The Short Tie Club: Part II
It has been an emotionally exhausting week here in Kigutu. The story of Honorine, which began on Monday and ended yesterday, is a heartbreaking one. It is a story that I will never forget. But, because this is Africa, one must accept that which one cannot change. One must move on to the present and the future. As part of that “moving on” process, I believe that we should now turn to the lighter side of life in Burundi. It is with that purpose in mind that I once again return to the very serious subject of the Short Tie Club (STC).
It appears as if my recent blog post has stimulated overwhelming interest in the STC. The demand for membership has grown exponentially since I published our manifesto. We are inundated with requests to join our club. We are in the process of considering those requests on an individual basis. We must exercise caution in terms of whom we accept into the club. I say that, not because we are elitists in any sense. We are not; we are, rather, the common man, as well as the common woman. We are of the people, by the people, and for the people. We are your next door neighbor; your best friend; your most loyal confidante. We are there for you in times of sadness and sorrow; we are equally there for you in times of joy and happiness; we are there with you; we are there for you.
The STC does not discriminate on any level, but, yet, we ourselves must be discriminating in whom we do take. To quote Thomas Paine, when he spoke about Revolutionary War soldiers, we, in the STC, do not want any “sunshine patriots, and summer soldiers.” We want people who are committed to our cause now and forever. We do not want those who wear the short tie when it is convenient to wear the short tie, but the long tie when it is inconvenient. We want those who wear the short tie with pride. We want those who are not afraid, even amidst a group of long tie wearers, to wear their short ties.
There is another element in our decision to choose wisely and well in terms of whom we accept into the STC. This is a far more insidious element; a far more dangerous element that has applied for membership in the STC. It is an element that could potentially jeopardize the existence of the STC. We have reason to believe that there are members of the Long Tie Club (LTC) who are trying to infiltrate our club. They want nothing more than to destroy us, and will stop at nothing to do so. These are professional LTC hit men, and they are remarkably good at their jobs. They pretend to be us; they look like us; they wear the short tie like us; they speak like us; but they are not us.
But perhaps, you say, I am merely being the paranoid king of the STC. Perhaps these LTC bogeymen do not exist; perhaps I have invented them for my own purposes; to consolidate my own power under the guise of the common enemy. In a sense, I wish that was the case; that I was unduly cautious and unduly skeptical of the motivations of others. Unfortunately, that is not true. I know that they exist because we have our own experts in the tech/computer department who have intercepted several incriminating e-mails. Those e-mails have allowed us to weed out the villains, but there is still more work to be done. We must be absolutely certain that we have eliminated all of these nefarious characters from the STC. I myself believe that the vast majority of the LTC is more than willing to accept us. It is this small, fringe element that poses such a threat. But we must be careful in the face of such misguided fanaticism.
So now you know why the STC, despite its egalitarian nature, must be so careful in our choice of new members. That said, I am still proud to announce that we do have many new members. They should be applauded for their dedication to the cause. I am confident that they will forever more be loyal wearers of the STC. Here are some of those members:
This is Divine's mother. Divine is one of my favorite patients, and her mother is one of my favorite mothers. Divine, pictured in the next photo, is a small girl of twelve who has been in the hospital for over a month for the treatment of a very large abscess in her back. She is much improved and will probably go home within a week. Her mother is trying to teach me to speak Kurundi.
This is Mr. Mint.
The STC had its Burundian “coming out” party last weekend in Bujumbura. The short ties literally came out of the closet. The occasion was the dowry party of our expert lab technician at the clinic and his soon-to-be wife. His name is Cyrille and hers Nadine. Before I get to the role of the STC in this event, I should tell you a little bit about the party itself.
The tradition here is for the husband to present his future wife with a dowry prior to the marriage. There is a formal ceremony at which a protracted negotiation occurs between a representative of the husband’s family and a representative of the wife’s family. The negotiation is more symbolic than real, for I believe that the extent of the dowry is determined before the event occurs.
The dowry ceremony is a Burundian “black tie” event. The men are all dressed in suits and ties, and the women to the nines in their flowing Burundian robes. Below you will see a picture of two such women. They were representative of the majority of the women at the party: tall and beautiful.
There is a saying in Burundi: “le temps nous appartient.” (The time belongs to us). What that means is that in Burundi, as well as most of Africa, they are not slaves to time. They own the time, as opposed to being owned by the time. That partially explains why promptness is not an important concept here. One might arrange to meet at 5 P.M., and yet that meeting might not take place until 6 or even 7 P.M. Time does not have the same constraints as it does in the United States. One learns to accept it, as one does with so many things in Africa.
There was even discussion at lunch today whether there is a coefficient to convert Burundian time into American time. Does one Burundian hour equal two, or even three American hours? Do twenty minutes Burundian time equal one hour American time? If, for example, Melino says he will be there to get you at 9 A.M, does that really mean that he will be there at 11 A.M.? The answer to the question is no. The Burundian may be there exactly at the designated time. He may also be there two hours late. That’s because “time belongs to them.”
I interject this commentary in the context of the dowry party. The invitation said the party started at 4:30. We were there at 4:30. We then waited outside by the side of the road for an hour. This was followed by a return to the car, after which we drove approximately 150 yards. We then got out of the car, and walked another hundred yards. That placed us in front of the outdoor hall where the ceremony would take place. We did not go into the hall. Not yet anyway. We waited another forty minutes outside the hall before entering.
Such is life in Africa. One does not question the time. One accepts it, just as one accepts that a dowry ceremony will take three hours to complete. This one was completed in a little under three hours, with Cyrille’s winning bid being two cows.
Now to return to the point of the story: the STC and the dowry. I will, because it is my nature, give you the unvarnished truth. There were approximately 100 men at the ceremony. All of them were wearing ties. I counted twelve short ties among that 100, or a little more than 10%. Am I disappointed in that low turnout? Do I think it presages the demise for the STC? Would I have wanted more STC’rs at that high society Burundian party? The answer is no to all of those questions. I would much rather have a committed and loyal few than an uncommitted many. Any cause begins with a single step. We have taken that step and many more. I believe that the twelve we saw at the dowry party will be twenty or thirty at next year’s dowry party, and who knows how many at the dowry party the year after that? Time marches on, and the STC marches with it. I now leave you with a picture of Melino and “le roi,” as we prepared for the dowry party.
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