New York and Burundi

The author of Strength in What Remains explores the experience of a young Burundian man, fresh out of the violence of Burundi and thrust into the city life of New York. The young man recounts what life was like before the violence broke out in Burundi. He also tells the story of a New Yorker who is amidst the luxuries of America without a place to rest his head. 


Deo lived in a small village in the mountains of Burundi. When he was a young child he and his slightly older brother would make the long, over two mile, trek to a stream, where they would gather the water for the household’s use. They were careful to reach the water supply in the daylight hours to be able to avoid nests of tadpoles in the stream. Then, they would make the over two-mile trudge home carrying their heavy burdens. 


During the day, before Deo was of school age, he would help tend the cows that his family was blessed enough to have. The cows were what their lives depended on, without them they would starve. As a young child, he would tend the calves in the field, guiding them back into grazing pasture when they wandered. 


When Deo reached school age, his chores did not stop; however, with sacrifices from his parents he was able to attend school as well. In school, Deo was taught with vigorous discipline; severe punishment was the result of questions. If Deo was late because of the several mile walk up the mountains, he was beaten with a switch several times. Nonetheless, Deo enjoyed learning.

When Deo was school age, he noticed that classmates would stop attending school. Their seats would remain empty and he could hear through the pane-less window the sounds of a funeral by the graveyard. Deo had witnessed several of his classmates pass away, because of sickness (like malaria) or malnutrition.

Although there were many hardships that Deo faced, there were also comforts.  Family was an important part to a Burundian, the family unit was often tight and Deo had a loving family. His father was stern and his mother sometimes overly emotional, but he knew they both loved him and his siblings more than anything. His grandfather was someone who Deo looked up to all his life, even long after his grandfather had died.

After the chores were completed and darkness covered the Burundian village, Deo’s grandfather would pull out his flute and play traditional songs. Sometimes a neighbor would join in with the whisper-like singing and the night would be filled with peaceful music. Deo loved it most when his grandfather would tell them folktales. Often based off the events of the day, but the Grandfather’s imagination would stretch the story into something new and creative. 


In New York, Deo found himself on the lower end of the world. Even lower than when he was in Burundi growing up. Having only two hundred dollars when he escaped the massacres, Deo was homeless. He stayed in an abandoned building with other squatters. There he saw and heard unsavory sights. Prostitutes were, freely giving out what was precious in Burundi, sacred even, in public. Deo found it disgusting. Soon he could no longer take the thieves and prostitutes and decided to live in the newly discovered Central Park.

He moved about the park until he found a sleeping place that was not covered with urine, and the police would let him sleep. There he set claim as his and slept their night after night. 


Deo was confused by the world that surrounded him. In one world, it was posh, expensive, glitzy, and respectable and in another - the one he occupied - it was disgusting, poor, and the treatment was horrible. Doe worked as a grocery deliverer and was paid bellow minimum wage, barely enough to buy enough food to survive, let alone get shelter. 


When Deo was on his rounds, he would wait by the service entrance for several minutes before someone would come to collect the groceries to deliver to the costumer. The curriers treated Deo as if he were less than human, a creature without brain or heart. Deo was a non-person in New York. There was no respect given to him. 


He would ponder where he would rather live, New York or Burundi in peacetime. Every time he would come to the same conclusion that Burundi was the better option. In Burundi, they respected you as a person, you may have had an extremely hard life, abuse even, but at the end of the day you could gather, sing, and tell tales. You were a human. Even the cruel school teachers thought what they were doing was best for you. They thought by being beaten you would learn crucial skills. The Burundian people valued each other during peacetime. 


In New York, you were only valued if you had the right kind of clothes, spoke English well, had shelter over your head, and could afford decent food. This was not how Deo wanted to live. 


Deo looked at the graffiti on the subway walls, the sexually explicit words and pictures. He saw these as a cry from Harlem to the posh side of the city. Harlem wanted to be valued, they wanted help, they were living in two different worlds.  Deo preferred the third world.