Wednesday 10th June 2009

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.


HURRAH!
Chelsea won the FA Cup, Holland beat England in the Twenty20, Ireland qualified for the next round, Maureen O'Sullivan took Tony Gregory's seat, Fianna Fáil got STUFFED in the elections, Joe Higgins got elected to the European Parliament, we're still in with a chance of qualifying for the World Cup, I managed to avoid working on the REAP project, someone sent me FOUR BARS of chocolate, Libertas is no more (Alfred: well ... wait and see. Like smallpox, just when you think it has been eradicated, it pops up again!) .......

BOO!
Green Party got annihilated, Gene Feighery isn't a councillor in Dún Laoghaire any more,
BBC World Service is STILL off the air in Rwanda, BNP got TWO European seats (Alfred: still can't believe that one), Kevin Kilbane screwed us over AGAIN, MTN screwed ME over again (and are still doing it), Kathy Sinnott isn't in the European parliament any more, my knee is definitely not 100%.....


And a Rwandan colleague I was chatting to about religion said he had heard something about a report released about the Catholic Church in Ireland and children's homes and what did I know about it? I said I hadn't heard ...........


RANDOM STUFF
Last night was an interesting experience. Work was nothing special - I designed a new school inspection form for myself and tried to plan a new school inspection schedule but not knowing what is happening with my knee is making that a bit difficult (Alfred: emm, don't think you told your blog readers about the knee thing! Remember, guys, how Ruairí decided to walk around Kigali in the dark talking on his mobile phone in the pitch dark on the night of April 4th? Fell into hole, crocked knee etc - see April/May posts for details. Well, it has flared up again - fine most of the time but hurts like hell if he bends it for more than a few minutes (back of moto, on bus etc). Hoping to head to Nairobi or Kampala for an MRI but still waiting to hear. Just as well he decided NOT to buy that motorbike, eh?). Alexis is all full of piss and vinegar at the moment, talking about a two-week schedule to visit all the schools in the District by doing five a day!!! I told him I usually spend six hours minimum in each school and would spend longer if I didn't have to be back in the District for English classes. His face!

To be fair, Alexis has either never done or never had the chance to do (depending on how you want to phrase it) a school inspection so it will be an interesting experience for us both. However, it is great that he has finally bitten the bullet and opted to join me - one of my main aims (and a vital one if the changes I hope to bring about here are going to be sustainable) is to train both him and Francois in doing this so it will continue after I leave. After all, there is no guarantee that I will be replaced when I leave.

Anyway, I headed home after a good English class. Eight (Alfred: Wow! A whole eight people? Hold me up .....) people came today, which is a record for the new set of classes. We had great fun with tongue twisters and they promised to get me to try a few next class. However, they were annoyed that I had forgotten to bring my cheese grater into class as I had promised following my hilarious attempts to explain and mime what grating cheese was!!!

Anyway, I got home around five, sterilised ten litres of water (the local water seems to have gone a bit cloudy the last few weeks) and then decided to head out and look for some bread so I could have some for dinner AND breakfast (Alfred: the thought of a cheeky little beer was also somewhere in the back of his head). As I passed Albert's place, he was standing outside in his fleece and asked if he could accompany me on my walk and I ended up inviting him for a beer. My neighbour Albert is 62, spent fifteen years in prison after the genocide (his wife and eldest son are still inside and I have never really been able to ascertain whether anyone thinks they were innocent or not or, indeed, whether Albert himself was guilty or not). He only ever leaves the house to go to mass so it was a big surprise when he asked to walk with me and an even bigger one when he accepted my offer to go for a beer (he had had me around to his house one evening for beer and a chat so I did feel I ought to reciprocate).

Anyway, it slowly dawned on me (Alfred: he's quick, is our lad!) that this was the first time in seventeen years he had gone out for a drink and he wasn't sure he could remember what the routine was. I had to order for him and invite him to start drinking. He kept on looking around him with a very puzzled air but then started to talk about what it had been like since coming out of prison - how much of his French he felt had disappeared because he never spoke it in prison, the embarrassment of not having a wife to look after the house for him and having to rely on one of his daughters to look after him and his own mother (who is now 88). And, of course, constantly over and over again, heavy heavy hints being dropped as to how I should help him out financially.

Now, as I explained before, friendships in Africa are very much an economic investment. Not always but often. And, in Albert's case, he made it clear that he was very glad to have me as a friend (and his wife in prison was even happier as this was the first friend he had made since leaving prison) and to have someone who would talk to him and occasionally visit him. But he was also very insistent that, as a friend, it was my responsibility to help him financially if it was within my power. So - and for ALL kinds of different reasons - I am going to have to think carefully how to handle this one. I like Albert but, if he actually did any of the things that people usually get locked up for fifteen years for, there are probably better ways to spend any spare cash I might have. And, like many others here, I am getting SO tired of EVERYONE asking me for money or other things all the time. It seems to have got a lot worse recently, quite suddenly (Alfred: or else he is just getting more sensitive to it as his patience gets worn down), even kids on the street who had stopped doing it have started up again. And ... well, maybe writing about this the day after isn't good timing; I need a while go think this one through.

(Alfred: Actually, I don't know if this is true or not, but there is said to be a radio programme in Kinyarwandan to tell children how to behave properly towards muzungus. Of course the programme features lots of examples of the kind of things the children are NOT supposed to say and this is what they are copying. Sounds plausible, both in terms of explaining the sudden appearances of phrases in English we hadn't heard before ('Give me my money'; What have you brought me today?') and reflecting the kind of thinking that goes into teaching methodology here).

Anyway, a few other random things. Still waiting for my amazon.com order with increasing impatience. Got a great parcel from a friend at school with soups and chocolate (Alfred: we now have enough soup to sink a battleship - or, preferably, float one - but chocolate is ALWAYS welcome!!! Any spare supplies out there just ship them straight to BP 129, Butare, Rwanda. Any if anyone sends any orange-flavoured dark chocolate - that's MINE!). Finished reading 'The Poisonwood Bible' for the second time and boy! is it a different read once you have actually been to Africa! Anyone out there who hasn't read it, I recommend it wholeheartedly!!

MTN have decided to screw up my life again by upgrading their internet subscriptions ervice which emans I can't recharge my modem at the moment. Luckily the wireless service at work has suddenly improved out of all recognition but it does mean I am having to do my internet, blog, Facebook etc at work which I usually avoid doing! But the increased speed means I am uploading loads of photos today so enjoy.


VISIT TO NYANZA

I headed up to Nyanza for a day a few weekends ago when Joe Walk was visiting Butare. The two of us went up with Tiga and Andy and it was a really, really nice day, one of the nicest since I came here. The pictures are kind of in reverse chronological order but that doesn't really matter and I may have to make up some of the captions as I can't really remember exactly what was in which hut!! (Alfred: msot of the pictures don't need captions anyway, to be honest, so stop fussing!)





You see a lot of these lilies around the place - really pretty but slightly creepy!

Andy and Tiga

Hmmm - I used this as my Facebook profile picture and got a LOT of flak! (Alfred: Well, he did ask people to suggest captions for the picture! Prize to Katya Beshkmelnitsky for pointing out how the shirt pattern matches the background!)

Beer containers and woven ... dividers? mats? They serve as curtains basically to divide up the interior space of the huts.

Royal hut and (I think) beer containers.

Containers for milk (small) and for making butter (large). Always displayed prominently as a sign of wealth.

Joe, Andy and Tiga at the entrance; also, our guide for the day (see a close-up of her hair later in this blog).

Courtyard of the Royal Palace. To be honest, it is a bit underwhelming if you are expecting an African version of Versailles but it was probably quite the show at the time once the Belgians finished building it for him.

Rather strange Art Deco type carpet on the left. On the right is the Museum of Modern Art, perched on an adjoining hill. I'm told it's not great but I am still intrigued.....

HAIR

I just LOVE Rwandan women's hair styles - the most amazingly beautiful braids ever. Here are a few snaps I took here and there, most snatched rather hurridly or cropped from much larger photos so excuse the quality

Ignacienne here (on the right) has the simple cropped hair that you don't see that often with adults in my district, more on schoolgirls. Clothilde on the left has the heavy, thick braids that I notice quite a few of the older women wearing. But I do love the colours woven into the braids, especially the guide in the Royal Palace of Nyanza with the orange (second picture).

Alfred: final note from me. Anyone who copied Ruairí's cabbage stir-fry recipe from Facebook - try not to be sharing a bedroom with anyone who is tempted to try it! Or else have it for lunch and go for a long walk in the open air .......... Trust me on this one ... and I don't even have lungs!!!