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.
Kind of a nothing day but with some really interesting bits. Some volunteers had their discussions with their programme managers today (I had mine last week) so the rest of us started on a session with Soraya on ‘practicalities’ – how to set up and run a water filter, kerosene stove and lamp, charcoal stove and setting up a mosquito net. It all went quite well: you definitely want to be cooking on a charcoal fire for doing a stirfry, no question – a kerosene stove just doesn’t produce that much heat but charcoal is banned in parts of Rwanda because it adds to deforestation (given the price of kerosene I don’t know how people in those parts of the country cope). It is available and allowed in the south but we’ll see how we go (kerosene is paraffin, by the way, for us in Ireland!). The session went quite well and was extremely informative and useful.
Then Tina and I got a lift with some of the programme staff to the VSO office and just mooched around the resource room for a while. The internet connection was pretty slow but I did get on and sent a few messages, especially to all you wonderful people who are contributing to my sponsorship drive!! It’s great to get messages from people so keep them coming, or else make comments here on the blog page (that’s actually better in some ways, though bear in mind that blog comments won’t appear on the actual blog page until I have okayed them; that’s how the Blogger site operates). They have a library there so I took out a PD James and The Name of the Rose which I haven’t read in ages. Then we tootled back to the guesthouse, missing lunch (which is no loss for me given how much I have been eating recently) and had sessions on mentoring (our allowance for paying someone to help us with our French and/or Kinyarwandan during our stay – maximum of three hours per week at RWF2000 per hour) and our last Kinyarwandan class which was a bit heavy going for some because we are getting VERY tired but Emmanuelle is so enthusiastic we buckled down and did all the vocabulary on clothes and household items that he had prepared. We were also delighted to hear that we should have him again in November when we are all back in Kigali for ICT2 (our second bout of In-Country Training – VSO do love their acronyms).
It is interesting to look at how many foreign loanwords there are in Kinyarwandan and in what categories: for fruit and vegetables there are obviously very few and presumably apply to non-native plants: ikaroti, avokat, inanasi, itomati, ipera, and maracuja are all I could find so far. But for clothing virtually all items betray their foreign origin: how many of these can you decipher: karavati, ipantalo, ijinkisi, isogisi, ijaketi, umupira and ijipo. Guesses can be posted as comments on this blog! Also interesting is that in Burundi, which has a very similar language, almost all these words are translated into something that is recognisably Burundian whereas Rwandans use the French or English word and just stick a vowel on the front and make a few other minor changes. It’s a bit like the difference between saying mo rothar and mo bhicycle.
We then finished with a session with Mike Silvey who is the country director who was looking for a frank and open discussion of how the entire ICT had gone. So we did!! Overall, the group was extremely positive about almost everything, though – inevitably – you tend then to list the things that were could be improved the next time around. However, without going into those, overall we have been very impressed with the Programme Office here and the staff and especially those volunteers already incountry who worked so hard over the last week to greet us and make us feel at home: Bruce, Els, Chris, Paula, Cathy, Dani (?spelling) and I may have missed out a few others – sorry guys! Soraya and Jane in particular spent an enormous amount of time with us, answering stupid questions, guiding us around and showing incredible amounts of patience!
So I am now off to supper (it is 1856 my time, one hour ahead of Ireland and the UK). My employer is staying here tonight so he may well be at supper, so I am already trying to think in French!! I’ll update after supper!
OK – no employer but I got a nasty turn when I thought a guy at another table that I hadn’t even spoken to was him! Everyone’s thoughts are beginning to turn to breaking up tomorrow and what the reality of our placements is going to be. It’ll be good to get started but it has been very safe and protected here, so I’m pretty sure everyone is feeling some kind of degree of apprehension. However, we will see each other in eight weeks’ time which is good to know!
Just a quick word about my fundraising. You will have noticed that I have a little tag at the end of every entry about my fundraising for VSO. One or two people have asked me if I will be fundraising for any projects here in Rwanda itself at any stage. The answer is yes and you will hear all about it when it happens but I am strongly committed to fundraising for VSO as well. The degree of support they give their volunteers is enormous and it all costs. To give the figures of what VSO is paying for for me being here:
· three weeks of training in Birmingham including accommodation and flights
· all inoculations
· flights to and from Rwanda
· all accommodation costs in Rwanda
· the bulk of my RWF150,000 per month
· an equipment grant of RWF100,000
· a language grant of up to RWF6,000 per week for my entire time in country
· all medical costs incurred while in-country
· a holiday grant of (I think) about £400 if your placement is over one year
· a resettlement grant for when you return from your placement
I don’t think there is any other organisation that provides this level of support – both financial and organisational – to its volunteers. It means that countries that could not possibly afford to support volunteers themselves are able to tap into the skills, experience and enthusiasm of people like ... well, I suppose like me! The work VSO does and its vision of a world without poverty where everyone is equal is an inspiring and worthy one and I want to do everything I can to support them in this. So, that’s why I continue to look for your sponsorship in my fundraising drive!
Having said that, I do have a few ideas already about other projects that could do with support, combining the ideas of children’s health and education and you will be hearing more about that anon. In the meantime, thank you all again for your support, whether through sponsorship, emails, messages, blog comments or whatever. If anyone prefers to write in the old-fashioned way my new address is: Ruairi O hEithir, BP 129, Butare, Rwanda. Murabeho!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday 16th: Day Ten in Rwanda
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.
Boy, what a day! Started well – got some more laundry done while showering and had breakfast. Then I found out that Tina (housemate to be – you need to remember that ‘cos I won’t keep reminding you) got quite ill during the night with a bad stomach. She ended up staying in bed the whole day but was a little better when we got home this evening. This was unfortunate because today was .... SHOPPING DAY! We were all off to the Chinese Supermarket to buy everything we need for our new homes. And, in our case, because there haven’t been any voluinteers there before, everything means everything. In my case, two sets of everything because Tina wasn’t able to come. First I decided to go and change some travellers’ cheques – that took a little while but I must say the Bank of Kigali was nothing like as slow or inefficient as I was led to believe would be the case. I changes $400 into RWF207,000 or so – just as well as you will find out.
Got back to the supermarket to scenes of almost utter chaos. Each volunteer had made a pile on the floor in separate parts of the supermarket with buckets, linen, jerricans, mops, brushes, HUGE piles of toilet paper, and goodness knows what else. I had Tina’s list in one hand and mine in the other, trying to figure out which duplicated items we only needed one of (set of crockery) or both (bed linen). For those of you interested in shopping this is what you buy to set up house in Rwanda (if I can remember it all because it is all still packed away and there were a few impulse purchases!):
2 sets bed linen (each set being 2 sheets 2 pillowcases and one medium blanket)
4 pillows
2 large towels
2 medium towels
4 tea towels
4 cleaning cloths
1 floor brush
1 brush for cleaning dishes
1 pair latex kitchen gloves
1 set of two nail brushes (of which more anon)
1 wok
2 medium saucepans with lids
1 metal steamer thing (you know, the one that opens up like an inside-out cabbage)
1 jug for pouring
1 jug for measuring
1 20-litre jerrican
2 10-litre jerricans
4 sealable tuppaware containers
1 floor brush
1 brush and dustpan
4 dinner plates
4 side plates
4 mugs
4 knives, forks, large spoons and teaspoons
4 small wooden bowls (for eating stir-fry out of)
1 bucket (unfortunately not with lid)
2 small sealable buckets/bins, with lids
1 large and 1 small kitchen knife
1 plastic chopping board (I only found out later they had wooden ones which were far cheaper but I was running out of time at this stage)
1 vegetable peeler
1 wooden spatula
1 wooden spoon
6 drinking glasses
1 metal (unfortunately) teapot
1 thermos flask
1 umbrella
2 bars antibacterial soap
1 large pack toilet rolls
1 bottle opener
I think that’s everything – not absolutely sure. I had brought a can opener (thanks Mammy) and chopsticks from home, as well as a pepper mill and a supply of mixed peppercorns. I can already think of a few things we’ll need (a good plastic basin for washing clothes being the first) but I presume they can be got in Gisagara or Butare. The time pressure was because I got there later than the others and was trying to buy more stuff (obviously) and was then told the pick-up would soon be arriving so I had to hurry up!!
Anyway, all that cost – to my slight amazement – RWF197.400 or about £200 sterling. Now our equipment allowance is RWF100,000 each so that was OK but I hadn’t figured on actually spending it all in one go!! Some of the items were cheap but others were more expensive than at home. Basically anything imported is expensive – the two saucepans were RWF7,000 each, wok RWF15,000, bedlinen RWF17,000 and RWF8,000 respectively, each piece of cutlery RWF800 for a total of RWF12,800 and so on – all (except the wok) more than I would pay at home and this is out of my salary of RWF150,000 per month (which, as I mentioned before, is about three times what a Rwandan secondary teacher would get). Anyway, that’s why we have an equipment grant and thank you VSO for that! They packed all my stuff into two amazing bags (wait till you see the photos - Anime and Winnie-the-Pooh, both in screaming pink) and then we piled all our piles onto a pickup truck. One guy had to ride on the back of the truck to stop kids pinching our stuff as it went through the streets!
Then back to the guesthouse for lunch (it was incredibly hot and we were all tired and dehydrated from rushing around, plus a little shell-shocked at how expensive things ahd turned out to be). Lunch was fine and then I just had time for a quick shower (well, when I say shower, the cold water trickled out of the tap and I threw it over myself but it was still refreshing and made it possible for people to sit beside me in comfort). Tina had fallen asleep and seemed to be getting better, so we left her and Marjoulaine and Danielle and headed off for the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre.
We spent three hours here and I’m not sure how to go about describing it. In one way, it wasn’t dissimilar to many other exhibitions I have been to – the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC springs to mind, or Dachau. It was very well presented, beautifully mounted and lit (apart from a ten-minute power cut) and very detailed about exactly what happened both before and during the Genocide. It had some particularly heartbreaking displays on children and orphans and some of the video testimonies were quite hard to watch.
And then it strikes you that all the people you see around – the staff at the centre, the people you can see on the streets and on the banana farm across the valley, all the people you are going to work with for the next two years – actually experienced all of this quite recently, some of them as victims but far more of them as perpetrators. There are a large number of mass graves in the grounds of the centre with a total of 258,000 people buried in them – those are just victims from Kigali itself.
Anyway, there are pictures below to give an idea. I might come back to this a bit later in another blog once things have sunk in a bit more!
A very subdued bus ride back to the guesthouse and we got there around 5.50 and were expecting to see the British Ambassador at 6.15 for a security briefing (this was supposed to be last week but got cancelled). I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it but thought, what the hell, given that the British Embassy takes responsibility for all VSO volunteers regardless of their nationality I might as well. His name is Nick Cannon and he is relatively new here and he gave a really superb presentation on the history and culture of Rwanda, the genocide, its effects on Rwanda today, the present political climate (including the elections), a variety of tips on dos and don’ts in Rwanda and briefings on the security situation in neighbouring regions. He also spoke about Rwanda’s long-term plans and hopes and the enormous challenges it faces for the future. It was both fascinating and useful and he was extremely candid about botht the positive and more negatives aspects of both the present situation and the possible future scenarios. All in all, an hour well spent. He also told us that there is a pub in the British Embassy (called – by someone with a genius for names – The Goat & Gorilla) and as long as we tell them we are coming we are welcome any Thursday night (which is when it opens).
Then supper, then typing this. No one seems to have gone out tonight, don’t think anyone is in the mood.
Got back to the supermarket to scenes of almost utter chaos. Each volunteer had made a pile on the floor in separate parts of the supermarket with buckets, linen, jerricans, mops, brushes, HUGE piles of toilet paper, and goodness knows what else. I had Tina’s list in one hand and mine in the other, trying to figure out which duplicated items we only needed one of (set of crockery) or both (bed linen). For those of you interested in shopping this is what you buy to set up house in Rwanda (if I can remember it all because it is all still packed away and there were a few impulse purchases!):
2 sets bed linen (each set being 2 sheets 2 pillowcases and one medium blanket)
4 pillows
2 large towels
2 medium towels
4 tea towels
4 cleaning cloths
1 floor brush
1 brush for cleaning dishes
1 pair latex kitchen gloves
1 set of two nail brushes (of which more anon)
1 wok
2 medium saucepans with lids
1 metal steamer thing (you know, the one that opens up like an inside-out cabbage)
1 jug for pouring
1 jug for measuring
1 20-litre jerrican
2 10-litre jerricans
4 sealable tuppaware containers
1 floor brush
1 brush and dustpan
4 dinner plates
4 side plates
4 mugs
4 knives, forks, large spoons and teaspoons
4 small wooden bowls (for eating stir-fry out of)
1 bucket (unfortunately not with lid)
2 small sealable buckets/bins, with lids
1 large and 1 small kitchen knife
1 plastic chopping board (I only found out later they had wooden ones which were far cheaper but I was running out of time at this stage)
1 vegetable peeler
1 wooden spatula
1 wooden spoon
6 drinking glasses
1 metal (unfortunately) teapot
1 thermos flask
1 umbrella
2 bars antibacterial soap
1 large pack toilet rolls
1 bottle opener
I think that’s everything – not absolutely sure. I had brought a can opener (thanks Mammy) and chopsticks from home, as well as a pepper mill and a supply of mixed peppercorns. I can already think of a few things we’ll need (a good plastic basin for washing clothes being the first) but I presume they can be got in Gisagara or Butare. The time pressure was because I got there later than the others and was trying to buy more stuff (obviously) and was then told the pick-up would soon be arriving so I had to hurry up!!
Anyway, all that cost – to my slight amazement – RWF197.400 or about £200 sterling. Now our equipment allowance is RWF100,000 each so that was OK but I hadn’t figured on actually spending it all in one go!! Some of the items were cheap but others were more expensive than at home. Basically anything imported is expensive – the two saucepans were RWF7,000 each, wok RWF15,000, bedlinen RWF17,000 and RWF8,000 respectively, each piece of cutlery RWF800 for a total of RWF12,800 and so on – all (except the wok) more than I would pay at home and this is out of my salary of RWF150,000 per month (which, as I mentioned before, is about three times what a Rwandan secondary teacher would get). Anyway, that’s why we have an equipment grant and thank you VSO for that! They packed all my stuff into two amazing bags (wait till you see the photos - Anime and Winnie-the-Pooh, both in screaming pink) and then we piled all our piles onto a pickup truck. One guy had to ride on the back of the truck to stop kids pinching our stuff as it went through the streets!
Then back to the guesthouse for lunch (it was incredibly hot and we were all tired and dehydrated from rushing around, plus a little shell-shocked at how expensive things ahd turned out to be). Lunch was fine and then I just had time for a quick shower (well, when I say shower, the cold water trickled out of the tap and I threw it over myself but it was still refreshing and made it possible for people to sit beside me in comfort). Tina had fallen asleep and seemed to be getting better, so we left her and Marjoulaine and Danielle and headed off for the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre.
We spent three hours here and I’m not sure how to go about describing it. In one way, it wasn’t dissimilar to many other exhibitions I have been to – the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC springs to mind, or Dachau. It was very well presented, beautifully mounted and lit (apart from a ten-minute power cut) and very detailed about exactly what happened both before and during the Genocide. It had some particularly heartbreaking displays on children and orphans and some of the video testimonies were quite hard to watch.
And then it strikes you that all the people you see around – the staff at the centre, the people you can see on the streets and on the banana farm across the valley, all the people you are going to work with for the next two years – actually experienced all of this quite recently, some of them as victims but far more of them as perpetrators. There are a large number of mass graves in the grounds of the centre with a total of 258,000 people buried in them – those are just victims from Kigali itself.
Anyway, there are pictures below to give an idea. I might come back to this a bit later in another blog once things have sunk in a bit more!
A very subdued bus ride back to the guesthouse and we got there around 5.50 and were expecting to see the British Ambassador at 6.15 for a security briefing (this was supposed to be last week but got cancelled). I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it but thought, what the hell, given that the British Embassy takes responsibility for all VSO volunteers regardless of their nationality I might as well. His name is Nick Cannon and he is relatively new here and he gave a really superb presentation on the history and culture of Rwanda, the genocide, its effects on Rwanda today, the present political climate (including the elections), a variety of tips on dos and don’ts in Rwanda and briefings on the security situation in neighbouring regions. He also spoke about Rwanda’s long-term plans and hopes and the enormous challenges it faces for the future. It was both fascinating and useful and he was extremely candid about botht the positive and more negatives aspects of both the present situation and the possible future scenarios. All in all, an hour well spent. He also told us that there is a pub in the British Embassy (called – by someone with a genius for names – The Goat & Gorilla) and as long as we tell them we are coming we are welcome any Thursday night (which is when it opens).
Then supper, then typing this. No one seems to have gone out tonight, don’t think anyone is in the mood.
Can't seem t get captions: pictures are
Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre
A wreath we laid on a mass grave
The current mass grave in which bodies that are still being found are placed
More mass graves
A sign that speaks for itself
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday 15th: Day Nine in Rwanda
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.
Well, about bloody time too! Alfred here! On Day Nine and this is the first time I’ve got even a look in! I don’t think Ruairí has even mentioned me once so far (apart from sticking my photo on his blog and then forgetting all about me). It was Day Five before he even took me out of his suitcase!! Is that gratitude for all those wonderful girls in Rathdown who went to all the trouble to find me and kit me out and send me away to look after him?? (Note to girls – the boots are wicked!).
Anyway, today he has the day off and is not around at the moment so I have the chance to make a few of MY observations on what has been going on so far. Flipping through what he has written so far, some of it is fairly accurate but other bits ........ well, let’s start with this motorcycle business. Do remember, as he himself admitted, this is the guy who thought he could learn how to swim by reading a book. Now, just because he has attended a maintenance session (which no-one, by the way, could understand) and watched Amy, Andy, Heloise and Tom ride in slow circles around a field for an hour (he also – fatally – read the entire manual that comes with the Yamaha 125), suddenly he sees himself as Evel Kineval (how do you spell that?). As all of you who know him know, this is the guy that four-year olds laughed at on the ski slope in Kilternan, who once managed to stay up on his ice-skates for a whole nine seconds without falling and never even TRIED to use roller skates as a kid! I won’t even mention the time he went quad-biking .....
And as for this flute (I think I look quite natural with it, sort of a James Galway look, who I have been told I resemble quite strongly) – breath control is the least of his problems. Granted he can still play the tin whistle reasonably accurately (it would help his breath control if he was a bit fitter): so far he has shown great aptitude for assembling and oiling the flute. As for getting it to actually produce any music, well maybe time will tell. We do have two years after all. It is a nice flute and oiling it with almond oil makes it smell nice so if all else fails it will make a nice ornament.
What else was he whinging about? Oh yes, Kinyarwandan! Mbega! It’s not that hard. The verb to be in the present tense is Ndi, Uri, Ni, Turi, Muri, Ni (Táim, tá tú etc), the verb ‘to have’ is Mfite, Ufite, Afite, Dufite, Mufite, Bafite. Ho0w hard it that? And he goes on and on and on about how hard it is and bores everyone to death by either explaining how it differs from Indo-European languages or – even more annoyingly – how some bits that other people find hard are really easy for him because they are (and I quote) ‘just the same as in Irish’. Does he not realise he has to be friends with these people for the next year or two? At least he is resisting the temptation (to a certain extent) of actually lecturing the people who have been here six months to a year of what Rwanda is really like (we did have an unfortunate incident a few days ago when he decided to explain to everyone how the Upper House of the Rwandan parliament is organised and its surprising resemblance to the Irish Seanad – some of these volunteers are INCREDIBLY patient).
However, the good news is that he seems to be quite happy. I was a bit worried a few nights ago when he didn’t really seem to sleep at all – nervous about meeting his employer the next day (though it could have been his deciding to have the goat stew AND the fried fish for dinner) but that seems to have gone well because he has been in great form since then. He has even had a stab at writing poetry but hey, we all make mistakes (if you have to choose, I’d stick to the flute-playing if I were you, Ruairí).
Mind you, he could be a little more adventurous. Others of the volunteers are heading out to night clubs and walking for an hour and a half in and out of town. Today is a free day, there is a general election on, some people invited him to go swimming with them (like THAT’S ever going to happen!) others were going shopping, sightseeing or just wandering around town. What is HE doing? LAUNDRY! yes, I kid you not: he spent a big chunk of the first really free time we have had DOING LAUNDRY. Now, not that Joe and I, who are sharing his room, want him to run out of clean underwear (not in this climate, anyway) but COME ON! I know he wouldn’t have brought ME but at least he would have brought back some photos. Mind you, photographing polling stations surrounded by police and soldiers probably isn’t a great idea, now that I come to think of it. His excuse was that it needed to be done (granted), we wanted to see if his linen stuff would actually dry properly and not be too wrinkled (that worked out OK) and how to wash an entire load of laundry in a sink with no plug and only a limited supply of cold water.
OMG , I almost forgot – the Chelsea shirt!! Did you see the photo from the cow dance night? He is still operating under the illusion that Chelsea are actually popular here. He seems to think that ‘more popular than in Ireland’ is the same thing as ‘popular’! Chelsea are more popular EVERYWHERE than in Ireland but what does that mean? Anyway, I’m not sure I know him well enough yet to admit my own personal allegiance to Manchester United so we’ll keep that under wraps for the moment (and no emailing him to tell or adding comments to this blog!!!).
Anyway, I’m not sure I’m going to get the opportunity to write an entire blog entry of my own again but I’ll try and sneak in a few comments of my own into the entries after he has written them – someone has to try and maintain a sense of proportion. After all, isn’t that why you sent me, girls?
PS: If Isabelle Duff is reading this, thanks for calling me Alfred (a noble distinguished name of royal ancestry). I can’t bear to tell you what he was thinking of calling me!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday 14th: Day Eight in Rwanda
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
Still room for five more on the bus!
Bruce Upton, me and George (George is the one I have challenged to a cookery competition and Bruce is the one with the fantastic blog I mentioned earlier).
Avocados - though they are harder to make out than I expected.
Ivana, Tinks and Tina
Hayley telling us she is really a sunflower and that is why bees are attracted to her!
Meanwhile Chelsea thrashed Man City - more good news!!!
.............................
OK – that seemed to go OK (you be the judge). Not sure the avocados are very clear but I might take some more pictures. Stayed two hours in the Internet cafe as the download speeds are really slow and there was a power cut at the end (I only had three minutes left anyway). The only problem is that the dictionary I downloaded still doesn’t work! I managed to get it loaded onto the Palm pilot this time but the machine crashes every time I turn on the programme. Ah well, maybe I’ll just have to get a new one altogether.
Most of the volunteers who went into the market have stayed in town for a dance and drama display commemmorating the genocide but I really don’t feel like heading in! Only about seven of us here for dinner – Berthe, Suzanne and her partner, Danielle, Andy, Tom and me - but it was really nice. I told Danielle that in Irish the words for ‘rat’ and ‘French’ are the same – she said she had often been called a frog before but never a rat (this all started when one of our Quebec friends used the phrase c’est vache! which none of us had ever heard before leading to a general discussion of phrases with animals in them). We also discussed the throwing the cow from the battlements scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the possibility of doing the dead parrot sketch in Kinyarwandan.
Then I went back to the verandah outside my room and played the flute and tin whistle for a while (well, tried to play the flute – it’s taking me a while to get the breath control right so it was mostly tin whistle). Not sure if I mentioned that before, actually: I bought a feadóg mór on eBay just before I left and have it with me. It’s made of African blackwood and was made by Walt Sweet in the USA. One of my ambitions is to have figured out how to play it tolerably well by the time I get back!
The others got back late and had had a wonderful time – the drama and dance display was fantastic and the group is off to tour the UK shortly: not to be missed. I will post details of the tour for my UK friends and there is a possibility they might visit Belfast. Kind of sorry I missed it but in the next two years I will have plenty of opportunity.
Full moon tonight and the end of Ramadan – lots of chanting, singing and prayers in the distance. Free day tomorrow because of the elections!! Yippeee!!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
Up early and ready at nine for motorbike training. At half nine we were told that the first session would be motorcycle maintenance etc but that no one had brought a bike to demonstrate this on! So we eventually started at 10:30 and it was semi-interesting for someone like me who knows absolutely nothing about motorbikes – how to change gear, how to start, where the spark plug is and how to change it and so on. Then the volunteers who had had training had a trial spin for observation and I went along to watch. I promised not to bring a camera, which was a pity as there was a cricket match going on where we were practising – one team in yellow who all looked Indian who were beating the crap out of a mainly if not totally Rwandan team. It was quite interesting watching Amy, Tom, Andy and Heloïse practising and all the various things the instructor said to them. At the same time, that doesn’t mean this is for me. It’s very tempting and would give me a little more independence but it reminds me a little of when I read a book on how to swim thinking that that was all I needed to do! So, softly softly!!
Got back for lunch and then Jane said she was bringing people on an excursion to the market which is an hour’s walk. It is incredibly hot today so I cried off (I’m not sure everyone figured out that an hour’s walk there is an hour’s walk back!) and anyway it’s over 34 degrees today. Much better to stay here and type and then head off to the Internet cafe.
I’m also going to try and load some pictures – I will need to reduce the resolution so let me know if they are too small or indistinct (there is a comment button at the bottom of each blog entry). Do check out the photos of the avocados – as big as melons!!!
The 'cow-dance'
Still room for five more on the bus!
Bruce Upton, me and George (George is the one I have challenged to a cookery competition and Bruce is the one with the fantastic blog I mentioned earlier).
Avocados - though they are harder to make out than I expected.
Soraya
Ivana, Tinks and Tina
Hayley telling us she is really a sunflower and that is why bees are attracted to her!Meanwhile Chelsea thrashed Man City - more good news!!!
.............................
OK – that seemed to go OK (you be the judge). Not sure the avocados are very clear but I might take some more pictures. Stayed two hours in the Internet cafe as the download speeds are really slow and there was a power cut at the end (I only had three minutes left anyway). The only problem is that the dictionary I downloaded still doesn’t work! I managed to get it loaded onto the Palm pilot this time but the machine crashes every time I turn on the programme. Ah well, maybe I’ll just have to get a new one altogether.
Most of the volunteers who went into the market have stayed in town for a dance and drama display commemmorating the genocide but I really don’t feel like heading in! Only about seven of us here for dinner – Berthe, Suzanne and her partner, Danielle, Andy, Tom and me - but it was really nice. I told Danielle that in Irish the words for ‘rat’ and ‘French’ are the same – she said she had often been called a frog before but never a rat (this all started when one of our Quebec friends used the phrase c’est vache! which none of us had ever heard before leading to a general discussion of phrases with animals in them). We also discussed the throwing the cow from the battlements scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the possibility of doing the dead parrot sketch in Kinyarwandan.
Then I went back to the verandah outside my room and played the flute and tin whistle for a while (well, tried to play the flute – it’s taking me a while to get the breath control right so it was mostly tin whistle). Not sure if I mentioned that before, actually: I bought a feadóg mór on eBay just before I left and have it with me. It’s made of African blackwood and was made by Walt Sweet in the USA. One of my ambitions is to have figured out how to play it tolerably well by the time I get back!
The others got back late and had had a wonderful time – the drama and dance display was fantastic and the group is off to tour the UK shortly: not to be missed. I will post details of the tour for my UK friends and there is a possibility they might visit Belfast. Kind of sorry I missed it but in the next two years I will have plenty of opportunity.
Full moon tonight and the end of Ramadan – lots of chanting, singing and prayers in the distance. Free day tomorrow because of the elections!! Yippeee!!
Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.
Saturday 13th: Day Seven in Rwanda
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.
What a lovely surprise! Due to a ‘scheduling error’, our session for 8:30 – 10:30 has been cancelled and we are free until 11:00. I typed up all my Kinyarwandan notes so far and stuck them on my Palm pilot so I can carry my vocab around with me. My only bugbear is that the French-English-French Dictionary I also got for the Palm still won’t work. My brother emailed me a copy but whatever way I am installing it (or maybe I changed the file name incorrectly) it won’t work. Not to worry, Palm allow you to go back and download replacement copies free of charge – good customer service. I actually initially downloaded the wrong version anyway (Windows instead of Palm) and they credited my account with the full amount so I could actually buy the correct one.
Time for a shower and change and then off to the big event – a dinner for ALL VSO people – new volunteers, existing volunteers, office and programme staff. It was a really great night with some absolutely fabulous traditional dancing (pictures are coming, I promise). I met some really nice people, including an Indian volunteer named George who is based up in the north and whom I have challenged to a cooking competition, time and venue still to be decided. I also met Hester, Chris, Beate, Mans and Han, Emilienne, all the people I had already met and a few whose names I am afraid have escaped me for the moment. Then we walked back and headed for a nearby bar, which I left around midnight with Joe and Tinks but most others were still there so I have no idea when they got back.
Anyway, it is now Sunday morning as I am writing this (8.47 a.m.) and I am being collected at nine for my first ever go at motorcycle training. Tomorrow’s blog will have the low-down on this and also what Sunday in Rwanda is like (there may even be some pictures!!).
Friday, September 12, 2008
Friday 12th: Day Six in Rwanda
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.
The Internet café last night was quite good – only RWF200 (20c) for half an hour which even on a Rwandan salary (or, at least, my Rwandan salary) isn’t bad. I figured out that you probably need to multiply Rwandan prices by about 25-30 to get an accurate reflection of what the price would be in British or Irish terms. So my half hour would be €5-€6, not actually such amazing value after all! However, the machines didn’t have any word processing programmes so all my carefully typed blogs came up in plain text with no italics, paragraph breaks etc so it took me the whole half hour but to post the blog! So a quick thank you to everyone who sent messages and especially to the additional people who donated to my fundraising effort – I will reply to you all personally at the earliest opportunity!
Once Tinks and I had finished (that’s Tinks, my housemate – as we have two Tinas in the group, she has now become known as Tinks) we decided to drop into the nearby bar to see if there was anyone there and sure enough there was. Three of the YfD female volunteers were being chatted up by three local (and very handsome) Rwandan men and there was another group of three volunteers in the corner whom we joined. Had another Mutzig and then an absolutely hilarious time paying the bill: the unfortunate girl behind the counter was literally reduced to tears of laughter at our attempts to pay the bill and count out the money in Kinyarwandan.
However, easily the high point of the trip to the pub was the three ladies’ visit to the toilet. I shall refrain from naming them to save their blushes, because that also allows me to go into specific detail about what happened. The three of them set off together, along with my wind-up torch but two returned almost immediately, saying the combination of the incredible smell and four giant cockroaches on the ground in front of the loo had scared them off. Intrepid Lady Three returned shortly after, in hysterics of laughter (having had to come out through the audience that had gathered outside to see what happened when the muzungu went to the loo). She had been too desperate to pee to come back, so she stepped over the cockroaches and, while ‘going’, managed to pee on them at the same time and keep them away! Eventually, Intrepid Lady One decided that her only option (rather than going back to the guesthouse) was to brave the dangers and Intrepid Lady Two decided ‘What the hell’ and followed her, again with my torch. Intrepid Lady Three was the first to enter the latrine (basically a hole in the ground with something to sit on, like a branch, I think – actually I have to check that detail out). She asked Intrepid Lady (IL)2 to hold the door open and stand guard because she was terrified of the door closing and getting locked in! She found that shining the torch on the cockroaches seemed to annoy them so while she was there she shone the light backwards and forwards on her two feet to keep them away. IL2 then went and sat there while shouting out (and this is a very respectable, well-spoken lady we are talking about): ‘WHAT THE F*** AM I DOING HERE? WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING OF?’ and so on.
I then told them a story about a VSO volunteer some time ago (which I think is true) who went out at night to use a latrine and sat on the wooden pole/branch/whatever without realising that termites had been at work. She fell straight down into the latrine and, because it was quite steep, she couldn’t get out and remained there until morning until someone came along and rescued her. Just as well I hadn’t told them that story before they went. (Oh, and while we are on the subject, ‘Hurray for exterior genitalia!’).
And last night it rained! Instant coolness ... and then the ‘Phwat’, ‘Phwat’, Phwat’ sound of water dripping onto something in the bedroom! Got out of bed to check – it was our two laptops which were sitting together by the (now wet) socket recharging! Luckily Joe had put a newspaper on top so the noise was quite loud when the drip hit and the laptops hadn’t had time to get wet. I then found it hard to get back to sleep – thoughts full of what the employer was going to be like, would I be able to understand any of his French, how the meeting would go etc.
Woke up to a damp but somewhat cooler Kigali. I had actually intended getting up at 6.30 and going down to the Internet café for 7.00 when they opened but the nocturnal adventure had dampened my ardour. Breakfast and then ready to meet the employers!! They drifted in one by one and there was no obvious way of finding out who was who. One man came up to me and introduced himself (in French) as François and said he was from Gisagara. Ah-ha, I responded, I also am going to work in Gisagara, what luck. To cut a very long story short, he seems to be an extraordinarily nice man, aged about 40 or so (I told him I had done my first teaching in 1977 and he said he would only have been seven at the time), secondary school teacher of African languages and literature though he has also taught English at some stage (I could understand his French quite well but not all of it and he was very soft-spoken, so as the room filled up it became quite difficult!). At this stage the heavens opened and an almighty deluge descended (though, to be honest, nothing quite as bad as we had in Ireland during parts of the so-called summer). The fact that almost every building has a tin roof makes even light rain an exciting experience!
I won’t bore you with all the details of the day-long workshop – it was about the whole process of VSO placing people and making sure everyone was on the same wavelength. It was very instructive watching a truly bilingual meeting take place – we had a superb translator called Steve who did a wonderful job. I tried to avoid speaking any English at all and found it surprisingly easy both to understand and speak in French. Having everything either said in French first and then translated or vice versa was a great way to learn and I was writing down useful phrases furiously all through the workshop; I also managed to introduce myself in Kinyarwandan, at least partly, and the rest in French! In case you are interested Mwaramutseho! Nitwa Ruairí, komoka muri Irilande.
François was a mine of information: told us all about our house, our office (10 computers connected to the Internet), our colleague (there are only François and Alexis, so we will effectively double the staff in the District Education Office), water, electricity, travel, and so on. He is coming back on the night of the 17th with a pickup truck and he’ll bring us down to Gisagara on the 18th. I cannot find the word to tell you all how relieved I was after meeting him. If there was one thing I was really worried about (apart from my French, and I feel a lot better about that now than I did before) it was not really having the faintest idea how the work and placement were going to work out. Many other volunteers had similarly positive experiences and I think we are generally a much happier and less nervous bunch than we were 24 hours ago.
Another interesting event: the sudden downpour caused a mass eruption of giant flying ants. They came pouring out of the lawns and verges all around the guesthouse in their thousands. Quite a sight. I got a few pictures so maybe I will post them at some stage. Also wonderful birdsong this evening – Alain next door is recording it so I am allowed to type but not make any noise!!!
Soon it will be supper and then off to the Internet café to post this and answer some emails. Wow – more amazing birdsong; was never much of a birdwatcher but I might just get converted!!! Oh, yes, I had my first goat brochette today (very very tasty) and something I was sure was fafafel or something like it but I was assured by one of the Rwandans attending was some form of viande hâché. Well, eat first, ask questions later!! As Muslim call to prayer rings out that is probably a good time to finish for tonight. Murabeho!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Thursday 11th: Day Five in Rwanda
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.
Slept better last night and woke up more refreshed – but another blistering hot day in store, by the look of it. People are beginning to hoard water for fear of running out and I am starting to get those distant in the back of your head headaches than mean I am not drinking enough.
Today we started by heading off to the British Embassy to get registered. Every VSO volunteer registers with some embassy or other for consular protection, though the British Embassy will look after all VSO volunteers if necessary in case of an emergency. So we had people heading to the Belgian, German, Canadian and British Embassies. The British Embassy was fine and efficient: the Belgian Embassy lived up to its country’s reputation for inefficiency and buraeucracy to the extent that Daniele had to go away with all the forms they asked her to fill and arrange to come back another day. They even wanted her to draw a map of the place she would be working in (which she, of course, has never yet visited!) so they could find her if need be. Then we all came back to the guesthouse for the next instalment of Kinyarwanda.
Numbers: today was solid numbers. We got up to a thousand and beyond today with a new teacher – poor Emmanuel has had some sort of accident but nothing too serious so the two classes were combined today and Stretton was our teacher (not sure how to spell that). It was good because numbers is something we really will need on a day-to-day basis – haggling in the market, setting taxi fare prices and so on. Numbers are quite long! To give just one example Ibihumbi icyenda na magana atandatu na mirongwine na gatandatu is the Rwandan for 9,646. Also, as in Irish, all numbers change if they are attached to a noun (OK – not all Irish numbers do). Kabiri is 2 but 200 is Magana abiri. Anyway, a really useful lesson and one we were able to put to use immediately.
After class we had lunch before heading off for our tour of downtown Kigali. We headed off in two separate groups: our group was led by Jane and Soraya – both serving volunteers. We all packed into a local bus (to the great amusement of the locals already on board) and headed off for the centre. The fare was RWF170 each, just so you know. The bus dropped us in the centre of town (I will have pictures of buses for you later – they are not what we think of as buses at home; just imagine a small minibus with twenty people crammed into it). We piled out at the centre (ALL buses stop in the same place – utter chaos though everyone seems quite good-natured about it) and headed off for our tour. I won’t go into the details of all the shops etc but there are places – especially the new Kenyan supermarket (the only place known to take credit cards) – that are easily more expensive for stuff than Dublin. Basically, anything produced in Rwanda will be cheap. Stuff from Kenya or Uganda or Tanzania will be OK but more expensive. Anything else has to be flown in or trucked in from Nairobi or Mombasa and is therefore more expensive than at home. Bags of pasta 500g were RWF2000 (€2) which would be about 50c if you get the Tesco ownbrand stuff. Anyway, we got a great feel for central Kigali, though no sense of location or shape of the city. People were friendly if a little curious. There were some people begging for money, extremely politely, and people selling stuff (maps, jewellery, clothes, cloth and so on) but again not too pushy or aggressive, very good natured. People generally are like this, though Rwandans have warned me that in rural areas where they are unused to muzungu the degree of curiousity and inquisitiveness can be quite overwhelming.
We all met up in the Karibo restaurant where I reaffirmed my belief that Mutzig (umlaut on the u) is the superior beer (thank you VSO for standing us the drink). Then on to the Polyclinic where a doctor gave us a thirty minute talk on the Rwandan health system, diseases and so forth to watch out for, AIDS prevention and an outline of the current state in Rwanda (which, by the way, is pretty astonishing: the rate is down from 13% to 3.5% in a 10-15 year period. They actually went back and retested and rechecked because they thought the figures couldn’t be right, but they seem to be). It was a brilliant talk, mostly because it was all in French and I could understand it all!! WHEEEEEEEEEEE! I also asked loads of (mostly stupid) questions just to see if I could do it without making him laugh. HE didn’t, so I hope that means it was OK!!!
Then back to the guesthouse, supper (food is getting on people’s nerves: it is good but it is always the same: coleslaw, beetroot salad, peas, beans, rice, mashed potates, fried fish and a meat casserole thingy which I haven’t had the courage to try yet. Now I am frantically typing this out before heading to the Internet cafe and load stuff up for the first time.
OBSERVATION ONE: for some reason I can send texts abroad but cannot receive them. Apologies to all those who received texts from me saying ‘Please text me back’!! Will keep you posted on this. I may also send people texts from my old Meteor account. This is still active so I can send textx from the website but you cannot text me back!!
OBSERVATION TWO: I am making some fantastic new friends here – Slovak, Canadian, Irish, English, Philippines: I met Soraya today who has been here since January. She has had a terrible time – sent to a very isolated village in the mountains which was 2 hours just from a main road, let alone a town. She had little or no backup, she got typhoid and cerebral malaria but survived both (gave us a graphic description of just going suddenly blind in class and having to feel her way back to the staffroom to get help) and is now very happy in Gitarama. She is massively interested in cooking and we are already planning meetings for recipe exchanges and cook-ins! She also warned me that garlic is not used in Rwandan cooking(NOOOOOOOOOO!) but you can find it in some markets. Best thing is to buy a head and plant the cloves and let them grow!!!
Tomorrow we meet our employers for the first time – moment of truth. The secret is to be confident and not to be afraid to stand up for yourself. Here’s hoping.
And, I forgot, the motorbike saga. Charlotte has assured me that there is no way anyone is going to be made to ride a motorbike if they don’t want to but they wanted us to try it out because, if a bike became available later in the placement and we felt we wanted to take the opportunity, we would at least have a better idea. Anyway, I will give it a try on Sunday and see how it goes but I am still a bit dubious, though it would give me a huge amount of extra independence and freedom!
As I post this, this has been the first time I have been able to post anything! Hope to get it sorted out and get some pictures sent off too!! You need to be able to put some faces to these names!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Wednesday 10th: Day Four in Rwanda
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.
As a write this, I can hear the blaring sounds, music and cheering of two separate political rallies on either side of our compound. The election must be hotting up!
Woke up not too much the worse for wear though it was very hot last night and very close. My roommate hardly slept at all (and I don’t think my snoring was responsible for more than a small part of it) and quite a few people had headaches waking up (so it wasn’t the red wine in the restaurant either). Had great fun telling everyone about the ambassador and my ex-pupil! Met with Joe and Tina to have a chat about the motor cycle situation and none of us are happy with it, so I will contact someone later today – Charlotte probably – and let her know. I also found out later that it wouldn’t be a small moped but a Yamaha 125cc or more so, for someone has only been on a motorbike twice in his life – and that as a pillion passenger – it’s not really an option.
After breakfast (Nescafé, omelette and bread) we had a session with two existing volunteers, Bruce and Els, who briefed us on what we can expect from our placements over the next year or two, warts and all. It was really good and Bruce left us in no doubt as to some of the difficulties we can expect to encounter – bits of it were quite scary, actually. However, he also talked about strategies for coping with difficulties, negotiating with employers, keeping your spirits up and so on. It was good because we knew if there was anything else depressing or bad he would have told us, so we feel we have the full picture, unvarnished and accurate. He also did a special presentation to the education volunteers on specific aspects of the education system with lots of photographs, which was extremely useful and quite depressing – the conditions of some of these schools is quite awful. He also said that if any of us either have brought money with us or are contemplating funding some projects here, building a secure water supply for a school is a huge asset: many schools have to send pupils to fetch all their water in jerrycans, often from polluted and infected sources, every day. In some schools 20-30% of the pupils are sick every day because of the water in their own school. For £1,500 you can build a secure tank facility for trapping and storing rainwater for an entire school (pictures will follow).
He then also showed us some pictures of different and extraordinarily beautiful parts of Rwanda, including some astonishing shots of gorillas, to remind us that we are, in his words, in the most beautiful land on earth. So it’s not all doom and gloom!!!
Then it was back to Kinyarwandan. North, South, East, West, left, right, forward, back, jump, walk, stop. Imperatives (singular and plural, just like Irish), and numbers up to 50. Then a riotous game of bingo in which Hayley became absolutely hysterical with laughter as Bingomaster – it was great fun. Our teacher, Emmanuel, is absolutely superb. He actually comes from the same district as I will be living in and told me a little bit about it (in English, I hasten to add!). However, we are galloping through lots of stuff every day so retaining it is going to be a problem. The words are just so bloody long and the sounds are quite difficult. North, South, East and West are Amajyaruguru, Amajyepfo, Iburasirazuba and Iburengerazuba (zuba means ‘sun’ so you can probably figure out what those two words translate as). I am also doing my best to speak French to the Canadians but there is a limit to how long they can be expected to cope with my fractured French when they speak perfectly good English and are themselves trying to learn Kinyarwandan. Ah well, courage!
Finally we had a session on the Volunteer Committee and Furniture & Logistics. The VOLCOM is the official group that meets with VSO Programme Office on behalf of volunteers and they are looking for volunteers to sit on it. Most of the existing members seem to be male, Education and from the south (which is also me) so I don’t expect I’ll be needed. Enias and Lydia then told us about furniture – this basically is to let us know what the minimum is that will be in each of our houses when we get there: a bed, kerosene cooker, kerosene lamp, water filter, 2 chairs, a big table, a small table, a cupboard, a bookshelf, two armchairs with cushions, two ‘thingies’ to hang clothes on (some kind of a hooks-on-the-wall arrangement) and a mosquito net. Anything else we buy out of our equipment grant. Enias was enormously cheerful about it all – it must be quite a job for him getting all this stuff delivered to every corner of this country!!
And so we finished at 1700 and we are free for the rest of the evening! Maybe I will actually get to the Internet cafe and get all this stuff uploaded!! Oh yes, had a scare with a virus earlier. Some volunteers downloaded files from Bruce’s computer – he warned us in no uncertain terms to check for viruses as Rwanda is riddled with them and, sure enough, when I borrowed one of the flash drives to download the files, it was infected as were two others. However, my McAfee killed them and also took care of the viruses on the other two flash drives, but you need to be really careful and back everything up.
So, the plan for now is a) go to Internet cafe and post all of this so I am not just writing for myself b) send a few more texts as I asked a few people to text back when they got a text and I didn’t get replies, so I don’t know if they got them c) sort out my Kinyarwanda notes d) DO SOME FRENCH!!!
...
Never made it to the Internet cafe – went to a bar instead with a gang of others. Having had Mutzig beer a few days ago, I decidedbto try the other main beer, Primus. It is supposed not to give you as bad a hangover as Mutzig but it is very gassy and doesn’t taste as nice, though it is cheaper. I’ll be sticking to the mutzig from now on. There were about ten of us in all, including Bruce Upton about whom you have heard earlier and it was very pleasant and informative – Bruce is a mine of information. Home and bed!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
As a write this, I can hear the blaring sounds, music and cheering of two separate political rallies on either side of our compound. The election must be hotting up!
Woke up not too much the worse for wear though it was very hot last night and very close. My roommate hardly slept at all (and I don’t think my snoring was responsible for more than a small part of it) and quite a few people had headaches waking up (so it wasn’t the red wine in the restaurant either). Had great fun telling everyone about the ambassador and my ex-pupil! Met with Joe and Tina to have a chat about the motor cycle situation and none of us are happy with it, so I will contact someone later today – Charlotte probably – and let her know. I also found out later that it wouldn’t be a small moped but a Yamaha 125cc or more so, for someone has only been on a motorbike twice in his life – and that as a pillion passenger – it’s not really an option.
After breakfast (Nescafé, omelette and bread) we had a session with two existing volunteers, Bruce and Els, who briefed us on what we can expect from our placements over the next year or two, warts and all. It was really good and Bruce left us in no doubt as to some of the difficulties we can expect to encounter – bits of it were quite scary, actually. However, he also talked about strategies for coping with difficulties, negotiating with employers, keeping your spirits up and so on. It was good because we knew if there was anything else depressing or bad he would have told us, so we feel we have the full picture, unvarnished and accurate. He also did a special presentation to the education volunteers on specific aspects of the education system with lots of photographs, which was extremely useful and quite depressing – the conditions of some of these schools is quite awful. He also said that if any of us either have brought money with us or are contemplating funding some projects here, building a secure water supply for a school is a huge asset: many schools have to send pupils to fetch all their water in jerrycans, often from polluted and infected sources, every day. In some schools 20-30% of the pupils are sick every day because of the water in their own school. For £1,500 you can build a secure tank facility for trapping and storing rainwater for an entire school (pictures will follow).
He then also showed us some pictures of different and extraordinarily beautiful parts of Rwanda, including some astonishing shots of gorillas, to remind us that we are, in his words, in the most beautiful land on earth. So it’s not all doom and gloom!!!
Then it was back to Kinyarwandan. North, South, East, West, left, right, forward, back, jump, walk, stop. Imperatives (singular and plural, just like Irish), and numbers up to 50. Then a riotous game of bingo in which Hayley became absolutely hysterical with laughter as Bingomaster – it was great fun. Our teacher, Emmanuel, is absolutely superb. He actually comes from the same district as I will be living in and told me a little bit about it (in English, I hasten to add!). However, we are galloping through lots of stuff every day so retaining it is going to be a problem. The words are just so bloody long and the sounds are quite difficult. North, South, East and West are Amajyaruguru, Amajyepfo, Iburasirazuba and Iburengerazuba (zuba means ‘sun’ so you can probably figure out what those two words translate as). I am also doing my best to speak French to the Canadians but there is a limit to how long they can be expected to cope with my fractured French when they speak perfectly good English and are themselves trying to learn Kinyarwandan. Ah well, courage!
Finally we had a session on the Volunteer Committee and Furniture & Logistics. The VOLCOM is the official group that meets with VSO Programme Office on behalf of volunteers and they are looking for volunteers to sit on it. Most of the existing members seem to be male, Education and from the south (which is also me) so I don’t expect I’ll be needed. Enias and Lydia then told us about furniture – this basically is to let us know what the minimum is that will be in each of our houses when we get there: a bed, kerosene cooker, kerosene lamp, water filter, 2 chairs, a big table, a small table, a cupboard, a bookshelf, two armchairs with cushions, two ‘thingies’ to hang clothes on (some kind of a hooks-on-the-wall arrangement) and a mosquito net. Anything else we buy out of our equipment grant. Enias was enormously cheerful about it all – it must be quite a job for him getting all this stuff delivered to every corner of this country!!
And so we finished at 1700 and we are free for the rest of the evening! Maybe I will actually get to the Internet cafe and get all this stuff uploaded!! Oh yes, had a scare with a virus earlier. Some volunteers downloaded files from Bruce’s computer – he warned us in no uncertain terms to check for viruses as Rwanda is riddled with them and, sure enough, when I borrowed one of the flash drives to download the files, it was infected as were two others. However, my McAfee killed them and also took care of the viruses on the other two flash drives, but you need to be really careful and back everything up.
So, the plan for now is a) go to Internet cafe and post all of this so I am not just writing for myself b) send a few more texts as I asked a few people to text back when they got a text and I didn’t get replies, so I don’t know if they got them c) sort out my Kinyarwanda notes d) DO SOME FRENCH!!!
...
Never made it to the Internet cafe – went to a bar instead with a gang of others. Having had Mutzig beer a few days ago, I decidedbto try the other main beer, Primus. It is supposed not to give you as bad a hangover as Mutzig but it is very gassy and doesn’t taste as nice, though it is cheaper. I’ll be sticking to the mutzig from now on. There were about ten of us in all, including Bruce Upton about whom you have heard earlier and it was very pleasant and informative – Bruce is a mine of information. Home and bed!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Tuesday 9th September: Day Three in Rwanda
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.
Another good night’s sleep though it was noticeably harder to get up this morning! Tried to have a light breakfast as I realise I am eating an awful lot as we seem to get offered food constantly through the day. More salads and fruit on offer now, which is good. This morning Tina and I had a discussion with my Programme Officer about our placement in Gisagara. It wasn’t very specific as VSO hasn’t had a presence here before and the District Education Officer has only recently been appointed. On the good side, we will be working in the District Government Offices, where the Mayor and 35 Local Government Staff are located – it is even possible that the office has (dare I say it) a wireless internet connection!! However, I refuse to get excited as theory and practice often diverge significantly here. A huge amount is going to depend on the individual officer we will be working for – things like working hours, holidays and so on all have to be negotiated on an individual basis. In theory I am only entitled to three working weeks’ holiday a year (plus various national holidays etc) which means anyone visiting me is going to have to co-ordinate really carefully if they want to actually see me while they are here.
Gisagara itself is more of a village than a town but is not far from Butare. However (and this is the part that really pisses me off) it now looks as if I may need to ride a motorbike after all. I had asked about this early on and could have done the training in Ireland or England but was assured that I would not need to. Now I will have to do it all (somehow) here in Rwanda. The plan is that I will do some training but not get a bike for the first few months to see if it is possible to survive without one but, if it does prove necessary, I may as well have started the training as soon as possible. Very frustrating – I can see why a bike would make life a lot easier for me but cannot for the life of me see why this wasn’t apparent from the beginning. Anyway, a lot of the job will be wait and see when we get there, but it’s going to be interesting!!
Each side of lunch we had our first formal Kinyarwanda classes. So far we have just covered basic greetings and a few other phrases and it is REALLY DIFFICULT! There are a large number of variations depending on whether a superior is speaking to an inferior or vice versa or both are of equal status, in which case they can opt for either the formal or informal versions. Just one example:
Mwaramutse(ho) – Hello to a superior or formally to an equal
Waramutse(ho) – hello to an inferior or informally to an equal
Mwaramutse(ho) namwe – reply to a superior or to an equal who addressed you with the ‘Mwa-‘ form
Waramutse(ho) nawe – reply to an inferior (even if they used the ‘Mwa-‘ form), or to an equal who addressed you with the (Wa-‘ form)
The ‘ho’ is added in occasionally for reasons I don’t quite understand, possibly when addressing the elderly as a mark of respect (will check this out).
This formal/informal thing is all over the place. If you ask someone casually what their name is it’s Witwa nde? but ask someone important and it’s Mwita bande (the answers are Nitwa or Twitwa respectively)?
Interestingly, Mwaramutseho (the usual greeting for ‘Good Morning’ actually translates as ‘Are you still alive?’ as in ‘You didn’t die during the night?’. Many of the Kinyarwandan greetings focus on being glad the other is alive or hoping they will continue to be so in the future!
‘Ireland’ to my relief is Irilande in Kinyarwandan. My unfortunate English colleagues have to reply to the question Ukomoka he? with Nkomoka muri Ubwongereza whereas I get away with Nkomoka muri Irlande (and Ubwongereza is even harder to pronounce than it looks!). We practised over and over and over again, in pairs in front of everyone else, adding in little extras like Amakuru ki? Ni meza (How’s it going? Fine) and Ugiye he? Ngiye ... (Where are you going? I am going to....) which introduced us to the wonderful world of prepositions. Ngiye i Kigali (placename), ngiye ku isoko (I am going to the market – an openair place), ngiye mu ivuriro (I am going into hospital – a place you have to enter) or you can just stick on an infinitive ngiye kwigisha (I am going to teach).
All that finished at four and I have now finished typing at 1724. The ambassador’s car is collecting us at 1800 so I had better shower and change!
.....
OK, so it wasn’t a car – one of the other volunteers - Cathy Devine - turned up and we got a taxi. Cathy was in great form given she had just been diagnosed with amoebas. We had heard so much about this Indian restaurant – other volunteers said it was the best restaurant in Kigali and people only went there on really special occasions. The ambassador turned up around 7.15 and we sat down and ordered. The food didn’t arrive until around nine! Apparently the manager resigned recently and the new guy is obviously going to need a while to get his hand in! However, once it arrived the food was really good and the wine was nice too – wine is an incredible luxury here, more expensive than in Ireland. In fact the prices in the restaurant were pretty much Irish standard - €5-6 for starters, €10-15 for main courses, €25-30 and up for wine. One bottle of wine here would cost me 20% of my monthly salary!
Anyway, it was a really great – and surprising – night! I ended up sitting beside the ambassador, Kevin Kelly. Kevin used to be head of Trocaire in Rwanda many years ago and then worked for Save the Children but then made the unheard-of transition into an ambassadorship! As we talked (and I can’t remember exactly how this happened) he mentioned something about his wife, either her surname or the school she went to. Anyway, I said: ‘You don’t mean Pamela Uwakwe, do you?’ You could have knocked the poor man down with a feather!! I taught Pamela (or at least she was in Rathdown School if not necessarily in any of my classes, I can’t remember exactly) 1983-1986 – her parents were from Nigeria and Longford. What a small word!!! Anyway, we had a great chat and he said I should come over to Kampala some time and see the place – and Pamela!
Overall it was a great night. There was some discussion of how Kampala had had such a spectacular St Patrick’s Day celebration this year while there was no official such celebration in Kigali, so we set up an impromptu Rwanda St Patrick’s Day Celebration Committee on the spot (I seem to be one of the Cultural Attachées) – this might actually turn into something that is actually going to happen – watch this space.
Because the food was so late, we got back to the guesthouse after eleven and everything was closed up. We banged on the gate again and again (well, actually, Sonya did) but to no avail. So Sonya rang the number on the guesthouse sign and woke up the owner to get someone sent out to rescue us. A few minutes (and one more phone call later) some guy turned up, let us in with a smile, and proceeded to tear strips off the poor unfortunate guard who had fallen asleep somewhere! And so to bed (my roommate had kindly left a night light on for me so I could find my way around – thanks Joe).
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Monday 8th September: Day Two in Rwanda
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.
Slept for nine hours straight (except for ten minutes around six a.m. when I awoke to the most marvellous birdsong outside my window). Other volunteers were woken at six-thirty by the sound of the kitchen staff singing and chanting as they started their work. The other side of the guesthouse woke at five when the Muslim call to prayer sounded out, but I didn’t hear that on my side, just the birds!!
Started the day with a scalding hot shower (no cold water, only hot) and then breakfast (tea, coffee, bread, omelette, nut & chocolate spread on offer) and then we began our Introduction to Rwanda course. We covered a wide range of topics: the country director, Mike Silvey, took us over some basic ground rules, especially on security issues (we have all been issued with new Rwandan SIM cards and phone numbers) – no travel outside the country without telling VSO, no travelling into Burundi or Congo at all, political factors and sensitivities (we are in the middle of a general election at the moment) and a whole load of other stuff. Our reception with the British ambassador is next week instead of this week. Interestingly, in the event of any civil unrest etc, the British embassy will look after all VSO volunteers, regardless of their nationality, which is nice!
First we had a visit to the VSO Programme Office. Quite a lot bigger than I expected, though when you consider how many volunteers VSO has here I shouldn’t have been surprised. We were divided into groups and given a set of questions for which we had to find the answers: this meant exploring the entire building and finding out what each person does to see if they could answer our question! This was good fun, actually, even if we kind of groaned at first at the thought of another typical VSO-type activity. We certainly got to meet all the staff - Amanda, Emilienne, Josiette, Ruth, Amina, Rachel, Jean-Claude, Tharcisse, Shalika, Charlotte, Flavia, Lydia and Enias (think that’s everyone). You’ll be hearing more about some of them later, I’m sure. We had some nice snacks (I am developing a taste for maracuja juice) and then back to the guesthouse.
Even though we had just had snacks, we then had lunch (more on the food later). Then there was a long session on Finance. We are paid an allowance of RWF150,000 per month (€1 = RWF859, so that’s about €175) and VSO also pays for our accommodation. We get an equipment grant of RWF100,000 (€116) to buy our household supplies (the accommodation comes with basic furniture, a kerosene stove, mosquito nets and a water filter but nothing else so you have to buy all your kitchen stuff, bed linen and so on) and some of us have travel allowances (mine is RWF40,000 per month – you can do the Maths from now on!) for hiring motorbike taxis etc. All expenses relating to specific VSO work is also reclaimable. Just to give you an idea, the average secondary school teacher in Rwanda earns around RWF50,000 – 60, 000 (€58-70) per month, one third of what we get.
There was also a lot on how to open bank accounts, change money, visas and identity cards and so on. Rwanda is an incredibly bureaucratic country – one person described it to be as "combining the worst aspects of French and Belgian bureaucracy" which – for anyone who knows either of those countries, is quite a claim!! Oh, and queuing is a relatively new concept here, though some of the larger banks have introduced those automatic ticket machines which has helped!
The final session was on ‘Culture’ – the dos and don’ts of living in Rwanda. The three presenters – Jane (UK), Paula (Enniskillen) and Lydia (Rwanda) pointed out that they had not typed out the briefing document and that they disagreed with some of the things it said! It was funny, because a few months ago in an International Relations class I was teaching in Transition Year in Rathdown School I had the students researching what one would need to know about moving to another country – Olivia, if you are reading this, well done, you were bang on about Rwanda!! Some of the more interesting things: never eat or smoke in public, be careful where you smoke (smoking is relatively rare here anyway, especially outside the capital, mostly because it is too expensive); always greet people – hwhen you arrive at work, you go around and greet EVERYONE individually, every day! People will often keep hold of your hand after a handshake and not let go until they have finished talking to you; women should never whistle; public displays of affection between two male friends or two female friends are fine and common, but never between a man and a woman; people will often take your personal possessions without asking to examine them and then return them (Rwandan people tend to share things and don’t have the same idea of MY stuff as westerners have); always dress smartly for work; avoid talking about politics, the President, the genocide and similar sensitive topics; never use the phrases Tutsi or Hutu – there are only Rwandans now.
Then there was an hour to suppertime – eight of the volunteers walked up to a local pub (all women volunteers actually). I got started on this blog update on my laptop though I am not sure when I will get to an Intenet cafe to upload it! Then – big surprise. The Irish ambassador in Uganda texted to say he was flying in tomorrow and was taking all the Irish volunteers out to dinner tomorrow evening (preceded by a few drinks)! Cool, though I felt a little guilty that the others won’t be coming, especially as the British Embassy is so kind as to take us all under its wing. I gather we will be invited to a little celebration for the Queen’s birthday later in the year or whenever so I suggested I could toast her health in Irish as a thank you for her patronage – probably the first time that that will ever have been done!!
Then was supper and again some went off to the pub while I settled down with Joe to get out blog entries finished before the memories left us. Gentle rain this evening has cooled things down nicely and Joe showed me and a few others his Powerpoint of his VSO posting in Guyana which was really spectacular (he has one shot of a rainforest sunrise which I must get from him and post here).
OBSERVATIONS: there is a fantastic blog I mentioned in a previous post by a volunteer called Bruce Upton which I highly recommend to all of you. He finishes each entry with a ‘Best Thing about this Day’ and ‘Worst Thing about this Day’ comment which is a really good idea. As I feel I can’t be too much of a copycat (though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Bruce!) I will put an Observation item at the end of posts where I feel I have anything particular to comment upon other than the actual events!
OBSERVATION 1: I am getting a little scared about my French. The area I will be working in is almost devoid of English and, short of learning Kinyarwandan in record time (not really feasible) I will be operating almost completely in French. So, I have asked some of the volunteers (including my roommate Joe) to only speak to me in French from now on. That’ll give me eleven days or so to get up and running, enough to get by for the first few weeks. Apparently, at almost every meeting or whatever I attend for the first few months I will be expected to make a short speech or address on whatever the topic in hand is, or else just about myself. A bit scary but maybe that is the spur is needed. And I can always email Agnès or Héléne for advice!
OBSERVATION 2: food (my favourite topic). We eat so much here! Big buffet things and you can stuff yourself. However, after only two days, I am beginning to recognise that it is the same kind of dishes and foodstuffs recurring but it is really nice. Surprise one is the amount of fish – I had though there wouldn’t be any as Rwanda is so far from the sea but there are lots of lakes and fish is very popular. There are nice vegetable dishes with peas and green beans particularly common, pasta, potatoes (usually chips or mashed), and salads of cucumber and other unidentifiable vegetables, including an incredibly mild sweet white onion which is really nice. You drink water or Fanta (Fanta is a generic word for all soft drinks – ornage, lemon, Coke or Sprite mainly). The guesthouse is ‘dry’ so no alcohol allowed which is probably just as well given our tiredness and the heat.
But one major disappointment: the entire last section of our orientation folder is the VSO RWANDAN COOKBOOK 2008. I had promised various people that I would write the first Rwandan cookbook for VSO volunteers and now I can’t! Mind you, it was just a bit presumptious of me to assume no-one had ever done this before (apparently the first version came out in 2003!). Anyway, to all those to whom I had promised a copy, you will have to make do with the recipes I try and any new ones I come up with!!
OBSERVATION 3: This is a great bunch of people. A good mixture of nationalities and tempraments and (so far at least) we all seem to be getting along. Tina and I seem to be on the same wavelength about lots of things so I think sharing a house is going to be fine. And I am really glad that I am sharing with someone – many of the volunteers are heading off into individual palcements, some in areas where VSO has never operated, which is somewhat intimidating. Having the two of us also makes it a lot cheaper equipping the house as we only need one of everything between us. Plus she has fluent French and plays Scrabble!!! What more could one ask for!!
Slept for nine hours straight (except for ten minutes around six a.m. when I awoke to the most marvellous birdsong outside my window). Other volunteers were woken at six-thirty by the sound of the kitchen staff singing and chanting as they started their work. The other side of the guesthouse woke at five when the Muslim call to prayer sounded out, but I didn’t hear that on my side, just the birds!!
Started the day with a scalding hot shower (no cold water, only hot) and then breakfast (tea, coffee, bread, omelette, nut & chocolate spread on offer) and then we began our Introduction to Rwanda course. We covered a wide range of topics: the country director, Mike Silvey, took us over some basic ground rules, especially on security issues (we have all been issued with new Rwandan SIM cards and phone numbers) – no travel outside the country without telling VSO, no travelling into Burundi or Congo at all, political factors and sensitivities (we are in the middle of a general election at the moment) and a whole load of other stuff. Our reception with the British ambassador is next week instead of this week. Interestingly, in the event of any civil unrest etc, the British embassy will look after all VSO volunteers, regardless of their nationality, which is nice!
First we had a visit to the VSO Programme Office. Quite a lot bigger than I expected, though when you consider how many volunteers VSO has here I shouldn’t have been surprised. We were divided into groups and given a set of questions for which we had to find the answers: this meant exploring the entire building and finding out what each person does to see if they could answer our question! This was good fun, actually, even if we kind of groaned at first at the thought of another typical VSO-type activity. We certainly got to meet all the staff - Amanda, Emilienne, Josiette, Ruth, Amina, Rachel, Jean-Claude, Tharcisse, Shalika, Charlotte, Flavia, Lydia and Enias (think that’s everyone). You’ll be hearing more about some of them later, I’m sure. We had some nice snacks (I am developing a taste for maracuja juice) and then back to the guesthouse.
Even though we had just had snacks, we then had lunch (more on the food later). Then there was a long session on Finance. We are paid an allowance of RWF150,000 per month (€1 = RWF859, so that’s about €175) and VSO also pays for our accommodation. We get an equipment grant of RWF100,000 (€116) to buy our household supplies (the accommodation comes with basic furniture, a kerosene stove, mosquito nets and a water filter but nothing else so you have to buy all your kitchen stuff, bed linen and so on) and some of us have travel allowances (mine is RWF40,000 per month – you can do the Maths from now on!) for hiring motorbike taxis etc. All expenses relating to specific VSO work is also reclaimable. Just to give you an idea, the average secondary school teacher in Rwanda earns around RWF50,000 – 60, 000 (€58-70) per month, one third of what we get.
There was also a lot on how to open bank accounts, change money, visas and identity cards and so on. Rwanda is an incredibly bureaucratic country – one person described it to be as "combining the worst aspects of French and Belgian bureaucracy" which – for anyone who knows either of those countries, is quite a claim!! Oh, and queuing is a relatively new concept here, though some of the larger banks have introduced those automatic ticket machines which has helped!
The final session was on ‘Culture’ – the dos and don’ts of living in Rwanda. The three presenters – Jane (UK), Paula (Enniskillen) and Lydia (Rwanda) pointed out that they had not typed out the briefing document and that they disagreed with some of the things it said! It was funny, because a few months ago in an International Relations class I was teaching in Transition Year in Rathdown School I had the students researching what one would need to know about moving to another country – Olivia, if you are reading this, well done, you were bang on about Rwanda!! Some of the more interesting things: never eat or smoke in public, be careful where you smoke (smoking is relatively rare here anyway, especially outside the capital, mostly because it is too expensive); always greet people – hwhen you arrive at work, you go around and greet EVERYONE individually, every day! People will often keep hold of your hand after a handshake and not let go until they have finished talking to you; women should never whistle; public displays of affection between two male friends or two female friends are fine and common, but never between a man and a woman; people will often take your personal possessions without asking to examine them and then return them (Rwandan people tend to share things and don’t have the same idea of MY stuff as westerners have); always dress smartly for work; avoid talking about politics, the President, the genocide and similar sensitive topics; never use the phrases Tutsi or Hutu – there are only Rwandans now.
Then there was an hour to suppertime – eight of the volunteers walked up to a local pub (all women volunteers actually). I got started on this blog update on my laptop though I am not sure when I will get to an Intenet cafe to upload it! Then – big surprise. The Irish ambassador in Uganda texted to say he was flying in tomorrow and was taking all the Irish volunteers out to dinner tomorrow evening (preceded by a few drinks)! Cool, though I felt a little guilty that the others won’t be coming, especially as the British Embassy is so kind as to take us all under its wing. I gather we will be invited to a little celebration for the Queen’s birthday later in the year or whenever so I suggested I could toast her health in Irish as a thank you for her patronage – probably the first time that that will ever have been done!!
Then was supper and again some went off to the pub while I settled down with Joe to get out blog entries finished before the memories left us. Gentle rain this evening has cooled things down nicely and Joe showed me and a few others his Powerpoint of his VSO posting in Guyana which was really spectacular (he has one shot of a rainforest sunrise which I must get from him and post here).
OBSERVATIONS: there is a fantastic blog I mentioned in a previous post by a volunteer called Bruce Upton which I highly recommend to all of you. He finishes each entry with a ‘Best Thing about this Day’ and ‘Worst Thing about this Day’ comment which is a really good idea. As I feel I can’t be too much of a copycat (though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Bruce!) I will put an Observation item at the end of posts where I feel I have anything particular to comment upon other than the actual events!
OBSERVATION 1: I am getting a little scared about my French. The area I will be working in is almost devoid of English and, short of learning Kinyarwandan in record time (not really feasible) I will be operating almost completely in French. So, I have asked some of the volunteers (including my roommate Joe) to only speak to me in French from now on. That’ll give me eleven days or so to get up and running, enough to get by for the first few weeks. Apparently, at almost every meeting or whatever I attend for the first few months I will be expected to make a short speech or address on whatever the topic in hand is, or else just about myself. A bit scary but maybe that is the spur is needed. And I can always email Agnès or Héléne for advice!
OBSERVATION 2: food (my favourite topic). We eat so much here! Big buffet things and you can stuff yourself. However, after only two days, I am beginning to recognise that it is the same kind of dishes and foodstuffs recurring but it is really nice. Surprise one is the amount of fish – I had though there wouldn’t be any as Rwanda is so far from the sea but there are lots of lakes and fish is very popular. There are nice vegetable dishes with peas and green beans particularly common, pasta, potatoes (usually chips or mashed), and salads of cucumber and other unidentifiable vegetables, including an incredibly mild sweet white onion which is really nice. You drink water or Fanta (Fanta is a generic word for all soft drinks – ornage, lemon, Coke or Sprite mainly). The guesthouse is ‘dry’ so no alcohol allowed which is probably just as well given our tiredness and the heat.
But one major disappointment: the entire last section of our orientation folder is the VSO RWANDAN COOKBOOK 2008. I had promised various people that I would write the first Rwandan cookbook for VSO volunteers and now I can’t! Mind you, it was just a bit presumptious of me to assume no-one had ever done this before (apparently the first version came out in 2003!). Anyway, to all those to whom I had promised a copy, you will have to make do with the recipes I try and any new ones I come up with!!
OBSERVATION 3: This is a great bunch of people. A good mixture of nationalities and tempraments and (so far at least) we all seem to be getting along. Tina and I seem to be on the same wavelength about lots of things so I think sharing a house is going to be fine. And I am really glad that I am sharing with someone – many of the volunteers are heading off into individual palcements, some in areas where VSO has never operated, which is somewhat intimidating. Having the two of us also makes it a lot cheaper equipping the house as we only need one of everything between us. Plus she has fluent French and plays Scrabble!!! What more could one ask for!!
Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th September: Day One in Rwanda
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.
Got up really early and started packing and repacking. My luggage allowance from London is 46kg but only 33kg from Dublin to London, so EVERYTHING heavy has to go in my hand luggage. This makes my backpack 12kg which is heavier than I imagined 12kg would be! I went to the airport with my brother Aindriú and his wife Catherine and my mother Catherine and my nephews Pádraic, Colm and Iain and arrived really early, which was great. Met up with Sonya Fay and Christine Campbell who are the other two Irish VSO volunteers heading out to Rwanda with me. I also got loads and loads of text messages wishing me good luck so apologies to anyone I didn’t get to reply to before I left.
Flight to Heathrow was fine, getting from Heathrow Terminal One to Terminal Three with 46kg of baggage was another thing altogether! However, we managed it and met up with a load of other volunteers, most of whom I had previously contacted through Facebook or email – Tom, Hayley, Heloise, Amy, Andy, Joe (UK), Tina (Germany), Nidhe, Steven, Alain, Susanah, Marjolaine (Canada), Ivana (Slovakia via NY), Danielle (France), Berthe (Netherlands). And Tina Payne, from Sheffield, with whom I will be sharing a house in Gisagara for the next year! The flight to Addis Ababa was eventful enough though I slept through almost all of it. Apparently (so I am told by those who were conscious at the time) we stopped to refuel in Rome and then, when we were about to take off again, they decided there was a technical fault and aborted the takeoff and we spent an extra hour sitting there until the pilot discovered it was actually a faulty bulb that was flashing. Luckily they held our connecting flight in Addis Ababa for us (tough luck on everyone else on the plane who sat for 90 minutes on the runway waiting for us) and then a further 30 minutes delay taking off from there. However, all in all, not so bad and we arrived in Kigali at 1400.
There was a huge reception committee with flowers and greetings and they packed us into buses to bring us to our guesthouse (I mean packed – we really got an introduction to how many people Rwandans figure you can pack into a bus). We dumped our stuff in our rooms and had a quick lunch and then headed off to an Internet café which was just 10 minutes down the road; turned out to be full so we walked another 20 minutes or so to another which was less so. I managed an email to family and a few friends but, because I had emailed over 500 people the morning I left, Gmail has temporarily blocked me from sending too many messages (antiSpam security measure) so I’m not sure how soon I will be able to email again.
One of the volunteers had to go back to the guesthouse by motorbike taxi so Jane asked for a volunteer to go with her and I thought I might as well try it out as I am going to be getting motorbike taxis for the next two years. Well, Lesson Number One in Rwanda: when you take a motorcycle taxi you are NOT supposed to hold the driver by the waist! Not that he was offended but he thought it was SO funny (then I am only a muzungu and can’t be expected to know any better!! Actually, it was fine and quite enjoyable, though, being Kigali, he wasn’t able to go too fast and the road was good – I expect it will be a different matter down the country!! As soon as I got off the bike, I saw the handles at the sides of the pillion which everyone else passing on the road was using (probably the same in Ireland, mind you, I’m just not used to riding on motorbikes!).
Dinner was at seven and was preceded by the most amazing birdsong as the sun set (only excelled by the dawn chorus the next morning). Nightfall, however, wasn’t anything as sudden as I had been lead to believe but it was strange to have pitch dark by seven o’clock in the middle of ‘summer’ (as I still think of it). And then it was an early night, as everyone was pretty much knackered.
This was my first encounter with a mosquito net – luckily my roommate – Joe Walk (that’s Joe and NEVER Joseph) has previously served with VSO in Guyana and was able to teach me all about tucking it in around the mattress and getting in and out without tearing down the whole thing (Joe has also agreed to speak nothing but French to me starting tomorrow, bless him!).
Got up really early and started packing and repacking. My luggage allowance from London is 46kg but only 33kg from Dublin to London, so EVERYTHING heavy has to go in my hand luggage. This makes my backpack 12kg which is heavier than I imagined 12kg would be! I went to the airport with my brother Aindriú and his wife Catherine and my mother Catherine and my nephews Pádraic, Colm and Iain and arrived really early, which was great. Met up with Sonya Fay and Christine Campbell who are the other two Irish VSO volunteers heading out to Rwanda with me. I also got loads and loads of text messages wishing me good luck so apologies to anyone I didn’t get to reply to before I left.
Flight to Heathrow was fine, getting from Heathrow Terminal One to Terminal Three with 46kg of baggage was another thing altogether! However, we managed it and met up with a load of other volunteers, most of whom I had previously contacted through Facebook or email – Tom, Hayley, Heloise, Amy, Andy, Joe (UK), Tina (Germany), Nidhe, Steven, Alain, Susanah, Marjolaine (Canada), Ivana (Slovakia via NY), Danielle (France), Berthe (Netherlands). And Tina Payne, from Sheffield, with whom I will be sharing a house in Gisagara for the next year! The flight to Addis Ababa was eventful enough though I slept through almost all of it. Apparently (so I am told by those who were conscious at the time) we stopped to refuel in Rome and then, when we were about to take off again, they decided there was a technical fault and aborted the takeoff and we spent an extra hour sitting there until the pilot discovered it was actually a faulty bulb that was flashing. Luckily they held our connecting flight in Addis Ababa for us (tough luck on everyone else on the plane who sat for 90 minutes on the runway waiting for us) and then a further 30 minutes delay taking off from there. However, all in all, not so bad and we arrived in Kigali at 1400.
There was a huge reception committee with flowers and greetings and they packed us into buses to bring us to our guesthouse (I mean packed – we really got an introduction to how many people Rwandans figure you can pack into a bus). We dumped our stuff in our rooms and had a quick lunch and then headed off to an Internet café which was just 10 minutes down the road; turned out to be full so we walked another 20 minutes or so to another which was less so. I managed an email to family and a few friends but, because I had emailed over 500 people the morning I left, Gmail has temporarily blocked me from sending too many messages (antiSpam security measure) so I’m not sure how soon I will be able to email again.
One of the volunteers had to go back to the guesthouse by motorbike taxi so Jane asked for a volunteer to go with her and I thought I might as well try it out as I am going to be getting motorbike taxis for the next two years. Well, Lesson Number One in Rwanda: when you take a motorcycle taxi you are NOT supposed to hold the driver by the waist! Not that he was offended but he thought it was SO funny (then I am only a muzungu and can’t be expected to know any better!! Actually, it was fine and quite enjoyable, though, being Kigali, he wasn’t able to go too fast and the road was good – I expect it will be a different matter down the country!! As soon as I got off the bike, I saw the handles at the sides of the pillion which everyone else passing on the road was using (probably the same in Ireland, mind you, I’m just not used to riding on motorbikes!).
Dinner was at seven and was preceded by the most amazing birdsong as the sun set (only excelled by the dawn chorus the next morning). Nightfall, however, wasn’t anything as sudden as I had been lead to believe but it was strange to have pitch dark by seven o’clock in the middle of ‘summer’ (as I still think of it). And then it was an early night, as everyone was pretty much knackered.
This was my first encounter with a mosquito net – luckily my roommate – Joe Walk (that’s Joe and NEVER Joseph) has previously served with VSO in Guyana and was able to teach me all about tucking it in around the mattress and getting in and out without tearing down the whole thing (Joe has also agreed to speak nothing but French to me starting tomorrow, bless him!).
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Away we go!
And so the day has arrived. My flght leaves
A few days ago I came across a blog by a guy called Bruce Upton who has been working as an Education Management Adviser in Rwanda since January – exactly the same job description I have (http://bruceswanderings.blogspot.com ). It has been a major source of information (and also a bit intimidating – I intend keeping a blog but Bruce’s is SO comprehensive and detailed and well-written, I will have to pull out all the stops!) and made me aware of what does and doesn’t work in Rwanda!
I have been told that I will have internet access in my office, so I hope to keep in regular touch, either through email or blog or both. Pictures will depend on whether or not I have a broadband connection but I will be in Butare and
Finally, I got a few emails in the last few days asking whether my fundraising is still going on. It certainly is – and thanks again to all those who already contributed. For those who would like to help me reach my revised target, please visit www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and follow the instructions there. All contributions welcome!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Final packing stages - where did all the time go?
Four-and-a-bit days left: at the moment my brother's sitting-room floor is completely covered in everything I am thinking of bringing with me as I try to shed some of the items to save weight (Alfred is relieved at finally being taken out of his suitcase!). I do seem to have packed an inordinate number of shirts so some of them will have to go. Knowing I will not have electricity makes me want to bring books but the weight!! I just got my sister-in-law to go down to Argos and buy a digital scales so I can weigh my luggage properly.
There was a brilliant post on the blog (mentioned in my blog entry of August 26th) about how you manage with limited water in Rwanda - that has helped a lot in deciding what to bring or not. Also, fewer electrical items. I see myself using more regular and fewer rechargeable batteries simply because I won't have the opportunity to recharge batteries. However, I kinda feel things are getting under control - I'm going to stuff EVERYTHING now into one bag and see how much it is; I'll let y'all know later how I got on!!
Finally, thanks to everyone who has been sending me messages of good luck and going-away presents. Sorry I haven't been able to call around to everyone who has invited me - between family occasions and radio interviews the time seems to have been swallowed up without my even noticing it (c.f. Raidió na Life Thursday 4th September 8.00 p.m. - 9.00 p.m. 106.4 FM - as Gaeilge!).
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
There was a brilliant post on the blog (mentioned in my blog entry of August 26th) about how you manage with limited water in Rwanda - that has helped a lot in deciding what to bring or not. Also, fewer electrical items. I see myself using more regular and fewer rechargeable batteries simply because I won't have the opportunity to recharge batteries. However, I kinda feel things are getting under control - I'm going to stuff EVERYTHING now into one bag and see how much it is; I'll let y'all know later how I got on!!
Finally, thanks to everyone who has been sending me messages of good luck and going-away presents. Sorry I haven't been able to call around to everyone who has invited me - between family occasions and radio interviews the time seems to have been swallowed up without my even noticing it (c.f. Raidió na Life Thursday 4th September 8.00 p.m. - 9.00 p.m. 106.4 FM - as Gaeilge!).
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Slight change of plans!
Marion in Rwanda tells me that it is actually very difficult to buy any decent clothes in Kigali, so I hit the Dundrum Shopping Centre yesterday to kit myself out. Cotton/Linen blend, my sister Máirín says, is the best for a hot climate where you can't iron: hang it up right and it will dry wrinkle-free. So - a few shirts, a jacket (that's linen and dry-clean only, but again wash carefully in COLD water and hang and it'll be fine) and loads of socks!
Spent a chunk of Thursday in Dublin Airport talking to the British Midlands person on the desk about an increased weight allowance. She was really helpful and spent ages arguing with Head Office on the phone and was finally able to get the three of us an increase from 23kg to 33kg. I'll probably still be overweight (€10.50 per kg surcharge!) but it's still cheaper than ending up with stuff I might need in Rwanda!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Spent a chunk of Thursday in Dublin Airport talking to the British Midlands person on the desk about an increased weight allowance. She was really helpful and spent ages arguing with Head Office on the phone and was finally able to get the three of us an increase from 23kg to 33kg. I'll probably still be overweight (€10.50 per kg surcharge!) but it's still cheaper than ending up with stuff I might need in Rwanda!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Waiting!!!
Had a great week or two chilling out in Munich and Prague. I had gone to Bristol last month to see my sister Maria and three of her four children (sorry I missed you Sam - enjoy Portugal!) and my sister Máirín and brother Aindriú came over to Munich to join me and my other brother Brian for a little farewell party. Then I went to Prague to see my sister-in-law Dana and her three daughters Rút, Marketa and Sara and am now back in Munich where my cousin Elias has arrived to visit from New Delhi (via Montpellier).
Have now decided to make as few clothes purchases as possible here and to buy stuff in Kigali instead. One reason is that while I have a 46kg weight allowance for London-Kigali, I only have 23kg for Dublin-London. I hope to persuade BMI when I get back to Dublin to allow us some extra but, if I end up having to pay extra I need to keep the weight down as much as possible. I also have a terrible habit of packing too much at the best of times!!! I also got an email from the volunteer I will be sharing with in Gisagara (Tina) - her first question was who is bringing the Scrabble set! I was tempted to email her back and ask what Scrabble was but I resisted. Hope she plays by the Chambers Dictionary rules but it's about as good an omen as you can ask for!
Got bitten by something in Prague and my arm swelled up like an aubergine - from ONE bite!! What's going to happen when I get to Rwanda?? Maybe I need to stock up on antihistamines.
It was really strange waking up this morning knowing that everyone else was going to be in school and, for the first time in 25 years, I wasn't. Have a great urge to GO rather than hanging around here, but I suppose that is natural. There are still a few things I need to clear up in Dublin before I leave - bank, insurance, fund-raising and so on. The fund-raising kind of ground to a semi-halt over the summer but it might pick up again now that school is back.
Anyway, back to Dublin tomorrow for final preparations and then OFF WE GO!!
Here are links to two other blogs by people who are or have been working in Rwanda - gives you a really good idea of what it is like working there, good and bad!
http://murahorwanda.blogspot.com/2007/08/rwanda-blog-update.html is by a Salvation Army volunteer working on a housing project.
http://heathenblogging.blogspot.com/ is by a serving VSO volunteer who is working (among other things) on developing a Rwandan sign language.
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Have now decided to make as few clothes purchases as possible here and to buy stuff in Kigali instead. One reason is that while I have a 46kg weight allowance for London-Kigali, I only have 23kg for Dublin-London. I hope to persuade BMI when I get back to Dublin to allow us some extra but, if I end up having to pay extra I need to keep the weight down as much as possible. I also have a terrible habit of packing too much at the best of times!!! I also got an email from the volunteer I will be sharing with in Gisagara (Tina) - her first question was who is bringing the Scrabble set! I was tempted to email her back and ask what Scrabble was but I resisted. Hope she plays by the Chambers Dictionary rules but it's about as good an omen as you can ask for!
Got bitten by something in Prague and my arm swelled up like an aubergine - from ONE bite!! What's going to happen when I get to Rwanda?? Maybe I need to stock up on antihistamines.
It was really strange waking up this morning knowing that everyone else was going to be in school and, for the first time in 25 years, I wasn't. Have a great urge to GO rather than hanging around here, but I suppose that is natural. There are still a few things I need to clear up in Dublin before I leave - bank, insurance, fund-raising and so on. The fund-raising kind of ground to a semi-halt over the summer but it might pick up again now that school is back.
Anyway, back to Dublin tomorrow for final preparations and then OFF WE GO!!
Here are links to two other blogs by people who are or have been working in Rwanda - gives you a really good idea of what it is like working there, good and bad!
http://murahorwanda.blogspot.com/2007/08/rwanda-blog-update.html is by a Salvation Army volunteer working on a housing project.
http://heathenblogging.blogspot.com/ is by a serving VSO volunteer who is working (among other things) on developing a Rwandan sign language.
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Accommodation!!
My passport turned up and I have arrived in my brother's place in Munich safe and sound. It's not quite as wet here as in Ireland but it's quite cold! I just got an email telling me my accommodation in Rwanda will have neither running water nor electricity, so I may need to rethink some of the items I am bringing with me!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Countdown begins!
So, all the training is now over and the final countdown has begun! I am heading off to Germany on Thursday 14th August so I have to pack everything I need for Rwanda and for Germany and figure out how to manage the overlapping items.
The training in Birmingham was absolutely fantastic: there was a P2V course (Preparing to Volunteer) which I did quite a while ago but on 16th-20th July I did a SKWID (SKills for Working In Development) course which was probably the best training I have ever done in my life. Then I did a Teacher Development Course 1st - 5th August - that was tougher and maybe not as relevant to the actual job I'll be doing in Rwanda but, again, I learned a huge amount.
I have been getting quite a few emails from volunteers already in Rwanda which has been very helpful and there is a VSO Rwanda group on Facebook - reading all the previous discussions and messages has been very illuminating! My main concern now is exactly what clothes to bring as I gather I will need to dress quite formally a lot of the time (meetings, school visits etc). I figure I'll bring enough to start with and then buy stuff in Kigali when I get there. My other main concern is that my passport is still in the Rwandan Embassy in London and I need it for a Thursday morning flight!!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
The training in Birmingham was absolutely fantastic: there was a P2V course (Preparing to Volunteer) which I did quite a while ago but on 16th-20th July I did a SKWID (SKills for Working In Development) course which was probably the best training I have ever done in my life. Then I did a Teacher Development Course 1st - 5th August - that was tougher and maybe not as relevant to the actual job I'll be doing in Rwanda but, again, I learned a huge amount.
I have been getting quite a few emails from volunteers already in Rwanda which has been very helpful and there is a VSO Rwanda group on Facebook - reading all the previous discussions and messages has been very illuminating! My main concern now is exactly what clothes to bring as I gather I will need to dress quite formally a lot of the time (meetings, school visits etc). I figure I'll bring enough to start with and then buy stuff in Kigali when I get there. My other main concern is that my passport is still in the Rwandan Embassy in London and I need it for a Thursday morning flight!!
If you would like to contribute to my fundraising for VSO, please visit my site at www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi and a huge 'Thank You' to all those who have already contributed!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
