We're back in Burundi again! Michael, Terry, Vasil, and myself arrived yesterday after over two days and five legs of travel. It's a long trip! The longest leg is just under 13 hours, from Washington Dulles to Addis Ababa. After two days of little/no sleep, it was great to sleep in this morning.
We spent the night in Bujumbura at a house we're renting last night, and we'll be participating in Independence Day activities out in Songa tomorrow. Hopefully look at the latest water project. After that, it's on to Gitega.
Michael and I have spent the morning grappling with our obstinate Internet options. There's a hotel/restaurant next door (Hotel de la Palmeraie) to the Bujumbura rental we're using to catch up on email. But we both have various Leo and Econet cellular data cards that we've been swapping around between phones and USB adapters so that we have internet available at the rental house here, and the rental in Gitega. No luck so far, but we haven't given up.
It was cool to shop at an open-air market last evening, we picked up some of those awesome little Burundi bananas, huge avocados and mangos, and other tidbits. Did the dollar/Burundi franc money swap. (Felt like we were in a bookie's little office!) A little stack of American bills turns into this huge stack of BIF 10,000 bills due to the exchange rate, inflation, and so forth. Luckily we're all seasoned travelers now and knew to bring crisp clean 2006 or newer US bills with us.
Bosco and several other folks met us at the airport last night. Everyone's luggage arrived safely, except for mine. Oops. Filing forms in the open-air Bujumbura airport with not a computer in sight was an experience. Luckily, Gilbert's friend Aloyse appeared and helped me negotiate with the officials. Maybe they'll find it soon? I have about two days clothes etc. in my gym bag so it could be worse.
It's great to be back!
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