A Bit More Detail

When Niyonzima Peruz fled mounting violence in her home country of Burundi in 1996, she guessed it might be decades before she could return.

“There was no peace in Burundi,” she says. “We left everything.”

Nineteen years later, her prediction isn’t so far off. Although she returned to Burundi in 2004, she spent most of her time there wishing she could go back to the refugee camp in neighboring Tanzania, where she had regular work and made a home. This past April unrest reared up once more and by May, Peruz found herself again in a Tanzanian refugee camp. Now she has no intention of ever returning to Burundi, even if that means spending the rest of her life in a refugee camp.

By the time Peruz first arrived in Tanzania, Burundi had seen consistent turmoil since gaining independence in 1962. In 1993, deep-rooted tensions between Burundi’s Hutu and Tutsi tribes boiled over and eventually pushed her out of the country. With no foreseeable end to her nation’s troubles, Peruz, like most other refugees, put down roots in Tanzania’s Mtabila refugee camp. In the years that followed, she married and had two children. Throughout the camp, tents were gradually replaced with mud-brick homes with thatched roofs.

Certain things are sort of clicking into place here. The biggest is why France has traditionally been so… um… engaged, with Francophone Africa. That never made much sense to me. I mean, France’s economic and strategic interests here are pretty minimal. But now I see it. If you’re French, it must be incredibly refreshing to be in a place where French is the language of learning and prestige, where everyone who matters speaks French, and where there’s no need to break out the English for clarification. If I were a French businessman, diplomat or military officer, this would make me really interested in these countries.