The times of crisis that Burundi has gone through have left wounds on the people. This is part of the reason why the conversation about race is still considered taboo by many. You talk to a close friend, but when it comes to race, you either agree or avoid it. But this writer reached Yaga and was surprised. He tells us how he found it.
It’s morning. It’s two o’clock. I’m on a bus in the city of Bujumbura. The faster the car, the closer I realized I was getting closer to my destination. As it stopped, some people came out and others came in, I kept thinking about what I was going to do even though it was my first day in Yaga to start my internship.
It’s 8:30 am and I’m there. The sun was shining, and I looked around at the decoration and the green lawn. I arrive, I walk in, and I’m greeted like new with warmth. Since it was still early in the morning, I found them serving tea and coffee. So they greeted me and I arrived, and the other one we started training with once arrived. We share with you, and we get lonely.
After a while, I heard that you should all come to a career planning meeting. After we started the meeting I stayed awake listening to the exchange of ideas.
There was a lot of meeting that day because it was the first day of the week. One meeting ends and we move on to the next. We are in the last meeting, those with me sympathize with my friend and I say: “Let’s let these kids go home and win.” However, they do not know that the tragedies we are listening to are passing us by and they are opening our eyes to know what we are going to do.
I’m going to hear from a racist
Here in the conversations and ideas that flowed, I heard someone who was racist, and I thought to myself: “That man is so careful he doesn’t really have a gun”. I started looking into the eyes of my training partner, and I saw him turn to look at me. When we look at each other, we are all damned. But I look at the others and I see that no one is as moved as I thought. I think everyone seems to find it normal. In this conversation, each one admitted his race and made fun of the other race, and the joke became a joke that was harmless.
After a moment of thinking about the person who initiated the conversation with your protection, I found myself taken. Suddenly, my friend and I saw that we were confused, and they turned to us and reassured us that it was okay. We tell you we were surprised.
What is even more amazing is to see how well they have finished the disaster, they have put forward how the work is going to be done in unity without limits.
It is no longer a source of hatred
The tragedy that I heard there, reminded me when I was studying in university how such a tragedy could not be ignored. It was a holy month. First, there was a bringer, each one raised his head and concluded by denying that there would be a fight between us. It was clear that many of the young people were injured.
When I compare the two places, some of them were not disrespectful, but they became normal stories, and the good purpose of the work, while others also considered it as unspeakable or as a curse that I learned a special lesson.
In this day and age, we should not be afraid of race. Instead, it should have been a good opportunity for us to learn about it and learn the truth about what happened in order to use it to get back together, without blaming others because the tragedy involved all Burundians.
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2024-09-14 10:51:33