GETTING BETTER, GETTING WORSE

GETTING BETTER, GETTING WORSE

After 14 months it is interesting to look at which things I have now got used to and other things that now seem to be bugging me more than when I arrived! I am completely used to:

• hanging around for ages doing nothing
• presuming everything will start late
  
• living on a range of foods approximately 97% smaller than I was used to in Ireland
  
• warm beer (which isn’t to say I don’t still prefer cold)
  
• having people stare at me
  
• being oblivious to the most amazing scenery in the world because I am ‘used to it’
  
• goat brochettes
  
• eating my bodyweight in eggs every month (Alfred: even though he has lost some weight since coming here, this is an exaggeration. Speaking of weight, do I notice those trousers are seeming a little tighter again recently around the waist ….?)
  
• going crazy places on appalling roads on unsafe motorcycles at stupid speeds in the pouring rain
  
• being asked extremely personal questions by people I have barely met
  
• being careful telling people about my religious beliefs (or lack of them) in case they start crying
  
• the amazingly slower pace of work here
  
• having beautiful young girls I have never met before tell me they love me, have always loved me and want to marry me and bear my children
  
• the fact that I drink the most gorgeous coffee every day
  
• bargaining for everything (Alfred: Well, everything else was OK up to this, but let me tell you, in his heart, he is still not really up for it. He still yearns for the world of pricetags!! And if he ever beats a moto driver down from 800 to 700, he usually ends up giving him the 100 anyway as a tip.)

On the other hand, some things seem to be getting on my nerves the longer I stay here:

• how expensive life is here (relatively speaking)
  
• the appalling driving, especially the bus drivers
  
• the scarcity of decent and affordable red wine
  
• the fact that people never share any information with you unless they have to or you ask them directly
  
• MTN (Rwanda’s main telecom company)
  
• begging
  
  

Actually, that last one is becoming a bit of an issue with me. To be honest, far fewer people ask me for money than did when I first arrived. It only ever happens in my village on market day when people come in from far and wide and haven’t seen me before; occasionally kids say it as a joke and then laugh to show they don’t mean it (or, more accurately, by laughing give away the fact that they don’t mean it). But when it does happen, I find myself becoming much more irritated than I used to, even angry (though I usually – not always – manage to keep it inside). Not sure why exactly – there was one day in Butare when I saw this well-dressed and obviously well-off couple encouraging their equally well-dressed little girl to go over and ask me for money, which she did in a very embarrassed way. That may have been a turning-point. Since then, I have become much more sensitive to the sheer number of people who either directly or indirectly ask me for things – money, books, sponsorship, whatever. And most of them are – by Rwandan standards – well-off. Ah well, less than eight months to go, guess I can cope!!!

INSPECTING THE SCHOOL EXAMS

(Alfred: My health warning from the previous entry still holds)

A few random observations on the school exams here. Today the O-levels and A-levels started. There are four O-level centres and one A-level centre in my District and we visited four of the five today. Again, the same high level of efficiency and security that I mentioned in my previous post on the primary exams, maybe even more so. When we arrived at the first centre, there was a queue of 25 or so students outside every room: each one was carrying the examination entry form they had filled out at the beginning of the year (with photograph) plus their official student ID card. The teacher/invigilator on duty at the door checked one against the other to ensure the student was in fact the person themselves. They also checked that pencil cases had nothing in them. All students had to arrive with trouser and skirt pockets empty and turned inside out and the invigilators still patted down anyone they were suspicious of.

Each individual classroom had been scoured and all posters, signs, even scrawls on the blackboards removed. Invigilators are forbidden to have anything in the room with them – newspapers, books, phones etc – to ensure they pay undivided attention to the examinees (Alfred: this is also theoretically true in Ireland but more in the breach than the observance).

The centres in Kansi, Gisagara and Gikonko were only dealing with O-levels but Save had two centres, one of them the A-level centre for the District. There, depending on which A-level option a student had chosen, there could be as many as five different exams going on in the same room. Today, for example, was Mathematics (for the Science option people), Social Studies (for Humanities) and Kinyarwandan (for Languages). But everything went really smoothly. The seating was even arranged so that no two students doing the same subject nor any two students from the same school were sitting beside each other – an amazing logistical achievement! There were special arrangements for students – one centre had arranged cushions in front of desks for two students with back problems who had to kneel; another had put a mattress on the floor of one room for a girl who was lying on her front – I was told she had malaria and got dizzy if she sat upright and this was the solution.

Visiting St Bernadette School in Save again, I was struck by the contrast between the church-supported schools and the rest. Touring their laboratories I could only think of what passed for a laboratory in my local secondary school, St Philippe Neri, a school that specialises in science teaching but has only one lab, ‘stocked’ for want of a better word with odds-and-ends of outdated and obsolete equipment and almost completely lacking supplies. The other thing that struck me was the timetable stuck on the door of each of the three laboratories – each is used for only about 17-18 periods a week out of the 40 available. Most of the science classes seem to take place in the classrooms (Alfred: like that never used to happen in Irish schools when they first got labs!). I also couldn’t resist pointing out to the headmistress that in every room I visited, every word written on the blackboards was in French rather than English – weren’t they teaching in English here, I asked? ‘Une mélange’ she replied with a big grin!.

Anyway the exams went fine apart from a panic on the Social Studies paper where students were required to do all questions in Section A but they were numbered 1,2,3,5 and 6. A quick check of the paper showed that adding up the marks for the five questions there corresponded with the total given for the section so it was just a printing error. (Alfred: Please le that be the end! Oh, it is …)

PLAYING GOD
Rwandans tend to confuse the letters ‘R’ and ‘L’. So I have almost got used to the number of times Rwandans tell me they ‘play God’ (they tend to omit prepositions too). As I went around a school recently, a teacher proudly indicated a room and said: ‘This is where we play God.’ I completely forgot what she meant and said ‘What?’. ‘Yes’, she affirmed, ‘I play God here every day. Playing God is great. How often do you play God?’ I was actually tempted to tell her but decided discretion was the better part of whatever.


THANKS JANE
I recently got a really good/bad joke from a friend on Facebook which I shared with people in my status. She has now sent me the list of the Ten Worst Puns of which that was one – thanks Jane!!!

1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says "Dam!"

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure ? " The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal ? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why ? " they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer!"

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to Spain ; they named him 'Juan'. The other went to family in Egypt and was named 'Ahmal'. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town, to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good!) 'super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis'.

10. And finally... there was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.