August: Ruairí's Update (Part One)

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.

OK – so it has been a while. My mother Catherine arrived on Tuesday 4th of August and there hasn’t really been time since then to update. I can’t pretend I had QUITE as exciting a time as Alfred but here’s a brief outline of what we got up to. (Alfred: Ha ha! Brief! Turn off your phone and lock the door ..... and order a pizza while you are at it).

Tuesday 4th August: Mammy arrives at Kigali airport only 30 minutes late, which is pretty impressive. As it happens, Martine Oliver was on the same plane – pity they hadn’t known this before they flew! Mammy had big problems with immigration because she had not applied for her tourist visa in advance. She pointed out that you were only required to do this if there was a Rwandan Embassy in your country but this distinction seemed to elude them. Finally they said they would allow her to pay for the visa then and there as a special favour. We also discover that Rwandan tourist visas cost $60 and are only valid for 15 days, which is a shorter time than most people come to Rwanda for, so it will have to be renewed or a new one purchased for another $60 dollars. Rip-off city!! Then we get a taxi to Beau Sejour, a nice little hotel near the VSO program Office where we plan to take a few days for Mammy to unwind and recover from the trip before we head off again. The rooms are nice but unfortunately they only had one en suite room, so I am using a shared bathroom which always gets on my nerves – whenever I am in there I always imagine a queue forming outside the door - not conducive to a relaxing shower (or anything else for that matter). (Alfred: of course it turns out that ALL the other rooms are en suite so it is actually Ruairí’s bathroom after all, even if it is down the hall a bit. So no need for all that angst. But hey! – angst for Ruairí is like mud for a rhino; he loves a good wallow from time to time .....). A quick bite in Sol e Luna, local Italian restaurant and then to bed.

Wednesday 5th August and Thursday 6th August: highlights of today were breakfast (great selection of fruit in particular – papaya, pineapple, tree tomatoes, oranges, bananas, passion fruit; also good coffee with hot milk, toast, eggs however you want them. Ham or cheese are an extra RWF1000 (£1) per piece, so avoid! Visited Ivuka Art Gallery and spent a long time there talking to the artists, then Novotel for a drink and then a wander around the city centre. Oh, hang on, that was Thursday wasn’t it? Wednesday was just wandering around the city centre, lunch in Bourbon, then meeting the Karisimbi Climbing Club in Simba (seven of the volunteers were heading off to climb Karisimbi volcano, an incredibly steep mountain in northern Rwanda – Andy, Thom, Els, Chris and Amy were there, Jane and Eric were joining them en route). Nidhi also turned up which was great as I really wanted Mammy to meet her. Or was Simba Thursday? Does it really matter? No. I think it was Thursday night Martine called over to the hotel for a drink and a chat and then we walked up to the Ethiopian restaurant in Kisimenti to meet Christine for dinner. It was a really nice evening (though I still remain to be convinced by those giant Ethiopian pancake-things they serve everything on).

Friday 7th August: got bus to Gitarama, booked into the Hotel Splendid which had easily the most magnificent bathrooms I have ever seen in this country (bar, possibly, the Serena) with just one little flaw – there was no water whatsoever all the time we were there. Called round to Soraya’s house for a chat and then headed back to the Splendid with her and the Polish couch surfer who was also staying there, where we met Moira and Kerry. Hayley and Charlotte turned up later from Hayley’s going-away party, Hayley with a fantastic set of embroidered YWCA duvet cover and pillow cases! Service at the Splendid was as fast and efficient as it was the last time (.i. the worst in Rwanda) and the food was so-so at best.

Saturday 8th August - Monday 10th August: Kibuye! Kibuye is on the shores of Lake Kivu in the east of Rwanda (Alfred: I think you mean ‘west’, don’t you? Hello? Anyone listening?...) and we were staying in a little guesthouse, well, quite a big guesthouse actually, called Bethany, right on the lake. I hadn’t been able to book until the day before as I wasn’t sure how long we’d be in Kigali so they only had the more expensive rooms free (RWF30,000 (€36) each per night). We didn’t do anything while we were there. The internet wasn’t working (doesn’t look like it ever did to be honest) and the one time I went into Kibuye itself the one internet cafe there wasn’t functioning either! So we read and ate and drank and lounged around and generally relaxed. The scenery there is stunning, really beautiful and I’ll certainly be back.

One complication is that there are no car taxis whatsoever, only motos. However I was able to hire a minibus to bring us to Bethany and then hired him to collect us the morning we were leaving. If anyone needs a contact number for that, just let me know! I also ran into two friends there, completely by accident. Robert is an Episcopalian pastor from San Antonio Texas who I had met previously in Kigali where he was attending a series of reconciliation seminars between survivors and perpetrators of the genocide. Now he was on holiday with his wife and two sons – she is a Spellman originally and gave us an amazing account of the Spellman family reunion in Uachtar Ard, Co. Galway some time ago with 500 people from all over the world, each wearing a badge in one of five colours to show which of the five original Spellman brothers and sisters they were descended from (one unfortunate had to wear a two-coloured badge due to two cousins have gotten hitched! Oh the shame!!).

Then I ran into John Simpson from the British Council who was there with his wife Gaudence, his three children (the twins must be just over one year old now) and two friends. John is possibly one of the most impressive people I have met since I came to Rwanda – he has been working in Africa for years and was until recently based in Addis Ababa but the recent developments with the Rwandan government and English meant he eventually had to relocate permanently to Kigali. He has worked with a lot of different VSO volunteers and is a man of enormous ability and even greater patience and it was really nice to see him. He also confirmed he would be free to come to my birthday party in Kigali!!!

Tuesday 11th August: Back to Kigali. Think we stayed in Beau Sejour again (or was this the time we had to stay in St Paul because Beau Sejour was full? Can’t remember). Anyway, it was really a day for travelling and recovering, don’t remember anything else in particular.

Wednesday 12th August: Off to Butare. Booked into the Faucon where an apartment with two bedrooms and a big sitting-room cost RWF30,000 per night. It did smell a little of damp however. We dropped our stuff and headed for Gisagara to visit my house. Mammy met Alexandré, missed Alfred as he has rather pointedly pointed out (Alfred: ‘Pointedly pointed out’? Lose your Thesaurus function on the laptop or what?) and afterwards we ended up in Vestine’s bar for beers with Enock and two other friends of mine from the village (Alfred: such close, dear friends are these that Ruairí can’t actually remember their names!). Then the taxi rolled out from town to collect us and back to the Faucon. It turned out the damp wasn’t actually damp but more likely some sort of broken pipe or leak below the floor and the smell was horrendous. We endured the night but made sure we changed rooms the next day.

Thursday 13th August: My birthday, and the same day of the week as the day I was born too! We had a latish start and then changed bedrooms (the new ones seem OK but you can sense the problem is about to spread here too). Lunch in Matar where Tariq informed me that Hassan was flying back from Beirut that day, so I invited them to my dinner party at the Faucon that night if they were free. And then off to the District Office!! The Executive Secretary had said, very mysteriously, when I applied for leave, that I ABSOLUTELY had to be in the District Office, with my mother, on my birthday, so I had actually rejigged the entire holiday to fit in with this. We arrived out ... and there was virtually no-one there. The Executive Secretary had gone off to Gisenyi, the Mayor was in Kigali and the two vice-mayors were in Kansi and ... somewhere else. My boss was off sick and the chargé, Alexis, was off with one of the vice-mayors. And, as usual, with all the authority figures missing, loads of other people had decided to bunk off. However, some of my friends were there – Antoine, Betty, Etienne, Odette, Augustin and a few others but what I thought was going to be something that would take a big chunk of the day turned out to be 30 minutes and then we headed back to Butare.

Dinner that night was good fun – I had run into my boss Francois on the street that day and had invited him and his wife to come. Enock had come back from the village with us and would also stay the night in the Faucon. Jane Keenan was there and Andy Crow had come down from Gikongoro. South African John was in Kigali but had hoped to join us later (but wasn’t able to in the end). An uninvited guest was Jean de la Croix, a guy I have met a few times in the Motel Ineza and around Butare. We met him on the street as we were heading for the Faucon, so it seemed the right thing to do to invite him (Alfred: No, you were just too embarrassed to actually tell him and you were also intrigued as to what Catherine would make of his French which he speaks rather the way Jackie Healy-Rae speaks English, only faster). It was a really nice evening and Andy even produced a cake at the end of it!! Enock had bought my mother a present for my birthday, a giant wooden map of Rwanda he had had carved with Gisagara District picked out on it especially. It weighs a ton so I suspect it will remain with me for now until I get round to having it shipped!! No sign of Tariq or Hassan (it turned out Hassan’s plane was delayed and he was wrecked by the time he got in) so eventually to bed.

Friday 14th August: back to Kigali, back to Beau Sejour. Popped down to Nyabugogo to buy the tickets to Kampala and then .... hmmm, can’t really remember. I think Mammy rested while I went off to the Program Office to scrounge some books and use the Internet (Alfred: which wasn’t working, of course). I also contacted the Indian restaurant, Handee’s, to confirm the arrangements for my official birthday party on the 222nd.

Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th August: off to Kampala. I always forget it is actually a nine-hour journey, not seven. And the traffic when we got to Kampala was horrendous, every bit as bad as the worst I remember from the last time. Our hotel was miles outside the city and it took half an hour and three phone calls to the hotel to locate it, but it was really nice and, because it is far out, it was quiet and there was no air pollution. So we ordered food (arrived in Rwandan-quick time) and had a few beers. Now, the last time I was here I developed a taste for Nile Special but they didn’t have that, so I went for Tusker malt which was very nice, but later in the holiday I developed a definite taste for Club, which has slightly less alcohol than Nile (and at the rate at which I drink beer, that is an important consideration in the Ugandan sun) and includes maize grits in its list of ingredients. Later we also came across Moonbeam, the only Ugandan beer that can be sold in Germany as it conforms to German beer purity laws (Alfred: there has to be a less evocative way of phrasing that, you being an historian and all). On Sunday we got a taxi into town and wandered around a bit. Mammy bought a really nice dress but after a bit we decided to head back to the hotel. Kampala just isn’t that interesting a city to wander around, to be honest and its being Sunday probably didn’t help! Hung around the hotel, read, showered a few times (ah! The luxury of screaming hot water all day and a needle shower! Awesome! And TV with the World Athletics Championships! And Premiership football! And all for RWF17,000 a night!)

Later that day Mike and Dave from GoSeeAfrica.com turned up to discuss our itinerary – a real Little and Large act: Dave is a big, chunky, confident guy with a strong voice and commanding presence. Mike, who will be our driver is a small, slight quiet-spoken man, a complete contrast. I paid over the cash and they said Mike would be there at 0800 the next morning to head off. He stressed the importance of punctuality on these trips if everything was to go according to plan, which Mammy and I were both pleased to hear! About an hour after they left, I suddenly had a thought. I only knew these guys from an Internet address. I had just handed over $1300 in cash to two guys who I had absolutely no information on or way of contacting other than a web address and a cell phone number. Ah well, hope for the best!

Monday 17th August: And of course I slept in! Mammy had knocked on my door at one stage and I glanced at my Palm pilot to check the time and it was only 0630 so I rolled over again. Of course my Palm pilot was still on Rwandan time and it was actually 0730 so I ended up having an extremely hasty shower and breakfast and off we headed at 0810 (Alfred: because of course Mike did turn up, and promptly too!). We were heading to the Zwiga rhino sanctuary and it took us about five hours to get there. The main problem was speed bumps: wherever the road has been dressed, instead of putting up signs for loose chippings and a speed limit as they would at home, the Ugandan authorities have rightly figured no-one would pay a blind bit of attention, so they create a speed bump EVERY TEN METRES. One stretch of road had so many of these I stopped counting after 100. It was easily the single most irritating motoring experience of my entire life!

The sanctuary was fantastic – nice big rooms, good food, nice staff. There was a Scottish girl called Joanna working there as the accommodation and catering manager, having just started a few days before. When I introduced myself as Ruairí and my mother as Catherine she fell around laughing – her brother and sister are called Ruaraidh and Catherine. Then we went off to track the rhinos. This you do on foot, once you have driven reasonably close to them. I couldn’t believe just how close we actually got to them. At one stage of the males obviously wondered exactly what the hell we were and ambled over for a look. He got within about five metres of us before the ranger shouted something at him in Swahili and he just turned away and ambled back. As you will hear later, we saw lots and lots of animals in Murchison Falls but this was definitely the highpoint for me! Then back to the guesthouse and dinner and more beers and then I stayed up really late chatting to Joanna who, had she been twenty years older I would probably have ended up proposing to (Alfred: I suspect you really mean had YOU been twenty years younger)!

Tuesday 18th August: drove to Murchison Falls, one of the worst drives I have experienced in Africa so far. The main road to Masindi was fine but then we turned off and drove about 80km on a crappy dirt track, part of which had been recently relaid but was still soft and slippy. We lost quite a bit of time as a result (plus a stop at the souvenir shop at the entrance where Mammy bought rhino-related objects) so we skipped our hotel and went straight to the Red Chilli Pepper camp where we grabbed an ultra-quick lunch (Alfred: food wasn’t great but you have to admire the business sense of someone who tells you what on the menu is available for someone who only has thirty minutes to eat!) Then it was off to the boat (our driver, Mike, had warned us to get there early and grab a seat on the left-hand side of the boat and he was right!) for the three-hour cruise to end bottom of Murchison Falls. And it was great – hippos, crocodiles, elephants, kobs, buffalo, storks, kingfishers, fish eagles, egrets, Jackson’s hartebeest, and the falls themselves were fabulous, even if we couldn’t get too close. See the photos!!

Then back to the actual hotel we were staying in and the one and only cock-up of the trip. Because Red Chilli Pepper was booked out, Mike had booked us into the Sambiya River Lodge, a much posher and more expensive place. As a result he had us sharing a room, which is not what we had expected. Now, Mammy and I have often shared a room before and, had we found out earlier in the day it might have been OK but we were tired and fed up and I got really annoyed with poor Mike. However, we had enough sense to realise that it wasn’t that big a deal really, had dinner (which was OK but not the biggest meal I have ever had) and a few beers. Mike turned up again and he said the programme for the next day was to head off at 0600 for the game drive, return for lunch and then visit the top of Murchison Falls in the afternoon. We said we were too tired for that so we would have a late breakfast, do a later game drive and not bother with the Falls. And then off to bed.

And then the heavens opened. It rained and it rained and it rained, an absolute deluge, for hour upon hour. It finally stopped by about 0500 but everything was an absolute quagmire. We got up late, had a late breakfast and lounged around until around 0830. By then the sun had appeared and things were beginning to cheer up. So we headed off to catch the 0900 ferry. After about two miles we came across a lorry stuck in the mud on the road and waited behind it for about forty-five minutes while men arrived on foot to dig it out. After this we headed on again, only to be overtaken by the same lorry which then went and got itself stuck AGAIN on the road in front of us. I was really impressed with Mike’s patience and forbearance. He helped to dig out the lorry a second time, whereupon the driver floored the accelerator, bounced about ten metres down the road and careered into the ditch. Even I had seen that one coming. Mike gave him a sarcastic round of applause and then managed to squeeze our 4x4 past him and on to the ferry.

This meant we ended up getting the 1100 ferry (across to the north side of the river where the game lives) and were running very late but it was an extremely heavily-disguised blessing, as we found out. Everyone who had gone earlier had a miserable time – stuck in mud, cars and buses falling over, animals all sheltering from the rain. By the time we got out, the roads were drying out and all the animals came out to warm up! It was fantastic. Pictures will tell the story better once I get to upload them but the high points were the two lionesses we found comatose under a tree having just eaten half an antelope (one was lying on her back because her stomach was so distended with food it was the only way she could lie down! I swear I could have gone over and poked her and she wouldn’t have done anything) and the Jackson’s hartebeests, a type of antelope with a face straight out of a science fiction novel. Our ranger, Henry, was a mine of information and overall it was an absolutely fantastic day. We also realised what a good driver Mike was, partly through observing what had happened to other drivers who were not similarly blessed!

OK - looks like the photos will have to wait until I am in Kigali tomorrow and can get a reasonable Internet signal!!!