Ruairí and Alfred: Brief Christmas update

Alfred: OK – it has been a while … again. Below are a bunch of pictures from Christmas in Kibuye which, as the more perceptive of you may notice, includes ME! Yes, I finally got out of the bedroom in Gisagara where I have been stuck for fifteen months and got to see a bit of Rwanda. I suspect I may have to write the Christmas update myself as his nibs is a little too preoccupied these days with work, house refitting and …. well, the ‘other thing’ that we are all pretending isn’t actually happening at the moment. Oh, and he had malaria as well, or so he claims. The doctor said he did even though the blood test was negative. He also tested negative for typhoid, giardia, amoebas – in fact anything that can be detected in blood or stool (les selles – another new word for his ever-expanding French vocabulary). The doc said he might have malaria because doxycycline (which Ruairí takes as a preventive) can mask the actual presence of malaria in the blood test. If Ruairí had had the courage to tell the doctor that he hardly ever remembers to take his doxycycline anymore and that therefore there was no way it could be masking anything and that THEREFORE he was extremely unlikely to actually have malaria …. But no. He nodded, took his prescription and swallowed the eight tablets a day, thereby making himself feel a LOT worse than he had been doing hitherto. Oh, and of course he then went around for days telling people how he didn’t think he had malaria but the doctor had said he did, hoping to create a general pseudo-martyr sympathy for himself. He forgets most people here have actually had a touch of real malaria or at least know what it is like to really have it, so he’s not fooling anyone except himself (that he is actually quite good at, must be all the practice he gets).

Copyright notice: please note that the following images were 'borrowed' from Sarah Wragg and Martine Oliver because idiot here left his camera behind in a restaurant in Kigali before heading to Kibuye. Luckily, one of the guardian angels that we know hover over small children and congenital idiots ensured that the restaurant owner found the camera, kept it safe and returned it to Ruairí via a Canadian friend.

Me with Mel and then me again having opened my Christmas present (minature elephant to keep me company when I get stuck back in that bedroom again)

Christmas stockings hung by the chimney with care (all made by Sarah and Libby); Marion and Bruce's favourite monkey (who was impeccably behaved when we were there; some people even petted him)

Ruairí and Martine (Hi Trish in Florida - any comments on the shirt????)

Me and Martine; me and Ruairí

Crossing Lake Kivu (L) and gathering on Amahoro Island for 'Christmas dinner' (R)

Ruairí doing Secret Santa

In the boat on the way back; Ruairí, Sleeping Beauty and Jason on the left, John, Mel and Julie on the right

Martine

Libby, Karangwa and Libby

Julie, Janet (her mother) and Julie

April and Amy descending on the christmas cake (or maybe April was icing it?)

General April montage: April with what should have been our Christmas dinner; April icing the Christmas cake; April looking as if the hangover is setting in early; April sleeping like an angel.

Martine and Ruairí on the way back from Amahoro island: if you look closely you can see the start of what turned out be be a massive sunburn on Ruairí's neck and shoulders