Disclaimer 1: 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.
Disclaimer 2: Please note that Ruairí writes this blog chiefly for his own benefit and to keep those of his family and friends who might be interested aware of what he is up to. It is long, wordy, rambles at times, and goes into excruciatingly unnecessary detail about things no-one could possibly be interested in. You have been warned. The attention of readers is drawn to the 'Comment' function by which his attention can be drawn to anything you consider extraneous, boring, inappropriate or just plain tedious, or to make suggestions as to what SHOULD be included (like more stuff from me, Alfred!!!)
OK – this is to be the start of a really good three-week period where I will finally be really busy!! I have training all day Thursday and Friday in Kigali with MINEDUC/British Council and then I will spend two weeks with a MINEDUC inspector travelling around secondary schools in the Southern Province assessing the teachers’ level of English. So, it’s clear the desks time here!!
Monday 20th April
Usual morning meeting. The Executive Secretary away, so the meeting was chaired by guy from Good Governance. It was like having a sub teacher in , everyone was giggling and talking all the time, and only 22 out of 42 turned up for the meeting! Spent the day finalising materials for the two weeks of inspections I will be doing when I get back from MINEDUC and also trying to find English stuff I can leave my class to do.
After work I had a quick meeting with the Executive Secretary of the Ndora sector, Bede John to make sure he was OK with what I was doing. Schools are actually responsible to the sector executive, not the District, so it’s important that the Executive Sec of the sector is kept informed and on board. He did inquire whether I had any free time to teach English to the primary teacher of the sector!! I was expecting that one and made a non-committal offer to help and advise in general but not to teach (Alfred: which is exactly what you and Tinks told the District in November and you have been teaching ever since!)
Knee is not too bad but tomorrow will be the test – three hours or so on the moto to visit nine schools. Déo called around Monday night to plan the logistics of the journey: two schools are only accessible by roads that are impassable when it rains, so we will do them first or last depending on the weather. This will actually be the first time I have visited more remote schools by moto, was in a car the last times.
Tuesday 21st April.
In school we studied a book by FSL Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine for our Leaving Certificate history course. I always remember the title of Chapter Three was “Parnell: Zenith and Nadir” which was the first time most of us had seen either of those two words used. Well, that was today. Déo collected me at 1030 and we headed off. The idea was to meet each of the school directors, have a brief chat and give them the details of the formal inspections and training that would be starting the week of May 11th when I got back from MINEDUC work. It went really well – we got Gisanze and Dahwe done before the rain set in, and the rain was never too heavy anyway. There was no director in Gisanze – she was sentenced to 30 years in prison for genocide-related crimes a few weeks ago (Alfred: given that she is in her early sixties, I doubt she’ll be back in that job again) but there was a contable in her place. I got around all the schools and my knee was OK at the end of it. Might have been a different story if it had been three hours straight but I was getting off every 20-30 minutes or so.
I spent the afternoon with each of my English students and their computers, loading up various bits of software that they could practice with while I am away. We are focussing on pronunciation and conversation now, rather than vocabulary and grammar, so they just need to practice and do conversation exercises – it’s amazing how much stuff is available out there on the internet!!!
After work I offered to buy Enock a beer, given that I hadn’t been able to on Sunday! He told me that all the teachers are back in school, and were on Day One, but only about half the students. Some have not returned but many others have been excluded because they came back without the fees for the second term and some still owe some or all the money for the first term. Fees are RWF36,000 per term (€50) which is quite a lot for people here. So some have gone to the church authorities for help, some will be able to pay part and stay on for now and others will just drop out and are unlikely to ever return.
Then I got a text from Charlotte, my Education Manager. MINEDUC had just postponed the project – again. Problems with procurement apparently. Most volunteers here have been through the shouting-and-screaming-and-banging-the-fists-on-the-wall routine at some stage or other, whether in exasperation with the District, MINEDUC, general Rwandan business practice or even occasionally VSO itself, but I had managed to avoid it so far. But this was the moment. Poor Enock was telling me some story about a very minor infringement of discipline by a student in his school and I suddenly responded with a string of curses and imprecations the like of which I doubt he has heard before in English (Alfred: he DID understand though – shows just how good his English is!).
Anyway, I went home and spent a childish and sulky evening making up what MINEDUC really stands for (my Facebook friends will have seen the status updates). I decided to head to Kigali anyway as I had other things to do there and absolutely bloody nothing to do here!! Plus, if the knee still isn’t great, I might go see the doctor.
Wednesday 22nd – Sunday 26th April: KIGALI SOJOURN
I actually had a good time in Kigali, I’m really glad I went up instead of hanging around Gisagara in a pissed-of state. High points of Kigali were:
a) Hanging around with Nidhi. I was going to stay in St Paul but Nidhi offered her place and I stayed there Wednesday and Thursday nights. Long chats, heard about her holiday in Zanzibar (sounds worth checking out) and just generally calmed down (Alfred: Nidhi has a very calming influence on people, must be all that yoga she does). Other highlights included going back to look at the hole I fell into (Alfred: and, of course, the idiot didn’t bring a camera! Will do next time, it’s worth seeing if only for how narrow and deep it is!) and lunch at the Auberge, as Nidhi had said their omelette speciale was considered by Rwandans as being especially good. (Alfred: depends on what you want from an omelette speciale and I’ve watched him eat quite a few since we got here. If you define a good omelette as one into which as much as possible has been crammed without any regard for, well, anything, then this is a pretty impressive piece of work. The omelette contains chips, tomatoes, peas, cabbage, onions, large quantities of cheese in lumps, ham, salami and maybe some other things. Oh, and eggs to bind it all together. Filling it certainly was!!)
b) Program Office: managed to get quite a bit of work done out there as well as catching up with the various staff I know. Charlotte was even more pissed off than me, which I didn’t think was possible. Then she was the one who had to track down ten different people to do this work and has now been told for the second time to ring them all and tell them it is postponed again. Never easy being the messenger!! I also ran into Tina Hewing there and we ended up spending a lot of time chatting. We also established definitely that the project was on hold (I had half expected to arrive in Kigali and be told they had changed their minds and it WAS going ahead!!)
c) Christina’s: Christina Campbell from Enniskillen was on my SKWID training course with me in Harbourne but I swear I have hardly seen her since we arrived here in Rwanda. Anyway, I had arranged to stay with her Friday night in her new house near the American Embassy. I had actually never seen her previous house at all! And a lovely house it is too. Tina and I and Bridget Davies (who was also staying there) had a great evening, but the high point was definitely dinner: lasagne, French bread and really nice red wine. OMG!!! I had completely forgotten the amazing taste of pasta and red wine together. I can’t remember if it was Tina or Bridget who said they wished they had a camera to capture the expression on my face (Alfred: it was both of them, actually).
Christina photographed with Paula at the VSO Cow Dance /Family Dinner in 2008.I also met her guard/domestique/general helper Peter, a really nice and interesting guy. Christina told us the story about how Sandra, who shares the house with Christina, either lost her phone or had it stolen. When she rang the phone, she got someone who said they had it and would return it for RWF30,000 (€40). So she and Peter headed off to some remote spot and saw two guys with Rwandatel singlets on (they are worn by people who sell phone credit on the street).
Peter went up to the guys and said “OK, it was RWF20,000, wasn’t it?”.
The guys looked puzzled and said “No, no, RWF30,000.”
“OK”, said Peter, “I’ll give you RWF15,000.”
“No way” replied the two guys.
“OK then” said Peter, “how about RWF10,000?”
No response this time, the two guys were just looking at each other in bewilderment.
“OK” said Peter, “RWF8,000 and that’s it” and held out the money.
One of the men took the money and handed over the phone (Alfred: correction – Sandra already had the phone to prove it was still working and was watching Peter like a hawk in case the idea was to make a run for it!). Then Peter leaned over and said “Oh, yes, I forgot about our travel costs” and removed a RWF1000 note from what was there. Then he added “And where is the second SIM card?” The other man jumped and extracted the SIM card from his pocket for Sandra. And off they went.
Later, Sandra was checking the phone to make sure everything was OK. She found loads of pictures of the two men on it – they had passed their time with the stolen phone taking pictures of each other and then handed them all over to Sandra!!! (Alfred: does lend weight to the idea that they were taking advantage of a phone that they had found – hard to imagine ANY thieves would be that incompetent. Then again......)
Christina also told us about some of the experiences she had in Gisoze where the Genocide Memorial Centre is located – while most of us had bailed out for Genocide Memorial Week, she was working flat out throughout and quite harrowing it was too (Alfred: not to mention the two grenade atatcks – you sure ‘harrowing’ is the right word?). More on that at another time, maybe.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Saturday was a really nice day. I headed into town to a little cafe/bar/restaurant called Torrerros which I had only been in once ever before. The food is nice but pricey and with small portions and the drinks (other than the coffee) relatively expensive but they have wireless internet access (when it is working, which it wasn’t!) and books and it is dark and cool and relaxed. I immediately ran into Tina and Bridget who I had only left half an hour previously! Anyway, I spent the rest of the day there reading and playing on my laptop (MTN modem only, alas!). I met Sonya and Paula, had coffee and tea (and finished Sonya’s dinner for her – thanks Sonya). I was there over six hours and not once was I offered a bill before I wanted it or encouraged to buy more stuff to justify my ongoing presence. Lovely afternoon!
Around half-past five or so John Simpson from the British Council turned up. I had been trying to catch up with John for quite a while but the poor man has been up to his ears. As well as the challenges of his ongoing work with MINEDUC (Alfred: diplomatically put!) he has just moved his family from Addis Ababa to Kigali (wife, four-year-old daughter and 11-month old twins). He told me that the day they left Addis, they had packed up everything, said goodbye to everyone, got to the airport, checked in their luggage and then, just as they were about to board, they authorities refused to let them take the 11-month old twins on board! Something to do with their needing exit visas (presumably because they were born there they didn’t have entry visas either!). So it was bags off the plane and back to the house to some very surprised people!!! He was looking extremely well on it, I must say! We had a great chat and arranged to try and meet up and catch a cricket or rugby match in Kigali if we could track down here they are played. (Alfred: apparently there is a particularly good Rwanda Women’s Rugby team!)
Peter went up to the guys and said “OK, it was RWF20,000, wasn’t it?”.
The guys looked puzzled and said “No, no, RWF30,000.”
“OK”, said Peter, “I’ll give you RWF15,000.”
“No way” replied the two guys.
“OK then” said Peter, “how about RWF10,000?”
No response this time, the two guys were just looking at each other in bewilderment.
“OK” said Peter, “RWF8,000 and that’s it” and held out the money.
One of the men took the money and handed over the phone (Alfred: correction – Sandra already had the phone to prove it was still working and was watching Peter like a hawk in case the idea was to make a run for it!). Then Peter leaned over and said “Oh, yes, I forgot about our travel costs” and removed a RWF1000 note from what was there. Then he added “And where is the second SIM card?” The other man jumped and extracted the SIM card from his pocket for Sandra. And off they went.
Later, Sandra was checking the phone to make sure everything was OK. She found loads of pictures of the two men on it – they had passed their time with the stolen phone taking pictures of each other and then handed them all over to Sandra!!! (Alfred: does lend weight to the idea that they were taking advantage of a phone that they had found – hard to imagine ANY thieves would be that incompetent. Then again......)
Christina also told us about some of the experiences she had in Gisoze where the Genocide Memorial Centre is located – while most of us had bailed out for Genocide Memorial Week, she was working flat out throughout and quite harrowing it was too (Alfred: not to mention the two grenade atatcks – you sure ‘harrowing’ is the right word?). More on that at another time, maybe.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
Saturday was a really nice day. I headed into town to a little cafe/bar/restaurant called Torrerros which I had only been in once ever before. The food is nice but pricey and with small portions and the drinks (other than the coffee) relatively expensive but they have wireless internet access (when it is working, which it wasn’t!) and books and it is dark and cool and relaxed. I immediately ran into Tina and Bridget who I had only left half an hour previously! Anyway, I spent the rest of the day there reading and playing on my laptop (MTN modem only, alas!). I met Sonya and Paula, had coffee and tea (and finished Sonya’s dinner for her – thanks Sonya). I was there over six hours and not once was I offered a bill before I wanted it or encouraged to buy more stuff to justify my ongoing presence. Lovely afternoon!
Around half-past five or so John Simpson from the British Council turned up. I had been trying to catch up with John for quite a while but the poor man has been up to his ears. As well as the challenges of his ongoing work with MINEDUC (Alfred: diplomatically put!) he has just moved his family from Addis Ababa to Kigali (wife, four-year-old daughter and 11-month old twins). He told me that the day they left Addis, they had packed up everything, said goodbye to everyone, got to the airport, checked in their luggage and then, just as they were about to board, they authorities refused to let them take the 11-month old twins on board! Something to do with their needing exit visas (presumably because they were born there they didn’t have entry visas either!). So it was bags off the plane and back to the house to some very surprised people!!! He was looking extremely well on it, I must say! We had a great chat and arranged to try and meet up and catch a cricket or rugby match in Kigali if we could track down here they are played. (Alfred: apparently there is a particularly good Rwanda Women’s Rugby team!)
Jane setting up the decorations at the St Patrick's Day party; Jane and Kieron later on!!
Then it was off for the closing St Patrick’s Day committee party in Jane Baxter’s house. Jane is the Deputy Head of Mission for the British Embassy in Kigali and has only been here a few months after previous stints in China and Sierra Leone among other places. (Alfred: regular readers will remember she hosted an enormous crowd of people for the Ireland-Wales rugby match and a marvellous hostess she was too). We had a great evening altogether – Kieron, Sonya, Paula, Laurie, Jane, Matt, Mory, John from the High Commission in Kampala (Alfred: or was it Nairobi?) and me – hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!! Bangers and mash, chocolate mousse – my family know I’m not a big dessert fan or even a big chocolate fan but this mousse was AMAZING!
Jane had offered me a bed for the night and, I’m telling you, the Serena Hotel can eat its heart out! Coolest single thing in the house: every ordinary Rwandan socket has a UK three-pin socket beside it!! And efficient and fast (Alfred: by Rwandan standards) wireless internet access (Alfred: where was that last week when you needed it, downloading 142MB of OpenOffice at 1.2 kbs!!!). And then after breakfast, Jane – having nothing else to do and wanting to see a bit of Rwanda – drove me all the way down to Butare!! We had a nice lunch in Matar, then out to my village for a quick tour of the house before she headed back to Kigali (she may be a great driver in a nice car but NO-ONE wants to drive around in Rwanda after dark if they can help it!!).
No sign of my guard when I got home but, of course, he thought I was going to be away. Later, my friend Jean-Claude called in and, while we were chatting, Alexandré turned up. So I called him into the sitting-room to get Jean-Claude to explain to him that my travel and work plans had changed and I would be around for the next two weeks after all. Poor Alexandré obviously thought I was going to give out because he wasn’t here when I got home and was in a perfect state of excitement as he tried to explain what had happened. So I found out a lot of stuff that I hadn’t actually asked about. He has bought a pig which he keeps at his family’s house as an investment for the future. Also, his family were eating potatoes that day – a rare and expensive treat – and he had wanted to join them for this.
Eventually I conveyed the idea that I was perfectly happy with his work and everything, or at least I thought I had. Then, Jean-Claude leant forward, tapped me on the knee and said: “I know this boy, he is a Christian.” My response was going to be ‘Well I NEVER would have guessed” (see previous blog entries for explanation if you cannot detect the sarcasm) or “Big deal, so is just about everyone else” but I figured neither was really appropriate in the circumstances. “So”, continued Jean-Claude, “you know I am a Christian too?”. Both previous responses tried to make it to my lips again but I just nodded. “Now, I know that you are also a good Christian man” (absolutely no response suggested itself to that one; I just nodded in acknowledgement of the fact that this is what he said he knew) ”so we are asking in a spirit of true Christian fellowship” (oh hell, what’s coming now?) “that if you ever have a problem with Alexandré or are angry or dissatisfied with his work, you will ask me to come first and explain the situation, rather than going to anyone else.”
Phew! Is that all! I assured them both that I found it hard to imagine such a thing arising but, if it did, OF COURSE I would go to Jean-Claude first. Alexandré then set off on a massive long speech, holding his arms out wide, touching the ceiling and then the floor, then moving his extended arm slowly right-to-left out in front of his body making rippling movements with his fingers. As far as I could tell, this was to indicate that In was the greatest person in the world and he loved me very much. (Alfred: Rwandans never seem to use the word ‘like’ unless their English is really good, it’s always ‘love’ which can make for some interesting translations at times)
Nice to be back home: bananas and bread for dinner and finished a fantastic book by C.J. Sansom called Sovereign, a thriller set at the time of Henry VIII’s visit to York in 1541. If you like that kind of book, this is a must but read Dissolution and Dark Fire first (Sovereign is the third in the series but there is no way I am going to find the other two here!).
END OF MAMMOTH BLOG ENTRY. IF YOU HAVE ACTUALLY GOT THIS FAR YOU ARE ENTITLED TO THREE CREDITS, REDEEMABLE AT ANY MAJOR BOOKSHOP IN KIGALI BEFORE APRIL 30th 2009. THE PASSWORD IS 'RED LORRY, YELLOW LORRY' WHICH MUST BE REPEATED PROPERLY BY THE CLERK FOR THE OFFER TO BE VALID.
Jane had offered me a bed for the night and, I’m telling you, the Serena Hotel can eat its heart out! Coolest single thing in the house: every ordinary Rwandan socket has a UK three-pin socket beside it!! And efficient and fast (Alfred: by Rwandan standards) wireless internet access (Alfred: where was that last week when you needed it, downloading 142MB of OpenOffice at 1.2 kbs!!!). And then after breakfast, Jane – having nothing else to do and wanting to see a bit of Rwanda – drove me all the way down to Butare!! We had a nice lunch in Matar, then out to my village for a quick tour of the house before she headed back to Kigali (she may be a great driver in a nice car but NO-ONE wants to drive around in Rwanda after dark if they can help it!!).
No sign of my guard when I got home but, of course, he thought I was going to be away. Later, my friend Jean-Claude called in and, while we were chatting, Alexandré turned up. So I called him into the sitting-room to get Jean-Claude to explain to him that my travel and work plans had changed and I would be around for the next two weeks after all. Poor Alexandré obviously thought I was going to give out because he wasn’t here when I got home and was in a perfect state of excitement as he tried to explain what had happened. So I found out a lot of stuff that I hadn’t actually asked about. He has bought a pig which he keeps at his family’s house as an investment for the future. Also, his family were eating potatoes that day – a rare and expensive treat – and he had wanted to join them for this.
Eventually I conveyed the idea that I was perfectly happy with his work and everything, or at least I thought I had. Then, Jean-Claude leant forward, tapped me on the knee and said: “I know this boy, he is a Christian.” My response was going to be ‘Well I NEVER would have guessed” (see previous blog entries for explanation if you cannot detect the sarcasm) or “Big deal, so is just about everyone else” but I figured neither was really appropriate in the circumstances. “So”, continued Jean-Claude, “you know I am a Christian too?”. Both previous responses tried to make it to my lips again but I just nodded. “Now, I know that you are also a good Christian man” (absolutely no response suggested itself to that one; I just nodded in acknowledgement of the fact that this is what he said he knew) ”so we are asking in a spirit of true Christian fellowship” (oh hell, what’s coming now?) “that if you ever have a problem with Alexandré or are angry or dissatisfied with his work, you will ask me to come first and explain the situation, rather than going to anyone else.”
Phew! Is that all! I assured them both that I found it hard to imagine such a thing arising but, if it did, OF COURSE I would go to Jean-Claude first. Alexandré then set off on a massive long speech, holding his arms out wide, touching the ceiling and then the floor, then moving his extended arm slowly right-to-left out in front of his body making rippling movements with his fingers. As far as I could tell, this was to indicate that In was the greatest person in the world and he loved me very much. (Alfred: Rwandans never seem to use the word ‘like’ unless their English is really good, it’s always ‘love’ which can make for some interesting translations at times)
Nice to be back home: bananas and bread for dinner and finished a fantastic book by C.J. Sansom called Sovereign, a thriller set at the time of Henry VIII’s visit to York in 1541. If you like that kind of book, this is a must but read Dissolution and Dark Fire first (Sovereign is the third in the series but there is no way I am going to find the other two here!).
END OF MAMMOTH BLOG ENTRY. IF YOU HAVE ACTUALLY GOT THIS FAR YOU ARE ENTITLED TO THREE CREDITS, REDEEMABLE AT ANY MAJOR BOOKSHOP IN KIGALI BEFORE APRIL 30th 2009. THE PASSWORD IS 'RED LORRY, YELLOW LORRY' WHICH MUST BE REPEATED PROPERLY BY THE CLERK FOR THE OFFER TO BE VALID.
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