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.
Ok – Jane now needs to pick up someone en route so my trip will have to be cancelled. After early breakfast with Jane she gives me a spare key to house and says to stay on and use the Internet until I am ready to go and just lock up after me. I get several day’s worth of blog posted (but no photos – won’t up-load for some reason). Also get all my current emails answered (Facebook is going to have to wait until later!). Then I realise that the power has obviously been off for ages and I have been draining the battery on Jane’s laptop! I decide to leave it plugged in when I leave (it has a surge protector) so it can recharge if the power comes back (which it does just as I leave) but I text Jane and tell her to warn me if that wasn’t the right thing to do! No answer so I presume all is OK.
I meet up with Tina who has been having a really rough time with stuff from home. As regards our own situation we decide to ring Lydia in the VSO Office and fill her in. We tell her we are moving into this hotel for the time being until the housing situation is sorted and that we need to move our stuff from Gisagara to Butare. She rings Francois and then calls us back saying that Francois is going to meet us for lunch. The situation regarding our workspace is OK (that may well have been a misunderstanding on my part) and they are currently looking at three houses before deciding where we will be living. I said that’s fine but we are moving anyway and we can sort out later who exactly is paying for the hotel (I suspect it will be shared between VSO and us – they can certainly stump up for whatever rent they would have been paying for us if we were already in a house – apparently VSO have agreed to pay our rent until January, at which point the District’s new budget will kick in and they will assume responsibility.
So we are sitting here in the sun in the hotel courtyard – the place is rapidly filling up for lunch, seems to be a popular place. The rooms aren’t the largest so I hope we can fit our luggage in – we’ll see!!
Later on Wednesday....
Of course, no news or movement from Francois. We had a buffet lunch in the hotel (all you can pile on your plate for RWF1000, meat extra) and then we got motos out to Gisagara, stuffed as much into our rucksacks as we could and came back to the hotel. At least I was finally able to brush my teeth and change my underwear! We were going to meet Jane later but the heavens opened and gave us our first real foretaste of what the rainy season is like here – torrential downpour and wonderful thinder and lightning display (accompanied by the inevitable power failure). This meant no meeting up with Jane so we just stayed put and read by torchlight. Tina then went to bed early (Alfred here: blah, blah, blah, blah - I doubt anyone in the world is actually interested in hearing this level of detail about what’s going on – give us all a break! I think it’s just because he is bored and has so much time on his hands. Let’s all pray he actually gets down to work soon and gives us all a break. Then we can hear some REALLY interesting stuff about Rwandan Educational statistics!!! Can’t wait!)
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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