Tourists & Thieves

One of the best things about being in Burundi was the feeling that we were exploring a country that few white people ever go to. There is only one tourist shop in all of Bujumbura, and as there are no organized groups of young white travelers or old white retirees, there are no street peddlers who make a living by selling kitschy African trinkets. Due to the lack of tourism, petty thieves haven’t had a chance to hone their pickpocketing skills, something that we discovered on our first walk around Bujumbura’s central market.

Despite the density of people at the market, we wandered through the crowds with ease; no one was pushing or shoving. There was obviously an order to the chaos, so when a man suddenly ran right into my chest and didn’t apologize, I knew something was up. I kept my eye on him as he ran back past us and waited dancing (yes, dancing) on the corner until we came by. As soon as he closed in again, three of his friends appeared out of nowhere and tried to grab us, so I immediately pushed the lead guy backwards with my forearm. Surprisingly, this was enough to dissuade all four of them, and they took off running down the street.

More amused than flustered, we reflected that things might not have gone so well had one of them had a knife, so we resolved to avoid physical contact if thieves approached us again. Sure enough, an hour later, the same scenario began to unfold. This time I acted earlier - I cursed the approaching thief to his face and told him to get lost. While this succeeded in avoiding physical contact, Anette thought my methods too crude, and rightfully so: the F-word is understood all over the world, and a two-meter tall white man shouting it in the streets of Bujumbura is sure to attract more unwanted attention.

By this time, the word was definitely out that two white people were walking around and around the market just begging to be robbed, so we began to make our way back to the hotel for lunch. Before we got there, a few more thieves decided to try their luck…

Two guys came up alongside us as two others snuck up behind. We stopped as soon as we felt their presence and the two from behind kept walking past us. The two beside us, however, stopped as if on cue and simultaneously rested a leg on a cement block, pretending to watch life go by. They looked like hapless FBI agents who had just been caught tailing Tony Soprano, so I walked up to them and greeted them loudly in Kirundi, but got no answer, just downcast eyes. Then I said “Amahoro muhira?” (How is everyone at home?) and one man reluctantly turned his face to me and answered. Then I asked him in Swahili, “Are you a thief?” and he answered hurriedly, “No, no, I’m not a thief.” And that was the end of that comedy.

After lunch we took a walk in a different part of town and were no longer troubled by thieves. However, we became furious when we passed a sign for an NGO that proclaimed: “Providing hope to the hopeless.” As we stood in the street venting to each other about the hopelessness of such organizations, a taxi drove by with the word “nigger” (not “nigga”) emblazoned proudly across its windshield. It was one of those moments that catches you off guard because it is so unexpected and so culturally wrong by your parameters, and it is the unfathomable icing on the cake in a day full of thieves, poverty and thoughts of why Africa is the way it is and what exactly we’re doing here.

Yes, we’ve seen plenty of pirated Chinese 50-in-1 DVDs with titles like “Black American Nigga Money Films 2008” and the odd “Nigga Kutz” barbershop, but this was the first “er” spelling of the offensive word we’d seen. For a white teacher who spent a full week in his Spanish class facilitating a student debate about the use of the N-word, it made me upset, but I know from conversations with many Africans that they don’t understand why it’s offensive. For them, it’s just another piece of American pop culture to be imitated, but for me, it can never be separated from the hatred and violence of American history and the ongoing struggle of Black America.

In the next five minutes after seeing the car, at least five people shouted out “mzungu,” as if to test our acceptance of this quasi-racial term that so often feels derogatory to us. Usually we just ignore it because we know it’s just curiosity, but on some days you just want to scream at people and tell them to stop treating you differently because you look different. It is, I think, one of the most important lessons for white people living in Africa: to know what it’s like to be a minority, and to realize that no matter how well you learn the language and culture, you will always be seen as different.