Like every Friday, at 9 a.m. sharp, Yaga’s paper scratchers gathered to discuss freely what was making news in the country of milk and honey. So much anxiety-provoking information! From the heat waves suffocating Buja and its suburbs to the umpteenth acute fuel shortage, including the dollar reaching record highs, not forgetting the serial murders of taxi drivers, the exchange has been anything but a cakewalk.
Times are hard. We are coming out of a rather complicated week. First of all, there was stifling heat in Bujumbura compared to the country’s average. No matter how much we hydrate, it has become very complicated to work in this suffocating heat. Bujumbura has become an open-air sauna. Where I nursery, only two offices are air-conditioned. The colleagues take turns to go and cool down before returning to the furnace of ambient air. But that is not specific to Burundi, since the entire planet is overheating.
The week that has just passed has also seen an acute shortage of fuel which has paralyzed economic activity. The situation was such that a friend in distress called me to tell me that on Wednesday not a single gas station had a drop of fuel, neither gasoline nor heating oil. Alarmist messages were pouring into WhatsApp groups. For those who don’t know, with recurring fuel shortages, WhatsApp groups to track down gas stations are proliferating like mushrooms. In one of those WhatsApp groups of which I am a member, a very distraught gentleman wrote: “Uwoba afise Jeep TX ifise mazout ansange in box tuvugane, ni ikiraka c’imisi 5, guhera itariki 25 gushika 29 Ntwarante”. I sensed a sort of dismay in his message.
No respite
The dollar going up in the elevator isn’t exactly what you could call a scoop. Since it crossed the symbolic bar of 5 thousand Fbu, people have resigned themselves. We can only wonder where this meteoric rise will end. On Tuesday, while the previous week 1 dollar was trading at 5,050 Fbu, on Tuesday it reached a whopping 5,120 Fbu on the black market. We thought we had reached the peak, but no because on Thursday it rose to 5,200 Fbu. I am not going to mention the BRB rate, I have never heard of an average citizen who went to exchange their dollars in local banks, the rate is prohibitive. As for water cuts, it’s very difficult to talk about it without feeling a wave of anger rising. A colleague said that it has been a week since not a drop has come out of the tap where he lives. Every day, he brings a container to the office located in the city center to stock up.
Concerning electricity, part of the city of Bujumbura was plunged into blackout this Sunday. Around 7 p.m., an alarmist message fell into another WhatsApp group of which I am a member. He said in substance: “Ubu rero vyakaze no muri Regideso umuyagankuba wahise, uwu mwanya bariyicariye abagura ama units muri commercial ville batashe uko”.
The terror of taxi drivers
While city dwellers were already facing the evils just mentioned, terrible news shocked the city of Bujumbura: serial killers who would attack taxi drivers. Photos of missing carriers are posted on the networks. The news spread like wildfire. The police managed to catch the alleged perpetrators. The extent of the horror was when the body of a taxi driver from Ruziba was discovered who had gone missing in the toilet, in a house belonging to one of the alleged perpetrators already known in another murder case. similar.
What does this new form of crime hide? It seems that these murders aimed to eliminate taxi drivers, then dismantle their vehicles in order to sell them in parts. In short, heinous crimes? We will have to wait for police investigations to find out more.
Anxiety-provoking news, but also anecdotal
However, this did not prevent colleagues from discussing the underlying reasons for this unusual increase in the level of crime. According to a colleague, although there have always been Burundian criminals, they have never reached this level of horror. Another offered a more informed view. According to him, endemic unemployment, political frustrations, fear of tomorrow, etc., are all factors that can encourage the emergence of a criminogenic environment.
The Burundians are ready to laugh at anything, despite anxiety-provoking news as we have just seen. A single anecdotal fact came to rescue the city dwellers from the torpor of bad news: a guy spilled his semen on a woman who was shopping at the market commonly called Cotebu. This juicy fact woke up the community of Internet users who were languishing in a distressing routine. The imagination of web citizens has created hilarity on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Some used their salacious little sentences, others posted memes, some as crazy as the others. For a moment, the misfortunes disappeared. The other side of Murundi 2.0 has resurfaced: that of the eternal joker, capable of laughing at anything and everything.
I wanted to attack this post with a Citizen, this is a serious time! I found the response very alarmist. But all things considered, I end with a Hold on, dear citizens!
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