Seemed to take my brain a few days to shake off Nairobi. Didn’t really sleep Monday or Tuesday nights (went out for beers with Enock on Tuesday followed by waragi – thought it might help the sleeplessness; didn’t). Trying to get my head around organising the training course for the week after next but couldn’t really do so. Meantime I get told by the District that the rent on my house hasn’t been paid for four months and can I please sort it out with VSO. This came as a surprise as I thought the District were supposed to be paying the rent! Turns out we agreed to pay it but only up to April and we HAD paid it up to April! Anyway, VSO have agreed to pay the missing two months but only if the District put in writing that they will take over responsibility from now on.
Big meeting Wednesday for the heads of all the new secondary schools – in other words, all the schools that were just primary schools until last year and now have the first year of secondary tagged on. Emile from MINEDUC was there, nice guy, I’ve gone on a few school inspections with him. He is looking very stressed as well he might be. The idea of the Nine Years’ Basic Education policy is that kids should stay in school until the end of third year secondary; the problem is that they are doing so! The extra rooms to accommodate the first year’s intake were found by making the primary classes double up but they have all been used up so they will have to build literally hundreds of new classrooms for next year. One school I visited this week has 81 students in their First Year but have had 266 applications for next year’s First Year (and this is the school that has only seven latrines for its existing 1440 students!!). I don’t envy Emile or the others trying to sort this one out!!
At the meeting I met Aimable and Muninazi, two heads of remote schools in Mugombwa sector, so I visited them today (Thursday). It was a long drive – Mushongi is so remote it is the first ever place I went to that my driver, Déo, had never even heard of. The longest-serving teacher in the school said I was the first ever person from outside the sector to visit it! They have no water, no electricity (Alfred: that goes without saying, apart from the odd solar panel, NONE of the primary schools have electricity) and six crumbling latrines for 880 students. The new director, appointed in April, has been warned that if the toilets actually fall down and injure anyone, he is responsible, but no one will give him the resources to do anything about it. He has not been paid his salary since he took over (none of the newly-appointed directors to these new schools have) and the capitation grants have not been paid for the second term. The poor guy sounded at his wits end. The same was true at Mugombwa school – as I said, 1440 students and seven latrines, no water supply, no salaries.
The awful thing – if that is the right word – is that they seem to think that my turning up means something is going to be done about it, as if I have some kind of magic connection to MINEDUC. All I can do is pass on my recommendations but knowing at the same time that all these schools are sending the same SOSs. Mugombwa school has started building rabbit hutches but had to stop halfway through because the capitation money was all used up. They are only RWF30,000 short (about €40) but, by the time they can do it, I suspect the existing work will have disintegrated and they will have to start all over again.
It has been an interesting experience visiting schools at this time. Two and a half weeks ago all schools started their end of term exams and then, while the teachers are correcting and writing reports, there are no classes. The kids hang around school, sometimes they are set jobs to do but basically the last week of term is a non-event. In both the schools I visited most of the students (and quite a lot of the teachers) hadn’t bothered coming in. This gets repeated three times a year, so that’s a big chunk of the school year wasted.
Anyway, headed off 0700, got back pretty wrecked by 1500 for my English class and the four students who – eventually – turned up for it. The knee held up pretty well, actually (Alfred: and a big thanks to all those who gave email and Facebook suggestions as to what to do about it or offered to ask their physiotherapists – thanks Lucia and Chris in particular!). Also cooked a nice dinner tonight for the first time in a while (Alfred: tomato and peppers pasta sauce followed by coffee – Ruairí needs to up his game in this regard if he is beginning to regard this as a culinary highlight, this from the guy who was going to write a Rwandan cookbook! More like a pamphlet...).
OTHER STUFF
Visitors!
Went out into the back yesterday afternoon and found a young girl standing in the back yard. She just smiled and waved and I presumed she was a friend or relation of Alexandré’s (my guard). However, you don’t want to let people wander around too much so, after going back into the house for my glasses I came out again. I saw her flitting over to the other side of the house as I went in and, when I came out, she was picking leaves off some plants that are growing in my garden (I had always presumed they were weeds, to be honest). She was accompanied by a guy in a (I swear this is true) Bush-Quayle t-shirt who greeted me loudly by name – ‘Ruairí, komera!’. Now, I figure most people know my name by now but then again maybe he was actually someone I knew so I said ‘hi’ and shook hands. The girl looked up rather sheepishly and explained in a mixture of French and Kinyarwandan that the imboga she was picking was a great source of vitamin A! So, I figured what the hell and left them to it. As I went back into the house, Alexandré turned up and almost collapsed in horror when he saw what was going on. I beat a hasty retreat into the house while he firmly ushered the two off the premises (I think she had pretty much picked what she wanted by then anyway).
Paralysis at work
We are all still waiting for the announcement of who is going to be redeployed from the Districts to the sectors and it is not having a good effect on people! Of the 42 or so in the District, we expect about ten or so to move and no-one knows who it is going to be. At the Monday morning meeting the Executive Secretary made a special announcement basically telling people to get on with their jobs and stop speculating or spreading ill-founded rumours as there is absolutely no hard information as of yet. Easy for him to say, he’s not the one liable to be moved to the other end of the District without warning!
Mother’s visit
There is huge excitement in the District Office at the prospect of my mother’s coming to visit! I had no idea it would cause such a stir, and when I mentioned that she was coming partly to celebrate my 50th birthday, the Executive got a glint in his eye and a grin that I am not quite sure what to make of! Should be interesting....... Haven’t actually told my boss yet that I am off from the 3rd to 25th August but the Executive gave me the all clear so that’s OK (Alfred: Ruairí should mention that his boss is actually away on leave ....)
Thanks
Thanks to Anne-Marie for the headtorch and calculator (Alfred: not to mention the first package actually addressed to ME! Headtorch comes in handy for spotting bats in the bedroom ... but what’s with the calculator??), everyone for the advice about the knee (especially those who told me to go on the Internet and look for exercises there (Alfred: who would have guessed Ruairí would have to be told to go on the Internet!!)), all my 5th and 6th Years (soon to be 6th Years and past pupils) for all their messages, to Maddie and the other TY mini-company people from last year for their contributions to my fund-raising (Alfred: Oh yes, if anyone does feel like contributing anything, Ruairí has now set up a Paypal account at roheithir@gmail.com so it is REALLY EASY to contribute!!), to Sarah and Graham MacFadden for their wonderful hospitality last weekend, C. J. Sansom for writing such brilliant Matthew Shardlake books, and whoever the genius was who invented mango-flavoured waragi.
If you are sending me stuff ...
I seem to have quite a few emails recently from people asking me if I need anything. I have most things to be honest but, if people feel the urgent need to send something, either chocolate or Cauliflower & Broccoli Cup-A-Soup would be welcome (no broccoli and precious little cauliflower in this country). Send to me or Alfred at BP 129, Butare, Rwanda. (Alfred: DON’T send chocolate with liquid or gooey fillings – it gets on my fur (and usually leaks in transit).
GROUPE SCOLAIRE MUSHONGI (818 students)
Latrines - boys' side. This block was actually built only a few years ago but to an abysmal standard.
Latrines - close-up. Most of them do not have doors and the very poor condition of the wood and concrete makes them almost impossible to clean.
Latrines - girls' side.
Two shots of the 'staff room'.
The director, Muhanuzi
GROUPE SCOLAIRE MUGOMBWA
The director, Aimable (left) and his vice-director whose name I was unable to ascertain!
Block of six latrines for boys and girls, two without doors. This block was built in 2007 when the previous block was demolished by a falling tree. This accounts, I am told, for the poor quality of construction.
Originlly the staff toilets, one of the two is now used by students to try and relieve the pressure.
The rabbit-hutches, half-built. Aimable hopes to raise the additional €40 to complete it from the capitation fund ... once it arrives!
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