Tuesday 26th May: Day 262 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.


RANDOM POINTS OF INTEREST (well, to me anyway)

Amazon.com
Well, I finally cracked and hit the amazon.co.uk website and ordered a pile of stuff – three C.J. Sanson Matthew Shardlake novels (sort of political thrillers set during the reign of Henry VIII), a book on corruption in Kenya, The White Tiger, Abyssinian Nights (a Ugandan novel set in the time of Idi Amin and after) and some book about a 19th century murder investigation. Should arrive ... well, goodness knows when to be honest!


Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th May: Champions League Semi-Finals.
Went to watch the Arsenal – Man Utd Champions League semi-final in the only house in the village with a generator an aerial. Arrived a litle late so Manchester Utd had already scored one goal. Apparently they then scored a second but all I and quite a few others could see was a very large breast with a baby attached between us and the screen. What exactly do you shout out at a moment like that?

(Alfred: Exercises in marketing and how they can backfire, Chapter One. The guy whose house it is has a certain way of bringing in customers for football matches. Anyone at all can come in and watch the first ten minutes but, if you want to stay after that you pay RWF200. Unfortunately for him, with Man Utd already 1-0 up after the first leg, they promptly scored two goals in the first ten minutes, so most of the crowd decided to head home rather than pay!)

The next day I went into Butare to see the Chelsea-Barcelona match. I was with Andy, Tiga and South African John and we ended up in Le Petit Prince. The food was mediocre and expensive (to my surprise as I had been told it was good and expensive). There was quite a big crowd but I was amazed at how many Barcelona supporters there turned out to be when they scored in injury time to win the match! Tough one – I take most defeats with equanimity (Alfred: and a lot of beer) but this was a tough one to swallow.

Thursday 7th – Saturday 9th May: Waiting for the Inspectors, more British hospitality, and why DID Anniken Skywalker go over to the Dark Side? Plus the biggest restaurant cock-up so far (Alfred: and that is REALLY saying something!)

I stayed on in Butare to try and see some of the MINEDUC inspectors in the District Education Office but none of them ever showed up. I then had lunch courtesy of the British Embassy in the Hotel Barthoz. Laurie was down on a fact-finding mission visiting some projects they are supporting in the southern province and had invited anyone who was available to come for lunch. I also met Robert from the embassy and some guy who greeted me warmly saying: ‘Ruairí, finally we meet properly.’ I had absolutely no idea who he was but smiled and shook hands, but eventually had to say to him ‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name’ presuming he was someone I had met at a DFiD briefing or something.

To my horror, I had completely failed to recognise my fellow Education Management Advisor, Ken Franklin! Admittedly I had only met Ken twice before but he was in England for three months having surgery and had put on a bit of weight, let his beard grow a bit and, because he was sitting down I didn’t notice he was six foot four! (Alfred: there are photos of Ken in earlier blog entries so we’ll see if we can get some current ones and see whether Ruairí was justified in his error or is it yet another symptom of premature senility. I mean, all this falling into holes and stuff, makes you wonder .....).

Then it rained and I couldn’t get back to Gisagara until later that evening, so I just went straight home. When I got to work the next day my boss was going frantic. He had been trying to ring me all the previous day and couldn’t get through. Neither had be got any of the texts I had sent him explaining where I was!! He was leaving for Kigali at ten (it was now 0700) and had to bring a completely revised printout of the staff allocations for all the primary and secondary schools in the area (Alfred: that’s 85 pages worth folks!!). He had hoped to get it all done the previous day but, with the chargé away and me vanished, it hadn’t happened!

Anyway, I got it all done in time and he headed off to Kigali. I went home for lunch and treated myself to the last hour of Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith. Pretty good actually – hadn’t seen it before. Certainly a hell of a lot better than films I and II. Then, having got to the end of the film three minutes before my battery ran out (Alfred: hurray!) I went back to work to find out that the generator had either been switched off or had – yet again – broken down (Alfred: Boo!!).

So, in order to get my work done I had to go into Butare in search of electricity. I arrived in Matar at 0900 Saturday and promptly took over a table in the restaurant next to a socket where I stayed for the next five hours, occasionally ordering a coffee or a Fanta Citron to justify my presence (Alfred: not that Tariq or Hassan were ever likely to say anything, let’s face it!) Then I moved to the Faucon and it gradually began to dawn on me that half of VSO had descended on Butare that weekend. Andy, Tiga, Gerrit and Tina all live here but there was Joe Walk, Chris Harvey, Rinske, Paula, Cathryn Devine, Irish Joe – strange, We all ended up at the Chineese Restaurant (the Chinese Restaurant has gone out of favour so we usually end up in the Chineese these days) ... and what a nightmare it was! Ordering food as a large group is always risky at the best of times in this country but it actually took two and a half hours before the first food arrived (Alfred: this wasn’t helped by the waiter’s coming back a long time after they had ordered to tell them that half the things they had ordered were not available!)

We had ordered two plates of dumplings (12 on each plate) as a general starter and got some extra plates to share them around. Then the main courses arrived piecemeal and most of them at best lukewarm. Anyway, we just had beers and chatted and whatever. Then the bill arrived. Now a plate of 12 dumplings is RWF4,000 but they had charged us RWF4,000 for each plate we had used!! A total of RWF24,000 in all! Needless to say we were slightly less than gruntled by this and the most immense argument started. They tried to argue that there were only ever four dumplings in a serving which was a bad move as Andy has eaten there before on a considerable number of occasions! Anyway, to cut to the chase, we eventually got them to agree there were eight per plate but that still left us paying well over the odds but, to be honest, Irish Joe and I (who were doing the arguing at the counter) felt that was as far as we were going to get and paid up rather than prolong the agony!

The funniest part of it (Alfred: wasn’t bloody funny at the time!) was the manageress. I don’t think she is the regular one but was on duty for the night. Throughout the argument she stood slumped in a semi-recumbent manner against a counter, with her face half-buried in her right hand, yawning and showing no inclination whatsoever to take any active role in proceedings, except to mumble into her hand occasionally in a way even her staff couldn’t understand. She reminded me – for some reason – of a Rwandan Nora Batty or else Basil Fawlty’s wife in Fawlty Towers, only without the same energy as Sybil had (Alfred: what the hell is he on about? How can someone remind you of Nora Batty and Sybil Fawlty at the same time? This was a woman who would have had difficulty approaching the energy level of a torpid slug, the kind of person upon whom Valium would act as a stimulant. One might estimate she had a room temperature IQ but this is Rwanda, not Lapland!). Then back to Gerrit and Tina’s where I was staying that night.

More tomorrow, I hope - I'm off to see ballet Rwandan-style. Will bring my camera this time, I can tell you! (Alfred: Yes, he said 'ballet'. We may have neither water nor electricity here but that doesn't mean we aren't cultured!! )