Wednesday 10th: Day Four 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.

As a write this, I can hear the blaring sounds, music and cheering of two separate political rallies on either side of our compound. The election must be hotting up!

Woke up not too much the worse for wear though it was very hot last night and very close. My roommate hardly slept at all (and I don’t think my snoring was responsible for more than a small part of it) and quite a few people had headaches waking up (so it wasn’t the red wine in the restaurant either). Had great fun telling everyone about the ambassador and my ex-pupil! Met with Joe and Tina to have a chat about the motor cycle situation and none of us are happy with it, so I will contact someone later today – Charlotte probably – and let her know. I also found out later that it wouldn’t be a small moped but a Yamaha 125cc or more so, for someone has only been on a motorbike twice in his life – and that as a pillion passenger – it’s not really an option.

After breakfast (Nescafé, omelette and bread) we had a session with two existing volunteers, Bruce and Els, who briefed us on what we can expect from our placements over the next year or two, warts and all. It was really good and Bruce left us in no doubt as to some of the difficulties we can expect to encounter – bits of it were quite scary, actually. However, he also talked about strategies for coping with difficulties, negotiating with employers, keeping your spirits up and so on. It was good because we knew if there was anything else depressing or bad he would have told us, so we feel we have the full picture, unvarnished and accurate. He also did a special presentation to the education volunteers on specific aspects of the education system with lots of photographs, which was extremely useful and quite depressing – the conditions of some of these schools is quite awful. He also said that if any of us either have brought money with us or are contemplating funding some projects here, building a secure water supply for a school is a huge asset: many schools have to send pupils to fetch all their water in jerrycans, often from polluted and infected sources, every day. In some schools 20-30% of the pupils are sick every day because of the water in their own school. For £1,500 you can build a secure tank facility for trapping and storing rainwater for an entire school (pictures will follow).

He then also showed us some pictures of different and extraordinarily beautiful parts of Rwanda, including some astonishing shots of gorillas, to remind us that we are, in his words, in the most beautiful land on earth. So it’s not all doom and gloom!!!

Then it was back to Kinyarwandan. North, South, East, West, left, right, forward, back, jump, walk, stop. Imperatives (singular and plural, just like Irish), and numbers up to 50. Then a riotous game of bingo in which Hayley became absolutely hysterical with laughter as Bingomaster – it was great fun. Our teacher, Emmanuel, is absolutely superb. He actually comes from the same district as I will be living in and told me a little bit about it (in English, I hasten to add!). However, we are galloping through lots of stuff every day so retaining it is going to be a problem. The words are just so bloody long and the sounds are quite difficult. North, South, East and West are Amajyaruguru, Amajyepfo, Iburasirazuba and Iburengerazuba (zuba means ‘sun’ so you can probably figure out what those two words translate as). I am also doing my best to speak French to the Canadians but there is a limit to how long they can be expected to cope with my fractured French when they speak perfectly good English and are themselves trying to learn Kinyarwandan. Ah well, courage!

Finally we had a session on the Volunteer Committee and Furniture & Logistics. The VOLCOM is the official group that meets with VSO Programme Office on behalf of volunteers and they are looking for volunteers to sit on it. Most of the existing members seem to be male, Education and from the south (which is also me) so I don’t expect I’ll be needed. Enias and Lydia then told us about furniture – this basically is to let us know what the minimum is that will be in each of our houses when we get there: a bed, kerosene cooker, kerosene lamp, water filter, 2 chairs, a big table, a small table, a cupboard, a bookshelf, two armchairs with cushions, two ‘thingies’ to hang clothes on (some kind of a hooks-on-the-wall arrangement) and a mosquito net. Anything else we buy out of our equipment grant. Enias was enormously cheerful about it all – it must be quite a job for him getting all this stuff delivered to every corner of this country!!

And so we finished at 1700 and we are free for the rest of the evening! Maybe I will actually get to the Internet cafe and get all this stuff uploaded!! Oh yes, had a scare with a virus earlier. Some volunteers downloaded files from Bruce’s computer – he warned us in no uncertain terms to check for viruses as Rwanda is riddled with them and, sure enough, when I borrowed one of the flash drives to download the files, it was infected as were two others. However, my McAfee killed them and also took care of the viruses on the other two flash drives, but you need to be really careful and back everything up.

So, the plan for now is a) go to Internet cafe and post all of this so I am not just writing for myself b) send a few more texts as I asked a few people to text back when they got a text and I didn’t get replies, so I don’t know if they got them c) sort out my Kinyarwanda notes d) DO SOME FRENCH!!!
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Never made it to the Internet cafe – went to a bar instead with a gang of others. Having had Mutzig beer a few days ago, I decidedbto try the other main beer, Primus. It is supposed not to give you as bad a hangover as Mutzig but it is very gassy and doesn’t taste as nice, though it is cheaper. I’ll be sticking to the mutzig from now on. There were about ten of us in all, including Bruce Upton about whom you have heard earlier and it was very pleasant and informative – Bruce is a mine of information. Home and bed!

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!!