Most Africans have black skin. Mine is white. It’s a simple fact. I was taught that it was like how some have brown eyes and others blue or green, it doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t care. But here, they know better.

Muzungu! Muzungu! Bonjour Monsieur Munzungu! Kids run after us. They yell, they scream. White person! White person! Hello Mr. White Person! You hear it from cars, from passing trucks, young, old but especially the rural poor. Though they’re truly uneducated, maybe an eighth grade education, they know that the average white person has more money than the average black person. It’s a simple fact. You want to believe it doesn’t matter, but it does.

This once, I got a flat tire right outside a roadside village and everyone came out to watch, from little kids to the village drunks. These two, maybe 13 and 14, they wanted to help. And no doubt, they were better at patching inner tubes than me. Cool. He asked me where I was from. America. Ah! America, where everything is good. I didn’t know how to respond. We started inflating the patched tube but the valve blew out and the tire shriveled. Their faces dropped. They couldn’t help me and I wasn’t going to help them. One of the kids asked, in America, there are jobs? In America, you just go to school? And that, that just breaks your heart.
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Spending a night in the maternity ward to a rural African clinic, you gain perspective. There was no soap, no clean linens, no running water, no electricity. And yet, they were so kind to us. Ben asked if there was a way to boil water, so we could make our rice. The clinic had a stove. They clearly hadn’t used it much before. Gas spilled out onto the floor. A pregnant woman came in to give birth. The flames shot up three feet high. Ben and I thought the stove was going to explode and everyone was going to die. And yet it was still a heart warming experience. They gave us a pineapple. Even insisted we sleep on blood stained beds. (Awkward!) They were so kind.

slept here!

there was no electricity or running water

the blood stained bed I was to sleep in #awkward

people, chickens, childern wandered on through

they were exceptionally nice to us

the they even got out the stove. (notice the puddle of gas on the floor - it was an exciting evening)

from the american people - they were grateful for our country's aid

Burundi rarely makes the news. It’s a nation about the size of Massachusetts, but with more people and extreme poverty. It’s the twin to Rwanda, same ethnic strife, Hutu vs Tutsi, same Belgian colonial legacy, but Burundi is poorer and more forgotten. In the entire country, we saw but one working traffic light. From the Tanzanian border, the road was dirt. Our hiking trails are in better condition. In Burundi, most children suffer from chronic malnutrition. I have never been in a land so poor.

People were surprised to see us. Outside of the capital, especially closer to Tanzania, people would cheer as we cycled by. It’s like we were famous, like we were world class cyclists, like we were doing something noteworthy and important. And in a sense, maybe, we were. One man told me that I was the first white person he’d seen outside a car. It was just incredible.

At every little town, a crowd would gather. Once, the police asked us to move because the crowd around us blocked the main intersection. They would stare and gawk and sometimes manage a few questions in English. They asked us where we were from. America. America! They asked us why we were in their village, their town, in Burundi. We come as tourists. Tourist? And they would shake their heads, like they knew what the word meant but they’d never seen one before.
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We took the MV Liemba from Mpulungu in Zambia to Kigoma in Tanzania. It was insane. When we go on a cruise, we expect sunsets and pretty scenery. This, however, is the MV Liemba: yelling, banging, crying babies, chickens, people sleeping on top of cargo, people sleeping on people.

the MV Liemba

it was an unbelievable voyage, so much stuff on one boat, utlizing only canoes and a little crane

sunset n' cargo!

there were two lifeboats for 1600 people

A TV crew for the History Channel rented out the top deck. It was the only nice place on board because no one else was supposed to be up there.

Sunrise over our destination, Kigoma, Tanzania.

The MV Liemba is not for the claustrophobic!

on the second day, after it got just insane, women and childern were allowed to sleep on the floor of the 1st and 2nd class deck

the hallways were a mosh pit of sweat, mud and maize

3rd class was crowded. there were no beds, they just slept on top of each other

the main deck - nothing was strapped down, people slept on cargo, people slept on our bikes

the door in front of our 2nd class cabin was a puddle of mud, maize and unknown. people would walk barefoot, they slept on that floor.

there were no docks - canoes would tie up to the ship and people would climb onboard

the door in the boat people would climb / slash / push though to get onboard

it was crazy

the images speak for themselves

It was an experience. Especially as a TV crew from the History Channel rented out the boat, kind of, and were very happy to use their power as they pleased. I learned a lot. I’ll write more later.

Making videos from a bicycle! It’s challenging! These edits are a bit rough. (I’m actually being kind of rude, holding everyone up to upload!) I expect when I have more time I’ll re-edit, but as it stands, we have miles to make. Burundi calls!

The music is by a Zambian musician, Dali Soul. I hear he’s a cool dude ;). Most of his music, including this song, promote progressive causes. The lyrics are mostly in Nyanja. This song, if it’s not very clear, promotes condom usage. HIV / AIDs and other STIs are a big problem. You see signs everywhere yet the infection rate exceeds 10%.

The English manor is called Shiwa Ng’andu. It’s in the middle of nowhere, miles off the main road on a dirt track. The two historical photos are by C&J Harvey.

Once again, it was all the wonderful people who welcomed us into their homes, truck stops, back yards and huts, they made this so worthwhile. Thank you!

Bicycling through Africa, excluding the big cities, I can easily imagine myself in a classic Western film. The land is dusty, sun omnipresent, buildings stout, industry absent, law more a suggestion and at every turn there’s the palpable sense of both opportunity and danger. The highway is littered with the hulking remains of automobiles stripped to the frame. Subsistence farmers with goat powered carts trot along as a 2011 BMW whizzes by. The highway is sparse, uninterrupted but for potholes and the few occasional cows.
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