a picnic

Being in Burundi 4+ years now, Seth and I have seen our little capital city of Bujumbura slowly (“buke-buke”- slowly, slowly) grow. A few more mzungus are spotted in town. Traffic has become even crazier. And more restaurants are popping up— we now have Italian, Indian, Ethiopian, two little cafes, and an assortment of the more traditional Belgian / Burundian food! We even have THREE coffee shops—Aroma, Geny’s, and Cappuccino! Buja is becoming a happening place.

Despite this growth, we often find ourselves on Friday afternoons thinking, “what the heck are we going to do this weekend?” While the options have increased, they remain few. Our friends in the US and Europe are likely jealous of this problem; we remember the crazy weekend planning and there never, ever being enough time to breathe. But here, we’re still in slow-paced Africa, and sometimes we have to get a bit creative to entertain ourselves.


Thus, this weekend, our friend Jonathan and I planned a Sunday afternoon picnic for our group of friends. We deemed it “Food, Fear, and Fun.” We took the idea of a simple picnic and upped the ante by locating it in the Ruzizi National Park. The Ruzizi is a small park just north of Bujumbura along the Ruzizi river (thus named) and boasts viewing of hippos and crocodiles. We weren’t sure if our friends would be game to brave crocs and hippos, mosquitoes and sun to enjoy an afternoon of food delights along the river with us (and, we have to admit, Seth was among the skeptics). But, we were bored and felt creative, so why not try?


Alas, the combination of “Food, Fear, and Fun” turned out to be great fun. Thirteen of us convoyed out and entered the park together. We talked the park guides into a discounted group rate and even got permission to enter without an armed escort! We plopped our blankets, food, and eager selves along a grassy spot along the river, and it was near perfect! Sure, there were ants (always a picnic menace), the ground was a bit bumpy, and there may have been hippo poop we had to step around. But we enjoyed the flow of the river… the huge flock of birds on the grassy island in front of us… and the pod (what a group of hippos is called) of hippos lazily enjoying the afternoon, a safe distance away.

I think we indulged in at least three types of potato salad (Seth was in potato salad heaven. He loves the stuff!), pasta salad, watermelon, and even Nitro Teddy cookies that Jeff brought. Hilarious, they’re really named that! For the most part, the sun hid behind the clouds so as not to bother us too much and we really enjoyed our time. An afternoon of beautiful Burundian nature and wildlife. Old and new friends. Good food. Exploring and adventure.

I think I can still enjoy the simple African life.