Monday 9th February: Day One Hundred and Fifty Six in Rwanda

Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.

So here I am sitting in my office on my own. Francois and I were supposed to be having a meeting to plan our inspections and other stuff but he just got a phone call to come to Butare for a MINEDUC meeting about something or other; Alexis has gone off to assist with exams in a school in the District (Alfred: exams? In February? Are you sure you heard that correctly?) so I am sitting here making up work for myself.

The last few days have been great, actually: on Friday I headed up to Kigali, met with Martine, Marion and Cathryn and headed off east to meet Marion’s American friends, Jeff and Addison. I actually wasn’t very sure where we were going - it turned out to be Kibungo, where Tina and Thom live (and now Epiphanie as well)!! Eric met us there, Tina and Thom joined us in the pub and a few other Rwandan friends of various people also turned up. Then we went back to Jeff and Addison’s place and had a really tremendous night. There were two Japanese volunteers there also – Taxi and a girl whose first name I forget (her surname is Toyota which is hard to forget).

Jeff and Addison are from Kentucky and are really interesting people to know – Jeff has worked in China, India, Lesotho and the Ukraine before coming to Rwanda. More importantly, he built his own pizza oven in his back garden (based on a traditional Brazilian design) and we dined on divine fresh-baked pizzas all night – best food I had since I got here!! Everyone had a wonderful time!

Next morning I headed up to Tina’s and hung around with her for a bit to see her place about which I had heard so much (Alfred: no sign of the famous rat but I’m sure he was there somewhere). We ran into a Canadian volunteer called Andy who remembered seeing me in Kigali at the St Paul guesthouse. He is working in the secondary school is Rusumo south of Kibungo and not far from Sonya and Joe. Then I decided to get all the travelling over with quickly: Kibungo – Kigali (2½ hours) and Kigali-Butare (2¼ hours). Got to Butare in time (unfortunately) to see the second half of Chelsea-Hull City and then stayed over with Jane.

Sunday I called over to Tiga’s and had a long chat with the new Education Management volunteer for the Anglican diocese, Gerrit. Then shopping (sardines, matches, candles, eggs, onions, peppers, carrots, batteries and bread) and home with Deo.

BOOKS
Have been doing a lot of reading again recently. Finally managed to read Donna Tartt The Secret History: this was my third or fourth attempt to get into it and this time successfully – a great read! Also finished the Philip Gourevitch book We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families which was also excellent and very interesting for seeing his vision of Rwanda in 1998/1999 and how he thought things might pan out in the future (it has turned out rather better than he did expect!). Kurt Vonnegut Galapagos I can’t recommend I’m afraid – it was OK but a one-message book that got a bit tiresome. Various Kellermann and PD James whose titles never stay in the memory. William Boyd’s Brazzaville Beach was a fantastic read, strongly recommended. Another book on African history called The Graves Are Not Yet Full looking at how evil manifests itself in Africa and focussing on Liberia, Sudan, South Africa, Rwanda, DCR Congo and Uganda which was so-so. And finally Blood River by Timothy Butcher (which I read cover-to-cover on my Kibungo-Kigali-Butare bus trip), a description of Butcher’s retracing of Stanley’s exploration of the Congo River which was pretty hair-raising at times and recommended reading (and this from someone who usually hates travel books). All of the above (apart from Blood River) are available in the VSO Resource Room in Kigali in case you are reading this in Rwanda!

BAD NEWS
The one disappointing thing about the weekend was when I visited the Program office on Friday. I mentioned before that VSO were hoping to send a Primary Methodology trainer to join me in April. Well, she has decided not to take up the placement, which is really sad as I was really looking forward to having a colleague to work with here. Ah well ...

FOOD!
Ah yes! Eggs, coffee, stir-fry, soup – real food at last. Managed to spill kerosene all over the kitchen floor while trying to decant it into smaller bottles but now have a fabulously clean kitchen floor as a result! Finally getting to use the herbs and spices so many of you kindly sent me!!

MTN – WORLD’S WORST INTERNET PROVIDER??
As I type this (in Word) I have been checking the internet connection on and off for the last two hours. The modem is connected, the signal strength is between 60-75% (which is fine) but there is absolutely no traffic whatsoever. Last night it worked for about half an hour at a rate of 1kps or less before giving up the ghost entirely. And for this MTN charge RWF20,000 per month (c.€30) out of my salary of RWF150,000 (c.€220). Come on Rwandatel (new competitors) – get in there and do something!

UNEXPECTED VISITOR!
Well, well, well! Gerrit suddenly turned up in my office today with his Director of Education Valentin. They were hoping to see my director and chargé (who are both gone for the day). (Alfred: turns out Alexis is doing interviews for principalships, not exams – the word ‘examen’ means both). This is the very first person who has ever come to this office to see ME! Good omen, I hope!

SONG OF THE WEEK
There is no better thing here than visiting old friends and meeting new ones. I’ve met loads of really nice people in the last three days – some old friends (‘old’ even though I have only known them a few months!) and new ones like Gerrit, Tina, Jeff, Andy, Addison, Streton, Camilla, Kristen and goodness knows how many others. So this week’s song is an old ABBA favourite, Knowing Me, Knowing You!!!

KEROSENE LAMP
The inside of my kerosene keeps on getting really black and sooty very quickly – anyone know why???