethiopia, volunteering at an orphanage. I told her, before she left, that it was impossible to explain in the abstract those sights and sounds and smells; that one had to be there to understand those sights and sounds, and often, for worse rather than better, the smells. She now knows what I mean. Pictures are, as the cliché goes, worth a thousand words, but no amount of pictures or words can tell the story of Africa.

Safaris are amazing and wonderful experiences, and both my daughter and I have done one: she in Kenya, and me on the wild gorilla trek in Uganda. I can even make the unenviable claim that I have placed my entire hand, inadvertently of course, in gorilla shit. It is not a claim I make lightly, nor is it a claim that many people can make. However, one does not have to get that close and personal with the animals to enjoy one’s safari. Seeing these exotic animals in their natural surroundings is both surreal and exhilarating. However, safaris, as breathtaking as they may be, are only a small, and somewhat deceptive slice of African life.

The Africa that both my daughter and I have come to love is the ground level Africa: the one that she experienced at the orphanage in Ethiopia, and the one that I experienced last year and will again this year at the clinic in Kigutu. This is the Africa that steals your heart.

I am not one to romanticize this Africa. Its problems are enormous and profound. Living conditions are more often than not dehumanizing. Too many people here live on the precipice of viable human existence. Yet that takes nothing away from the spirit that is Africa, and the spirit that is the people of Africa. That is why I come back this year, and that is why I will come back every year that I am capable of coming. It is that spirit that draws me here much as a moth is drawn to a flame. Africa is my flame, and I am that moth.

I will post some pictures towards the end of this blog post. Hopefully, those pictures will give you an idea of the spirit of which I speak.

I come to Africa not merely because it is Africa, but also for the work. I do what I do as a doctor here because I need to do it. I do it because I want to do it. And, perhaps most of all, I do it because I can do it. My training, my expertise, my medical skills translate to a setting that is as different from my normal setting as night is from day. I am the lucky one. Most people cannot do what I am doing. Just ask yourself, how many people can take themselves out of their normal world, and do what they do in a polar opposite environment? Not many. Doctors can, and, fortunately for me, that is my chosen profession. It is a profession that I love doing, a profession for which I have a passion.

Now back to the story: I arrived in Kigutu on Sunday, and was greeted warmly at the clinic by my friends and what I consider to be my new family. I felt as if I was home, and, to some degree, I was. This was my second home, and I felt as comfortable, as happy as I do at my home in Los Angeles. The beauty and the tranquility of the place enveloped me. I walked up the hill overlooking the clinic, and stood there, looking down on the expanse of Lake Tanganyika below me, the Congo, across the lake and off in the distance. The scene was profoundly quiet, the only noise coming from the sounds of the children playing in the village below me. The air was clean and pure. I could think of no place I would rather be at that moment.

I show you below two pictures from that hill-top, approximately 4,000 feet above this greatest of lakes. I can only hope that they give you some idea of what I speak.

I then walked down into what passes for the playing fields of Kigutu. A volleyball game was taking place, and many of the children had gathered around to watch. These are children who have nothing, yet, as trite as it may sound, they are happy. They often seem happier than our own children, who have everything. It is these children, with their beautiful faces and wide eyes and lovely smiles that captured my heart. It is they who continue to capture my heart every day that I am here. It is they who are the real heroes of this and subsequent stories of my life in Kigutu. They rejoiced at the mere fact that their picture was being taken. They primped and posed for the camera, and all gathered around eagerly and enthusiastically to see the completed pictures on my camera. I think you get a sense of who they are from these pictures.