Its a chilly Tuesday morning when I leave Nairobi - the green city in the sun- to Bujumbura, the heart of Africa. As the plane circles the city to locate the runway I can't avoid to admire the beautiful terrain below. The land is very green, the rivers snaking down to lake Tanganyika and the hills a scene to behold. It brings to mind the scenes from the famous movie "Joe young" the huge African bamboon.
Many years of political turmoil have reduced the otherwise would be prosperous country to mere shadow of itself.
With the war over and the promise of a better future of political stability and economic progress, Burundians are working hard to make this promise a reality. The streets of Bujumbura are awash with traders and businessmen doing all they can to make ends meet.
Citizens on the streets put the population of Burundi to about 8m people. Burundi recently joined the East Africa community to try and benefit from trade concessions and economies of scale that are the driving force of the East Africa integration.
Some of the challenges that have made businessmen shy away from this tiny country is language barrier. Its francophone affiliation has been a major deterent to would be investors. Rwanda, its neighbour in the north, embraced anglophone neighbours to try and stimulate its econimic growth and the results are quite handsome. Isn't time Burundi followed suit?
Communal work
Every saturday is a day for communal work. Residents are required to meet at designted areas of the city and take part environmnetal clean up failure to which one can be arrested and charged.
There are interesting places to visit in Bujumbura, the beaches of Lake Tanganyika are lovely and beautiful. Hotel of the beautiful sin, pictured below has a wierd name.
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