Thursday 11th: Day Five in Rwanda

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.

Slept better last night and woke up more refreshed – but another blistering hot day in store, by the look of it. People are beginning to hoard water for fear of running out and I am starting to get those distant in the back of your head headaches than mean I am not drinking enough.
Today we started by heading off to the British Embassy to get registered. Every VSO volunteer registers with some embassy or other for consular protection, though the British Embassy will look after all VSO volunteers if necessary in case of an emergency. So we had people heading to the Belgian, German, Canadian and British Embassies. The British Embassy was fine and efficient: the Belgian Embassy lived up to its country’s reputation for inefficiency and buraeucracy to the extent that Daniele had to go away with all the forms they asked her to fill and arrange to come back another day. They even wanted her to draw a map of the place she would be working in (which she, of course, has never yet visited!) so they could find her if need be. Then we all came back to the guesthouse for the next instalment of Kinyarwanda.

Numbers: today was solid numbers. We got up to a thousand and beyond today with a new teacher – poor Emmanuel has had some sort of accident but nothing too serious so the two classes were combined today and Stretton was our teacher (not sure how to spell that). It was good because numbers is something we really will need on a day-to-day basis – haggling in the market, setting taxi fare prices and so on. Numbers are quite long! To give just one example Ibihumbi icyenda na magana atandatu na mirongwine na gatandatu is the Rwandan for 9,646. Also, as in Irish, all numbers change if they are attached to a noun (OK – not all Irish numbers do). Kabiri is 2 but 200 is Magana abiri. Anyway, a really useful lesson and one we were able to put to use immediately.

After class we had lunch before heading off for our tour of downtown Kigali. We headed off in two separate groups: our group was led by Jane and Soraya – both serving volunteers. We all packed into a local bus (to the great amusement of the locals already on board) and headed off for the centre. The fare was RWF170 each, just so you know. The bus dropped us in the centre of town (I will have pictures of buses for you later – they are not what we think of as buses at home; just imagine a small minibus with twenty people crammed into it). We piled out at the centre (ALL buses stop in the same place – utter chaos though everyone seems quite good-natured about it) and headed off for our tour. I won’t go into the details of all the shops etc but there are places – especially the new Kenyan supermarket (the only place known to take credit cards) – that are easily more expensive for stuff than Dublin. Basically, anything produced in Rwanda will be cheap. Stuff from Kenya or Uganda or Tanzania will be OK but more expensive. Anything else has to be flown in or trucked in from Nairobi or Mombasa and is therefore more expensive than at home. Bags of pasta 500g were RWF2000 (€2) which would be about 50c if you get the Tesco ownbrand stuff. Anyway, we got a great feel for central Kigali, though no sense of location or shape of the city. People were friendly if a little curious. There were some people begging for money, extremely politely, and people selling stuff (maps, jewellery, clothes, cloth and so on) but again not too pushy or aggressive, very good natured. People generally are like this, though Rwandans have warned me that in rural areas where they are unused to muzungu the degree of curiousity and inquisitiveness can be quite overwhelming.

We all met up in the Karibo restaurant where I reaffirmed my belief that Mutzig (umlaut on the u) is the superior beer (thank you VSO for standing us the drink). Then on to the Polyclinic where a doctor gave us a thirty minute talk on the Rwandan health system, diseases and so forth to watch out for, AIDS prevention and an outline of the current state in Rwanda (which, by the way, is pretty astonishing: the rate is down from 13% to 3.5% in a 10-15 year period. They actually went back and retested and rechecked because they thought the figures couldn’t be right, but they seem to be). It was a brilliant talk, mostly because it was all in French and I could understand it all!! WHEEEEEEEEEEE! I also asked loads of (mostly stupid) questions just to see if I could do it without making him laugh. HE didn’t, so I hope that means it was OK!!!
Then back to the guesthouse, supper (food is getting on people’s nerves: it is good but it is always the same: coleslaw, beetroot salad, peas, beans, rice, mashed potates, fried fish and a meat casserole thingy which I haven’t had the courage to try yet. Now I am frantically typing this out before heading to the Internet cafe and load stuff up for the first time.

OBSERVATION ONE: for some reason I can send texts abroad but cannot receive them. Apologies to all those who received texts from me saying ‘Please text me back’!! Will keep you posted on this. I may also send people texts from my old Meteor account. This is still active so I can send textx from the website but you cannot text me back!!

OBSERVATION TWO: I am making some fantastic new friends here – Slovak, Canadian, Irish, English, Philippines: I met Soraya today who has been here since January. She has had a terrible time – sent to a very isolated village in the mountains which was 2 hours just from a main road, let alone a town. She had little or no backup, she got typhoid and cerebral malaria but survived both (gave us a graphic description of just going suddenly blind in class and having to feel her way back to the staffroom to get help) and is now very happy in Gitarama. She is massively interested in cooking and we are already planning meetings for recipe exchanges and cook-ins! She also warned me that garlic is not used in Rwandan cooking(NOOOOOOOOOO!) but you can find it in some markets. Best thing is to buy a head and plant the cloves and let them grow!!!
Tomorrow we meet our employers for the first time – moment of truth. The secret is to be confident and not to be afraid to stand up for yourself. Here’s hoping.

And, I forgot, the motorbike saga. Charlotte has assured me that there is no way anyone is going to be made to ride a motorbike if they don’t want to but they wanted us to try it out because, if a bike became available later in the placement and we felt we wanted to take the opportunity, we would at least have a better idea. Anyway, I will give it a try on Sunday and see how it goes but I am still a bit dubious, though it would give me a huge amount of extra independence and freedom!

As I post this, this has been the first time I have been able to post anything! Hope to get it sorted out and get some pictures sent off too!! You need to be able to put some faces to these names!

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!!