To the Editor: Christopher Vourlias’s report on “Burundi’s Freewheeling Nights” (May 2) brought back memories of Bujumbura in the mid-1980s. The country’s last genocide lay 12 years in the past, and the next great bloodletting wouldn’t happen for another decade. AIDS still lurked quietly below the surface, not quite ready to take its toll on Burundi’s population. In those fin d’époque days, patrons packed clubs like Africa Nights or the Black & White run by Buddy, a portly and far more congenial version of Casablanca’s Rick. Like some doomed Victorian heroine, Bujumbura’s attraction has always been its combination of the tragic and the tempting.

Chris Hennemeyer
Silver Spring, Md.