Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.
Breakfast was just tea – couldn’t face another omelette sandwich. Last night’s dinner was so full of carbohydrates I still felt stuffed when I woke up: boiled potatoes, sweet potato stew, rice, beans (kidney), beans (runner), spinach lookalike (imboga) – the only options I didn’t try were the plantains (too bready), intoryi (mini-aubergines that taste revolting) and spaghetti. I also avoided the meat – partly because I am not eating much meat but also it’s much more expensive: veg buffet is RWF1000 but each piece of meat is RWF200 extra. Side salad (coleslaw with 1 small dollop of mayonnaise is free – mayonnaise is dispensed by the waitress as it is expensive!!).
Tina headed off for the bus but returned as we realised that today is umuganda : everyone is working on community projects or similar things. This happens on the last Saturday of each month, so nothing will be open or functioning until twelve. This is a big thing here – sometimes they build classrooms, repair roads, refurbish dwellings – whatever the community leaders think needs doing in that particular area. Once that’s over, Tina’ll head off for Catherine’s party in Kigali. I’ll focus on French and maybe plan out a few possible strategies.
Just been chatting to a guy who is working here in the hotel – Éli. We were wondering about him as he seems extremely bright and well-educated to be just working in a hotel. Turns out he is from the Congo and has come here to study Information Management techniques in Butare University – he is just working here for the summer to make a bit of cash. He told us that umuganda also exists in the Congo but there it happens every Saturday from eight until ten. Once we get settled in here and actually become ‘inhabitants’ I expect we’ll be joining in too!
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Well, isn’t it when you least expect it that things suddenly change! After talking to Éli, this other guy sat down and started talking to me. We chatted a bit – about the genocide and its aftermath, among other things - and then he said he had a project he wanted to show me. Now that is quite common here – often people think that as a muzungu you can give them references, jobs, money, English classes, whatever – but I agreed to look at it with him if only to improve my French. To cut a long story short (or as short as I can because we talked for just over four hours – my French is really coming on!) his name is Pascal and he is the manager of the hotel and Éli’s older brother. His project is based on a number of small-scale activities in the southern province aimed specifically at addressing the psychological needs of widows and orphans from the genocide, especially women who were raped and made pregnant and then found themselves and their illegitimate children rejected by both community and family. It covers a microfinance project, training schemes for orphans, seminars and group activities so these people who are mostly living in isolation can get together and share their experiences and realise they are not alone.
He also told me about his own background – eldest of eight, father died when he was young (Éli is the youngest of the eight and was nine months old when the father died), dropped out of school to raise the family; worked on the streets selling beignets which he cooked himself and other foods, then worked in construction, trained as a plumber (as well as doing a six-months course in psychology), opened a restaurant in Butare a few years ago and then moved on to become the manager of the Hotel Ineza one year ago. He showed me some photos of the place when he started – amazing what he has done with the place so far (pictures to follow). He is also big into cooking, so we browsed through his collection of recipes from a big French-African cookbook and have made tentative arrangements to follow this up somehow (my French got overstretched trying to read the book, translate what he was saying and edit out the John Denver music blaring in the background from a radio being carried by a local carpenter having his lunch so I’m not quite sure what I agreed to).
Anyway, just to have a four-hour conversation in French was amazing enough. I offered to take photos of the hotel for the website he is developing: he aims to have internet access in all rooms by next year (I think there is only one other hotel in all Rwanda that has that!) and a big TV screen set up by January so we can all watch football (I mentioned I was off to watch Premiership football this afternoon). Then a rather strange thing happened: this guy in a red t-shirt appeared at the table, shook my hand and said could he have a word when I was finished. I remembered meeting him in the street yesterday when he said he had ‘quelques choses interessant’ to show me (I thing there’s a ‘de’ and an accent in there somewhere). I said I might be in the Hotel Faucon later but wasn’t and he had obviously managed to track me down here). When I did go up to talk to him, he offered to sell me some ‘genuine’ village artifacts – wedding dolls, circumcision masks, dance masks etc – all from the Congo and presumably smuggled out. He was looking for $1,500 for the wedding dolls and spoke darkly of not having much time, not safe for him to hang around, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and so on!! I politely declined – either they were fakes and not worth much or genuine and illegal, though they were quite striking.
Anyway, I am meeting Pascal for dinner tonight in Butare’s only chinese restaurant, named – appropriately enough – the Chinese Restaurant. Felt I have made my first real Rwandan friend, which is a really nice feeling!! Â bientôt!
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Watched Chelsea beating Stoke and then – hilariously – Hull beating Arsenal in a bar full of Arsenal fans! Had a long chat with Jane Keenan (PHARE volunteer based in Butare working on the AIDS/HIV programme) about possible approaches and strategies in my work (and my curio dealer also turned up and gave me a big grin!). Then joined Pascal and two friends – Chantal and Jean-Pierre – for some food in the Hotel Ineza (I was late so they had decided to scrap the Chinese restaurant!). Had a really nice evening just chatting away, especially as they are from the Congo rather than Rwanda and they told me loads of ways in which the Congo and Rwanda differ – there is no strong musical or dance tradition in Rwanda compared to other African countries and especially compared to the Congo.
I made one faux pas – we were sharing a large grilled tilapia on a dish, so a basin was brought in with soapd and water to wash our hands before we started eating from the one fish with our fingers. When Chantal arrived a little late, I wiped my hands on a napkin and shook hands – no, no, no, as I realised when the other two offered their right elbow to be shaken instead of their hand! Not that they minded, they just thought it was funny, but I decided not to have any more of the fish in case I made things worse (a pity – it was a really gorgeous fish and I don’t usually care for fish!).
Then to bed (via two hours of Civilization 3) – meeting Jane for breakfast tomorrow morning to get some more education on Rwanda, VSO and other matters!
Here are some pictures – I haven’t posted any in a while!
This is Jane Keenan, seeing as I have mentioned her a few times
This is the Ineza Hotel. The manager – Pascal – is the third from the left in the group photo.
If you remember the story about the guy who accidentally stole the policeman’s briefcase, this is a picture of the aftermath. Kitoze is in the checked shirt!
Some local wildlife!
This is a typical building on the road from Gisagara to Butare – basically wattle-and-daub, a wooden framework plastered with mud and then left to dry.
This is an unusual building behind our house in Gisagara, made from wooden poles and banana leaves. We think it is used for storing cabbages!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
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