Thursday 2nd October: Day Twenty-Six 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.

Actually got to view a house today. It was a rather surreal experience actually: our friend Lambert who works as the librarian and administrator of the American Studies centre here (mentioned before) had said there was a house beside his for rent and, when we asked him again at lunchtime today, he said we could go right now and see it. He had two friends with him for lunch and they came along also (a guy from the Museum with excellent English and my fast-talking strongly-accented friend Jean). We all traipsed off, found the owner’s house and she joined us with the key and we eventually go to the house. It’s probably about 15 minutes’ walk from the bus station and 20 minutes from the Hotel Faucon which is where the bus to Gisagara leaves from, which is fine – but it is HUGE! Five bedrooms, kitchen, sitting-room, two bathrooms and a nice garden, guard’s quarters out the back ... and RWF300,000 a month (remember the District was allowing RWF80,000 which is ludicrous, but we were hoping to keep it under RWF200,000). It was also strange because all six of us were piling around the house – they seemed more excited and interested than we were! Anyway, it will do if we don’t see anything better but it is a bit big for only two people! It might be possible to get it unfurnished for RWF200,000 so that is another option.

Our second attempt to view the house suggested by our Muslim friends ended in another Rwandan-type fiasco to Hamed’s acute embarrassment. The guard for the house was working at the match factory in Butare, so Hamed rang the boss there, said we needed the guard at the house and checked that he had left. He then waited half an hour while we worked on the computers and then we drove down to the house. No sign of the guard – we waited about half an hour more and then headed home. We didn’t mind too much but poor Hamed was rather put out! He is off to Kmigali tomorrow but his younger brother should be able to show us around if we get back from Gisagara in time.

That night Francois and his wife Charlotte called in to the hotel and we had a drink and a very pleasant chat, though the heavens opened after a while and they fled during one of the short breaks. Francois will meet us outside the Faucon tomorrow to make sure there is no problem with the bus and then we will have our meeting! Work at last (of a sort) – how welcome! Spent a little while rejigging my ‘presentation’ – lots of ‘j’espére que’, ‘nous pouvons travailler ensemble’, ‘l’avenir’, ‘nous voulons partager et apprendre’ and so on. Bed early because the bus leaves at 6:30 so we need to be up at 5:45 at the latest!!

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.