Thursday 26th to Tuesday 31st March: Days 201-206 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.



FINAL STATISTIC
One more to add to the last blog entry list:
152,000+ The number of words written in this blog so far (including this entry)


LOW POINT MONDAY
One of the things I was trying to achieve and thought I had made some headway with was teaching the education office staff the rudiments of Excel so that their reports would actually be usable. Having redesigned the new format, we used this for the staff returns that we are making to MINEDUC at the moment.

On Monday morning Alexis asked me to update one of the reports as there had been so many changes in the school. I took the file off his computer to make sure the updates were on the same file. And what did I find? He had painstakingly changed each and every file back into the old layout and format that he was used to, a layout that also makes the file impossible to work with. It must have taken him hours and hours and hours! When I tried to ask him why he had done this, he said it was for printing purposes. This means he now has a one-page file 1500 rows long and, because he can’t use the ‘search’ function, he scrolls down with the little wheel on the mouse to try and find stuff. I felt like crying but ... hey. That’s just the way things go here!



HECTIC FRIDAY
Did a few hours at work, then off to Butare to the bank and bus up to Kigali to see Charlotte (and Mike as it turned out). Chatted to Déo also for a bit – he (in the nicest possible way) is asking me how the fundraising for a motorbike is going. Turns out that his contract on the rented motorbike runs out April 3rd and he doesn’t want to renew it if there is any possibility of one arriving. I wasn’t able to give him a clear answer but, seeing as I have had so many pledges of support from family, colleagues and pupils, I might just go ahead and transfer the money myself.

The meeting with Charlotte went well – it’s good to touch base every now and again and run your ideas past other people. I did cast rather a pall over the office by informing them of the 40% cutbacks in local government budgets, which they hadn’t heard about – as if VSO doesn’t have enough financial worries at the moment. Spent the rest of the day on the computer and raiding the library for stuff – Poisonwood Bible, Bernard MacLaverty, an autobiography about a Rhodesian childhood (Don’t Lets Sleep With the Dogs Tonight – started it, really good, kind of a Rhodesian Frank McCourt), couple of thrillers and....... Then met up with Marion who had spent the entire day (0800 – 1600) at the AGM of the Rwandan Deaf Association. She is still pretty crippled by that big cut on the sole of her foot – it got badly infected and is only slowly responding to treatment (Alfred: well, if you go around barefooted with a cut on your foot, you’re only asking for ......). So much for teddy bear sympathy!

Had an omelette and a few beers in Stella 2 (they definitely do the best Omelette Speciale around) while Marion watched me and drank her Coke (Alfred: that whole antibiotics and alcohol thing is a myth – at least, it has never stopped Ruairí). Then onto motos and off to see her new house which is perched up on a hill overlooking the entire city of Kigali. Nice place, bigger than her last house (Alfred: Duh!) and the cats seem to have settled in. Had a really nice evening chatting about books and films and whatnot. A good day!!

SATURDAY
Funny kind of day – didn’t seem to really get much done. That is definitely a problem with Kigali – you have one or two specific things to do there and apart from that you are praying you will run into someone because there isn’t a hell of a lot to do. However, I struck it lucky in this regard and ran into LOADS of people. First I walked from the centre to Nyamagogo where the bus park is to reserve tickets to Kampala. You can’t reserve more than two days in advance. Ah well. Then I ran into Paula and we headed back into town together, met Cathryn Devine, got wet, had lunch, met Steve McFadden and just kind of hung out until it was time to go to Sole Luna for Ivana and Suzanne’s farewell do. That was nice though it really is time for someone to decide that there are other places besides Sole Luna for these events – I feel I know the menu off by heart at this stage. Nice evening, had long chats with Sarah and Christiane who I hadn’t really had a chance to talk to properly so far but didn’t really get to talk to Martine who had been sick in bed all day (and consequently declined my invitation to lunch). Also caught up with Sonya who was in flying form.

It was really sad saying goodbye to Suzanne and Suleiman (Alfred: it’s not spelled like that, it’s something like ‘Suleyman’) – he is off to the Ivory Coast and Suzanne back to Montreal. Even though they are married they have to have been married for at least a year before Canadian immigration will allow Suleyman in (Alfred: whatever.. there’s definitely a ‘y’ in there somewhere when Suzanne writes it). I also felt I had hardly got to know Ivana properly – we always got on really well when we were together and I hope we will manage to stay in touch. Always good to have a friend in New York!!!


SUNDAY
Headed off for the bus around nine. Marion had lent me a book called The Eyre Affair by Jason Fforde which turned out to be an absolutely brilliant read, sort of Terry Pratchett crossed with the Times Literary Supplement and Art Review. I met Suleiman/Suleyman/Suleman (Alfred: now you’re just being petulant) at the bus station and he gave me some stuff to bring down to his brother in Butare. Sat with a really lovely Rwandan Muslim family on the bus who did their best to chat to me in broken English with smiles that threatened to meet at the back of their heads.

Then I met Andy and Heloise and Amy in Butare and we did Matar!! Got in just before the Peace Corps invaded the place. I will still carry a torch for the food in Matar but don’t order the Cream of Chicken Soup: it is incredibly thick, incredibly salty and the chicken is weird browny chewy bits sprinkled on top. And they brought it AFTER my burger and chips. Ah well! South African John also turned up having just got back from Bujumbura (‘Nothing to write home about’ was his summing –up).

Then shopped – Blue Band (they don’t sell my brand, Biddy’s, in Matar), Mango vodka, sugar, mayonnaise and milk. Well, I would have got milk (powdered of course) but the only tins they had were huge – two kilos or more, enough to feed an army. Then Déo moto back home.

Had a nice lazy Sunday afternoon then – I usually get back at dark so it was nice for once to just lounge around my own house, reading and drinking coffee.


MONDAY
Apart from the depressing incident mentioned earlier, I had an interesting if rather unfruitful time in St Philippe Neri secondary school. The IT teacher was in the office dropping off some stuff and said all their computers were now paralysed by a variety of different faults, so I said I’d come out and see what I could do. I have seen computers in other schools before but this was my first chance to sit down for a few hours and really check out some Rwandan school computers.

And they were everything I feared. It was like being in Ireland 20 years ago – different models of different makes, faded and semi-burnt out monitors and everything completely riddled with viruses. We managed to get three of them going again but two more I suspect are beyond repair (Alfred: Am I the only one wetting myself at the idea of Ruairí being considered some sort of IT expert by ANYONE inside the orbit of Pluto?). Then they wanted to discuss with me buying a dish to get internet access. I told them to save their money and focus on getting some working computers first! Then we repaired to the pub and discussed Ugandan politicos for a few hours!!! Great fun!

Oh, yes – they want me to make a film with them! Regular readers (Hi Andy’s parents, Bairbre ní Chíosáin, Jennifer, Sorcha and everyone else!) will recall I attended their play The Wages of Sin are Death which I filmed and burned onto a DVD for them. Enock had been working with them on a play focussing on various aspects of HIV/AIDS but they say they want to make it into a film instead. I told him to give me a while to think about it but it might be fun. Certainly having to write a proper film script in English would be a great learning experience for them. Watch this space.


Rather sad note: the loo in the pub (which is beside the school) has pages torn out of old copybooks in the corner for anyone who needs to wipe themselves. The one I looked at (Alfred: Yes folks, he just looked at it – you don’t bare your bum in a Rwandan toilet unless you absolutely have to, let alone wipe it with something that has been lying on the floor) was carefully written notes on Rwanda in the 19th century. I suppose it is a form of recycling but it seemed kind of peculiar (Alfred: give us a break – remember staggering out of 3R classroom after the Junior Cert ended last year with 25 kilos of abandoned textbooks and copybooks?? What skip did they end up in?).

PAST PUPILS
Between my blog (Hi Tania) and Facebook I have suddenly made contact with loads of students who left in 1984-1987 (Hi Ruth, Susan, Joanna, Jenny, Laurel/Laurie and of course Pamela). If there are any more of you out there, get in touch! Anyone know what happened to my two prize pupils, Susan Magowan and Karen Dempsey?

FOOD
As I am off to Kampala Saturday I am trying to eat everything I have and not buy anything more in the meantime. Lunch was tomato and avocado sandwiches (really nice though I had no onion left which would have been even better). Dinner tonight was fried cabbage and potatoes with garlic and cumin seeds and turmeric. OK but you wouldn’t want to eat it every day (Alfred: bloody right – cabbage – especially stir-fried – tends to cause a reaction that ... how do I put this delicately, you wouldn’t necessarily want to share a bedroom with later, not that I have any bloody choice in the matter. Should at least take care of any errant mosquitoes). Tomorrow morning is my last two boiled eggs and the bread I will have scraped the green bits off. Lunch is the rest of the cabbage and potatoes and dinner a tin of sardines. Not sure what Thursday lunch will be (Alfred: it won’t) but will spend Thursday night in Butare with Amy so probably Chinese food!!


VISITOR
Finally, I had my first official visitor tonight. Other people have dropped in from time to time but Albert asked me this morning if he could call around tonight and I said of course. Albert lives a few doors up from me (Alfred: makes it sound like a housing estate – he lives one hundred metres away and there are two houses in between) – tall thin man, 59 but looks a lot older. He is Déo’s uncle (my moto driver) and only got out of prison in March last year (March 7th to be precise). Unlike Déo, he has never made any protestations of innocence, though he hasn’t really said anything at all about what he was sent to prison for. As far as I can tell he served his entire sentence of fourteen years or so and his wife and eldest son are still in prison. He told me tonight she was sentenced to nineteen years, five more than him. I don’t know what the son’s story is. There is an appeal lodged on behalf of his wife but fourteen years later it still hasn’t been heard.

Unlike Déo’s case where everyone has told me about the injustice of his case, this is the first time I have talked at length to someone who has been convicted of involvement in the genocide, though we didn’t actually talk about the events themselves – how exactly do you bring that up? He wants to continue visiting so I suppose at some stage I’ll have to mention it. It doesn’t help that our conversations are only in French – my French may have improved but I’m not sure it’s up to that! Anyway, we’ll see how it turns out!

BIRTHDAY ALERT TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS
As you know I will be 50 this August. Anyone who is wondering what to get me can help me buy myself a motorbike!!!

Wednesday 25th March 2009: Day 200 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, 200 days gone another 480 (approximately) to go. That means I am 29% through my stay here. The next 71% better be a bit more productive though I will settle for it being as enjoyable from a non-work point of view. The occasion was marked by an earthquake at work - literally, the second one since I arrived here. It was a lot stronger than the one before Christmas when I was in Butare, more like the one I remember in San Francisco in 1999. It was enough anyway to get everyone scampering out of the building for a few minutes until they were sure there weren't going to be any further shocks. I could hear all the kids in the two primary schools down the road laughing and shouting - it's exams week so they were probably hoping they would get cancelled (snow at home, earthquakes here).

Also, after one hundred and ninety-seven days here, I finally got my green card. The final delay was that, if you are divorced or widowed, you have to supply details of your former spouse to go on the card!


Meanwhile here are a few numbers to mark the 200th anniversary :

200 - the number of days spent so far in Rwanda
197 - the number of days I have thought at least once I made the right decision in coming here
191 – the number of days Alfred has been making his own comments on the blog
40 – the number of nights I spent in the Motel Ineza waiting for accommodation to be located in Gisagara
∞ – the number of times I have laughed to myself at this priceless phrase in my VSO placement description of Gisagara: ‘Electricity should not be a problem’!

28 – The amount of pictures and movies (in gigabytes) I have taken/recorded since I arrived
20 – the number of volunteers in my group that arrived in September
20 – the percentage of my original group that have either already left or are leaving early
4 – the actual number of volunteers in my group that have left (Marjoulaine) or are leaving early (Tinks, Suzanne, Ivana)

8 – the number of copies of the New Times I have bought since I came here before I realised every edition is pretty much the same
3 – the number of monkeys I have seen so far
1 – the number of snakes I have seen so far
1.5 – the average speed in kilobytes per second of my MTN internet connection
11 – the estimated number of hours I actually spent on a motorbike before taking my test and getting my licence (Alfred: and therefore deemed fit to drive on Rwandan roads!)
55 – the percentage of seats in the Rwandan parliament occupied by women
880 – the number of Rwandan francs you got for a euro when I arrived here
700 – the number of Rwandan francs you get today for a euro
550 – in Rwandan Francs, the cheapest large bottle of beer I have purchased since I got here (Primus, 72cl, Gisagara village, c. €0.77)

909 – the average size of a primary school in Gisagara District
75 – the average number of pupils per teacher in a primary school in Gisagara
30 – the percentage of students each year who have to repeat their year at primary level
13 – the percentage of primary school students who have lost one or both parents
61 – percentage of primary teachers who are women
48 – percentage of primary principals who are women
65 – the number of primary schools in Gisagara district
49 – the number of primary schools without a single Geography textbook for students (Alfred: of course they have just dropped Geography from the curriculum, so it doesn’t matter!!!!!)
0 – the amount of time now allocated to the study of French at primary level.
25 – the age in years of the oldest male student so far encountered in primary school (Jean Bizimana in Mugowbwa 6th class)
23 – the age in years of the oldest female student so far encountered in primary school (Marie Chantal Nyiramisago in Nyaruhengeri 4th class)

4 – the number of times I checked with VSO before coming to Rwanda that I would not need to ride a motorbike
4 – the number of days after I arrived in Rwanda I was told by VSO I would have to learn to ride a motorbike
10- the average number of days it takes my copy of The Economist to arrive in Rwanda
20 - the average number of days it takes my copy of The Guardian Weekly to arrive in Rwanda
3 – number of times I have written my blog in Irish to discuss ‘sensitive’ topics
6 – number of dogs I have petted since I got here
7 – number of Rwandan amateur footballers I provided with info for applying to League of Ireland football clubs
13 – number of years Déo Gratias, my moto driver, spent in prison after being falsely accused of involvement in the 1994 genocide
210 – average number of pupils per pit latrine in Mugombwa primary school

Tuesday 24th March 2009: Day 199 in Rwanda (again!)

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.

I obviously lost count somewhere - went onto one of these online calculator thingies to check that today actually was my 200th day in Rwanda - and it isn't!! Just as well - it wasn't a day you want to mark an anniversary with. Schools really don't want me calling around during the exams (which is understandable enough) and my boss keeps getting called away to Kigali for meetings which is driving both of us crazy. The news about redeployment of district staff to the sector offices seems to have paralysed people: out of the 42 people ten are to be moved .... at some stage. Doesn't do anything for one's concentration at work!!

Meanwhile I have been trying to cook the chickpeas I bought in Kigali. Brought them to the boil and soaked them overnight, then cooked them for about an hour this morning and another 45 minutes at lunch. Still not cooked. Put them on again tonight when I had made my soup and forgot to put in enough water! Alexandré came running in to drag me out but they had pretty much welded to the bottom of the pot by the time he figured out this wasn't some sort of strange muzungu recipe. Not sure I can salvage the pot!

Good news is I got my St Patrick's Day pics uploaded on Facebook (same ones as here plus a few extra) and nicked a few really nice ones from Paula's page too!

Meanwhile, here is the Kinyarwandan homework I have been working on tonight - reminds me of teaching Irish in First Year!

Amazina yanjye ni Ruairí. Nkora mu ibiro by’akarere ka Gisagara. Nkora mu ibiro by’uburezi, umuco n’imyidagaduro. Mfite imyaka mirongwine n’icyenda. Buri weekend, njya i Butare cyangwa i Kigali. Weekend yashize, nagiye i Kigali. Nahuye nishuti yanjye Steve i Remera. Twagiye mu kabari. Umupimyi aratubaza ‘Mufata iki?’ Namusubije ‘Nfata Primus n’ishuti John afata Mutzig.’ Nyuma y’amasa abiri, twasubiye mu rugo kuryama.

See what you can make of that!!!

Thursday 12th to Monday 23rd March 2009: Days 188 to 199 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.

I started to do a day-by-day but it has been so long and some of the days were sooooooo boring I can’t bear to inflict it on myself, let alone you guys. So here are the edited highlights by category.

WORK
Work is really awful at the moment and has been getting me down somewhat. Part of it is my own fault because, now that the opportunities are there to actually do something I am finding it incredibly difficult to actually get myself off my ass and start working properly. Then when I do manage to do so, everything I tried to do went pear shaped. First of all I worked out a really good schedule to cover all the schools in my sector in two weeks, eight schools, one school a day Mon-Fri each week, to be followed by training sessions with the eight directors. Then VSO rang to say MINEDUC were looking for ten volunteers to work on a survey of secondary schools around Rwanda to assess teachers’ levels of English, information that would be used to develop a training course for them. This sounded like too good a chance to miss so I reluctantly cancelled the arrangements I had made to visit the schools. Two days later MINEDUC postponed the work to late April. When I recontacted the schools to rearrange the visits I was a week further down the term and found out they were going to be doing exams for the last two weeks of term and didn’t really want to be inspected (not to mention there not being any classes for me to observe). So now I am trying to find some of the new Tronc Commun schools to visit because they may not (‘may’ not) be having exams but no-one seems to want to answer their phones and some of the phone numbers I’ve been given are obviously wrong (or else they have employed school directors who speak neither French nor English) and I am seriously worried that I am going to hurl my phone through the window soon so I thought I’d update my blog instead. On my own in the office today which is nice actually – I am actually getting to talk to people and feel a little bit useful, even if it is only to tell people who walked for three hours to get here that the two people they need have gone away for the day.

FOOD
Cabbage is a very under-rated vegetable. It stir-frys really well and lasts far longer than I expected even after you have started chopping off a quarter at a time to use. A quarter of a cabbage makes a LOT of stirfry mind you! Bought satay sauce in Kigali for a change, and some crunchy peanut butter. Most people here like the real authentic Rwandan peanut butter but it’s too authentic for me. It’s like the time my sister drove me down to Devon to taste real cider, because I am very fond of cider, and I thought it was horrible!!! Give me the synthetic artificially coloured version every time! I also got a big bag of Tesco apricots in the post from my mother (as well as another consignment of cup-a-soups) and am frantically trying to prevent myself devouring the whole bag in one go (I do love apricots!). Finally, I invested in a large bag of chickpeas, which promptly burst in my rucksack so I’ll be finding them for months probably!

BUTARE and GAHINI
I went into Butare on Friday 13th to stay with Jane overnight before heading on to Gahini for Bruce’s party – I went to the bank first and it was PACKED, I mean absolutely jammed to the doors. Apparently that day was the last day to pay your taxes and of course everyone had decided to wait until the last day. They had actually opened up one till just for people who were not paying taxes so I escaped after only an hour and a half – goodness knows what time the staff got home! Then Jane asked me to pick up some beer in the Faucon to bring to her place where I was eating with her and her new driver Thierry. I swear to God and all the lesser deities up there, solving the Middle East problem would be easier than trying to buy bottles of beer here. It took forty minutes and I had to leave a deposit per bottle of RWF1000 (€1.40) even though the beer in each bottle only cost RWF800 (€1.10).

Anyway, Jane hasn’t been feeling well so VSO have assigned her a car and driver for the time being. Thierry seems very nice though not the chattiest in the world and another of these who insists on speaking English even though his French is far better. Nice evening and it was nice to see Jane after missing each other a few times.

Off to Kigali in the morning, earlyish, a journey enlivened by sitting beside Harerimana Jean Bosco, an English teacher from Butare who works in a private school there but had had some previous VSO training some years ago. We had an interesting talk about teaching methodology and language in Rwanda in general. I’ve had really good luck recently in the people beside me on buses – hope it lasts!

When I got to Kigali I went into the Atraco office to get a ticket for Gahini. It wasn’t hard – as soon as I walked up to the counter, the man said: ’A ticket for Gahini, I presume?’. Apparently I was the eighth or ninth that morning. And sure enough, there were Tina and Kristy and Mike and Berthe and various others all there. Got to Gahini only to find they weren’t showing the Liverpool-Manchester United match so I hopped on a bus back to Kayonza. Now this was an experience I will remember for a long time. In Kayonza I had seen a sign saying ‘live football’ and presumed it was a pub. No – it was a room, maybe four metres by five metres with benches and a TV and there were 137 people crammed in (I counted). Instead of a door there was a Backstreet Boys bed sheet to block out the light. Fantastic match though I got a fierce lot of slagging for being in a Chelsea shirt at a Liverpool-Man Utd game!!

The party itself was great fun (see pictures in previous blog) and a huge crowd had come. Unfortunately one of my friends got taken ill later and I spent the night with her in Gahini hospital but she was fine by the next day.

So Sunday was a rather sleepy affair. We arrived back down to the Seeds of Peace guesthouse (my bed still unslept in) to the most disorganised breakfast one could imagine! They knew they were having loads of people to stay but no one had thought to get any extra eggs or bread or anything! Anyway, I headed off on a bike to Kayonza as I had to do a radio interview in Kigali about the St Patrick’s Day Ball. On the way I decided to see how far I could get only speaking Kinyarwandan and did very well thank you – bought all the tickets, went shopping and said ‘Hi’ to a few people. Not exactly advanced level but I was still very pleased with myself. And again I struck it lucky on the bus: sat beside an electrical technician called (again) Jean Bosco and we talked for 90 minutes solid in French about the economic and political situation in Rwanda. It was particularly good because my French, having improved enormously (Alfred: steady on there, choose your adverbs carefully) is now deteriorating because everyone wants to speak English all the time.

The radio interview was a bit of a waste of time: the two guys were really only interested in getting me to buy radio advertising space from them and stuck me with their bill for two cappuccinos at Bourbon but what the hell: it was the absolutely first thing whatsoever I had been able to do as a so-called member of the St Patrick’s Day committee! Then last bus to Butare and collapsed in the door on Andy who was still up thank God! Slept very well that night and even remembered to text Francois to tell him I wouldn’t be at the meeting Monday morning.

St PATRICK’S DAY – OFFICIAL
It rained. Rained and rained and rained and rained; then when it got tired of raining, it kept on raining anyway because it had run out of alternative ideas. So, couldn’t even struggle to the pub for a beer. Thought of trying to make hot whiskey out of Mango vodka and cloves but luckily didn’t try – my experiments with waragi have not been a howling success so far. The next evening Enock and I did go for a drink to celebrate. The pub was out of Primus so I had to have Mutzig. Then an amazing thunderstorm swept down and buried us, so we ended up in the pub a much longer time than expected and drank three Mutzigs each.

(Alfred: For those of you reading this who haven’t been/aren’t in Rwanda, Mutzig is a lot stronger than Primus: drinking three 65cl bottles of it the night before you have to get up for work the next morning is NOT a good idea! Not for Ruairí anyway it isn’t/wasn’t!)

St PATRICK’S DAY – KIGALI VERSION
Oh yes, this was fun! I cannot find the words to congratulate the committee who organised this event, a howling success enjoyed by absolutely everyone who was present (see pictures). 400 guests, fantastic food, a free bar with Black Velvet, free wine on the tables, great music from an Irish band called Riff Raff based in Galway and tons of Irish people from Rwanda, Uganda and further afield. Made lots of new friends, especially Jane, Micheál and Douglas and got to see some more of the new volunteers of whom I have not seen as much as I would like (though I still haven’t had a proper conversation with Moira since she arrived – note the cute waragi-picture of her on the night!). I also got to meet and chat to Malcolm Quigley, head of VSO Ireland, who was visiting! The pictures will say more than I could! I was on the door for much of the night but eventually we left it to the Serena Hotel security and headed upstairs (Alfred: ‘Much’? ‘We’? ‘WE’? Paul Stewart was actually on the door the whole time. You were wandering around upstairs wondering where you were supposed to be and by the time you figured out where the door WAS Paul had already processed half the guests!! Your main contribution of the evening was bringing jokes to the MC in case he needed them!). Well, OK, I wasn’t exactly overstretched!

I also got to meet my ex-pupil and now Irish ambassador’s wife, Pamela Uwakwe and her three kids. Unfortunately I never caught up with her later as (contrary to what Alfred says) I was actually rushing around an awful lot and by the time I found the ambassador’s table again she had gone. Still, I’ll catch her again in Kampala and tell her all the stories about Nurse Anderson, Miss Green and other teachers she remembers from her Rathdown days!!

The party ended around three and Steve and I headed off back to his place! Great night, best in a long time. Well done Kieron, Mory, Paul, Jane, Rowan (who was sick on the night, worse luck), Cathryn, Paula, Sonya and all the others involved (Alfred: and if he left out names, I apologise on his behalf, but it’s because he never actually GOT to a single committee meeting and doesn’t really know who is ON the committee!)

RUGBY FABULOUSNESS!!!!!
The next day I shopped in Nakumat for a new rucksack, and then headed off to the Serena hoping to catch up with Kevin and Pamela but no joy. I hung around for a few hours reading the book Andy lent me (Anthony Seldon’s amazing biography of Tony Blair, haven’t enjoyed a book so much in ages), then went trawling around shops and various backstreets. It was really fun, the first time I have ever really just strolled around Kigali because I am usually there doing stuff.

So, the big question was – where can we see the rugby? This was the only reason I was staying up in Kigali as I figured my chances were considerably better there than in Butare. Also, I was hoping to watch it with more Irish people if possible. Jane Baxter, the Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy had very kindly offered to make her place available but as our numbers swelled some of us felt a bit uneasy about imposing on someone like that so we thought of going to a pub instead.

Initial inquiries revealed that the kick-off coincided with the Arsenal-Newcastle match and in a country where Arsenal are worshipped and no-one knows what rugby is (Alfred: that’s not fair: Rwanda actually have a good women’s rugby team) that put the kibosh on our chances of finding a pub. So we all landed in on Jane. Jane has a really beautiful house not far from Novotel – huge big place and she had laid on what has to be the most impressive hospitality I’ve seen since I got here: giant pizzas, oceans of beer and wine (including – and this is the epitome of luxury here – chilled white wine!), fresh popcorn and a giant TV screen. You don’t need me to tell you about the match but there were about fifteen or more of us there: one Englishwoman supporting Wales, two rather bemused Rwandans who couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, one guy whose name I forget who was either Dutch or German (and I’m guessing from the accent) who I don’t think had ever seen rugby before but got quite enthusiastic about it and about twelve Irish supporters (not all of whom were actually Irish it has to be said) alternating between joy and potential despair right up until the final whistle. It was a really fantastic night, couldn’t have been in a better place or in better company to watch it! And Micheál gave me a lift home too – perfect!!

I was a bit shell-shocked the next morning. Chatted to Steve and Nidhi a bit, having availed shamelessly of their hospitality yet again and then went off to meet Tina and Austin in the Bourbon Cafe. Austin is Tina’s boyfriend/partner and has arrived over for a holiday: I’ve emailed him but never met him before so it was great to finally see him in the flesh. We had a great chat, including an interesting discussion on the British Army’s role in Northern Ireland and how that knowledge was or wasn’t useful in the Iraqi conflict. Then I met with Amy and we chatted about our plans for Uganda for a bit before heading off to catch our respective buses. I went Atraco this time: cheaper (RWF1500 instead of RWF1800) but for a reason: uncomfortable bus and frequent pauses to look for passengers, but it wasn’t full so I had plenty of space to sprawl out. Popped in to see Tiga and Andy for a few minutes and then off home with my moto driver Déo (who went visibly pale when he saw the size of my new rucksack).


MONDAY MORNING MEETING
Every Monday there is a meeting that lasts one to two hours for all District staff. In it we read out the minutes from last week, report on whether we actually did what we had said we were going to do and outline what our departments are going to do in the next week. Despite being in Kinyarwandan (mostly) they are interesting and I have learned a lot about what is going on in the District.

Today was a particularly interesting meeting so I thought I would give you a résumé of the high points:

a) The scheme for giving cows to poor people and families has run into difficulties. Too many of them have never owned cows and have no idea what to do with them or lack any areas for grazing or shelter. Scheme is to be put on hold, department to talk to those who got cows and did well with them for advice on how to train others.

b) No-one seems to have planted any cassava this year. There was tons last year but a major shortage this year. Speculation: was there so much it was hard to sell so people planted other stuff this year? Agriculture Dept to report next Monday.

c) Family Planning campaign: complaints (from men) that the campaign is really only targeting women and that men need to be made aware of their responsibilities in this area. Concern from some staff that it was fear of a reaction from the Catholic Church that was inhibiting the District from doing this (I presume they are talking about using condoms though how 90% of the men in this district could possibly afford condoms I don’t know, even if they could be persuaded to use them).

d) The law currently on the statute books saying that land left unused for three years can be seized by the district and reallocated is to be rigorously enforced from now on.

e) Nadine (District worker) is sick and the only available medical treatment is in Nairobi. District is to look at ways to gather the money to pay the costs, we may all be asked to pitch in.

f) This was the big one: following meetings of the government departments dealing with local government to consider the effects of the global economic crisis, the District budget (I presume for all Districts) is to be cut by 38%, in our case from RWF4billion to RWF2.5billion for the second half of the year. The 42 District staff is to be reduced to 32 though these will be reallocated to the sector offices and won’t actually lose their jobs. There was a general call to save money wherever possible – paper, toner, travel costs, phones etc. I’ll bet – a 38% budget cut?? Big ouch!!

GOODBYE OR GET BETTER SOON!
The only thing that isn’t going so well (other than my own actual work) is the number of people who are either leaving early or have been getting sick. Already Marjoulaine left from our group and now Suzanne, Ivana and Tina Payne are also off (Alfred: Ivana? There goes your joint birthday party in August!!) for a variety of different reasons. In addition Jane, Tina and Tiga have been struggling with various medical problems. And that’s only the ones I have heard of so far as I am not usually very much in the loop! Get better guys and the rest of you – stay put!!!!!

General pictures from the St Patrick's Ball. If anyone want me to email them one at a better resolution, just drop me a line at roheithir@gmail.com

Sorry!

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.

It's been really hectic recently and I haven't wanted to lug my computer around with me all the time, so major update on the way. Since I last wrote My work has gone pearshaped, my boss is pissed off with me, I had a great party in Gahini (you saw the pics), got depressed for a few days because work seemed to be going nowhere, heard that some more of the volunteers are leaving early, drank too much 18th March trying to catch up on St Patrick's Day celebrations, had a fantastic St Patrick's Ball in Kigali and an even more fantastic night (courtesy of Jane Baxter) watching Ireland win the Grand Slam. Full update to come but here are a few random pictures from the St Patrick's Day Ball in the Serena Hotel, Kigali!

Bruce's Birthday Party in Gahini

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.

The tour around Rwanda survey of secondary schools has been postponed until late April at the earliest. I am still trying to catch up with recent events and write a proper blog entry but here are some pictures from Bruce Upton's birthday bash in Gahini. Bruce is kind of the elder statesman here, whose blog is a fascinating source of information on life here in Rwanda as a volunteer and has a lot more specifically education-related material than mine does (Alfred: and fewer annoying interruptions too!). Gahini is on the shores of Lake Muhazi and is normally a stunningly beautiful place with swimming and boating but the day was rather drizzly and overcast (though the following day, as you will see from the pictures, was stunning!). It was a nice occasion and a huge crowd of volunteers and friends turned out for the occasion. It was a pity Andy and Tiga weren't there but Andy had to be up early for Mass in Butare on the Sunday morning and couldn't make it (Alfred: Must be some mistake here ......). Other than spending the night in Gahini Hospital with a sick friend it all went well. I am planning a big birthday party for my 50th in August so this is one possible venue (Alfred: maybe you should discuss that with Ivana first, eh? It is supposed to be a JOINT party after all!)

Weaver birds, just like the ones behind my house in Gisagara.

Weaver bird colony on the lakeside, and birthday boy himself!





Some places have a dog that goes around and begs for scraps .....................

Partytime!

Jambo Beach - party location

Lake Muhazi the day of the party




Lake Muhazi the day AFTER the party!