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.
Tina had a really rotten night with an upset stomach so she isn’t coming to Gitarama after all, especially as she never got out to Gisagara to get her trainers. Went to he bank at 1100 to continue my saga of how can I transfer money from Ireland – they are just as adamant that I don’t need an IBAN code as the Irish banks are that I do!
Met up with Jane at 1200 for the bus and she was also feeling poorly!! She slept pretty much all the way to Gitarama and then said ‘We need to get off here’. It didn’t look like Gitarama to me but, what the heck, she’s the expert. It was her boyfriend’s teacher training college, which is not actually in Gitarama itself. So suddenly my clever plan was thwarted – Jane and Jean would head off for their walk (without Tina, obviously) while I would have a couple of beers and wander up to Soraya’s and see if she needed any help with preparations! Instead of which here I was with Jane and Jean and about to head off on a three-hour walk to find a lake. Ah well, I needed the exercise!
We dropped our stuff off at the house of a friend of Jean’s – it was really hot so I took off my fleecec and left my poncho as well – forgot to bring the water, though. We headed off and after about ten minutes massive grey clouds appeared and we heard thunder in the distanced so we hared back to a little bar as the heavens opened and drank Fanta Citron and ate slightly stale buns while we waited for the rain to disappear. Then off we headed again. This time the weater was cleverer and waited until we were twenty minutes on our way before starting raining again – too late to turn back! It rained steadily for an hour and it was quite cold too! All along the route, people came tumbling out of their houses to watch the amazing spectacle of these two white people and their Rwandan friend marching through the pouring rain in the direction of ... well, absolutely nowhere as far as they could see!
It actually turned out to be a really good walk – the rain ended after an hour, though it never got really warm again, but we walked long enough to dry ourselves off. The lake was ... well, a small lake with ... water, and kids fishing (see picture). We then headed across country passing through the town of Shyowge and finally back to where we started. It was great – a really interesting look at Rwandan countryside and I learned an enormous amount about bananas – life cycle, planting arrangements, plantains and bananas and so on! (see more pictures)
It was dark by the time we got to the party and there was a good crowd there, about 25 or so, many of them people I had never seen or met before. It was a great night, really enjoyable. I met Taiga and Michael and Karen and Julia and Matteo and a priest whose name I forget and Tom and Ken and Christine and Christy, as well as Paula and Els and Chris and Mans and Han and also from my own intake group Nidhi and Steve and Hayley (who lives with Soraya) and goodness knows who else I have forgotten. Tina was also there, having recovered from her tummy upset and had organised beer on behalf of me and Jane as well!
Hayley had bought a puppy the previous day (mad impulse, who would ever have thought her capable of such a thing!) – absolutely gorgeous (well, it’s a puppy) and we spent a long time thinking of a name (at the moment, Itchy seems favourite because he has loads of ticks and maybe fleas! Actually it’s short for Icybwana which is Kinyarwandan for ‘puppy’). It was a great party and I met loads of nice and useful people. Ken invited me to come to Nyanza as he is doing the same sort of work I will be doing so I might do that towards the end of next week if circumstances allow. The food was fabulous (Soraya was cooking so that’s was a given anyway!) and the beer plentiful, though I was told afterwards it was a rather sedate affair by VSO standards!!
Slept on the floor on three chair cushions – not the most comfortable night of my life and I think Ken was being polite the next morning when I said I hoped I hadn’t snored too much!!
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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