Burundi
How are you? How is your husband? How are the kids? How are your cows? Are you on good terms with your neighbors?
And so on.
Prudencienne Namukobwa paused in the melody to allow the younger woman’s rhythmic affirmation, a pattern she has mastered over the decades.
“Ego,” Emelyne Nzeyimana replied over and over in the local Kirundi language. “Yes.”
They cited the threat from public health measures that discourage unnecessary contact during disease outbreaks, in addition to the perceived failure to promote akazehe among school-going youth.
Among young Burundians, it is hard to find people who know what akazehe means and even harder to find someone who can perform it.
“At a certain time, unfortunately, it was abandoned,” said Sandrine Kitonze, a culture advisor in the office of the governor of Ngozi province.
She said akazehe and its minutes-long embrace “made you feel that the person who greets you loves you.”
