Saturday 4th October: Day Twenty-Eight 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.

Tina and Alfred have both mentioned that my entries are getting a bit out of hand (Alfred: either be more brief or more interesting – you are failing miserably on both counts at the moment!) so I’ll try and be more brief! Crazy party last night until 2:00 in the courtyard right outside my bedroom – students celebrating a birthday. Pascal (the manager) was looking rather haggard and sheepish at the same time at breakfast this morning but I didn’t mind; I had just stuck my MP3 player earplugs in and drowned out their music with my own. He said at breakfast that it was fascinating watching the difference between the Anglophone and Francophone students. The Anglophones (Rwandans from Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Eastern Rwanda) were far more extrovert in their drinking, dancing, general carousing and were also the ones who were definitely not going to stop at midnight! The Francophones (Congo, Burundi and Western Rwanda), on the other hand, were far more restrained, drinking and dancing less, much more biddable and obedient (calme and réservé were among the words Pascal used, who is of course Francophone himself).

Rained solidly all night and morning. Anyway – laundry morning and then off to meet Hamed and see the house - which turns out to be great! Not too far away, four bedrooms, two with bathrooms, electricity and water and a nice garden. It really needs a good cleaning and some minor repairs but is much more homely that the other one. It is completely unfurnished and they are asking RWF200,000 plus the guard’s salary (at present unknown) so we will talk to VSO. The price is quite reasonable though above the budget allowed so we may have to bargain it down a bit. The problem is not the price – we have now succeeded in finding a house but are not sure if our job is going to work out! Now isn’t that ironic, in the non-Alannis Morissette sense of the word (check out Ed Byrne on YouTube if that last reference went over your head). As Tina said, we are trying not to get too excited about finding it because we may not end up living there in the end!!

Anyway, it’s Saturday, we found a house all on our own and at a good price, Obama seems to be pulling away in the election (ahead in Florida AND Ohio, still leading in Virginia and now in North Carolina, states like Missouri and even Indiana looking close, McCain abandoning Michigan, Pennsylvania looking out of sight – go, go, go!!). Had an interesting chat with Hamed on our way back from seeing the house about the Iraq War, Bush and how different Obama might end up being (if you missed earlier entries, Hamed is Muslim but his family have lived in Rwanda for generations). We agreed that it would probably only be a symbolic change but that symbols are important. Also, a lot of the world that is at present anti-American might be prepared to start over with a new president like Obama. Needless to say, people here are very interested in the outcome and I am really looking forward to being in Kigali for election night!

Ah! Just got a text from my brother Aindriú – the first one I have been able to receive on my Rwandan phone! It turns out that you can’t text from Ireland but you can text on Skype! So, if anyone wants to text me some messages (it costs 7.7c a time) my number here in Rwanda is (+250)03808130 and I think you don’t drop that first zero (Aindriú, if you are reading this, correct me if I am wrong).

Plan for today: Cybercafe, maybe some football on the TV and a chinese meal later. It has not been a good week so I think we need to cheer ourselves up. So far not a peep from Francois – wonder if he will get in touch.

Later ...
We ran into another volunteer on the street - Beatta - who is up in Butare for the night. We had a few drinks, watched Arsenal snatching a lucky draw with Sunderland and then went to the Chinese restaurant for a meal (unbelievably large portions and quite good food, especially the fried beef starter). Feel like I won't eat again for a week. Still no word from Francois - will email the country director Mike Silvey tomorrow and look for a meeting next week.

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.