It's the end of March, and I am back in Pakistan after a month in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.  Jules rejoins me here in early April.  Meanwhile, here's some photos that I took while in Burundi.

Here's a view of the front garden (massive lawn! lime and cashew trees!) in the rather large (and mostly empty) house we stayed in.

Here's the house I wish we had stayed in...  High on the hill above the main city with a great view of Lake Tanganyika, it would be a perfect place to buy and renovate as a hotel.  Only problem?  There's almost no tourism in Burundi. 

Here's what the view looks like from such rich-person, up-on-the-hill houses.  You can just see the light blue of the lake beyond the city, and across the lake the mountains that rise along the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, used to be Zaire).

Other than the French-style villas, another legacy of Belgian colonial rule is the wide, French-inspired avenues.  Unfortunately, white pickups and SUVs belonging to international organizations are the most frequent vehicles on such roads, a legacy of years of conflict and a poor economy.  Many Burundians must get around on much cheaper transportation, like this bicycle taxi.

I rode on one of these bicycle taxis once, zooming down a hill on the 'back seat' for a thrill.  Here's the kid who delivered me safely to the bottom.

Most Burundians, though, just walk, wearing plastic flip flops or going barefoot and carrying their goods on their heads.

Others get around on slightly more expensive transportation, one of the ever-present moto-taxis that ply the streets of Bujumbura.

When not being used as taxis, bicycles often become substitutes for wheelbarrows, the sweating owners pushing incredible loads to earn a few hundred Burundian francs. 

The heart of Bujumbura is the central market, a crowded conglomeration of stalls spread out underneath the flat roof in the background.  The area outside the market is the city's main bus and transportation terminal, creating an extremely crowded and active center. 

Inside the market, you can buy anything from second-hand shirts to pineapples to nails to a CD player.  Here you can experience, as Jules puts it, "(Ah!) the sights, sounds, and smells of Africa," not all pleasant but all very intriguing.

Outside, women from the rural areas on the outskirts of the city bring in fresh fruits and vegetables to sell.  The umbrellas do double duty, protecting owners from both the equatorial sun and the rainy-season downpours.

You can buy small and succulent strawberries, divided into piles on individual rattan mats, for about fifty cents a pile.

Most people in Burundi live directly off of agricultural production.  City-dwellers are no exception to this, as gardens (like the one below) throughout Bujumbura make clear.  It seems like every open plot, even a few feet by the side of a road, grows beans and other household vegetables.

Where grass and not beans does grow, there's blue-suited workers hand-mowing the green. 

But this man on the poster can solve all of Burundi's problems, right?  Well, maybe he'd better start with the ones at home, first.  Still, I hope his administration treats Burundi well.  In the last half century Bujumbura has seen two leaders with the kind of charisma and inspiration that Obama brings, and both were assassinated, a huge loss for the country.  Be thankful for peaceful transitions of power and the absence of coups, my friends in the US!

A young teen passes a sign advertising cellular phone top-up cards.  Looks like he's trying to sell the items draped across his body as he walks the streets, a common tactic for the many young men who have few economic prospects.

Sticking with the sign theme, here's a hand-painted beer ad that I found hilarious. 

When you're not relaxing with a cheaper-than-bottled-water beer, which the locals do drink like water, you can relax on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, with pretty darn nice beaches like this one just a short drive outside the city.

 There's even beach volleyball till dusk on the weekends!

And finally, for all you who have asked for more photos of Jules, here's one for you.

Honestly, she's the pink blur in the background!  (The foreground is a leaf-like thing from a local tree - I love the color and textures.)