Word for the Travel Wise (09/21/06)

Earlier this year I took on an ambitious task of attempting to cover every African country for Black history month. The funny part of covering almost all the countries is that I have been to none. Never seen Africa and never touched the continent, but I felt there were enough stories from other people to complete the mission. WRONG. While there is a ton of info on countries like Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco there is little on countries like Burundi. I discovered this during my searches, but also found a few helpful online places for little Burundi. One of which can be found here. Erik also did a bizarre plug on the country back in April.

Today’s word is a Kirundi word used in Burundi:

ubu – now

Kirundi is an official language of Burundi, a Central African country. There are about 4.6 million speakers of the language some also residing in Tanzania, Congo-Kinshasa and Uganda. Learning Kirundi will be difficult online. Wiki has a short list of words, but you’ll probably have to tour the country if you ever wish to become anywhere close to fluent.