Waiting!!!

Had a great week or two chilling out in Munich and Prague. I had gone to Bristol last month to see my sister Maria and three of her four children (sorry I missed you Sam - enjoy Portugal!) and my sister Máirín and brother Aindriú came over to Munich to join me and my other brother Brian for a little farewell party. Then I went to Prague to see my sister-in-law Dana and her three daughters Rút, Marketa and Sara and am now back in Munich where my cousin Elias has arrived to visit from New Delhi (via Montpellier).

Have now decided to make as few clothes purchases as possible here and to buy stuff in Kigali instead. One reason is that while I have a 46kg weight allowance for London-Kigali, I only have 23kg for Dublin-London. I hope to persuade BMI when I get back to Dublin to allow us some extra but, if I end up having to pay extra I need to keep the weight down as much as possible. I also have a terrible habit of packing too much at the best of times!!! I also got an email from the volunteer I will be sharing with in Gisagara (Tina) - her first question was who is bringing the Scrabble set! I was tempted to email her back and ask what Scrabble was but I resisted. Hope she plays by the Chambers Dictionary rules but it's about as good an omen as you can ask for!

Got bitten by something in Prague and my arm swelled up like an aubergine - from ONE bite!! What's going to happen when I get to Rwanda?? Maybe I need to stock up on antihistamines.

It was really strange waking up this morning knowing that everyone else was going to be in school and, for the first time in 25 years, I wasn't. Have a great urge to GO rather than hanging around here, but I suppose that is natural. There are still a few things I need to clear up in Dublin before I leave - bank, insurance, fund-raising and so on. The fund-raising kind of ground to a semi-halt over the summer but it might pick up again now that school is back.

Anyway, back to Dublin tomorrow for final preparations and then OFF WE GO!!

Here are links to two other blogs by people who are or have been working in Rwanda - gives you a really good idea of what it is like working there, good and bad!
http://murahorwanda.blogspot.com/2007/08/rwanda-blog-update.html is by a Salvation Army volunteer working on a housing project.
http://heathenblogging.blogspot.com/ is by a serving VSO volunteer who is working (among other things) on developing a Rwandan sign language.

If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!