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.
Another good night’s sleep though it was noticeably harder to get up this morning! Tried to have a light breakfast as I realise I am eating an awful lot as we seem to get offered food constantly through the day. More salads and fruit on offer now, which is good. This morning Tina and I had a discussion with my Programme Officer about our placement in Gisagara. It wasn’t very specific as VSO hasn’t had a presence here before and the District Education Officer has only recently been appointed. On the good side, we will be working in the District Government Offices, where the Mayor and 35 Local Government Staff are located – it is even possible that the office has (dare I say it) a wireless internet connection!! However, I refuse to get excited as theory and practice often diverge significantly here. A huge amount is going to depend on the individual officer we will be working for – things like working hours, holidays and so on all have to be negotiated on an individual basis. In theory I am only entitled to three working weeks’ holiday a year (plus various national holidays etc) which means anyone visiting me is going to have to co-ordinate really carefully if they want to actually see me while they are here.
Gisagara itself is more of a village than a town but is not far from Butare. However (and this is the part that really pisses me off) it now looks as if I may need to ride a motorbike after all. I had asked about this early on and could have done the training in Ireland or England but was assured that I would not need to. Now I will have to do it all (somehow) here in Rwanda. The plan is that I will do some training but not get a bike for the first few months to see if it is possible to survive without one but, if it does prove necessary, I may as well have started the training as soon as possible. Very frustrating – I can see why a bike would make life a lot easier for me but cannot for the life of me see why this wasn’t apparent from the beginning. Anyway, a lot of the job will be wait and see when we get there, but it’s going to be interesting!!
Each side of lunch we had our first formal Kinyarwanda classes. So far we have just covered basic greetings and a few other phrases and it is REALLY DIFFICULT! There are a large number of variations depending on whether a superior is speaking to an inferior or vice versa or both are of equal status, in which case they can opt for either the formal or informal versions. Just one example:
Mwaramutse(ho) – Hello to a superior or formally to an equal
Waramutse(ho) – hello to an inferior or informally to an equal
Mwaramutse(ho) namwe – reply to a superior or to an equal who addressed you with the ‘Mwa-‘ form
Waramutse(ho) nawe – reply to an inferior (even if they used the ‘Mwa-‘ form), or to an equal who addressed you with the (Wa-‘ form)
The ‘ho’ is added in occasionally for reasons I don’t quite understand, possibly when addressing the elderly as a mark of respect (will check this out).
This formal/informal thing is all over the place. If you ask someone casually what their name is it’s Witwa nde? but ask someone important and it’s Mwita bande (the answers are Nitwa or Twitwa respectively)?
Interestingly, Mwaramutseho (the usual greeting for ‘Good Morning’ actually translates as ‘Are you still alive?’ as in ‘You didn’t die during the night?’. Many of the Kinyarwandan greetings focus on being glad the other is alive or hoping they will continue to be so in the future!
‘Ireland’ to my relief is Irilande in Kinyarwandan. My unfortunate English colleagues have to reply to the question Ukomoka he? with Nkomoka muri Ubwongereza whereas I get away with Nkomoka muri Irlande (and Ubwongereza is even harder to pronounce than it looks!). We practised over and over and over again, in pairs in front of everyone else, adding in little extras like Amakuru ki? Ni meza (How’s it going? Fine) and Ugiye he? Ngiye ... (Where are you going? I am going to....) which introduced us to the wonderful world of prepositions. Ngiye i Kigali (placename), ngiye ku isoko (I am going to the market – an openair place), ngiye mu ivuriro (I am going into hospital – a place you have to enter) or you can just stick on an infinitive ngiye kwigisha (I am going to teach).
All that finished at four and I have now finished typing at 1724. The ambassador’s car is collecting us at 1800 so I had better shower and change!
.....
OK, so it wasn’t a car – one of the other volunteers - Cathy Devine - turned up and we got a taxi. Cathy was in great form given she had just been diagnosed with amoebas. We had heard so much about this Indian restaurant – other volunteers said it was the best restaurant in Kigali and people only went there on really special occasions. The ambassador turned up around 7.15 and we sat down and ordered. The food didn’t arrive until around nine! Apparently the manager resigned recently and the new guy is obviously going to need a while to get his hand in! However, once it arrived the food was really good and the wine was nice too – wine is an incredible luxury here, more expensive than in Ireland. In fact the prices in the restaurant were pretty much Irish standard - €5-6 for starters, €10-15 for main courses, €25-30 and up for wine. One bottle of wine here would cost me 20% of my monthly salary!
Anyway, it was a really great – and surprising – night! I ended up sitting beside the ambassador, Kevin Kelly. Kevin used to be head of Trocaire in Rwanda many years ago and then worked for Save the Children but then made the unheard-of transition into an ambassadorship! As we talked (and I can’t remember exactly how this happened) he mentioned something about his wife, either her surname or the school she went to. Anyway, I said: ‘You don’t mean Pamela Uwakwe, do you?’ You could have knocked the poor man down with a feather!! I taught Pamela (or at least she was in Rathdown School if not necessarily in any of my classes, I can’t remember exactly) 1983-1986 – her parents were from Nigeria and Longford. What a small word!!! Anyway, we had a great chat and he said I should come over to Kampala some time and see the place – and Pamela!
Overall it was a great night. There was some discussion of how Kampala had had such a spectacular St Patrick’s Day celebration this year while there was no official such celebration in Kigali, so we set up an impromptu Rwanda St Patrick’s Day Celebration Committee on the spot (I seem to be one of the Cultural Attachées) – this might actually turn into something that is actually going to happen – watch this space.
Because the food was so late, we got back to the guesthouse after eleven and everything was closed up. We banged on the gate again and again (well, actually, Sonya did) but to no avail. So Sonya rang the number on the guesthouse sign and woke up the owner to get someone sent out to rescue us. A few minutes (and one more phone call later) some guy turned up, let us in with a smile, and proceeded to tear strips off the poor unfortunate guard who had fallen asleep somewhere! And so to bed (my roommate had kindly left a night light on for me so I could find my way around – thanks Joe).
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!!
No comments:
Post a Comment