Monday 29th December and Tuesday 30th December: Days One Hundred and Fourteen and One Hundred and Fifteen 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.

Alfred: Matar is going to have to wait a bit (if you remember his foolish promise last blog) – the topic is such a huge one he needs more time to gird up the loins of his inspiration!)

MONDAY
Screamingly hot day. Seosamh sent me a great hat for Christmas which – naturally – I have left in Gisagara. Anyway, got off to a slow start, eventually got packed (after cutting my hair) and decided to do some food shopping before heading home. Once I eventually got a moto (Deo doesn’t have his bike today) clouds were beginning to gather and a stiff wind had blown up. Ah well – the driver figured he could beat the rain to Gisagara but no such luck. As the rain began to pelt down he swerved off the road and took shelter under the awning of what was some kind of brick-making kiln. The rain was really heavy so others had gathered as well. An interesting group we were too:

• Two young children, one boy (about 12) and one girl (about 10) with a goat on a short rope
  
• One goat on a short rope, thankfully not bleating
  
• One very old woman carrying a hoe who has obviously come from the neighbouring field; she spends the entire time staring at me in disbelief (at least, I hope it is disbelief)
  
• Two brick makers or brick minders or brick-somethingorothers who seem to find my rucksack really funny; one wears a t-shirt saying ‘Melbourne Jazz Festival 2002’
  
• A young man of about 16 or so in the most incredibly tattered clothes I have seen – mustard-yellow shorts frayed at the bottom, red t-shirt and a huge old Pavarotti-size anorak whose colour I actually cannot make out: he smiles continuously and has the most amazingly perfect white teeth. Even in the open air, in a rainstorm with a stiff breeze and standing beside a goat, his body odour is sufficient to make my eyes water.
  
• A sunburned very short-haired middle-aged muzungu in a Shamrock Rovers shirt, black jeans and a huge backpack, carefully trying to look as if this is the kind of thing he does every day of his life. He has also just remembered he has a poncho in his pack but figures he would look even stupider if he took it out now and put it on over his wet clothes.
  
• One young, short moto driver with a red-purple helmet and an anorak with the legend ‘Boston Celtics’ in white
• An older man sitting on a pile of bricks, reading a bible.

Eventually the rain ended and we headed home. By the time I got changed and got to work it was almost two o’clock; no sign of either Alexis or Francois so I made work for myself and then headed home at 4.30. But not before – damn, I forget her name, she is one of only two single women in the office and has obviously found out that I am single and was determined to give me the third degree about it. Are you married, were you married, what happened, would you marry again, ..... not subtle. I can see this is going to be interesting. Luckily she lives in Butare, not Gisagara, so the logistics in themselves should take care of the situation!

I was going to cook and then I remembered I still had one of my German cheeses left – and it probably needed eating! It was gorgeous – it had ripened way beyond what we probably would ever have allowed back home, a big lump of hard Comté-like cheese that had developed tiny sugary cheese-crystals from the heat. Two-day old rolls and water and fabulous cheese – that’s as good as it gets!!!

Finished A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – wonderful book though, on the whole, I did prefer The Kite Runner. Am beginning to run out of books to read but I will be in Kigali soon and I can stock up. I have just started The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner, picked it up at random in the VSO library about an American volunteer teaching somewhere in central Namibia. I’ll keep you posted. Found mouse droppings in my bedroom when I got back – haven’t heard or noticed them before, they may keep to themselves when I am around. However, the chocolate bar I had left wrapped on my bed had not been interfered with so maybe I’m wrong.

TUESDAY

Up at crack of dawn: first meeting is at 0800 and I need to talk to Francois before that. Got to work at 0700 sharp. Francois was in a meeting already with all the executive officers of the district to discuss the education changes and their implications for the district. Anyway, the 0800 meeting started at 0930. This was with the secondary principals: topics were the changes to subject allocations (mentioned last blog) and the implications for all secondary schools of the first three years of secondary now becoming part of the primary cycle – in other words, are they losing half their pupils over the next three years and are there going to be any first years at all this year? And, oh yes, what IS the story with English as the medium of instruction? The answers were: changes to subject allocations are as stated, sort it out; the changes re primary/secondary level will kick in from next year but students will stay in their primary schools for nine years, not six, so those schools that are specifically for years 1-3 of secondary will either be phased out or amalgamated into the primary schools they have been built beside. And yes, as of January 2009, English is the medium of instruction for ALL second-level subjects. Everyone laughed when he said this, which was refreshing in a funny way.

By now a huge crowd of what I presumed were primary principals had gathered outside so we wrapped up. Then it transpired that the Finance director had also scheduled a meeting for the hall and Finance beats Education every time. This meant everyone had to trek about 2 km in the boiling sun to a nearby primary school to get a briefing from the MINEDUC representative on the new timetables for Primary schools. Now, Alexis had been emphasising to me that timetabling was the main subject for this meeting. I couldn’t understand this as surely the addition of an extra year to every school at short notice (and the consequent double-shifting of classes to free up additional staff and rooms) would be the more urgent (Alfred: double shifting or double vocation as they say in French is when there are so many students in a class they are split into two – one half in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Usually this stops at 2nd or 3rd class but it is now being extended throughout – it means you only need one teacher and one room for two groups, so you free up a teacher and a room for something else. You also cut the children’s education in half).

Once the meeting started, I realised the problem. All schools are moving over to having specialist teachers for every subject in every class, in all classes in all primary schools. Primary schools have never had to set timetables before: each teacher taught all subjects to their class group (as would usually be the case at home) and a timetable was simply posted out from Kigali. Now every school has to set a timetable with a different teacher for each subject and the added complication of devising a system that can be switched around from week to week (each week the students who were on afternoons switch to mornings and vice versa – they rotate all year).

Anyway, the MINEDUC woman drew up a sample timetable for fourteen class groups, morning and afternoon, in chalk on a giant blackboard. It took a long time – three hours and we were sitting on these tiny little wooden benches in the primary school. Alexis, bless him, translated everything for me and explained everything in EXCRUCIATING detail as if I was not really very clever (he actually explained the difference between morning and afternoon – twice). By the time we finished at 1530 my rear end was the stiffest and sorest it has ever been since I gave up long-distance cycling.

I headed home just as it started raining. This time I did remember I had a poncho but it was only a light shower and I actually felt self-conscious about taking it out and putting it on when a) no-one else had anything and b) it was the kind of shower no-one else was paying any attention to. Got home, put on dry clothes and shouted to Alexandré to knock on the power. I hadn’t eaten since 0600 and I was actually weak with hunger. Stir-fry on the menu: rice, carrots, onions, peppers, cashew nuts, garlic chilli sauce and soy. Generator on, but no power in the house. AHHHHH!! Rang Antoine and asked if he could come over. He said he could make it by five.

Meanwhile I opened and devoured a tin of tuna as I really needed to eat something! This leaves me only one small roll for breakfast. Antoine came and fixed the generator: I offered to pay him – he said it wasn’t necessary but that at the same time he wouldn’t refuse. Of course, I then found I had nothing smaller than a RWF5000 note on me so I had to give him that!! That is what he charges an hour and he was only here ten minutes but he did have to cycle 10km to get to me, so it was probably fair enough.

So I cooked: and it was really nice and I made an absolute pig of myself. Mind you, that soy sauce is REALLY salty (c.f. Xmas blog) so I need to be careful (Alfred: salty taste could be the blood in it! Idiot tried cutting up all his vegetables with a tiny Stanley knife and almost lopped off his left thumb!). Tomorrow morning I’ll finish the German cheese for breakfast and then I’m off to Butare for New Year’s Eve anyway.

GO RAIBH MÍLE MAITH AGAIBH GO LÉIR!
I never really got around to properly thanking (excuse the split infinitive) all those people who sent me food, Santa hats, spices, chocolate and cards for Christmas. One reason is that I know a lot of stuff is still on the way, as people have told me they sent stuff and it hasn’t arrived yet. Basically, nothing has arrived from Ireland or England; loads of stuff from Belgium and Germany but not from anywhere else. I know there is a giant chocolate consignment on its way by sea from Australia (thanks Jane) and various things from Ireland, and I will let people know when they arrive!!

RWANDAN EDUCATION SYSTEM AND GAMBIAN MISSIONARIES
The following story appeared in today’s Guardian – see full story at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/30/british-gambia-missionaries-sentenced

Two British missionaries have been sentenced to one year in prison with hard labour after pleading guilty to sedition charges in a Gambian court.

David Fulton, 60, a former Army major, and his wife Fiona, 46, were arrested last month in the west African country after allegedly sending a letter to individuals and groups criticising Gambia's government.

The couple, who have spent 12 years in Gambia, pleaded guilty on Christmas Eve to making seditious comments "with intent to bring hatred or contempt against the president or the government" through a series of round-robin emails believed to relate to their missionary work.

Hmmm ... The Gambia is where I was originally supposed to go! I know people give out about freedom of speech here but I can’t see the government here doing anything like that. It seems relevant because that is what I am about to do - to a certain extent anyway. On one level you have to admire the sheer no-holds-barred let’s do everything RIGHT NOW attitude but when you look at the number of different things they have changed in just the last few weeks in the education system, you really have to wonder. They are:

• Introducing English as the medium of instruction IMMEDIATELY in all second-level schools and teacher training colleges for ALL subjects
  
• Introducing English as the medium of instruction for Maths and Science in all primary schools
  
• Phasing in English as the medium of instruction for all primary school subjects over the next 2-3 years
  
• Making a nine-year primary cycle compulsory for all (a bare 20% complete six years at the moment, though it is climbing)
  
• Moving over to using specialist teachers for all subjects in all primary school classes

This is all in the last six weeks (though the nine-year cycle has been talked about for ages). It’s not that there is necessarily anything wrong with the ideas, but they want to do everything in such a HURRY!! Maybe they figure a few years of chaos is worth it to get things going but I really wonder.

A very Happy New Year to all my family and friends. I do miss you all amid the strangeness and the wierdness here and your emails, blog comments and Facebook messages are very much appreciated. Have a great 2009.

Monday 22nd December to Sunday 28th December: Days One Hundred and Seven (cont) to One Hundred and Thirteen 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.


MONDAY (cont.)
Deo collected me at Jane’s place and was very mysterious about where we were going, just said ‘you’ll see’ when I asked where we were going to eat. Turned out to be a bar near the market which I knew but hadn’t actually drunk in before. We had a few beers and the worst brochettes I have had since I came here (all full of entrail-type dangly bits and fat). He told me a bit more about his life – he used to own a taxi company and had his own cars etc but lost all that while in prison. When he came out a local man lent him a motor-cycle so he could make a living (the guy actually called in to the bar and Deo introduced me to him as ‘mon patron’. He is now trying to save up for his own moto and eventually wants to get a car and get back into the taxi business, but it’s going to be a long haul. Later we were joined by his cousin Albert who is 62 and lives only a few yards away from me in Gisagara. Albert was also in prison – in his case for fourteen years – and rarely leaves his house any more. However, he had gone to Kigali that day to buy presents for family kids and Deo was bringing him back to Gisagara that night. Deo didn’t actually say Albert was also unjustly accused but I am presuming that is the case. Albert speaks really nice French and I think Deo was hinting that if I wanted Kinyarwandan classes, Albert might be the one to go to as this would give Albert a little more contact with the outside world as well.

Anyway, off they headed and I walked down to the Stadium to meet Andy who had rung earlier and, finding out I was in Butare, said he would stay over with me in Jane’s and we could go watch Chelsea Everton! What a fantastic idea! And that is what we did. Of course an 8:00 p.m. kick-off in UK is 22:00 here so it was nearly midnight before the game ended in a miserable 0-0 draw and John Terry sent off (Alfred: please see last blog entry for my prediction on this match; I can hear Jean Goggin cackling all the way from Ireland). Ah well!

TUESDAY
Andy and I eventually headed off to the bus after a long slow leisurely start to the day followed by lunch in Matar (Alfred: special entry on Matar in the pipeline). I had SO much stuff in my backpack and the 5lt of wine weighed a lot more than I remembered but luckily Jane’s is very near where you catch the bus. I got a front seat and then he managed to stow my bag in the boot anyway so it ended up being quite a nice trip. Andy got off at Gikongoro and will join us tomorrow for his birthday celebration. I got to Kigeme, met Amy, dumped my stuff, had a beer and a chat, went home to eat (spaghetti and peas, really nice) and then went back for another beer!! We also planned out exactly how we were going to manage all the cooking over the next two days – I think we have it all sorted out!! When we got home, Claudine (Amy’s domestique) had put on a big pot of beans but they were far from done so we just left them to cook on.

WEDNESDAY (Christmas Eve and Andrew Crow’s birthday)
Amy actually had to go in to work today, though there wasn’t a lot going on but she had things to do herself. I sat around and read Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach (having finished Atonement the previous day) and then the first seventy pages of A Thousand Splendid Suns – wonderful stuff. (Alfred: more on books also coming up in the pipeline). We then went to Gikongoro to meet Andy for lunch. We went to the Source de Nil guesthouse where I had a melange because I hadn’t had one in ages (you DO get withdrawal symptoms eventually, seriously). Then we went to the market to do some shopping: potatoes, green beans, avocadoes, onions, and tea. Andy also bought a fleece as a Christmas present for his guard Vincent. Back to Kigeme with Amy, then Hayley, Andy and Thom arrived so Amy and I made the guacamole with the avocados Thom had brought (plus two Amy had got) and we headed off to the pub. On the way we met Mans and Han in a taxi and they joined us shortly after that. Then back for Andy’s birthday dinner: soup (made by Claudine), guacamole, vegetarian chilli and rice – we actually saved the fruit salad for breakfast because everyone was stuffed! Then Andy got his special presents: a Rwandan alcopop (just launched), chocolate, a tie with condoms on it (as suits his status as a PHARE volunteer) and cards. We also sang Christmas songs but there wasn’t really space to play Twister so we decided to hold that over to Christmas Day. It was a great evening (well, I thought it was anyway).

Thom had baggsed the bed so Andy and I were sleeping on the concrete floor in the sitting room. It’s been a while since I have done this and it was an interesting experience, especially as I need to sleep on my side or else I snore tremendously. Managed to sleep reasonably well and Andy said I didn’t snore at any stage, so at least that went OK!! Can't say I am dying to repeat the experience!!z


Andy wasn’t feeling to great this morning: hadn’t slept much but also has a heavy cold. We had the fruit salad and then scrambled eggs and bread for breakfast and huge quantities of tea and then Mans and Han and I headed off to Gasarenda to start preparing stuff. It was really nice being back in their house as I had such happy memories of the last two times I was there. Anyway, the food plan was: potato and bean salad as a starter (except Anne-Marie their domestique had already cooked a load of peas, so we changed it to potato and pea and onion salad with a dressing Anne-Marie made from honey, vinegar, ginger and I am not sure what else but it was gorgeous), vegetarian stir-fry with rice as a main course and banoffi pie for dessert. I was also making hummus and carrot sticks as a starter that people could pick at. Everything is cooked on either a charcoal stove or a kerosene stove, so the order of things had to be worked out as well. The two tins of condensed milk need to be boiled unopened for two hours for the milk to caramelise so that was first (Alfred: actually, the potatoes got cooked first and Anne-Marie only put on the potatoes, not the beans, which is why they were left out of the salad – get it right!). Meanwhile I crushed the two tins of chickpeas in the vegetable mill with garlic and olive oil and salt and chopped up the carrots. Then it was preparing the other vegetables for the stir-fry – ginger, garlic, carrots, onions, green peppers, baby corn (tinned) – and the sauce – soy sauce and a garlic chilli sauce I found in Nakumat.

By now the weather had deteriorated sharply and a massive electrical storm blew up and a really heavy downpour. This meant we had to move the already lit charcoal stove from the outhouse to just outside the back door or else the ingredients would get drowned on their way to be cooked (to say nothing of the completed food on the way back!).

Next stage was the Banoffi Pie. First we removed the two tins of condensed milk from the fire. Then Andy and Thom beat the bejaysus out of the McVities digestives to get the biscuit crumbs. Then they were layered and the milk poured over to set.

(Alfred: At this stage Anne-Marie was quite bemused over just how complicated one could make a single meal for eight people. Ruairí did ask her whether men ordinarily cooked in Rwanda and she said rarely – you could tell what was going through her mind, watching Ruairí, Andy and Thom at work!!)

Anyway, we made the rice, served up the starter and then I went out into the porch to cook the stir-fry on the little charcoal stove. It was definitely one of the most interesting culinary experiences of my life. For a start, I never before realised how important it is cooking a stir-fry that you be able to HEAR the food cooking. The thunder, lightning and incessant downpour made this impossible (though the lightning was handy for being able to see what I was doing as it was really dark and gloomy at this stage) so I just threw stuff in and hoped for the best. It was at least edible, though the soy sauce I had bought (and had never used before) turned out to be much saltier than I had expected which was a bit of a disappointment, but everyone seemed happy enough with it.

By now, unfortunately, we had lost Andy, who had been feeling increasingly unwell and had then got really sick, so we packed him off to bed and wished him a speedy recovery. Meanwhile everyone else polished off the stir-fry and it was time for dessert – Banoffi Pie!! Unfortunately, the milk had not set (we probably should have left it boiling for longer) but we chopped up the bananas and sprinkled on brown sugar for the caramel effect. It did look rather unBanoffi Pie-like as we ladled it out onto the plates but figured it should taste fine.

Then, just as we were about to eat, Hayley announced loudly to all and sundry: ‘I have piles’. Han, Man and Anne-Marie were not familiar with the term but Thom, Amy and I collapsed with laughter (Thom may have actually inhaled his portion of pie, I’m not sure). Eventually, Hayley explained that she was actually trying to say something else (.i. piles of something) but had kind of got lost after the first three words. Anyway, it made the pie even more memorable and it tasted OK too!!

After dinner it was Twister and Top Trumps (had never played either before but enjoyed Twister and WON Top Trumps!!!) – it was funny watching Anne-Marie’s reaction to Twister (I don’t think it is big in Rwanda) but she was really good at it once she had got over her initial astonishment at the entire concept!

FRIDAY (Boxing Day, as I have started calling it as no-one knows what the hell St Stephen’s Day is)
Had to bet up in the middle of the night to go to the latrine – not a fun experience, though at least there isn’t a steep flight of stairs down to it as there is in my house and there is electricity, which had decided to come back on during the night). A nice Eastern European type breakfast of sausage and cheese (memories of Prague). Then we went off to see a local drum maker from whom Han and Mans had ordered three drums to take back to Holland with them. It was a really interesting visit, most of which I caught on video so some of you may get to see him showing us how to make a drum some day. Amy ordered two drums while she was there and I may well go back myself at some stage. Then we packed up – Han and Mans are heading home in January so they were pressing their every possession on us! I have to figure out some way to get a truck up here to collect their single bed as well as various other things they have promised me!! Stopped off briefly in Kigeme and then headed on to Gikongoro with Andy. Amy and Thom joined us later and we went off to see the Arsenal Aston Villa match. Our first stop proved to be on the side of town with no power so we ended up walking quite a bit to a bar called La Fraicheur. There was a big crowd there, mostly Arsenal fans and they and Thom were quite pleased when Arsenal went 2-0 up, less pleased when Villa got a penalty and then equalised during injury time. Amy and Thom got moto back up to Kigeme and Andy and I headed for bed! (La Fraicheur does a really good Omelette Speciale, by the way).

SATURDAY
Slept in a bit today – it is umuganda day and, if I was in Gisagara, I’d be out there building houses or planting trees or whatever but I really don’t feel like doing it in a different district so I just showered (a real shower!!!), read and had breakfast once Andy got up. He seems a lot better now but both of us have really bad head colds at this stage. We went down to Butare to meet Hayley, Amy and Thom but had to wait ages for a bus. When we did get one, the convoyer was intent on setting a new world record for how many people you can cram onto a single bus so it was a slow and very crowded trip. Lunch in Matar, then Andy and I went to the Faucon for a beer and Premiership highlights (Lampard and Drogba – yeah!). Then Andy went home and I stayed over in Jane’s (I have officially written to the Pope and asked for her to be beatified)

SUNDAY
Omelette for breakfast, finished The Book of Lights, got stuff from Gisagara and continued trying to contact my boss. I really would prefer to go back home but my boss lives here in Butare and my best chance of actually seeing him and bringing him up to date on my situation is by catching him here. (Alfred: are you wondering what ‘situation’ he is referring to? Stick around). Eventually, I contact him – we are meeting at 1800 in the Giant Animal Restaurant. I get there, no sign of him. He rings at 1900 and says he has gone to visit a friend and can’t be there until 2000. He actually arrives (with his wife) at 2045. We have a long chat and I bring him up to date on my problems (See later). He has his own problems: the government has just announced that all classes in primary will now be double vocation – two shifts per day – to enable the introduction of a nine-year instead of a six-year cycle for all schools. This means that all classes up to 6th class will be in two shifts – one half for the morning and the other half for the afternoon, alternating each week. Also at secondary level, the time allocation has been changed: French has dropped from six hours to two hours per week, English has gone from six to seven and Kinyarwandan has gone from two to five. This will entail quite a lot of timetable modifications (Alfred: that’s putting it mildly) and there are big meetings next Tuesday for all Primary and Secondary directors to discuss this. We arrange to get together tomorrow afternoon to discuss this further. He also tells me that there is no problem my continuing to work – albeit unofficially - in the District (Alfred: clarification coming).

WORK PERMIT SITUATION
Figured I would hold off on saying anything about this until the situation was clarified!! Remember how on Monday 15th December Jean-Claude had come down to sort out my contract? Well, on Friday 19th December Amina in the Program Office rang me to say that all my documentation had been lodged to process my residence and work permit applications, but the government had turned down my application for a work permit. This meant that I was legally no longer allowed to work anymore (Alfred: actually, it means you never should have been working in the first place). The problem was that I didn’t have a proper Garda clearance form. Now, VSO Ireland had told me I didn’t need one and had instead given me a statutory declaration to get filled out – basically a form stamped by a solicitor which states I don’t have a criminal record. To be fair to the Rwandan authorities, it isn’t a police clearance. To be fair to VSO Ireland, this form has been sufficient for every other Irish volunteer before me!

Anyway, frantic emailings and messages all around (with me having visions of getting deported in February when my tourist visa runs out) and my wonderful family between them seem to have got the situation sorted – documentation should be shipped out by air in early January and I should be all legal and bona fide soon after.

CHRISTMAS IN RWANDA
It’s not like at home. Really. Not at all. Even on Christmas Day everything seemed to be pretty much as normal. Everyone went to Church but they do that all the time anyway. There was a lot of drumming on Christmas Eve and people were a bit more smartly dressed Christmas Day coming from church but, overall, it is pretty much of a non-event here. As someone who has never been a big fan of Christmas anyway this was no great loss but it was still weird having so little going on.

BOOKS
Read a lot of good books recently (another sign of the lack of things to do). On Day 52 I had given a list of books I had read so far and their ratings – here is another update.

Ian McEwan, Atonement – 9/10, bloody brilliant, can’t understand why it took me three goes to get into it.

Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach – 8/10, also brilliant, need to go back and read it again.

Mark Urban, Rifles – 7/10. History of the 52nd Rifle battalion during the Napoleonic Wars. Good, but a little lacking in substance in parts

Chaim Potok, The Book of Lights: 7/10. I read this years ago – my wife Angela introduced me to this great Jewish writer but this was one of his books that I found difficult to get into. I ordered it on Amazon and reread it and really enjoyed it this time (Davita’s Harp is his really great book, The Promise, The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev are also brilliant)

Geoffrey Robertson, The Justice Game (I think that’s the title, don’t have it here with me): 8/10 - started off slowly but really got into it. It covers all the great cause celebre cases of the seventies and eighties – Duncan Campbell, Oz, Stonehouse, The Romans in Britain, Boggs, Matrix Churchill and so on.

Graham Hancock, The Lords of Poverty: 5/10 - this exposé of the corruption of the aid industry started off promisingly but ended up being the same points made over and over again. Some good stuff in it but ultimately you riffle through the second half of the book as you come across the same stuff again and again.

Robert Calderisi, The Trouble With Africa: 7/10 – this was better, possibly because it was an unusual approach. Calderisi worked with the World Bank for 25 years and his answer is that the trouble with Africa is pretty much Africa itself. You won’t agree with many of the things he says but there are some tough truths in there as well.

THE GIANT MARROW
Han and Mans found some giant marrows in their garden when they came back from holiday. Thom took one of them away with him. There are pictures of ..... well .... OK, maybe another time.

MATAR
Matar used to be in Kigali but the Lebanese brothers who run it moved to Butare after a falling-out with their Rwandan landlords. It has become our spiritual home in Butare, our meeting place, oasis of calm and food that isn’t a melange or brochettes, purveyor of really nice small take-away pizzas and whatever one may want to make one’s life complete and satisfied. Next blog will be dedicated to the Matar Three.

Happy Christmas!!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Alfred: he's late again, I'm afraid. He took the momentous decision to leave his laptop behind in Gisagara so it'll be a few days before a proper blog update. Meanwhile, a very Happy Christmas to all friends and family. In a few days you can hear all about illness, piles, cooking Christmas dinner on charcoal during a thunderstorm, the jailing of the first accused in the big genocide trial, what Rwandans think of 'Twister', deportation threats, how you make a Rwandan drum and many, many other things! Soon, I promise!

Thursday 18th to Monday 22nd December: Day One Hundred and Three to One Hundred and Seven 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.

THURSDAY
Off to Kigali for the British Embassy carol service and mince pies. Called to the Program Office first to collect mail and also leave back books and find some new reading material (Alfred: of course the eejit took some new ones but forgot to leave the old ones and proceeded to cart them all the way back home!!) I also collected my Kris Kindle name for the Christmas do in Gasarenda.

The carol singing (not service, sorry) was a pleasant enough affair and I met up with a bunch of the other volunteers, including Christina, Sonya, Ivana, Steve and the Phare/Amy/Hayley group and quite a lot of people from the Program Office. Also met Graham and Sarah McFadden from the British Council. Anyway, had quite a few beers there and then went for drinks with Sonya who I hadn't seen since ICT 1 in September, so a lot of catching up to do as she has been having quite a time down in Kirehe. She is minding Marion's house and cats in Kigali while Marion is on holiday so I stayed over with her for the two nights. Opened a bottle of red wine when we got home - seemed like a good idea at the time .....

FRIDAY
I DO remember being this hung over once - back in 1978 after a Students Union party in UCD. Dragged myself out of bed finally and went to meet Joe Walk and Christine for lunch. Joe is off to England tomorrow for Christmas so it was great to see him before he headed off. He is hopeful that his accommodation situation will improve in Nyamasheke - they have found a new house for him but it is a brand-new house and the District and VSO are haggling over the rent. We had a really nice lunch in a place called ..... hmmm, begins with an 'M' and it is behind the giant Coke bottle on the road all the buses stop on, under a hardware store. They do a buffet for RWF2900 which seems expensive but the food is really good - fresh vegetable salads of all kinds and fish and two meats and you can go up as often as you like. Will definitely be calling back again. And, of course, being a buffet, it's great if you are in a rush rather than ordering and wondering just how long it will be before the food arrives.

Then went to meet Amy and the gang to plan food shopping for the Christmas, and also for Andy's birthday which is on the 24th December (Alfred:bet HE got seriously short-changed over the years!!). Andy's main request was that I collect Twister from Jane's house and bring it up with me! Then I went back to Marion/Sonya's and collapsed!!

Ivana and Christine called around later and Sonya cooked a really lovely stir-fry (got loads of ideas from watching her do it). Joe and Marjoulaine also called in later - Joe had just heard that the new house in Nyamasheke was sorted - great news. Less great news is that Marjoulaine is leaving - her placement has been a bit of a disaster from the word go; she has been on a three-month contract working with Christina in the Genocide Memorial Centre but that has run out and VSO don't seem to have been able to find her anything else. She is heading off to Thailand where her son is working as a country director, either for VSO or something similar (Alfred: Ruairí's concentration span was pretty poor by this stage. He had actually met Ivana that morning but when she mentioned it, he had completely forgotten. Won't be getting that particular clump of brain cells back!). Lovely evening.

SATURDAY
Said goodbye to Sonya and headed off into town to do some food shopping. It was great to see her again and her placement seems to be almost the polar opposite of mine, even though she started off with even worse difficulties to overcome than Tina and I did!! Now she is doing all sorts of really exciting things and she and Joe are run off their feet. Also, I gather Joe O'Toole is staying on rather than going back to Mayo so I might actually get a chance to meet him at some stage!!!!

Food shopping. Ah yes, the question is not so much what you want to buy as to figure out what might be available and what you can do with it. We have decided on a stirfry for Christmas Day and were hoping to do fajitas for Andy's birthday on Christmas Eve. So I trawled around Nakumat, Simba and the Indian supermarket (once I eventually found it). End product was I found everything for the Banoffi Pie (condensed milk, McVities digestives - Alfred: you wouldn't believe how much a packet of McVities digestives costs here)), olive oil, lemons, garlic and canned chickpeas for hummus, ginger, chili garlic sauce, soy sauce and bean sprouts for stir-fry, and a few other bits and pieces. No wraps of any description (can't wrap stuff in poppadoms even if we could cook them!) so we'll have to replan that night. Also trying to find some squirty cream but no luck so far.

By the time I had finished, my rucksack was incredibly heavy (Alfred: your own fault for not leaving those books back!). Bus to Butare (slept all the way) and then went to Jane's house to leave all the stuff that is going up to Kigeme (Jane, Jean and Steve are off in Kampala for Christmas). Headed up to Faucon for a drink and who turned up full of smiles and greetings but Bezo, my Congolese smuggler/borrower of money/agent for Rwandan League of Ireland hopefuls!! Of course he didn't have my money (I would have fainted if he had) and his hints about how thirsty he was after his journey from Cyangugu fell on deaf ears I am afraid!!

SUNDAY
Stayed in Jane's that night and then headed off to Gisagara having done some food shopping of my own (bread, actually, and pineapple waragi, healthy diet I know). Met up with Enoch that evening and went for a beer. We walked down as far as his place because I had lent him some books and he wanted to drop them off. He showed me the memorial site for genocide victims in Gisagara - it is opposite the main church which is where most of them died and what I thought was just a memorial stone is actually a mass grave with hundreds, maybe a thousand bodies in it. He also pointed out a hilltop across from the village, where Byiza primary school is, and said this was one of the worst massacres of the entire genocide (he said 250,000 but either he meant 25,000 or he was just plucking a large figure out of the air). The refugees had been encouraged to gather on the hill, then the Interahamwe surrounded it on all sides and killed everyone.

The barman had disappeared from Enoch's local so we went back to our more usual haunt and were joined later by Kenneth (Ugandan plumber friend of Enoch) and Roger Octave, an ex-pupil of Enoch's who is anxiously waiting his exam results to see if he will get to do medicine in university next year. We had a really nice evening chatting away and at the end they insisted on paying for their own drinks - again.

We were also talking about the guy in Kigali who had been prophesying that all Rwandan sinners were going to drop dead at 1100 on Sunday (I had forgotten about him). Enoch told us about a case in Uganda in 1995 where a religious charlatan whose name I forget had decided to impress his followers by dying and then rising from the dead. He hid in the attic and they filled the coffin with banana stems. However, his children came home from England for the funeral (they were attending private schools there - this religion business pays well) and absolutely insisted on opening the coffin to see their 'dead' father before he was buried. Collapse of scheme.

Five years later he set himself up again in another part of Uganda and collected a congregation to prepare for the end of the world as the millenium approached. He got them to sell all their goods, give him some or all of the money and they gathered together in a church he got them to build to pray and await the coming of the Lord. After three months of waiting they began to get a bit restless and asked him when the Lord was coming. Sensing that the game might be up, he said the Lord was coming that very night. He distributed a special ointment to all the congregation which he said they had to rub all over their bodies to ensure their entry into heaven (a petroleum-based ointment, as it turned out). Then he slipped out while they were preparing themselves, doused the chucrch in petrol, locked the doors and set it on fire. Everyone in the church died (including an aunt of Enoch's and her three daughters) and the 'preacher' fled and has still not been found to this day.

Terrible story but the strange thing is Enoch and Kenneth and Roger Octave laughed throughout. This is one of the things I am getting used to here - laughter doesn't work exactly the same way as it does back at home. There are things that are just plain funny and Rwandans laugh at them the same way we would in Ireland but they also laugh as a reaction to dreadful accidents or stories like this. I don't think it's because they actually think they are funny; actually, I am still not really sure what the laughter signifies but it takes a bit of getting used to!! I told them the story of a mayor who was arrested and sacked recently for having an affair with a local schoolgirl in the secondary school. She was 24 (not unusual in a secondary school) and the mayor had got drunk one night and got his driver to drive to the school, then pounded on the gate demanding this girl be brought out to him. The guard (quite bravely) refused and reported the incident to the director and vice-director respectively, both of whom refused to do anything about it. However, the guard (who was obviously made of stern stuff) went to another senior teacher who informed the police and they promptly arrested the mayor and threw him into the District prison.

They found the story hilarious and laughed throughout, but NOT in quite the same way as they had laughed during Enoch's terrible account. Couldn't quite put my finger on it but I'll get there eventually. (Alfred: what exactly did they charge the mayor with, I wonder?). enoch told another story of a wedding that was held in the village recently. This guy had been living with his girlfriend but hadn't married her so was told either he married her or he would be prosecuted (as I understand it, it is actually illegal for an man and a woman to live together if they are not married - remember the story earlier about Steve and Nidhi sharing a house in Kigali). Anyway, there was a big crowd at the wedding and the priest had got to the part where you promise to share 'all your worldly goods'. This was too much for our husband-to-be. He said, 'OK - I will share everything else but my house on the border with Burundi, no way, that stays mine!'. Everyone roared with laughter and the priest seemed to think that was a reasonable demand and went ahead and married them anyway!

When we finished in the pub - oh yes, I forgot, some guy joined the group and then tried to start a fight/argument with Enoch, most unusual. It was all done in quite a formal manner, possibly because everyone was speaking English. First this unknown person asked 'if I might be allowed to join the company'. Then when he sat down he began to accuse Enoch and people 'like him' of 'ruining the country'. Enoch began to get quite angry but his ex-pupil murmered 'teacher!' to him and calmed him down. Eventually our strange friend was very politely asked to remove himself from our company, which he immediately did! It was almost like a ballet in some ways!

The three of them insisted on walking me home and then said goodbye about 20m from the house to show they didn't expect to be asked in. Somehow or other I am going to have to insist that I walk THEM home sometime (or at least Enoch). Had a can of tuna fish and three bread rolls and then to bed.

I forgot - Deo drove me out from Butare today and asked if I was free at any stage for a beer to celebrate Christmas. He was anxious to come to my place but I explained that I had no beer but could have some in by Monday evening if he liked. He said he had to stay in Butare Monday night so the upshot is I will come to Butare Monday and see him for a drink and then head to Kigeme Tuesday. Looking forward to this conversation - never chatted to a man who was locked up for thirteen years for crimes he had no part in.

MONDAY
Off to work this morning - there doesn't seem to be any. Everyone who was in (and there weren't many) was at a meeting in the big hall where I usually work. I hung around for an hour but there seemed no prospect of its ending so I went back home to work. I really just wanted to see Francois and tell him what my Christmas plans are but I can always ring him later. I did text him but he has never answered any of my previous texts so I don't see why he should start now!! I'm typing this up now (ran the generator for almost two hours this morning, to Alexandre's disgust - he really hates the noise) and will then head into Butare. Got to pack light as there is a load of stuff in Jane's waiting for me and I still have to pick up some wine (5lt box). Update on my evening with Deo will follow (might even see Chelsea-Everton as well; Jean Goggin, if you are reading this, commiserations in advance (Alfred: oh-oh, that should guarantee a shock Everton win...)

Hang in there!!

Things have been a bit manic recently (no electricity or internet access) - so be patient! I take all the emails I have been getting as a sign of your continuing interest ... so thank you! Will update soon! Promise! (Alfred: don't worry, I'll make sure he does)

Wednesday 17th December: Day One Hundred and Two in Rwanda

Ok - this was an ... interesting day in many ways (Alfred: those ...... are getting a bit overused, if you ask me). Arrived bright and early, finished off the analysis of the statistics that Alexis had given me yesterday and then went down to see him to ask for a few bits of information I needed to calculate the last three thingies (!). Turns out that all that work has already been done: he only agve me the stuff because I was incessantly whingeing on about wanting some statistics to work on! Meanwhile, he had been doing his job and sending all the required information to Kigali as he is supposed to do! He said I should analyse the information to see where we should prioritise our efforts in January when we start inspecting schools!

So, everything I did yesterday was pretty much a waste of time, though I did actually learn a lot about
a) Excel
b) Rwanda's educational system
c) schools in my area
so maybe it wasn't actually a waste of time. I spent the rest of the day composing dossiers on each individual school I might inspect inc ase I ever get there and also downloading English material for the District classes. (Afred: more about THAT anon!!!)

Anyway, went home after work and then met up with Enoch for beers and brochettes (my treat seeing as the District hasn't paid him for ...Alfred: I said ANON dammit!!!!!! Shut up!!). I mentioned my moto driver Deo (as in Deogratias) and Enoch told me the whole, rather horrifying story. Before the genocide he was a successful and rich businessman here in Gisagara but after the genocide he was accused of complicity and locked up. After thirteen years in prison his case was finally heard by the Gacaca (traditional court) who said he was actually completely innocent and had never been involved at all. Meanwhile, of course, all his property, business etc had been plundered, mostly by his former employees and he was now trying to rebuild his life!

Anyway (shades of Nicky Kelly and all that) Enoch and I had a really nice evening chatting, drinking and eating and talking about African politics, especially the sequence of events that saw the Rwandan exiles join up with Museveni in Uganda when he went to the bush to oppose Obote and ....... OK, I guess most of you aren't really that interested but trust me, if you were, it was riveting stuff (Alfred; Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawnnnnnn! What, sorry, dozed off there for a bit....)

So here I am tapping on my laptop with a headtorch strapped to my forehead: I'm off to Kigali tomorrow for the British Embassy's Christmas carol do (no doubt I will be toasting her Majesty's health at some stage). I am actually (shock horror) going to leave my computer behind so I will be out of contact for two whole days!!!!

Meanwhile, thanks to Aindriú for helping me with my Excel problem (non-variable components in formulae, in case you are interested (Alfred: !!!!!!!!!!)), to Nicola Carlos for having a birthday, to Tina Hewing for some worrying questions regarding my football team allegience, to Paula Ward Anderson for her general support and comments, to my mother for her technical queries regarding the Honda Civic fuel gauge, to Michelle Barry for becoming my Facebook friend, to Amy Parker for explaining Secret Santa to me, to Paula and Shona for their sugegstion of Google Chrome, to Jane Dawson-Howe for her constant support and encouragement, to Jennifer for her constant reminders of home and school, to Marion for the use of her house while she es away on her wonderful holiday in Sierra Leone, to Laura Cremen a chuireann i gcuimhne dom go bhfuil daoine eile ann a fheidhmíonn as Gaeilge seachas mé féin and so many others. It is a bit humbling when you start a thanks list and realise just how many people belong on it! And a huge thanks to Enoch for being such a good friend here in Gisagara!!

PS: Tinks, if you are reading this, wait til you hear about Jacques and big naked Eric the police chief - have I got news for you!

Tuesday 16th December: Day One Hundred and One 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.

Well, things seem to be getting better! When I arrived in this morning my chargé presented me with a file containing all the data for this year and asked me if I could extract the data needed for the report to MINEDUC! Parked myself in the meeting hall again as everyone seems to have moved over to this office (presumably the generator in our group of offices is not going to be repaired anytime soon).

I worked away for about three hours and then people started to gather for a meeting so I headed off to look for somewhere else to work. There wasn’t anywhere so I asked Alexis (the chargé) to ask the people running the meeting if I could just work in the corner and they said no problem.

The meeting turned out to be quite a heated discussion about some aspects of the genocide – possibly whether or not to continue the Gacaca (traditional courts that are still running in some districts and – I think – are supposed to be winding up soon, but some people want them to continue). Of course, as everything was in Kinyarwandan, I can’t be sure they weren’t discussing crop rotations, though I doubt the genocide would have been mentioned quite so often in that case.

Now they are voting on who to select for something or other. As they vote by show of hands, each candidate comes down to the front and stands facing the wall so he/she can’t see who is or isn’t voting for them (though obviously everyone else can see each other so it’s not exactly confidential!). All very animated but good-humoured and Jean-Claude has just been elected (whoever he is)!!

They seem to have elected a committee of five to do something or another and all five of them are now (of course!) making a speech. And now they are leaving (1500) so I can finally eat my cheese sandwich and bottle of water!!!

Going to head home now – may not log on later. Will try cooking for the first time! Only beans and rice but it’s a start (don’t have any vegetables so I’m a bit stuck!). Enoch said he would call round later - maybe I can persuade him to join me for a beer, celebrate my return to the world of work!

One Hundred Days in Rwanda - part two

The names here are wonderful. Everyone has two or sometimes three names, one French and one Kinyarwandan. Haven’t quite figured out yet how exactly they work - need to do a little more research!!

Anyway, here are my top ten favourite names so far:

Ange Fidelité
Deogratias
Dieudonne
Fulgence
Jean d’Amour
Jean de la Croix
Jean Nepomscene
Jeanne d’Arc
Mediatrice
Telesphore

Monday 15th December, Day One Hundred 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.


Well, Day One Hundred was a pretty good microcosm of what Rwanda has been like up to now. Got up late, eventually dragged myself out of the Motel Ineza, queued in the bank for over an hour (my fault for going in on a Monday) and then had some lunch in Matar (also bought bread, washing powder, pegs, shoe polish and brushes) before ringing my moto driver Deo to bring me out to Gisagara. I just went to the house (it was 1330) because I just didn't see the point of going to an office which was probably locked, had no power and contained nothing I could usefully do. I had texted both the chargé and director earlier but needless to say had got no answer.



Anyway, I was at home about half an hour when Jean-Claude from VSO rang and said he was in the District Office and needed me to sign my contract! He came over with a small entourage (the chargé Alexis, the VSO driver Enias and my friend Enoch who came to show them the way. This is the first time I had actually met Jean Claude who started recently with VSO as Lydia's replacement. He seemed prety sharp, asked me some good questions about the placement, the district office and my director. I outlined the various problems I had been having and how slowly things had been going and put forward various ideas for dealing with it. I will see him again on Thursday when I call up to Kigali. Anyway, this seemed to get me a bit motivated so I am all ready tomorrow to finalise an inspection rota for late January/February and will somehow track doen Alexis and hammer out what exactly the story is regarding the statistics.



For supper I decided to open one of the two packs of cheese my darling nieces had sent me from Germany. It was VERY well wrapped (well done girls or Dana or Brian or the rabbit or whoever) but the quality of the wrapping had somewhat disguised the extent to which the cheese had been maturing en route! It tasted really good but I think I had better finish it tomorrow!(Alfred: sorted out the mosquito problem, didn't it!) . Also had some of the rum, raisin and nut chocolate - you cannot imagine how good it tasted.



Other than that, a fairly normal day. Washed a few shirts but used too much Omo and they are still a bit soapy out on the line (can't use too much water) but there is a thunderstorm coming so that should sort it out. Early to bed I think and up early!!



Interesting development on the New Year's Eve party for Pregnant Rape Victims of the Genocide. Eli and Pascal asked me to translate the invitation/notice into English (which was a hell of a job as the French is so flowery I wasn't sure how to translate it) but there is no mention whatsoever of the ... main theme, I suppose you would call it. Then Pascal dropped hints that he was collecting 'contributions' towards the costs of the evening (which seems basically to just be a party for St Sylvester - as they term New Year's Eve here). Ah well - calls to mind an email I got from Neil McBurney in Vancouver today to add to my last post:



You know you are in Rwanda where every casual conversation ends with a request for money.



Alfred: for the Francophones/curious among you, here is the actual text Ruairí was trying to translate - try your hand!



Honnorable, Monsieur, Madame, famille.........................................................................

Dans le cadre de bien finir l’année 2008 et le début de l’année 2009 en beauté, le Motel Ineza a l’honneur d’inviter ses illustres partenaires en réveillon de St Sylvestre (31/12/2008)
Pour ce faire cher partenaire, vous êtes convies a une soirée dansante de lumière et de fraternité pour partager un verre et un repas de fin d’année
Les meilleures conditions de participation vous sont offertes comme suit :
*Famille, couple, single : tous pour la consommation


Votre participation tant moral que matériel est vivement souhaitée pour la réussite de cette événement.

One Hundred Days in Rwanda - part one.

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.

Additions to this list are welcomed from present or previous Rwandan volunteers etc. Just add them as a comment or email them to me at roheithir@gmail.com

You know you are in Rwanda when ......

... asking for a cold beer causes stares of incredulity
... goats are a hundred times more common than dogs
... the number of orphans in a school class outnumbers those who have both parents
... there are crowds of prisoners clad in pink working in the fields
... people become genuinely distressed if you tell them you don’t believe in God
... hostels demand to see a marriage licence before they will allow you to share a room
... men walk hand in hand everywhere but men and women never do
... you never see a married woman out socialising without her husband
... your choice of English-language newspaper is the New Times or ...... the New Times
... the police always smile at you and are very helpful
... you can’t post your parcel home because there isn’t enough surface area to stick all the stamps on
... you can walk the streets at night and feel perfectly safe (and much more so than at home)
... people laugh hysterically if someone falls down or has an accident
... people sympathise with you when they hear you are single
... the government announces that Russian is now the official language .... and everyone immediately starts learning it
... it’s cheaper to buy the cloth and get your clothes handmade than to buy them off the shelf
... beef costs less than chicken
... a primary school has five toilets (well, pit latrines) for 1200 pupils (and no water)
... if you get up at 0630, you are really sleeping in
... people say ‘Sorry sorry’ if you drop something
... the longer the speech, the more people seem to enjoy it
... the time the meeting is supposed to start is the one time it won’t
... important meetings that have been planned for months are scheduled for public holidays
... the government announces at 10 p.m. that the following day is a national holiday
... everyone on a motorbike wears a crashhelmet
... the fatter a man is, the more women find him attractive
... twenty cigarettes cost only 70c but still most people can’t afford to smoke
... there is always a picture of President Kagame staring down at you from the wall




You know you are getting used to Rwanda when ......

... you can tell which body odour belongs to whom on the taxibus
... you can always tell the difference between bedbug, flea and mosquito bites
... seeing a square metre of untilled ground makes you uneasy
... a meal without plantain, chips, potatoes, pasta AND rice seems somehow incomplete
... picking your teeth in front of everyone just seems normal
... you hiss at people to get their attention
... virtually everyone you see over the age of 15 was directly involved in the genocide as either perpetrator or victim and you just accept it
... you hope the bus is overcrowded rather than half empty so you won’t get thrown around as much on the bad roads
... you feel outraged if you see someone eating on the street
... you get suspicious and uneasy when you see other white people in your area
... DEET smells as good as perfume
... a man walks by with a table and six chairs balanced on his head and you don’t notice

Sunday 7th December – Sunday 14th December: Days Ninety-Two to Ninety-Nine 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.

SPECIAL NOTICE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MÁIRÍN!!!


SUNDAY TO THURSDAY IN SCHOOL

The entire British Council in Rwanda arrived in Butare on Sunday afternoon! Sarah and Graham McFadden (who are the entire BC in Rwanda!) were taking over two of the classes as two other teachers were leaving (Emmanuel and Dickens, sorely missed, both of them). It also made my job even a little more redundant than it already was. However, I occupied myself with putting together a resource pack for all the trainees which we were going to load onto one flash disk per training college. The trainees’ main concern is that they don’t have the specialist vocabulary they need to be able to teach their subjects through English, so I tracked down vocabulary lists, useful internet sites, free software (dictionaries and translation programmes) and whatever else might be useful. I also recommended using Wikipedia as much as possible – whether the information is always accurate or not, the vocabulary will be fine!! I also got to teach some classes from time as people were sick or just wanted a change.

So Monday to Thursday worked fine. The students taught their sample classes in the afternoons and by and large did far better than they themselves had expected. Other than that we just sampled Butare’s limited nightlife, including a farewell meal in the Chinese (not the Chineese) restaurant which so far is the longest I have ever had to wait for food in this country (even massed choruses of ‘Why Are We Waiting?’ had no effect). Food was good though, as usual.

FRIDAY IN SCHOOL

This was a bit different. Diane had intimated the previous day that the Graduation and Closing Ceremony was maybe a bigger deal than I had realised! So we put together a programme and a list of speakers which consisted of:

A representative of the local council (Huye District)
A representative of the school
A representative of the students
A representative of the British Council
A representative from MINEDUC

and I volunteered to do MC!! Emma from MINEDUC was due down on Friday morning with the payment for the trainers (the trainees all got their allowances on Thursday evening) and John Simpson and Rosemary from the British Council were also due down with certificates and flash disks. The aim was to start at 1000 which was always a little bit ambitious to be honest.

Anyway, by 0900 we knew John and Rosemary were on the road but Emma was still in MINEDUC trying to get cheques signed! This just sums up MINEDUC in a nutshell – who in their right minds runs a system where you are going in to queue and get cheques signed the very day payment needs to be made a hundred kilometres away! As ten drifted into eleven o’clock and then twelve the students began to think about just leaving – after all they had got their allowances and as long as there was one person left from each school to collect the certificates they had nothing to hang around for. And, to be honest, we were tempted to tell them to do just that!

Emma eventually arrived at 1230 and we started. To my surprise about 150 of the 200 students were still there. I probably offended everyone dreadfully because – as far as I can tell – these occasions are usually very elaborate and drawn out but I figured no-one really wanted that this day and zipped through the whole thing as quickly as possible. The only other problem was that Rosemary had forgotten to bring down the flash disks from Kigali!! This was the main thing most of the schools were waiting for and I had to promise that we would send on the material in the near future and if anyone had a flash disk with them I could download it for them then and there. (Alfred: Ruairí is skipping the bit about what happened when those who DID have flash disks came up to him to get the stuff loaded. It should take about 2 minutes per disk .. but he forgot about the viruses!! Mind you, the worst one only had 76 on it but two had something on them that sent a message saying the disk was full even when it wasn't so the stuff couldn't be transferred! No wonder he has included free antivirus software with the other things he is sending out! Remind me to tell you the Raila Odinga story sometime ......)

We got finished around one or a little after – insanely boring and utterly futile morning. It would really make me think again about accepting any work that involves working directly with MINEDUC. Having said that, Diane who was the main person I was dealing with was great – it’s just the whole monumentally inefficient and hidebound edifice that is the problem. Imagine hiring people on a contract for x days at y rate of pay and then – after they have committed themselves – telling them the work is actually for x-7 days and at a rate of only 80% (or whatever) of the rate originally promised. And then they didn’t even pay that when they were supposed to! Apparently John works directly with MINEDUC all the time – he is looking exceptionally well on it, I have to say, because I think it would have driven me around the bend by now!

BRITISH COUNCIL

What was really nice about this was it fulfilled a long-held ambition of mine to work (even temporarily) for the British Council. My late father was always a great fan. Though a strong Republican and one who had no time for the other trappings of British imperialism, he always maintained that the British Council was possibly the one thing that could justify the existence of the British Empire. Their office and library in Paris was one of his favourite haunts when he lived there. The Rwandan government’s sudden decision to make the country Anglophone has obviously thrust them into the middle of a rather demanding situation, as the UK generally had little presence here in Rwanda until recently so maybe they will expand their activities and, I hope (for Sarah and Graham’s sake) their personnel! It was a little sad to hear that they no longer run libraries but are now focussed on teaching English and other educational activities but the cultural activities are still up and running around the world – 114 countries at the moment (actually, Rwanda isn’t listed on the website as a country they work in, so it’s at least 115!). www.britishcouncil.org for more info if you are interested!!!

SANDY AND MICHAEL

As some of you will know, my SKWID buddy Tina Hewing had to go back to England because she was ill. The good news is that she will be back with us early in the new year. Unfortunately, two of her best friends had already booked tickets to come and see her. So Sandy and Michael arrived in Kigali Tuesday and then came down to Butare Thursday and stayed in my favourite hotel, the Motel Ineza, for Thursday and Friday nights. Michael is a paediatrician in Essen and Sandy is a student about to start a PhD in cancer research. They are really nice people (as you would probably have assumed if they were friends of Tina’s) and we had a really good time chatting and eating out (well, the eating out was Friday only as I had the Chinese slow-death-by-waiting-for-food experience on Thursday) and then they headed off for Nyungwe forest on Saturday to do a bit of camping. Hope to run into them again before they leave.

BACK IN THE MOTEL INEZA

Friday I packed up in the Procur guesthouse and came back to my ‘home’ in Butare, the Motel Ineza. The Procur is actually a nicer place – it has running hot water, the rooms are bigger and it is a lot quieter for much the same price as the Ineza but you know the way it is when you have got to know a place and the people!! So Eli and Pascal and Maxine and Immacula are all still here and glad to see me (and asking after Tina Payne, who they also miss and want to see again!). OK – so the water now seems to be off most of the time but I can cope with that for now.

Pascal is continuing with his plans for a New Year’s Eve party for women who were raped and got pregnant during the genocide and I have promised to attend, if only for the rather voyeuristic reason of wanting to see how in the name of goodness this is going to pan out! I strongly suspect the people attending will be those either already involved or interested in becoming involved in the organisation, rather than actual victims. Pascal is putting up posters around the town to tell everyone it is on as well as inviting specific people so I have absolutely no idea how this is going to end up, but you will be told!!! There is a crowd going up to Kibuye for New Years so I will zoom up on January 1st to see them there.

SATURDAY FOOTBALL sans FRANÇOIS

I forget which TV series started off by describing itself as the ‘ongoing saga of’ whatever (was it SOAP?) but I feel that way as regards my efforts to talk to my boss. Some background for those who may be coming late to all this: I work for the Gisagara District Education Office. There is a staff of two – the director François and the chargé Alexis. François is the one I deal with but he is .... well, elusive is putting it mildly. At the moment he is on three weeks’ leave but is here in Butare where he lives. He said he was anxious to talk to me while I was here but so far he has failed to respond to seven texts. Then Saturday he actually rang me! I said I would be around the Hotel Faucon watching football and we could meet there.

Of course, of course, of course he never showed up! It meant an afternoon of absolute hell watching football and drinking beer (Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd all dropping points!).

So, I decided to stay another night and am now bombarding him with texts saying I absolutely have to see him today. No luck and he isn’t answering calls. This means when I go back to Gisagara tomorrow I have absolutely nothing to do. I probably won’t even be able to get into his office as I don’t have a key and when François is away, Alexis usually disappears as well. Even if I can get into the office, the generator is broken so I cannot turn on François’ computer which is the only source of information I can work with. I was planning training courses for school principals (primary and secondary) but Alexis told me at our last ‘meeting’ (scroll back if you want to know the reason for the inverted commas) that the only training budgeted for 2009 is in adult literacy and we are not sure if any other training will be approved! So, apart from doing school inspections, we still have not agreed a single thing I can get on with next year. I am putting together training courses in basic IT, school management techniques and basic finances (budgeting etc – stuff Mans gave me) but it is all taking place in a complete vacuum. And I have a strong suspicion that the educational statistics Mans was working with in his district have not been properly collected (if at all) in Gisagara. Maybe that’s what I need to start on in January!

Anyway, the air of unreality is heightened by the fact that Christmas is approaching. I am heading to Kigali on Wednesday or early Thursday to attend the British Embassy carols and mince pie extravaganza (due to budgetary cutbacks, drinks have to be purchased at the bar), then the following week, probably around the 22nd/23rd I am off to Kigeme and Gasarenda to celebrate Christmas with my friends. I kind of feel I should tell my boss all this (mind you, the office will probably be closed anyway but I cannot find anyone who either knows or will tell me what the arrangements for Christmas are!) but I know (I’m afraid to say) that whatever I say I am doing will be OK with him. Either he doesn’t care or (I increasingly suspect) he really doesn’t know what to do with me. (Alfred: Suggestions on a postcard please; actually, email would be a LOT faster .................)

COMMUNICATION

Letters and parcels!!! Yeah! There is nothing as nice as checking your PO box and finding LOADS of stuff in it! Thanks to Munich and Brussels for all the goodies, just in time for Christmas too. Also got my first two real live handwritten letters plus some cards from existing and former students. Now In have to sit down and reply (though it will probably be electronically to spare them my awful handwriting!). I now know that parcels sent in envelopes and not too big can fit in the box, so send small and flexible please!!!

DEO GRATIAS

Today I needed to go out to Gisagara and drop off stuff as I had too much for one trip (and I need to shop for food etc) so I rang the local moto driver Deo (remember him?, Deo is short for Deo Gratias) and he said he was in Butare and was free in a few minutes. So he dropped me out and waited a few minutes and brought me back again. He is a good driver if a little prone to swerving around stones at the last minute, which can be a bit unnerving when you are on the back with a large heavy backpack!

He also has really good French and likes to chat while driving which I find difficult as a) I can’t hear properly and b) being in French makes it even more difficult. Anyway, he asked me what age I was and was I fifty yet. I said almost – 49 – to which he responded I could be his little brother as he was fifty. So I asked him had he been doing this moto-driving for long? No he said, he was imprisoned for 13 years after the genocide and only got out in 2007; he then had to resit for his driving licence so he had only started recently.

Well, the obvious next question from me was one I wasn’t really sure I could (or wanted to) ask – maybe I will ask someday whether he was locked up for a good reason or not, but it is the first time anyone has indicated to me any kind of actual involvement in the genocide. Maybe he was hoping I would ask him so he could tell me how unfair it all was – I don’t know, but I will be seeing a lot more of him so maybe the occasion will arise. After all, it was he who brought up the topic!

99 DAYS ... and counting!

Today is Day 99 in Rwanda so I will try and do a special post tomorrow looking back over 100 days in Rwanda and what it has meant to me so far. As you may have gathered, I don’t expect to be overburdened with work tomorrow anyway so I should have time. If anyone out there has any questions, comments or requests for further information, please send them in!!!

Warning - Blog Sequence error

The most recent entry is actually BELOW Alfred's one which is below this one - should be dated Sunday 7th December. Sorry!!

Message from Alfred

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.

Alfred here: just in case you were all wondering why there hasn't been an update recently - well the poor eejit has just been too darn busy! In the last four days he has had to sort out a strike of all 220 teachers attending the course, fallen off a motorbike (that fawn shirt will never be the same again), had to teach a Beginner's English class for 6-and-a-half hours and has now just been told that most of the teachers are refusing to work from tomorrow morning onwards because they haven't been paid yet and just found out their money isn't arriving tomorrow as promised. I think the thought of how long his next blog entry will have to be is scaring him ...................

(I think teaching the Beginners' English was the scariest bit ..... but I'll let him tell you all himself, whenever he gets a chance!).

Sunday 30th November to Saturday 6th December: Days Eighty-Five to Ninety-One 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.

Hmmm .... strange how much less time you have to write up extensive and pointlessly detailed blog entries when you actually have a proper job to do! It is now Sunday 7th December so I will try and rewrite my scattered notes into some sort of coherent form - it has been quite a week!!



SUNDAY

My knee seems to have largely recovered from the insect bite - the Fucibet has had an immediate effect, thank God! Wandered around the house for a few hours and then packed up some stuff and headed into Butare in the afternoon. Only problem was when I went to Ephraim's my laundry still wasn't back!! Ah well, figured I could call back tomorrow.

Headed into the village and - no motos! Sunday is a pretty quiet day in Gisagara so I was wondering if I was going to make it to the match (Andy did offer to come out on his bike and pick me up but I said that 13.5 stone of me plus my backpack might be a bit much!). Anyway, met Enoch and Kenneth and was chatting to them when, lo and behold, a moto (albeit with passenger on board)! So I signalled to the driver that I would be waiting here for him when he was ready and he reappeared a few minutes later. Turns out he lives in Gisagara, quite near my house, knows the district really well and would be happy to bring me on school inspections and his name is Deo, short for Deo Gratias. In a country with many wonderful and evocative names, this is probably the best one so far!

Checked into the Procur guesthouse (nice room, much more spacious and quieter than the Ineza and a working bathroom with hot water and a shower). Then I went to meet up with Amy, Andy and Tiga to watch the Manchester derby followed by Chelsea-Arsenal. Shock horror - the Faucon were charging RWF1500 a head in to watch! No way José - we headed off to another cute little bar ('cute' isn't the right word but I'll come back and change it later if I can think of anything better) called Sombrero which we thought might have football but no luck, so we just had a drink (Alfred: Idiot! Did he really think the Faucon would get away with charging RWF1500 if anyone else in town was showing the match?!!). We had a long chat about the ongoing fallout from the motorbike training (more about that sometime later - will wait until the dust has settled somewhat, but suffice to say that VSO Program Office and us volunteers have somewhat different interpretations of both the day itself and the general organisation of the training!!).

Andy and Tiga headed off and Amy and I swallowed hard and paid RWF 1000 to see Chelsea Arsenal (Arsenal won 2-1 - ah well!). To be fair to the Faucon, virtually no-one watching the match was buying anything to drink so they had to cover their costs somehow! Then we went to a new restaurant for food (can't remember its name, upstairs near Matar) - nice omelette, nice place. Jane joined us later as well. Then it was off home to bed and get ready for a good day's work tomorrow!!!

MONDAY

Got up bright and early, showered (oh! the luxury of hot water streaming down vertically on your body!!) put on my suit, packed up my laptop and cables and headed in to work. I was really looking forward to this. As I arrived in around 0730 (classes start at 0800) I saw the students milling around and chatting and the teachers gatehred in the staffroom. I chatted away and met one or two I hadn't seen the previous day. Then as the time dragged on towards 0800, instead of beginning to move towards their classrooms, the students began to form one large group under the trees adjoining the classrooms. I knew there had been quite a lot of complaints from the students the previous week - now it looked like they had had enough!

Sure enough, Anthony - the most senior of the teachers - came over to me and said that they were (in the words of the film Network) 'mad as hell and not going to take it any more'! So my first official job was to stand on a step and talk to the 200 or so students and try and find some way to defuse this! (When I say students, by the way, these 200 are all teachers, Principals, school secretaries, bursars, IT specialists and whatever, here for intensive English training)

Anyway, I heard some of their complaints and suggested they appoint a representative from each class to meet with me, outline their comlaints and see what could be done about it. The awkward thing is that the course is jointly run by MINEDUC and the British Council. The BC is responsible for the course, textbooks, teaching and so on, all of which has been running very smoothly. MINEDUC is responsible for the payment of allowances, food, accommodation and all other practical aspects of the course, none of which has gone properly!! As such, it was quite important that I not accept responsibility on behalf of the British Council for things that were the responsibility of MINEDUC!

Anyway, eventually they elected their representatives and I had a quick sitdown with them, having heard in the meantime that Diane from MINEDUC was on her way from Kigali. Basically they just wanted a chance to outline their grievances, the main ones of which were as follows:

• they had not yet been paid their daily allowances which meant they had no spending money (the teachers come from all over Rwanda) (Alfred: should also be pointed out that the allowance is a princely RWF1000 a day, or €1.30)
• because the school had not been given any money by MINEDUC, they had not been able to buy food; their last breakfast consisted of sorghum porridge which had a lot of sand in it
• there were no mosquito nets on the dormitory beds and they were infested with mosquitos
• there was a very limited supply of drinking water; there had been no water at all all day Sunday
• some of the teachers have small children with them but no arrangements have been made for their food etc
• no social facilities have been made available even though they are living onsite here 24-hours a day - no TV, no basketballs or volleyballs etc

These were the high points, there were other minor things as well. Suffice to say, I could see their point. I thanked them and said I would ask the MINEDUC representative to meet them when she arrived. They also agreed, at my suggestion, to go back to class until such time as she arrived and they had some idea of what was going on.

When Diane arrived, she was a little apprehensive but quite ready to meet with the representatives. We were also joined by the school bursar and intendant, who had been getting a lot of stick from the trainees (better word) - rather unfairly as they had been given no funds and schools here would not have any funds on hand to use (or any guarantee that they would be refunded by MINEDUC for any spending made without authorisation). I sat in on the meeting but suggested it be held in Kinyarwandan to make sure everyone was clear about what was happening (and also to make the point that I was not directly involved in this discussion!).

Anyway, a long meeting but pretty much everything got sorted - mosquito nets to be provided, additional dormitories to be opened so everyone has a bottom bunk (can't have a net if you are on a top bunk, not enough clearance), TV and sports facilities, allowances to be paid ASAP (turned out to be that evening, luckily), funds immediately to the school to provide proper food etc and so on. Diane was very cool, very composed and the whole meeting went well. The reps went back to class and told everyone what was happening and it now looked that everything was back to normal!

Once school finished, I decided to hop on a moto and go home for some clothes: I agreed RWF4000 for there and back plus RWF500 for waiting time, as we had to go to collect the laundry and then go to my house and sort out laundry etc. Did all that but when I came out of my house, the moto driver said there was a problem. A passing local said that, since we had come through the village, the traffic police had set up a checkpoint and he didn't have a document that he was supposed to carry. He asked if it was OK to take a shortcut via a back road to avoid the police. I said fine (remember, there wasn't exactly a surfeit of moto-drivers that day!) and so we headed east.

Now when he said a shortcut to avoid the police, I figured this was going to be a quick zip along a back road and then we would rejoin the main Gisagara-Butare road. No. Quite the opposite in fact. We headed deeper and deeper into the countryside and on roads that were definitely the worst I had seen so far in Rwanda (Alfred: but these are not the worst roads in Rwanda - in fact there are no worst roads in Rwanda. There is no road anywhere in Rwanda so bad that there isn't a worse one somewhere else. Logically impossible, but true!). At first it was fine - the driver spoke really good French and clearly enough that I could hear and understand him through his visor and my helmet. I was asking him about buying motorbikes, insurance, tax, police requirements and so on - all quite interesting and useful from my point of view. He was also interested in what I was doing here in Rwanda so it was all quite OK, for the first half hour or so. However we were still heading east, towards Burundi. Given that Gisagara is half-way between Butare and the Burundi border, and it takes 15 minutes to travel that far (albeit a lot faster than we were able to go) I was beginning to wonder where we would end up!

Finally we turned north (we needed to be going west but north was better than east!) but by now it was dusk and a long long way from home! Then, going up a hill quite slowly, we hit a patch of sand on the road. The driver managed to right the bike the first time but when we hit a second patch, the bike, and both of us, went flying! Interesting fact: bikes seem like heavy enough things but if they topple over on you slowly enough, they aren't really so bad! Anyway, we picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and then the diver tried to restart the bike. I was a bit bruised and battered (right elbow, hip and knee) but the only thing I was worried about was the bike not restarting!! We were not in the middle of nowhere - we were a LONG way from the middle of nowhere, somewhere on the outer unexplored periphery of nowhere. We hadn't even seen any people for a while which is really amazing.

Bike restarted and off we went again, but the driver was going even more slowly now because

a) he was nervous about dumping me on the ground again

b) it was now pitch black

c) the road was REALLY bad

d) there were people walking on the roads and they stuck to the middle so they didn't fall into the ditch in the dark.

Meanwhile, I could feel the interesting sensation of my jeans and shirt snugly attaching themselves to the blood on my knee and elbow, only to be dragged free again and again as we hit yet another pothole.

Anyway, it took about 95 minutes to get back to Butare, by which stage I was cold, sore, and my left hip felt it was going to explode with discomfort from sitting so rigidly and stiffly for so long (Alfred: a bit of perspective here - Bruce and Soraya had an eight-hour moto ride as passengers recently; 90 minutes is chickenfeed, though falling off does add an additional wrinkle). I told him to drop me at the Matar supermarket so I could get some disinfectant and plasters! He was distinctly nervous as I got off the bike and handed him back his helmet but, hey, what was I going to say! I just paid him, at which point he said something about my being very patient! I replied 'C'était un voyage tres intéressant mais pas un voyage que je veux faire un deuxieme fois!'. (Alfred: can't do those backward accent thingies in this blog - sorry!).

So what is the single most important thing you do after having had an accident in Africa which involves the skin being broken and possibly contaminated? Yes, you get beer. Found some disinfectant soap in Matar and then headed straight to the Faucon for beer. Nice cold beer always makes the world feel like a better place. I had also grabbed some vegetarian pizzas in Matar so I figured I could give dinner a miss at the school.

Then I was joined by two students from the course who were having a drink there - they said they wanted to buy me something as a thank you for everything that had happened that morning! So nice, though I did explain that all I had done was listen to them - it was the MINEDUC rep who had actually solved the problem. They bought me a beer and a plate of chips (very welcome) and we had a long chat about Rwanda, education, comparisons with Ireland (they are always interested to hear how we solved or addressed our various problems and what if any lessons Rwanda can learn from that). One topic was particularly interesting - how social conditions in a country are usually slow to change but can change really quickly after a traumatic event (genocide for Rwanda, famine for Ireland). Patrick and Gerald - nice guys!

We walked back home together and I headed for my room to check the damage. Nothing too serious to be honest but my nice new fawn shirt now has a big hole in the elbow. I cleaned myself up and went to bed. Sleep - not a hope. I had so much adrenalin coursing through my system it was 1230 before I got to sleep!!!

TUESDAY

You'll be glad to hear that Tuesday was pretty uneventful!! Breakfast was a vast improvement on the previous day, now that the school had actually been given some money to buy stuff with!Shamira (who teaches the beginners' class) told me she had to go to Kigali the following day for a meeting as she has just been promoted. When I asked her about it, it turned out she has been made Deputy-Principal of Greenhills primary school in Kigali, THE most prestigious school in Rwanda - it's where President Kagame (among others) sends his kids! Good for Shamira! This meant I would be taking her Beginners' class all day tomorrow.

So I did a bit of work to prepare for that (thank God Amy was there to help and advise - this is NOT my area of greatest expertise). I also got to know Diane from MINEDUC a bit better: her department has only five people in it and is responsible for organising all teacher training, which is bad enough at the best of times. At the moment, with every teacher in the country supposed to be getting English language training now or in the near future, it is a bloody nightmare!!

Later Amy and I decided to go for food - we couldn't face another mélange (it's always the same for lunch and dinner, every day, so it can get just a LITTLE bit heavy going, even if it is very good quality mélange by Rwandan standards). Everywhere we went said they weren't doing food! Is there something about Tuesdays? Eventually we ended up back in the same restaurant as the previous night - I didn't eat because I had just had the last Matar pizza left over from the previous night (hate wasting food) so I watched Amy having an omelette speciale. Then back home to do some preparation of classes for tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY

Now this was a MUCH more interesting day. I got up REALLY early, adrenalin coursing through my veins. I have never actually taught English in my life (one of the few subjects that fall into that category) and certainly not English as a Second Language. However, we have a textbook and I had songs, puzzles and games prepared plus a secret weapon! Classes are 0800-1000, 1030-1200 and 1330-1600 (that's a long afternoon stretch!). All the things Amy had suggested to me worked a treat - I really enjoyed it but boy! is it different when you have the same group for the whole day as opposed to changing over every 40 or 80 minutes!!

We did songs ('I hear thunder, I hear thunder' which they managed to do in a four-part round), played 'buzz' (thanks again to Sukey Chesterton) and, in the afternoon, to break up the long session, I decided to teach them céilí dancing. I can't remember who it was who said to me that they expected me at some stage to teach Rwandese to do this but it had been at the back of my mind ever since! Some of them were intrigued and got the idea of having steps and such a regular beat - others were completely bewildered!! I didn't manage to get beyond teaching the actual 1-2-3 but it's a start!!

I was completely shattered by 1600 - but really enjoyed it at the same time!! I went back, showered and then met everyone for dinner at 1930. It was a really nice evening. The other teachers are Amy and Soraya from VSO (whom you know already - pictures on my website if you have forgotten), Shamira, Beatrice, Emmanuel, Anthony and Dickens. They are all really nice people but Emmanuel is one of the most amazing characters I have ever come across
in my life - one of these live-wires who just illuminates any gathering with his jokes, dramatic gestures, anecdotes and whatever. I wish everyone I know could meet him. He was telling us about this man in Kigali who claimed to have had a personal revelation from God that all sinners in Rwanda would die at 1100 on the morning of Saturday December 20th - sinners include women who wear trousers, anyone who wears earrings and unspecified others! Anyway, the government had locked him up in prison in Kigali for causing panic, a move which probably only served to increase the attention he was getting.

Emmanuel was coming up with plans for us all to evade this disaster: one idea was to fill the earlobes of those who wear earrings with chewed chewing gum. Apply a match and the gum and skin melt together to form a filling that no angel would be able to notice! Another is for us all to go to Uganda for the day and stand over the border with binoculars to see if people start falling down at 1100. He also wanted us all to start confessing our sins publicly as a) that would free our souls from sin b) it would take us from now to the 20th to actually recite the litany of sins we had committed!

It was a great evening, rounded off rather spectacularly when Diane from MINEDUC casually dropped into the conversation that the other MINEDUC representative who was arriving tomorrow, Emma, would not after all be bringing the teachers their salary as promised, but instead contracts that would have to be signed and then taken back to Kigali for processing before any money would be forthcoming! Given that Emmanuel and Dickens were finishing on Friday, their chnaces of getting paid by then were pretty nonexistent!

Well, well, well - the s**t really hit the fan. The teachers were supposed to be paid at the end of each week but last week there had been no money. One trainer - Joshua - had actually done only the first week and had left with nothing. Now it looked like the same was going to happen with Emmanuel and Dickens, while Shamira and Beatrice and Anthony (plus Soraya and Amy and me) would have to wait until the end of the course - if even then!

It got pretty hot and heavy between Diane and the others (to be honest, Amy, Soraya and I stayed pretty much out of it) and we left dinner with a lot of very angry people walking off into the dark. I went back to my room to prepare lists for the next day and at 2200 there was a knock on my door. It was Emmanuel who had just been talking to the other teachers and they had decided that they were not going to teach until such time as they had been paid the money they were owed, either by MINEDUC or the British Council. I said I would pass this on to the BC and asked that at least everyone come over to breakfast the next morning in case there had been any developments and classes could go ahead. No problem said Emmanuel and that was that. I texted John Simpson from the British Council and he rang me back, so I filled him in on the situation. He was coming down the next morning with the MINEDUC representative so he said he would keep me apprised of developments!!!

THURSDAY

Another exciting day!!! Arrived for breakfast at 0720, everyone was sitting there more or less in complete silence. I wanted to talk to the teachers about how they were feeling but, with Diane there, I wasn't sure whether or not a) they had told her what they were doing and b) whether they wanted to talk about the situation in front of her. Anyway, eventually Emmanuel announced - around 0750 - that they would not be teaching that morning and Diane needed to tell Emma - if she had not already done so - that she needed to come down with money - not contracts or promises. He also said the teachers would go to their classes at 0800 and set them work and then say that they had a meeting they had to go to. I had thought of telling the students (after all, they are teachers like us) what was going on - given Monday's events, they were hardly going to be unsympathetic - but the trainers were NOT keen - possibly because they had made one or two caustic comments on Monday when the students had gone on strike!!!

Anyway, Emma went straight to MINEDUC in Kigali and managed to get money released and cheques filled out on the spot to bring down to Butare - I cannot tell you what an achievement this must have been or how difficult a hurdle this represents here! Anyway, we were told this and I suggested that there was no further purpose to be served in staying out of class as everything that could be done was being done. Can't say all the trainers were mad keen on the idea but come 1030 everyone was back in class (how much actual teaching some of them were doing I felt it better not to check!).

John and Emma arrived down at 1400 and pretty much everything got sorted out. To put it in perspective a little, the trainers - having signed up for 26 days of work at a certain rate, had already - even before the course began - had the number of days and the daily rate promised reduced, so having given up their holidays to do some extra work then found themselves offered less of it and at a lower rate than originally promised. To then not get paid at all was really adding insult to injury. It was funny, at the same time, watching them not wanting the students to know they were doing exactly the same thing the students had done Monday and that they as trainers had been so critical of!!

I had the 1330-1600 class again today, not the beginners', unfortunately, but a motley crew with the title Admin/ICT. The trainees are now gearing up for preparing and delivering subject lessons in English (groups are Maths, Sciences, Psychology, Languages, Methodology and Humanities). But about 40 of them are secretaries, librarians, boarding matrons, principals, IT technicians and whatever, people who don't actually teach at all, so my job is to continue teaching them while the rest prepare lessons. Luckily Amy had again come to my rescue with lots of advice but it was tough going (Alfred: 'shambles' was the exact word going through his mind - possibly rather harshly - as the class progressed: mind you, 'progressed' is altogether too organised and deliberate a verb for this class - 'lurched', 'stumbled', 'meandered' - insert verb of your choice relating to aimless wandering).

For the last 40 minutes we went to the computer room where we will be spending tomorrow's class. Rather predictibly, the computers that had been working fine all week promptly refused to co-operate so we spent 40 minutes in a manner all too many of my colleagues are familiar with - all the students sittng blankly in front of the machines while we tried to diagnose the problem (turned out to be external - the service provider's signal was down). I was pretty glad when 1600 turned up!!

Emmanuel and Dickens were to finish the next day so everyone turned up for dinner that night: more fireworks and hilarity from Emmanuel - we are going to miss him when he leaves. Dickens too - he may be a lot quieter but he is a really warm and intelligent guy, hope to run into him again sometime.



FRIDAY
Because of the 'meeting' yesterday we are behind schedule, so the specialist groups got an extra class today which meant I had to take my Admin/ICT group again. This time I was a lot better prepared: flash cards, bingo sheets, word squares, everything went really well and they really enjoyed the class. It is still funny to realise that most of them have never seen a word seach or know what bingo is - you take all these things so much for granted in our system.

Then off to the computer lab for the afternoon - more frustration and annoyance. We did eventually get most of them on the Internet but George (Mr. I.T. in the school) had to manually configure each machine and put in an IP address (Alfred: Wow - doesn't he really sound like he knows what he is talking about here!!! hah!) - anyway it took ages and all they wanted to do was check their email instead of exploring the English language websites the British Council had given them a list of. I did manage to get all of them to spend at least some of their time doing this.

However, one trend became immediately apparent as the afternoon went on. I was able to leave my group in the lab and check around the other classes and it quickly becamse clear they were not happy. First Soraya's Humanities group, then Anthony's Sciences and eventually most of the others made it clear that they felt they had nothing like enough specialised vocabulary to be able to deliver an entire 40-minute class in English. One Science teacher is in the Elementary English class but is supposed to deliver a class on photosynthesis - he can barely string a conversational sentence together! All of them said what they needed was not just more time to prepare but they needed to be given the specialist vocabulary essential to each subject to be able to do something like this. To buy some time I said we would convert tomorrow morning's study session into further preparation time and I would make myself available to work with any group that needed help (which turned out to be History, Geography, Political Education, Physics, Chemistry and Biology!!).

Amy, Soraya and I met Jane for a drink and then she came back for dinner with us to the school. Dickens was actually still there as he had decided to teach Saturday morning (relief for me as Emmanuel was gone and Anthony had also decided to head off, so I was two short already). Afterwards we went for a drink with Shamira and Dickens - nice evening even if the pub was rather wierd!!


SATURDAY

Not an easy day. The students are getting quite upset at this stage (well, some of them at least) as they feel they are being asked to do something that is totally beyond their capabilities (which about describes the whole endeavour to be honest). Their main concern however, being realistic and logical beings, is not so much the next week here but what is going to happen in January when they return to their teacher training colleges and are expected to teach every single class solely through English.

Anyway, I wandered around and spoke to as many of them as I could and asked them for realistic and attainable suggestions. What emerged was a real need for even a basic lexicon/dictionary/vocab list for each subject giving the technical vocabulary needed. After that dictionaries for each training college and possibly a set of A-level textbooks covering the subjects so they could see how to phrase and describe stuff to their classes. So I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon researching on the Internet and trying to find any stuff that would be useful to them. Maths and Sciences aren't too bad but for history, geography, politics and so on, the vocabulary is too commonplace. However, by the end of the day I had gathered together enough for basic Mathematics and ICT dictionaries - the idea is to have some stuff gathered by the end of the course that they can take away with them, at least for the sciences, Maths and ICT. I also think the idea of a set of dictionaries and textbooks for each teacher training college should be costed - there are only 11 colleges after all. Providing the GORSEAU science dictionary for each of them (that's the best one there is) would be about €1,000 - a lot less than trying to gather all the science teachers together and cram English into their heads.Similarly there are French-English dictionaries available for many other subjects and at relatively little cost. Something to be explored for the future.

Once I escaped from school I went to meet Andy to watch football (luckily my laundry had turned up so I was finally able to get out of my suit at long last!). No Man City Fulham, in fact no Arsenal Wigan or Chelsea Whatever (?Bolton) at first but we just had beer and chatted and then Amy and Jane turned up. They had been in the market, Amy to buy fabric and Jane to look for some black market petrol. Well, that's putting it a bit strongly but there is a temporary petrol shortage at the moment so you can only buy it privately at a premium price (RWF1500 a litre instead of RWF768). Anyway Jane had got her hands on some but it had leaked a bit so there was a terrible reek of petrol and, given the prevailing circumstance, a lot of people sniffing and wondering where the petrol was!! We did get to see the second half of Arsenal Wigan which was OK - though Arsene Wenger doesn't look any more cheerful despite winning two games on the trot.

Anyway, nice evening, went to a different Chinese restaurant to the other one (they spell their name 'The Chineese Restaurant' possibly - as Andy said - to avoid being sued by the 'Chinese Restaurant' for copyright violation!). Food was fine but remarkably similar in taste and price to the other Chinese restaurant. Then Amy and I walked home - it was a nice walk, the entire length of the northern end of Butare, half ten on a Saturday night and hardly a soul to be seen or a sound to be heard.


UPDATE: TINA HEWING
Good news this week from London - Tina has got the 'all clear' from the Central Hospital for Wierd Tropical Diseases or whatever it is called and hopes to be coming back to Rwanda in a few weeks' time. Meanwhile, two friends of hers are arriving next week on holiday, having booked to come a long time ago with the view of seeing her!!! Anyway, they should be in Butare next week so that's good, I'll still be here and free in the evenings to see them. Pity Tina won't be here but it is good to hear she will be back soon.


OBSERVATION: RWANDANESE AND AUTHORITY
I'm still getting my head around this. As someone I was talking to recently (a Ugandan, not a Rwandese) said, Rwandanese have an amazing ability to do exactly what they are told to do: this is simultaneously their greatest asset and their greatest weakness, depending on what they are being told to do and who is telling them. This whole learning English and becoming Anglophone overnight thing - I'm trying to think if there is another country in the world where people would have accepted such a major change so willingly. They are genuinely willing, there is no doubt about that, keen and enthusiastic to learn English but there is still this element that, because they have been told to do it, they are unquestioningly doing it (Alfred: that is not very coherently expressed but the poor bugger has been typing this blog for three hours straight now so cut him a little slack). In a way, it makes what happened this week all the more remarkable - the students on Monday and the teachers on Thursday downing tools and refusing to work is just not very common here: on the whole, I think it's good - people should stand up for themselves when they are being unfairly treated - it's just not the way things usually happen here (the exception that proves the rule, to use an-often misunderstood saying).

Another example: because I was helping the specialist groups Saturday morning, my group got more or less abandoned again. I went into the room at 0800, handed them all reams of work to do (textbooks and photocopies) and told them to get on with it. When I checked back at 1000 every single one of them was still there, beavering away. I told them they could go from 1030 onwards when they had had enough. At 1100 most had gone, some were still there and there was a neat pile of completed exercises for me on the desk.

Another example: one of the groups was complaining to one of the trainers that they just were finding the lesson preparation impossible. She said she understood their concerns but they were just going to have to make the best of it and that was that. Everyone promptly sat down and just got back to work!!

Anyone familiar with Rwandan history over the last 80-100 years will recognise that this has always been a very strong trait in Rwandese - a very authoritarian society with strict stratification of power and a hierarchical system where everyone knows (or at least used to know) who was superior to whom. It comes out very strongly when you ask people to make up their own minds about things rather than being told, when you try and convince them that not all things are black or white but that things can be grey or in more than one category at a time (they HATE that), and above all if you ask them to be critical about things or say what is wrong. A colleague of mine told me of a meeting she was at where she had exhorted the director or whatever he was to tell the staff that they desperately needed to hear their suggestions, especially in relation to anything they felt wasn't going well. He said this at the meeting and there was a long silence. Finally, one member of staff plucked up the courage to venture one or two 'constructive criticisms'. There was a silence, then the director announced the meeting was over, went back to his office with the VSO person and promptly burst into tears!!! Oh dear - still got a long way to go!!