The task we had was to completely wire up the whole Burundi country office first with a computer network, then continue to the suboffices.
Me, JJ and Geoff worked intensly in the office for almost 4 weeks in a row with no breaks in between. We started early and left the office just before sundown as after that we were not allowed to be in the office for security reasons.
To save money we stayed in a small place called “Le Doyen” it was an old art deco style building with about 20 rooms. We paid about 10 USD a night to stay there which we prefered to the 120 USD Novotel right next door. Well the service level left a lot to desire but what to expect with 10 USD. When we checked in it was a bit strange. For some reason there was a lot of girls hanging around the place and it was on several occasion hinted to us that they would not mind sharing the rooms with us.. since we all politely refused, all the girls somehow ended up in the same room.
As the country in general was under an embargo it was not easy to find anything to buy in the shops let alone in the hotel nor restaurants.
In Le Doyen the standing order was omelette and coffee or the. That was the same for the whole 4 weeks. It was basically what we could eat without getting sick. when we returned in the evening most of the time it was the same scenario as military was patrolling outside on the main streets in town.
We arrived to the hotel found a table and some chairs outside faced towards the outside bar. On the wall of the bar there was a small TV showing some french channel with the volume turned up high. Most of the time nothing really interesting to see.
The bar itself had a 4 meter long bardesk.Behind was a shelf with a large mirror. The ritual to get a drink was to try waive down one of the two waitresses who some how was never busy but never really around either. Once flagged down they would come and ask what we wanted upon which we asked what do you have? as the bar really looked empty.
Well we could easily have figured that out ourselves without asking. had we known that there was actually nothing in the fridges.
Somehow during all the wars there had been an unwritten rule among all fighting parties.
– Do not shoot at the brewery! It seemed that no matter who would try to take power would be very impopular by any standard if they had attacked the brewery. Anything else had been fair game .
The other drinks available was a Red Label Whiskey, a Gordons Gin and a Ricard. When I say this I mean it literaly. There was one bottle of each and that was it.
Neither me nor JJ was interested in the beer and Geoff was on Fanta. We knew there was an embargo so we did not expect too muchand the selection was enough for us.
As the rooms were very dull we spent more time sitting disucssing whatever topic we could think of outside over a drink. Me on Gin tonic and jj on Whiskey. The hotel was not very busy in general but in the evening a few friends and business partners for the owner came around.
We had the occational visitor from the office joining in to talk about the world outside Burundi as for them the curfew had just ended the week we arrived. This to mean that before the curfew had been at 1800 – 0700 in the morning.. now it was really party time as people now were allowed to actually stay out until 2200.
We did not drink very much each evening but we noticed that even after 1 week not even one addition to the bottles had been there. After 2 weeks the gin was finished and then shortly after the whiskey was gone. So we started on the Ricard. As it was the only alcohol left it went faster than the others. Not that we were drinking a lot but among us and the few other people around it seemed the bottle was getting exponentially empty.