Update - random stuff from the last few weeks

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.

Sitting in Tiga's house on Saturday 24th May having fled to Butare in search of electricity. Have a stack of photocopying and other things to do before I head up to Gitarama this afternoon to stay with Kerrie and Moira and then see Tinks on Sunday for her going-away pub crawl! Going to be interesting. Meanwhile, here are a few little excerpts from what has been going on for the last while.

New volunteer
It looks like I will be getting a second volunteer to come and join me in September - a Primary Methodology teacher called Sarah from England. Great news (Alfred: better start getting the house into shape, hadn't you then!!)

Friday 23rd May: Dieudonné, the Congolese agronomist and my new best friend!!
I ran into him one day in the Faucon – a common scenario: you are having a quiet drink on your own and some Rwandan will come up and ask if he can join you. I always say ‘Yes’ but it is almost always someone looking for money, sponsorship, a free drink or whatever. In this case the man was very well-dressed and carrying a laptop case so I thought maybe it would be different. And it was. His name is Dieudonné and he is from somewhere in Katanga in the Democratic Republic of Congo, working as an agronomist in Butare for eleven years. He only speaks French (and Kinyarwandan of course) and he speaks it very quickly and slurs all his words together so it was a real challenge figuring out what the hell he was saying.
Most times I call to the Faucon he seems to be there and last night (Friday 23rd May) he turned up when I was having a drink with Andy. First of all, when he heard that Andy worked on AIDS prevention, he dug into his briefcase and pulled out a Red Cross booklet on AIDS prevention in Rwanda that had been published in 1987, amazing early. It is a really good, solid piece of work and neither of us could believe that it had been in circulation so long ago. He said I could borrow it to make a copy, which I certainly will.

Then he dug into his briefcase and gave us some pamphlets, religious-looking stuff with a big RC on the front and a cross. Andy and I figured this was just the usual evangelising routine and thanked him, though I did think it wasn’t usual for Catholics in Rwanda to do this sort of thing. I looked at the back of the pamphlet and realised that it wasn’t religious at all (Alfred: to be more accurate, and as Mr Spock would have said to Captain Kirk: ‘It’s religion, Captain, but not as we know it!”) but information on the Rosicrucians and their work!

I don’t know how many of you know about the Rosicrucians – they crop up all the time in novels like The Da Vinci Code, Foucault’s Pendulum and so on – a secret society that claims to stretch back to Ancient Egypt and became public in the 17th century, whose focus is philosophy rather than religion (Alfred: more info – if you really want it – at www.rosicrucian.org. Obviously not a very secret society any more, eh?) Andy and I spent a chunk of the time while we were waiting for our meal translating the twelve page pamphlet (which was in French) and quite interesting it was too! So, fancy that, being recruited for the Rosicrucians by a Congolese agronomist while working in Rwanda – who would have thunk it! (Alfred: I think Andy is quite attracted to the idea – they get to wear cool robes and stuff – he was checking out Rosicrucian shopping sites on the Internet. However, in the interests of accuracy (!) it needs to be pointed out that the modern Rosicrucians’ links with the original 17th century organisation seem to be tenuous at best. We’ll keep you all updated if there are any further developments!)

Tuesday 19th May: Welcoming Ceremony for new director of St Philippe Neri Secondary School
Last Tuesday was an exciting day! In the morning I inspected Ndora Primary and Lower Secondary school – the directrice of the secondary section (and technically now of the whole school), Marie-Louise Mukatete (Alfred: he is spelling that one from memory but it might be correct) is probably the most impressive school principal I’ve met so far. Fantastic strategic, good financial planning skills, resourceful and positive in the face of overwhelming difficulties – you’ll be hearing more about her!

Once I had finished, I headed for St Philippe Neri secondary school where I had been invited to the welcoming ceremony for the new principal, Protogene. And what an event it was – just raging I didn’t bring my camera! When I arrived I saw a line of students forming an arch with their arms leading from the staffroom to the open sports area so I joined the staff as they paraded out, led by the director. All the different clubs and societies that function in the school had formed circles in different parts of the grounds and the line of staff snaked around and passed through each of them as they performed whatever it was they did – in order, they were the Seventh Day Adventist choir group, the Catholic choir group, the Protestant choir group, the scouts (scouts are BIG here in Rwanda), the gymnastic club, the traditional drumming group, the English club, the traditional dance group, the sports group and ... think that was it. One funny thing was, as we went through the Catholic choir group, various staff members took rosary beads out of their pockets and waved them in the air to show their allegiance!

Then we went to the central courtyard for the official welcoming ceremony – speeches and a series of performances by different student groups. Some of these were really fantastic, others just ... strange. The speeches were few and short by Rwandan standards which was a relief as the whole thing took over three hours anyway. There were various choir groups, a military-type marching display by the Seventh Day Adventist group (I presumed this was some kind of metaphor or allegory, but apparently it was just a marching display!), a play demonstrating the importance of chastity by the Little Children of the Virgin Mary, a hilarious karate display by four students, one of whom is obviously seriously into it and his three buddies who looked like they had been roped in at the last minute, some fantastic drumming and traditional dancing, especially one done by two male students dressed in traditional warriors’ costumes, a sketch on First Aid by the scouts, a comedy skit by the English club which was almost totally incomprehensible, and a gymnastics display which was quite terrifying, especially for anyone who has ever been concerned with Health & Safety in a school! The display area was hard earth with a nice selection of rocks and stones liberally distributed. The highlight was a very tall and narrow human pyramid, two on the bottom, two in the middle and one who climbed all the way to the top and did various ... dancing things standing on the arms of the two below him!

The highlight was a traditional welcoming ceremony. Two girls danced out with a mat, then a selection of traditional household objects – a calabash for making butter, milk containers, bowls and other kitchen things; then four of the smallest students were brought out and fed milk to symbolise that this was now the director’s new home; then a male student danced with a shield and spear which he presented to the director at the end, along with a milk container to symbolise his roles as protector and nurturer of the school (Alfred: well, that’s HIS interpretation at least – some of the things going on were pretty hard to figure out, if you ask me!).

Then, instead of heading to the staff room where I could see beer and nibbles had been laid out, we all trooped down into the village to a bar owned by the school bursar – the only bar I haven’t yet visited in the village because, not to put too fine a point on it, it is a dump. There is nowhere to sit outside and inside is damp and dark and crowded. Anyway, we all filed in and found seats, got drinks – and then had a two-hour staff meeting! It began with a few speeches of welcome but, when Protogene replied to them, he raised a number of issues relating to the use of English in the school (Alfred: apparently the Vice-Mayor for Social Affairs who visited the school recently had complained to him that the students weren’t speaking English to each other!!), budgetary constraints, plans for the celebration of their patron saint’s anniversary on the 27th May and various other bits and pieces. This then led to what in all conscience can only be called a staff meeting, with someone taking minutes on the back of some bar receipts that were dug up from a back room. Meanwhile an incredible thunderstorm broke out over our heads making hearing anything very difficult! (Alfred: given that it was all in Kinyarwandan, I’m not sure exactly what Ruairí is complaining about here).

That ran on until about 2230 and then we had a few more speeches, including one from me on what a great school they already were but were about to become even greater with such a brilliant new director, or something like that (Alfred: in case anyone out there thinks he is being sarcastic, he wasn’t. This guy is really good, has already personally fixed all the computers in the school and looks like he is going to do great things. Just what the school needs!)

I finally left at 2330 and wandered off home through the rain. A really enjoyable and interesting day, one of the best I have had since I got here!