Random Thoughts

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.



WORK

Work is pretty dead at the moment. While the district restructuring seems to have come to a conclusion people are still a bit confused as to what their responsibilities are and last Monday everyone was informed that, as so many people had changed jobs etc, everyone has to draw up a new imihigo (performance contract) immediately (Alfred: Ruairí wisely postponed the lecture he was going to give everyone at the end of that meeting about their lack of effort and enthusiaism in using English. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof' and all that). All schools are up to their ears in exams so there is little point visiting them. I can go around next week and see the directors but for Sarah it is pretty slim pickings at the moment. We did try and visit one last week but immediately realised it was a bad move. The director wanted to bring us around all the classes where the kids were doing their exams - imagine how disruptive THAT would have been!!


MINEDUC (the Ministry of Education) have decided to bring the national English training forward from June 2010 to this December! That's for 33,650 teachers. And that will put the kibosh on all the workshops etc that VSO volunteers had been planning for that time as 33,650 teachers represents about 70% of the national total. However, I will continue doing my training with school directors on a one-to-one basis, starting now with the ones whose English is poor so I can get them before they go for training and then continue with the others who will not be attending.


GOODBYES

I mentioned before that saying 'goodbye' to friends on a regular basis is an integral part of the volunteer's life ... but that doesn't make it any easier. Yesterday I said goodbye to one of the most amazing people I have met here, Marion Wooley. Marion has been here almost two years, worked with the organization that deals with the deaf and managed to complete the first Rwandan Sign language dictionary (Alfred: not that Ruairí is ignorant of the fact that many other people - including VSO volunteers - also contributed to the project!), set a new record in domestic untidiness, raised two adorable cats and found them a wonderful home when she left, set up a new NGO to help single parents in Kigali (which, at the moment of writing, seems to be on a sound footing), wrote a really good novel, taught me more than I ever knew (Alfred: or probably wanted to know, eh? eh?) about dreams, paganism, African traditional beliefs, standing stones and an amazing variety of other topics. I could write much much more but I don't want her to be too embarrassed when she reads this (Alfred: embarrass Marion, eh? That would be something. Somebody who marks their last few days in Rwanda by getting attacked by a monkey and having to arrange rabies shots both here and back in the UK - how do you top that??). She has left a lot of very very sad people back here who are managing to console themselves by reminding themselves how lucky they were to have met her.

Here are a few pictures for us to remember her by. And I'll be seeing her in Dublin in August for my special VSO birthday party next year!!!!! (Alfred: Yeah, there will be more about that anon). I did try and find some pictures of her looking serious ... but there don't seem to be any!

(This is Martine and me saying goodbye to Marion at the airport. Think I have overcompressed a bit!)

Il est tombé éperdument amoureux!!!!

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.


Alfred: Well, well, well. One hint from Ruairí on his Facebook site and suddenly I am getting queries from as far away as Papua New Guinea (Hi Don!) as to what is going on, seeing as he isn’t going to spill the beans. Well, you all know me as a crusty, hard-hearted, unsentimental type whose main function in life is to try and keep Ruairí’s feet on the ground and head out of the clouds (so he doesn’t fall into any more holes, real or metaphorical) but this time even my curmudgeonly heart is moved. Yes, the guy is definitely, comprehensively, completely smitten. As I sit here on my chair in the bedroom (where I have been for almost 400 days – even my soft furry bottom is getting pretty sore at this stage) I can see him sending silly texts at all hours, writing poems (yes, I kid you not – no love-lorn teenager has agonized more over what rhymes with ‘amour’ than this fifty-year-old one) and generally carrying on in a style that, if it were written about in a work of fiction, would be condemned as hopelessly stereotyped. And all in French too!

I could witter on for ages about Cupid’s arrows, the sweet dew of love falling through the tough outer skin and softening the careworn fifty-year-old heart, sun and stars, sunlight and roses, swans with intertwined necks drifting silently down the peaceful river under the moonlight (I can hear Don shouting all the way from Papua New Guinea in his mellifluous Dublin accent: ‘For Jaysus sake get on with it and tell us who she is!!!!’) …. Well, I won’t. So there. It’s going to leak out eventually so you will just have to wait! Il est tombé éperdument amoureux de quelqu’un, or should that be ‘quelqu’une’? – strange bloody language (woops – hope M. isn’t reading this, not sure she understands the fact of my separate existence; mind you, who does, least of all me).

Just be happy for him – he is certainly very happy for himself!!!

October Update (like, it's becoming monthly, isn't it?)

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.


Demonic possession, rivers of blood and slaying the enemies of the Lord
A lot of religious stuff around at the moment! Last Sunday I went to church with Martine. It was the Zion Temple near the Rwandex coffee plant, not far from the Sonantubes roundabout and a place quite a few of the VSO Rwandan office staff go to worship. It is a Rwandan church that was founded in Kigali ten years ago (see www.ziontemplerwanda.org if you want more) and now has branches in many other countries. It was an ….. interesting experience. The whole thing lasted about three hours and part of it was your usual revivalist kind of thing with lots of very good singing by the choir (directed by my colleague from VSO Emilianne) and some good preaching as well. Everything was translated into French or English.

However, there was also an awful lot about smiting the enemies of the Lord, wiping out those who opposed His vision, generally a lot of killing and destruction. The main text was Judges Chapter 3 where Ehud kills the King of Moab, Eglon by hiding a dagger and then disembowelling him under the pretext of having news to tell him in his private quarters. We were then told that those who kill the enemies of the Lord can expect years of peace and security (I couldn’t quite tell how many). It was all a little bit unnerving, especially as the crowd got more and more enthused and passionate about it.

Then we moved on to demons, sorcerers and witches. The preacher told us we were in deadly danger at every minute from demons and sorcerers. He called on the Lord to surround this church with a river of his blood to protect us from the malign influences that were waiting to attack us (made me wonder if we were going to be able to go home). And there was a lot more in that vein.

A general belief in sorcerers and witchcraft is quite common here. A school in my own district has been closed recently and a general meeting of parents, teachers and 4th to 6th class pupils was called to discuss how to combat the demonic influences that were causing so many children to fall ill in the school. Glad I wasn’t sent to deal with that one.


REAP – latest update
The first phase of this has now finished (Alfred: see earlier blogs if you don’t know what he is on about, but it’s not THAT interesting to be honest) and Sarah and I ended up doing a lot more of it than we would have liked, due to our being the only functioning education staff at the moment (see next item for clarification). So not as capacity-building as we would have liked ...

District re-organisation
For those of you who have been following my escapades, sorry, WORK here in Rwanda, news of a major personnel change. Since I arrived, I have worked directly for the Director of Education, François Hakizimana and with the chargé Alexis Bigira. But every district in Rwanda has had a major reorganization which involves devolving more power to the sector level and away from the District offices. So we now have only one person in the Education Unit (which has itself been subsumed into a new Social Affairs and Territorial Administration department) and that is Alexis; François has been transferred to work in one of the sectors. I will miss working with him (despite the frequent frustrations). He was (and I hope will continue to be) a good friend – his was the first house I was invited to here in Rwanda, his children the first I met.

Anyway, the re-organization has been in progress for so long that everything has been virtually paralysed as everyone waited for the changes to come into effect. It also promises to be even more hectic for me and Sarah (Alfred: HECTIC? What do you mean hectic? Half the time you don’t have anything to do and you are about to head into the school holidays anyway!!!) OK, I take Alfred’s point but the World Bank analysis of Rwanda’s local government some years ago estimated five people were needed to do the education administrative work properly and now they have reduced from two to one. I know more is supposed to be done at sector level but at the moment the money doesn’t exist to hire the additional staff needed – so we have cut at our level and have not added at the lower level. Alexis is going to need to be on his toes!!!
Interesting stories from the newspapers


More leavings: Marion and Ken
And still they continue to leave. In the next few weeks Marion and Ken will be off. Ken has been in Nyanza for … gosh, is it three years? I haven’t really seen much of him in my time here but he is a really nice guy and will be missed.

But Marion – ah now, that is going to be really hard. I got to know Marion even before I came here as she was the one person to answer all the emails I sent even before I came to Rwanda, giving me advice on what to bring, clothes, water regimen, all kinds of advice all of which turned out to be accurate and useful!!! She has provided me with a bed, cats to play with, plentiful advice on a wide variety of topics (some of which I even occasionally followed), copious information on a wide range of gods and goddesses, elemental forces and beliefs around the world that rarely get talked about, gave me her novel to read and proof (a most enjoyable experience) …. I am really going to miss her.


Articles in COMHAR
If you feel like reading recycled versions of parts of this blog in Irish, I am now writing a monthly column for the Irish-language magazine COMHAR (though not in the October edition – that’s a special on new writers). And if you can’t read Irish, most of it was already in the blog anyway!!


New Kinyarwanda-English vocabulary book: interesting phrases
I have to admit I have made less progress with my Kinyarwandan than I would have like. On Monday Sarah and I went on a shopping expedition to Butare for supplies – flip-chart paper, giant rulers, markers and so on. The shop we bought most of the stuff in is also a bookshop of sorts – mostly textbooks but some fiction in French and various other bits and pieces. And I found a new English-Kinyarwandan vocabulary book and thought ‘What the hell’ and bought it (RWF6500 or €8 which is well over one day’s allowance for a volunteer, which is why you stop and think about these things!).

And a fascinating book it is too – you can learn a lot about a society by looking at the phrases they choose to illustrate words. Or so you would think. Anyway a few things that struck me as … well, odd.

1. Babysitter’ is listed under ‘Sports and Leisure
2. The section on ‘Greetings’ includes the phrase ababyeyi banjye baratandukanye which means ‘my parents are divorced’. This in a country where divorce may be legal but is pretty unheard of, at least in my experience.
   
3. The section on ‘Difficulties’ includes inshuti zanjye zarantaye, ‘my friends have forsaken me’ (and the rather puzzling phrase which is translated as ‘Where is the police motion?’)
4. The ‘Travel’ section includes the phrase for ‘Conveyor-belt’. It also has extensive vocabulary in Kinyarwandan for travelling by train. There are no trains in Rwanda.
5. The first item in the ‘Clothes’ section is impeta ya diyama, a diamond ring
6. In the ‘Religion’ section we find ahari kiriziya hafi ni hehe? ‘Where is the nearest church?’ presumably the denomination doesn’t matter, though the entire Lord’s Prayer is given in the Catholic version. This may also explain Hano haba hari abaporo? ‘Are there any Protestants here?’ And I have now discovered the Kinyarwandan for ‘atheist’: umuhakanyi (must find out what it actually means, probably ‘walking dead’ or something like that).
7. Inzoka can easily be confused with inzoga (‘snake’ and ‘beer’ respectively). Ndashaka inzoka ikonje I would like a cold snake - must try that down the pub next time and see what happens (Alfred: You know what will happen – it’ll be ‘Let’s all laugh at the silly muzungu time again!).
8. An intriguing section entitled ‘Diseases taken care by food’ includes ‘angry eyes’, ‘calculation of loins’, ‘crevasses’, ‘genital unrests’, ‘intellectual tiredness’, ‘intestinal verses’, ‘pain of road’, ‘pee in bed’, ‘bewitchment’ (Alfred: along with ‘poisoning in case you were wondering what had happened to the alphabetical order), ‘qualm’ and ‘skinning’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say which foods take care of any of them.
9. There is a big section on ‘Poritics'
   

‘Abbatoirs’, ‘Irish potatoes’ and ‘referees’ are all listed under Good Governance



And, while we are on the subject of Kinyarwandan, I was asked today in the office about the word ‘miser’, as in should he be saying ‘miser’ or ‘miserly’. It turns out that the word in Kinyarwandan, igisambo, means both ‘miser’ and ‘thief’. To hoard anything that you are not using yourself is the same as stealing it from people who need it.

Stories from Uganda
Now that I am going up to Kigali every weekend I am able to buy my favourite Ugandan newspaper, the Saturday Vision. Nothing could illustrate the difference between Uganda and Rwanda more than the type of stories their respective newspapers print, and nothing gives as good an insight into Ugandan life. Last week’s edition had a section on relationships that included the Top Ten Love Boosters and the Top Ten Love Poisons.

The boosters are:

Communication
Forgiveness
Companionship
Romance
Money
Status
Children
Outings
Gifts
Faithfulness

The Poisons are:

Adultery
Violence
Desertation (presumably Desertion)
Bestiality
Homosexuality
Promiscuity
Public scorn
Witchcraft
Poverty
Impotence

And I leave you with a few of the more bizarre and light-hearted stories from last week’s Ugandan news.

TENANT EVICTED OVER SONG
Kampala
Residents of Kivulu, Makarere, were surprised when a woman was evicted from her room because of a song. Namukasa was playing Sophie Gombya’s Spare Tyre aloud. Her landlady, Nakito, gave her 48 hours to move out of the house. Nakito said the song was an insult because she was a second wife to her husband. The landlady refunded her rent and told her to vacate the house.

FOOD ATTRACTS MEN TO MEETING
Mityana
The women of Bulera sub-county met last weekend to discuss the problems in their homes. However, men gatecrashed the venue knowing that food would be served. When the women got out for lunch, they found the men had served themselves as many as three plates of food.

DRUNK TEACHER STAGGERS IN FRONT OF OYAM DISTRICT BOSS
Oyam
A primary school teacher in Oyam district recently got into trouble for drinking during working hours. Ongada was with his mother-in-law when the Oyam district LC5 boss, Charles Okello Engola, bumped into him. Ongada fumbled and as he tried to stand and beg for forgiveness he fell down. Engola gave him a stern warning as residents carried him away. (Alfred: Love the last five words of that one)

CONGRATULATIONS TO SARAH!

And to finish, a great big 'Well done' to my colleague and housemate Sarah Wragg who heard today that she had got her MA which she had completed under enormous pressure as she was getting ready to leave for Rwanda!! Well done!!