Wednesday 4th February

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.





POSTS AND PROJECTS
OK – not sure what happened with the last two posts. I hadn’t realised I was posting essentially the same thing twice but – as the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed – there is a chunk missing from the first post, part of the section on the Kivu Writers’ Workshop but it is all there in the second post, which is a copy of the email I sent out to just about everyone on my mailing list and includes the text of the first post).

Two more things: I have had quite a few responses from friends and family and students on the moto driver (in particular) and the single-parents organisation. The Kivu Writers didn’t seem as attractive, though my sabotaging the entry in the blog probably didn’t help!! I am also looking at the work of the Liliane Fonds organisation which assists disabled and handicapped children with small grants for small but vital things – crutches, calipers, wheelchair repairs, whatever they need to enable them to get out of the house and, in particular, to get to school. They do a lot with small amounts of money and every cent they spend goes straight to a specific individual to solve a specific problem. More details on www.lilianefonds.nl

GENERATOR SAGA
Alfred: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!!! This one is so funny I’m glad I’m a stuffed teddy bear – otherwise I would have either broken a bone or wet myself laughing at the latest story. Remember the generator saga – the shop that sold him the contaminated petrol, some of which he kindly gave to his moto driver and thereby screwed up both the generator and the motorbike? Then he was wondering how he was going to go back to the shop and get them to either refund him or replace the petrol?

Well, it wasn’t petrol at all, it was kerosene. The word for ‘kerosene’ in Kinyarwanda is ipetroli and the woman in the shop, hearing Ruairí talking in English about petrol to Enoch, was reassured that she was selling the right thing. This shop only sells kerosene – and everyone in the village knows this. There is another shop that sells petrol and that is the only thing THEY sell! When told Ruairí had poured kerosene into both a generator and a motorbike she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!

Anyway, upshot of the matter is that, having got Alexandre to lug the 16 litres of what we now know is kerosene all the way to the shop, he then lugged it all the way back, as kerosene is just fine for the stove and lamp; we just need to find another jerrycan to buy petrol in! And maybe he will finally start using his kerosene stove!

TIGA and JOE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY ... AND THE MATCH!
Well, we had a ball. For Tiga and Joe’s birthday on Saturday we had hired out the restaurant section of the Matar supermarket (Alfred: ‘restaurant section’ - that’s putting it a bit grandly!) We had about thirty people there in all and it was great fun! There was also a fabulous cake, hats and streamers and posters, food and beer, and just a load of fun basically! Afterwards most went off dancing but I’m afraid I took to my bed – chest infection has still not cleared up. The following day – Sunday – was February 1st which is a national holiday here, so there were some indications that – as at home – the day off would be transferred to the following day. Therefore I decided to stay over and watch the Chelsea-Liverpool match. I also visited Tiga’s new house which is really nice and has a fabulous garden. We had lunch in the Chineese Restaurant (which is closer to Tiga’s than the Chinese Restaurant) and then headed off to watch Chelsea-Liverpool at 1800. Disaster – the TV company GTV, which handles premiership football for this area of Africa, had gone into receivership! However, somehow or other, they managed to hack in to some French-language sports channel that was showing it and I got so see from about the 25th minute onwards. Given the eventual result I now have mixed feelings!! We are not having much luck with referees this season, are we (Alfred: you’re not having much luck at playing well either – that might help even more!).

WORK-RELATED ISSUES
Work continues to be busy. The Health Unit asked me to help them by translating French resumes of their research into English, which was fine (with a little help from my mother). Otherwise it has been exam results all day every day. Amazing discrepancies between school – ranging from 100% pass to 99% failure rates. There is an inbuilt bias in the marking system in favour of female candidates: to get from lower secondary to higher secondary boys have to achieve a considerably higher mark than girls; the same applies at the primary school terminal exam, though this is about to become redundant as – in theory – all students now progress to lower secondary level.

It is also interesting that they use a system where the lower the mark the better. At primary level they are tested in three subjects, Mathematics, Sciences and Languages. The best overall mark is three, grade 1 in each subject. The worst is 27, a grade 9 in each subject.

Next week I should start doing my school visits/inspections - still trying to pin Francois down on specific days and times. He is keen to do the visits/inspedctions with me which is great, if it does happen. There is no point my doing inspections unless I get a chance to pass on something to whoever will be doing it when I am gone. Meanwhile the English classes continue: I can’t say I am a born English language teacher but – to be brutally frank – the bar is set so low they seem to be pleased with pretty much anything I do! It would help if the same people actually turned up for two consecutive classes!!

FEATURED SONG OF THE WEEK
Alfred: this is MY idea to try and liven things up a bit – get him to pick a song that captures the sense of the moment (no Céline Dion allowed, obviously). This week’s offering is from LOVE IS IN THE AIR by John Paul Young.

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around.
Love is in the air, every sight and every sound.
And I don’t know if I’m being foolish,
I don’t know if I’m being wise
But it’s something that I must believe in
And it’s there when I look in your eyes.

Love is in the air, in the whisper of the tree
Love is in the air, in the thunder of the sea
And I don’t know if I’m just dreaming,
Don’t know if I feel safe
But it’s something that I must believe in
And it’s there when you call out my name.

And it is ABSOLUTELY POURING DOWN AT THE MOMENT! (Rain, that is; maybe love also for all I know). A solid sheet of rain has obliterated the view from the window. Getting home is going to be an interesting experience So this is what the wet season is like – I thought it was pretty tame so far ............

Later .....

When I got home the porch of my house was absolutely jammed packed with people sheltering from the rain - had to elbow my way through and then squash a few people as I opened the door. Will change into my wellies and poncho for the trip to the District Office. Can't imagine what it will be like trying to visit schools in this weather, especially if I have to go on the back of Francois' moto - he isn't the best of drivers at the best of times!!