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!!!
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