Thursday 12th to Monday 23rd March 2009: Days 188 to 199 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.

I started to do a day-by-day but it has been so long and some of the days were sooooooo boring I can’t bear to inflict it on myself, let alone you guys. So here are the edited highlights by category.

WORK
Work is really awful at the moment and has been getting me down somewhat. Part of it is my own fault because, now that the opportunities are there to actually do something I am finding it incredibly difficult to actually get myself off my ass and start working properly. Then when I do manage to do so, everything I tried to do went pear shaped. First of all I worked out a really good schedule to cover all the schools in my sector in two weeks, eight schools, one school a day Mon-Fri each week, to be followed by training sessions with the eight directors. Then VSO rang to say MINEDUC were looking for ten volunteers to work on a survey of secondary schools around Rwanda to assess teachers’ levels of English, information that would be used to develop a training course for them. This sounded like too good a chance to miss so I reluctantly cancelled the arrangements I had made to visit the schools. Two days later MINEDUC postponed the work to late April. When I recontacted the schools to rearrange the visits I was a week further down the term and found out they were going to be doing exams for the last two weeks of term and didn’t really want to be inspected (not to mention there not being any classes for me to observe). So now I am trying to find some of the new Tronc Commun schools to visit because they may not (‘may’ not) be having exams but no-one seems to want to answer their phones and some of the phone numbers I’ve been given are obviously wrong (or else they have employed school directors who speak neither French nor English) and I am seriously worried that I am going to hurl my phone through the window soon so I thought I’d update my blog instead. On my own in the office today which is nice actually – I am actually getting to talk to people and feel a little bit useful, even if it is only to tell people who walked for three hours to get here that the two people they need have gone away for the day.

FOOD
Cabbage is a very under-rated vegetable. It stir-frys really well and lasts far longer than I expected even after you have started chopping off a quarter at a time to use. A quarter of a cabbage makes a LOT of stirfry mind you! Bought satay sauce in Kigali for a change, and some crunchy peanut butter. Most people here like the real authentic Rwandan peanut butter but it’s too authentic for me. It’s like the time my sister drove me down to Devon to taste real cider, because I am very fond of cider, and I thought it was horrible!!! Give me the synthetic artificially coloured version every time! I also got a big bag of Tesco apricots in the post from my mother (as well as another consignment of cup-a-soups) and am frantically trying to prevent myself devouring the whole bag in one go (I do love apricots!). Finally, I invested in a large bag of chickpeas, which promptly burst in my rucksack so I’ll be finding them for months probably!

BUTARE and GAHINI
I went into Butare on Friday 13th to stay with Jane overnight before heading on to Gahini for Bruce’s party – I went to the bank first and it was PACKED, I mean absolutely jammed to the doors. Apparently that day was the last day to pay your taxes and of course everyone had decided to wait until the last day. They had actually opened up one till just for people who were not paying taxes so I escaped after only an hour and a half – goodness knows what time the staff got home! Then Jane asked me to pick up some beer in the Faucon to bring to her place where I was eating with her and her new driver Thierry. I swear to God and all the lesser deities up there, solving the Middle East problem would be easier than trying to buy bottles of beer here. It took forty minutes and I had to leave a deposit per bottle of RWF1000 (€1.40) even though the beer in each bottle only cost RWF800 (€1.10).

Anyway, Jane hasn’t been feeling well so VSO have assigned her a car and driver for the time being. Thierry seems very nice though not the chattiest in the world and another of these who insists on speaking English even though his French is far better. Nice evening and it was nice to see Jane after missing each other a few times.

Off to Kigali in the morning, earlyish, a journey enlivened by sitting beside Harerimana Jean Bosco, an English teacher from Butare who works in a private school there but had had some previous VSO training some years ago. We had an interesting talk about teaching methodology and language in Rwanda in general. I’ve had really good luck recently in the people beside me on buses – hope it lasts!

When I got to Kigali I went into the Atraco office to get a ticket for Gahini. It wasn’t hard – as soon as I walked up to the counter, the man said: ’A ticket for Gahini, I presume?’. Apparently I was the eighth or ninth that morning. And sure enough, there were Tina and Kristy and Mike and Berthe and various others all there. Got to Gahini only to find they weren’t showing the Liverpool-Manchester United match so I hopped on a bus back to Kayonza. Now this was an experience I will remember for a long time. In Kayonza I had seen a sign saying ‘live football’ and presumed it was a pub. No – it was a room, maybe four metres by five metres with benches and a TV and there were 137 people crammed in (I counted). Instead of a door there was a Backstreet Boys bed sheet to block out the light. Fantastic match though I got a fierce lot of slagging for being in a Chelsea shirt at a Liverpool-Man Utd game!!

The party itself was great fun (see pictures in previous blog) and a huge crowd had come. Unfortunately one of my friends got taken ill later and I spent the night with her in Gahini hospital but she was fine by the next day.

So Sunday was a rather sleepy affair. We arrived back down to the Seeds of Peace guesthouse (my bed still unslept in) to the most disorganised breakfast one could imagine! They knew they were having loads of people to stay but no one had thought to get any extra eggs or bread or anything! Anyway, I headed off on a bike to Kayonza as I had to do a radio interview in Kigali about the St Patrick’s Day Ball. On the way I decided to see how far I could get only speaking Kinyarwandan and did very well thank you – bought all the tickets, went shopping and said ‘Hi’ to a few people. Not exactly advanced level but I was still very pleased with myself. And again I struck it lucky on the bus: sat beside an electrical technician called (again) Jean Bosco and we talked for 90 minutes solid in French about the economic and political situation in Rwanda. It was particularly good because my French, having improved enormously (Alfred: steady on there, choose your adverbs carefully) is now deteriorating because everyone wants to speak English all the time.

The radio interview was a bit of a waste of time: the two guys were really only interested in getting me to buy radio advertising space from them and stuck me with their bill for two cappuccinos at Bourbon but what the hell: it was the absolutely first thing whatsoever I had been able to do as a so-called member of the St Patrick’s Day committee! Then last bus to Butare and collapsed in the door on Andy who was still up thank God! Slept very well that night and even remembered to text Francois to tell him I wouldn’t be at the meeting Monday morning.

St PATRICK’S DAY – OFFICIAL
It rained. Rained and rained and rained and rained; then when it got tired of raining, it kept on raining anyway because it had run out of alternative ideas. So, couldn’t even struggle to the pub for a beer. Thought of trying to make hot whiskey out of Mango vodka and cloves but luckily didn’t try – my experiments with waragi have not been a howling success so far. The next evening Enock and I did go for a drink to celebrate. The pub was out of Primus so I had to have Mutzig. Then an amazing thunderstorm swept down and buried us, so we ended up in the pub a much longer time than expected and drank three Mutzigs each.

(Alfred: For those of you reading this who haven’t been/aren’t in Rwanda, Mutzig is a lot stronger than Primus: drinking three 65cl bottles of it the night before you have to get up for work the next morning is NOT a good idea! Not for Ruairí anyway it isn’t/wasn’t!)

St PATRICK’S DAY – KIGALI VERSION
Oh yes, this was fun! I cannot find the words to congratulate the committee who organised this event, a howling success enjoyed by absolutely everyone who was present (see pictures). 400 guests, fantastic food, a free bar with Black Velvet, free wine on the tables, great music from an Irish band called Riff Raff based in Galway and tons of Irish people from Rwanda, Uganda and further afield. Made lots of new friends, especially Jane, Micheál and Douglas and got to see some more of the new volunteers of whom I have not seen as much as I would like (though I still haven’t had a proper conversation with Moira since she arrived – note the cute waragi-picture of her on the night!). I also got to meet and chat to Malcolm Quigley, head of VSO Ireland, who was visiting! The pictures will say more than I could! I was on the door for much of the night but eventually we left it to the Serena Hotel security and headed upstairs (Alfred: ‘Much’? ‘We’? ‘WE’? Paul Stewart was actually on the door the whole time. You were wandering around upstairs wondering where you were supposed to be and by the time you figured out where the door WAS Paul had already processed half the guests!! Your main contribution of the evening was bringing jokes to the MC in case he needed them!). Well, OK, I wasn’t exactly overstretched!

I also got to meet my ex-pupil and now Irish ambassador’s wife, Pamela Uwakwe and her three kids. Unfortunately I never caught up with her later as (contrary to what Alfred says) I was actually rushing around an awful lot and by the time I found the ambassador’s table again she had gone. Still, I’ll catch her again in Kampala and tell her all the stories about Nurse Anderson, Miss Green and other teachers she remembers from her Rathdown days!!

The party ended around three and Steve and I headed off back to his place! Great night, best in a long time. Well done Kieron, Mory, Paul, Jane, Rowan (who was sick on the night, worse luck), Cathryn, Paula, Sonya and all the others involved (Alfred: and if he left out names, I apologise on his behalf, but it’s because he never actually GOT to a single committee meeting and doesn’t really know who is ON the committee!)

RUGBY FABULOUSNESS!!!!!
The next day I shopped in Nakumat for a new rucksack, and then headed off to the Serena hoping to catch up with Kevin and Pamela but no joy. I hung around for a few hours reading the book Andy lent me (Anthony Seldon’s amazing biography of Tony Blair, haven’t enjoyed a book so much in ages), then went trawling around shops and various backstreets. It was really fun, the first time I have ever really just strolled around Kigali because I am usually there doing stuff.

So, the big question was – where can we see the rugby? This was the only reason I was staying up in Kigali as I figured my chances were considerably better there than in Butare. Also, I was hoping to watch it with more Irish people if possible. Jane Baxter, the Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy had very kindly offered to make her place available but as our numbers swelled some of us felt a bit uneasy about imposing on someone like that so we thought of going to a pub instead.

Initial inquiries revealed that the kick-off coincided with the Arsenal-Newcastle match and in a country where Arsenal are worshipped and no-one knows what rugby is (Alfred: that’s not fair: Rwanda actually have a good women’s rugby team) that put the kibosh on our chances of finding a pub. So we all landed in on Jane. Jane has a really beautiful house not far from Novotel – huge big place and she had laid on what has to be the most impressive hospitality I’ve seen since I got here: giant pizzas, oceans of beer and wine (including – and this is the epitome of luxury here – chilled white wine!), fresh popcorn and a giant TV screen. You don’t need me to tell you about the match but there were about fifteen or more of us there: one Englishwoman supporting Wales, two rather bemused Rwandans who couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, one guy whose name I forget who was either Dutch or German (and I’m guessing from the accent) who I don’t think had ever seen rugby before but got quite enthusiastic about it and about twelve Irish supporters (not all of whom were actually Irish it has to be said) alternating between joy and potential despair right up until the final whistle. It was a really fantastic night, couldn’t have been in a better place or in better company to watch it! And Micheál gave me a lift home too – perfect!!

I was a bit shell-shocked the next morning. Chatted to Steve and Nidhi a bit, having availed shamelessly of their hospitality yet again and then went off to meet Tina and Austin in the Bourbon Cafe. Austin is Tina’s boyfriend/partner and has arrived over for a holiday: I’ve emailed him but never met him before so it was great to finally see him in the flesh. We had a great chat, including an interesting discussion on the British Army’s role in Northern Ireland and how that knowledge was or wasn’t useful in the Iraqi conflict. Then I met with Amy and we chatted about our plans for Uganda for a bit before heading off to catch our respective buses. I went Atraco this time: cheaper (RWF1500 instead of RWF1800) but for a reason: uncomfortable bus and frequent pauses to look for passengers, but it wasn’t full so I had plenty of space to sprawl out. Popped in to see Tiga and Andy for a few minutes and then off home with my moto driver Déo (who went visibly pale when he saw the size of my new rucksack).


MONDAY MORNING MEETING
Every Monday there is a meeting that lasts one to two hours for all District staff. In it we read out the minutes from last week, report on whether we actually did what we had said we were going to do and outline what our departments are going to do in the next week. Despite being in Kinyarwandan (mostly) they are interesting and I have learned a lot about what is going on in the District.

Today was a particularly interesting meeting so I thought I would give you a résumé of the high points:

a) The scheme for giving cows to poor people and families has run into difficulties. Too many of them have never owned cows and have no idea what to do with them or lack any areas for grazing or shelter. Scheme is to be put on hold, department to talk to those who got cows and did well with them for advice on how to train others.

b) No-one seems to have planted any cassava this year. There was tons last year but a major shortage this year. Speculation: was there so much it was hard to sell so people planted other stuff this year? Agriculture Dept to report next Monday.

c) Family Planning campaign: complaints (from men) that the campaign is really only targeting women and that men need to be made aware of their responsibilities in this area. Concern from some staff that it was fear of a reaction from the Catholic Church that was inhibiting the District from doing this (I presume they are talking about using condoms though how 90% of the men in this district could possibly afford condoms I don’t know, even if they could be persuaded to use them).

d) The law currently on the statute books saying that land left unused for three years can be seized by the district and reallocated is to be rigorously enforced from now on.

e) Nadine (District worker) is sick and the only available medical treatment is in Nairobi. District is to look at ways to gather the money to pay the costs, we may all be asked to pitch in.

f) This was the big one: following meetings of the government departments dealing with local government to consider the effects of the global economic crisis, the District budget (I presume for all Districts) is to be cut by 38%, in our case from RWF4billion to RWF2.5billion for the second half of the year. The 42 District staff is to be reduced to 32 though these will be reallocated to the sector offices and won’t actually lose their jobs. There was a general call to save money wherever possible – paper, toner, travel costs, phones etc. I’ll bet – a 38% budget cut?? Big ouch!!

GOODBYE OR GET BETTER SOON!
The only thing that isn’t going so well (other than my own actual work) is the number of people who are either leaving early or have been getting sick. Already Marjoulaine left from our group and now Suzanne, Ivana and Tina Payne are also off (Alfred: Ivana? There goes your joint birthday party in August!!) for a variety of different reasons. In addition Jane, Tina and Tiga have been struggling with various medical problems. And that’s only the ones I have heard of so far as I am not usually very much in the loop! Get better guys and the rest of you – stay put!!!!!

General pictures from the St Patrick's Ball. If anyone want me to email them one at a better resolution, just drop me a line at roheithir@gmail.com

Sorry!

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.

It's been really hectic recently and I haven't wanted to lug my computer around with me all the time, so major update on the way. Since I last wrote My work has gone pearshaped, my boss is pissed off with me, I had a great party in Gahini (you saw the pics), got depressed for a few days because work seemed to be going nowhere, heard that some more of the volunteers are leaving early, drank too much 18th March trying to catch up on St Patrick's Day celebrations, had a fantastic St Patrick's Ball in Kigali and an even more fantastic night (courtesy of Jane Baxter) watching Ireland win the Grand Slam. Full update to come but here are a few random pictures from the St Patrick's Day Ball in the Serena Hotel, Kigali!

Bruce's Birthday Party in Gahini

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 tour around Rwanda survey of secondary schools has been postponed until late April at the earliest. I am still trying to catch up with recent events and write a proper blog entry but here are some pictures from Bruce Upton's birthday bash in Gahini. Bruce is kind of the elder statesman here, whose blog is a fascinating source of information on life here in Rwanda as a volunteer and has a lot more specifically education-related material than mine does (Alfred: and fewer annoying interruptions too!). Gahini is on the shores of Lake Muhazi and is normally a stunningly beautiful place with swimming and boating but the day was rather drizzly and overcast (though the following day, as you will see from the pictures, was stunning!). It was a nice occasion and a huge crowd of volunteers and friends turned out for the occasion. It was a pity Andy and Tiga weren't there but Andy had to be up early for Mass in Butare on the Sunday morning and couldn't make it (Alfred: Must be some mistake here ......). Other than spending the night in Gahini Hospital with a sick friend it all went well. I am planning a big birthday party for my 50th in August so this is one possible venue (Alfred: maybe you should discuss that with Ivana first, eh? It is supposed to be a JOINT party after all!)

Weaver birds, just like the ones behind my house in Gisagara.

Weaver bird colony on the lakeside, and birthday boy himself!





Some places have a dog that goes around and begs for scraps .....................

Partytime!

Jambo Beach - party location

Lake Muhazi the day of the party




Lake Muhazi the day AFTER the party!

SITUATION UPDATE

Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.

Alfred: Well, things have REALLY been busy recently! And they are about to get even busier - at least for Ruairí: I foresee weeks on end sitting on the chair in his bedroom without his even being around! On Thursday and Friday this week he is off to Kigali for training and will then set off on a two-week tour of the South Province assessing the standard of English among secondary school teachers for MINEDUC in the company of a MINEDUC inspector. Once that is over he is off to Uganda for about a week because Genocide Memorial Week is a pretty grim affair here.

So that's why the lack of updates! I'll try and chivvy him in the next two days to write SOMETHING for his faithful reader(s) -(?plural needed?) - or else take the computer with him when he goes. Better tell him to buy a proper rucksack in Nakumat as well - there's a limit to how often the lady with the sewing machine is going to be able to resew the straps on the piece of **** he bought in Kigali!

Meanwhile here is a picture of Bruce at nhis birthday party in Gahini to cheer you all up!

Friday 6th March to Wednesday 11th March: Days 182 to 187 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.

FRIDAY – SUNDAY
(Alfred: Oi – what happened to Thursday?) OK, Thursday and Friday were busy but uneventful if you can understand me – hectic in the office as we dealt with the aftermath of the Section examination results and I talked to various school directors about visiting their schools over the next two weeks. One big problem is that there are so many meetings at the moment it is very hard to find days when people are actually going to be in their own schools! Otherwise uneventful apart from some domestic stuff I will detail later.

Saturday morning I head to the market to do some food shopping – Alexandré does it midweek because I am working and I am usually gone Saturdays but I prefer to do it myself when I can, even if it means I end up paying over the odds a bit. It’s nice to have been here long enough that I am pretty much completely ignored as I walk around, though people are still interested when I actually buy something to see how much I am paying. I buy onions (paid RWF150 a bunch rather than the usual RWF100 but they were really nice, big onions), peppers, carrots and two large ears of corn – the only other things available are cabbage and tomatoes and I already have plenty of both in the house.

Déo rang me yesterday to explain that he would be at church all day Saturday and would send another moto driver to collect me at 1100 (he must be a Seventh-Day Adventist of which there are many around here). Sure enough Eric turns up bang on 1100 and we head into Butare. Tina Payne had said she was coming down to Butare for the day and I haven’t seen here since December (apart from a few minutes at Charlotte’s party in Kigali. Do my shopping (candles, matches, washing sponges, mango vodka (Alfred: that’s a funny story – Ruairí had mentioned to Hassan and Tariq that they always seemed to run out of the Pineapple Waragi and Mango Vodka but had tons of other flavours left over that no-one wants to buy. Today there are two entire SHELVES of pineapple and mango! Ruairí better get drinking!) . Then to the bank to get a statement and I run into John and Sheila who are VSO volunteers up in Cyanuka (no idea how to spell that) about an hour’s walk from Gikongoro (as John describes it). John really likes the school he is working in but it is a horrendous trek to and from work every day – half an hour on a moto each way on really bad roads and his back isn’t the better for it. Again, you wonder how much checking went into the placement before it was finalised (Alfred: and out comes the violin again ....).

Drop my stuff down in Tiga’s and she and I head up to see Gerrit and Tina’s new house, which is absolutely fabulous!! Then into town for a beer at the Faucon. The idea had been to watch Chelsea-Coventry but there has been no power all day, not just here but in the entire Southern Province (Alfred: which was really tough on poor John and Sheila who had come down to Butare for the night specifically to enjoy hot water and the ability to recharge things!!) so I had to content myself with beer. John and Sheila turned up as did Gerrit and Tina and then we were joined by Suzanne who gave us the startling news that she was returning to Montreal at the end of the month. Suzanne has been working in Gatagara School which is specifically for disabled children but the economic downturn means she can no longer afford to stay in Rwanda. Meanwhile I had phoned Tina in Gitarama and she said between one thing and another she wasn’t going to make it to Butare and would see me in Gahini the following weekend.

I headed back to Tiga’s, by which stage Andy had arrived and we went off to the Chineese for dinner, and – to my amazement – Tiga joined us. It was well after dark and Tiga usually starts to fall asleep as soon as the sun sets, so it was really late for her to be out. Nice meal though it was quite cold and rained really heavily for a while. Long chats about politics and books and other such stuff – the three of us share a huge range of common interests and it’s really nice not to be always talking about work and Rwanda for a change!

Sunday was (Alfred: thankfully for the patient reader) uneventful, apart from the awful news from Northern Ireland about the attack on the army base in Antrim. Boy, did that bring back a lot of memories that I had hoped were well and truly buried for good. It’s been almost the same length of time since the Troubles ended in Northern Ireland as since the end of the genocide – I remember Rwandans telling me of the fear they felt when trouble erupted in Kenya last year that it might signal a return to the ‘bad old days’ – well, let’s hope that’s not where we are headed back at home.

The one big event was my second visit to the St Philippe Neri English club for their inaugural debate: ‘Polygamy is better than monogamy’. The crowd was small as we clashed with the big volleyball match between the school team and the local sector team which was going on right outside the room we were holding the debate in! It was a good debate – polygamy is against the law here but quite common for all that. A lot of the debate concerned a frank discussion of a man’s ability to sexually satisfy a number of wives, the advantage of being able to pick wives for their different abilities – with three wives you could have a good cook, a good tiller of the soil and a third who is good in bed – and various other aspects that would have reduced Irish school students to giggling hysterics but here were simply another part of the argument (paying school fees, conflict between wives, economic considerations and various other points were raised). I did ask how, if many men became polygamous, the rest were to find wives but for some reason this didn’t seem to weigh significantly as a point with either side!


In favour of the motion 'Polygamy is better than monogamy'



Opposing the motion



The audience



Point of information from the floor



What we were competing against!



MONDAY – WEDNESDAY
Meetings, meetings, meetings – how does any actual work ever get done when people are in meetings all the time discussing what work needs to be done? Every time I have tried to visit a school recently the director has been called away unexpectedly (and these are people who really want me to visit them, they are not making excuses). The regular Monday morning meeting goes on for two-and-a-half hours instead of the usual one, all day Tuesday is a sports planning meeting so Alexis and Francois are gone all day (I stayed in the office but didn’t have a huge amount to do, to be honest). And I spent almost all day Monday .... printing! Some IT genius overhauled all the computers with the result that none of them work properly and none of them can recognise the printer. So the only way the directors could print out copies of the new curriculum was to load all the files on my laptop, plug in the printer and print them off. That’s 550 pages one at a time on a laser printer and there’s no way I’m allowing anyone else here to touch my computer so that was my work for the day. However, I did see a brand new photocopier in its wrapping down the hall in the Health Unit so that will be a major blessing.

On Wednesday we have two big events: Alexis will be coming back down from Kigali with all our textbooks (we are about two/three weeks away from the end of the first term) – he was told to hire a lorry and come up early Wednesday morning. Logistically this could be interesting: we have 65 primary schools with about 60,000 students and 18 secondary schools with 8,000 (at least we did last year – the number in secondary will be a lot higher this year). They claim there are textbooks for all students in all subjects and that the books will be in English. Hmmm. But even if there are only three textbooks per student in whatever subjects, that will be 210,000 textbooks. I’ll be interested to see the lorry, let alone where in our office we are meant to store all this stuff so it doesn’t get nicked (Alfred: see later item on THEFT IN RWANDA) . Mugombwa primary school has 1500 students and when I visited it in a 4x4 the trip took two hours and we got stuck three times. How is the director supposed to bring thousands of textbooks out there? Report to follow (Alfred: and pictures I hope!).

Also on Wednesday we are having an anti-corruption demonstration – no-one knows exactly when or where or for how long. My Education Manager, Charlotte, is supposed to be coming down to see my director about a possible placement for a Primary Methodology trainer in September and Francois has promised to be around for her so I hope it all works out!

So here I am in the office on Wednesday morning – the fact that I have had time to write all this tells you how busy today has been. No one in the district has been able to make any telephone calls since yesterday afternoon because of some problem with the network. Alexis is in Kigali with the lorry (Alfred: in the words of Band-Aid, thank God it’s him instead of you!), Francois hasn’t appeared, I spent half an hour persuading the maintenance staff to turn on the generator so I could use my computer, so I guess I’ll prepare more stuff for my English classes and maybe learn a little Kinyarwandan! Oh, and here are a few idle musings I jotted down at various stages over the last few weeks.

MY HELPFUL GUARD
Alexandré is now getting a little TOO helpful! On Monday, having spent all day printing and missing lunch, I arrived home at 1600 absolutely ravenous and cooked myself an enormous cabbage and carrot stir-fry. Just as I finished, Alexandré appeared with the two ears of corn I had bought at the market – he had roasted them for me and plonked them down on the table just as I had decided I simply could not force down another forkful of cabbage, lovely though it was. I managed to eat most of one (they were huge ears) but I really don’t like roasted corn and this didn’t taste particularly good. He also washes anything he can lay his hands on – towels, shoes, coats, hats. I daren’t leave anything lying casually around!!

ATTIC NOISES MYSTERY SOLVED
It’s bloody birds!! Unless rats squawk when they fight!! I think it’s those crow/magpie thingies you see everywhere, they must have a way of getting in at night. At least it’s not rats (Alfred: maybe the rats are just quieter than you thought!)

POISON
Everyone here is obsessed with being poisoned. I knew there was a rule about always opening things at the table (bottles of beer, water etc) so people can see they haven’t been tampered with. When I mentioned this the other day in the bar, I got deluged with stories of alleged poisonings and how careful you have to be. Everyone there said they would never go away from an open drink for fear of someone putting something in it. If you had to, you would dispose of the drink and get a new one rather than chance someone having put something in it!!

LEOPARD IN BUTARE
It was all the talk of the pub on Sunday when I went for a drink after the debate – someone driving through Butare the previous night had run over an killed a leopard on the street. Apparently they come into town fairly often – not that I’ve seen one so far!

THEFT IN RWANDA
You really do have to watch your stuff here. I thought I might be targeted as being someone who is visibly probably richer than others but it happens to everyone. Since I got here four of my colleagues have had their phones stolen at work, usually while they left them recharging somewhere, and loads of other things have gone missing. I’ve been lucky (and careful) so far but you really need to have your wits about you. One day I had put my bag down in the corridor while I helped someone carry something into our office. I must have left it there all of ten seconds but Alexis grabbed it and brought it in, saying:’ Obviously you are not used to our ways yet!’

FISH AND POTATOES
I keep on running into things that remind me of Ireland here. Poorer Rwandan families can’t afford much meat or fish. If they have a piece of fish, it sits in the centre of the meal and people rub their carbohydrates on it (cassava, potatoes, plantain or whatever) to share the flavour. (Alfred: probably not potatoes, though – they are a luxury here compared to the others mentioned)

PRISON, VENUSTE, FRANCOIS AND TANZANIAN ALBINOS
I keep on meeting more and more people who were unjustly in prison. My boss told me the other night (as I may have said) that when he was appointed an accusation was made against him by someone whose friend hadn’t got the job. On Sunday after the debate I met Venuste who used to be Deputy Head of the secondary school. In late 2006 he was accused of complicity in the genocide and put in prison. After two years and four months he was released when the charges were found to be without foundation (he was released the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, which he sees as significant). It seems to have been part of a long-running feud between two families and nothing to do with the genocide at all. At the moment, in an attempt to halt the ritual killing of albinos for body parts used in witchcraft, the Tanzanian government is asking people to hold secret ballots all over the country and denounce those who are involved in the trade. It’s good to see the government trying to tackle the problem but I can see a lot of local scores being settled this way.

PHYSICS?
Why is the standard of Physics so bad in my schools? Of the six that offer it, two have a fail grade as their average and even the best of them is pretty bad – one to be looked into.

DEAD CHILD – ALMOST
I’ve never actually seen someone getting killed but today was the closest I have come to it so far. On the way back from the anti-corruption demonstration we passed a man cutting down some tall trees to make way for the electricity pylons. The tree fell towards the road instead of away from it but, as we scattered, it became clear it wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the road. However, the man’s two-year old kid was playing on the ground nearer the tree and it fell right on top of her. Luckily it was the leafy top of the tree and when Enock and I ran over, she was OK if rather shocked and scared. The people further up the road were sure she had been killed and were ready to attack the tree-cutter but Enock assured them the kid was OK. I can still see the look on her face as she turned her head and saw this huge thing falling down on her ...

Friday 27th February to Thursday 5th March: Days 175 – 181 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.

FUNDRAISING!!
As many of you will remember, I spoke before about four projects I am hoping to fundraise for:
a) Raising money for a motorbike for my moto driver who spent 13 years in prison after being falsely denounced after the genocide
b) Supporting the Kivu Writers Workshops, the only firum for encouraging creative writing in Rwanda
c) Supporting TABARA, the first and only organisation for single parents in Rwanda
d) Helping the work of the Liliane Fonds organisation who give medical and educational support to handicapped children around the world.

All my friends and family will be getting emails in the near future with more details and – importantly – how to actually send the money. If you are a reader of this blog and are interested but suspect I don’t have your email address, just email me at roheithir@gmail.com and I will add you to the list.

FRIDAY
Busy day! Paid Alexandré before I left as I am off to Butare/Gikongoro for the weekend – decided to give him a pay rise as he is now doing all my laundry as well as washing the floors and dishes and various other odd jobs that otherwise I would have to employ a domestique for. Work was work and left early to head to the bank and immigration office (Alfred: extract deleted – basically the bank took AGES and there was no-one in the immigration office – that’s the essential facts, you can live without the excruciating detail!).

I met Tiga en route and she offered we a bed for the weekend so I don’t have to book into the Ineza. Dropped off my stuff and then Francois picked me up for dinner. Now, I presumed we were going out somewhere but it turned out to be dinner en famille with his wife and three of the four kids and a friend. It was a really great evening and it turns out to be their last in this house as they are moving to a new house tomorrow. What was also nice was that Francois seemed to be so pleased that I was visiting him at home and I was equally pleased to be asked!!!

Song of the Day: A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening (Herb Ellis & Oscar Peterson)

SATURDAY
The best-laid plans ... we were supposed to be heading for Gikongoro to meet up with Amy in South African John’s place and watch the rugby (Ireland v. England) but he got called away to Kigali for a meeting so we decided to stay put. Spent the morning doing some work (it is umuganda so everything is closed), then shopped (see list on previous blog and add sardines but no waragi – one beer a day with Enoch is enough alcohol for the moment!). Tiga then carried my shopping home for me while Andy and I chilled out in the Faucon! (Alfred: truly the age of chivalry is dead). Not just that but, when I asked if it was possible to tune to the rugby channel, they called the owner at home and he drove back to the hotel to tune in the satellite receiver for us! And, as if that wasn’t good enough – IRELAND WON!!! Not the greatest match in the annals of rugby history (Alfred: oh, give me a break, it was woeful! Seventeen successive up-an- unders at one stage – does no-one run with the ball anymore?) but a win’s a win, especially when you are watching it with a fanatical England supporter (Alfred: ‘fanatical’ is putting it a bit strongly – at least Andy has actually PLAYED rugby whereas you went to a school where you would have been expelled for doing so!) Then we went off to the Chineese Restaurant in Taba to meet Jane and Jean for dinner, which was really good. A real pity we didn’t get to see Amy or John but a pretty good day nonetheless!!

SUNDAY
Sunday was a relax and chat kind of day, copying music and videos for each other and watch/listen to Andy chortling to himself as he watched the political highlights of Saturday Night Live that my sister had sent me on a flashdisk (thanks Sis – the Obama and Clinton stuff is good but the McCain and Palin stuff is priceless!). Andy and I had a long chat about how both of us find ourselves rather moribund at work, so we decided to try and encourage each other to get going a bit more if at all possible!! He has recently been told that he is no longer covered to ride his motorbike (Alfred: probably never was, if you ask me!) which has really screwed up his programme.

Déo collected me at 1400 and brought me home with a brief stop at Matar to buy bread (last one in the shop). Alexandré had washed everything in the house he could lay his hands on, including the tea-towels .... and my coat. This has never been washed in water before but it seems to have survived the experience tolerably well. I’m afraid to take my shoes off now in case he washes them too! Stir-fried cabbage for dinner (still just about usable once I peeled off enough layers).

Recipe for stir-fried cabbage: chop two medium onions and a green pepper and chop a few cloves of garlic (they’re small). Heat peanut oil, fry veg. Add garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, some medium Madras curry powder and a teaspoon of puree. Then add very finely sliced white cabbage. Cook until cabbage is properly wilted. Add a little water if necessary.

MONDAY
My phone got me up at 0515 to make sure I got to the Monday morning District meeting in time! Everyone was glad to see me there (which made me feel even more guilty about missing most of the other meetings!). Good – if long – meeting. Apparently President Kagame, the three vice-presidents and a bunch of others had a special meeting last week about local government and have issued a load of decrees with immediate effect. Among the most notable are:

• The Mayor’s phone number must be put up on the outside of all office doors: if anyone is in any way unhappy with the service they have received, they are invited to ring the Mayor and tell him about it.
  
• If any query or file has not been dealt with after three days of receipt, the individual involved will have three points deducted from their something or other (performance rating?)
  
• If it remains undealt with after five days, a fine will be imposed on the individual!

While the meeting was in progress, the heavens opened and Francois and Alexis said they would wait until the rain ended before heading back to the office. I decided to go home and get a fleece, seeing as I had an umbrella. Bad idea – it was a lot windier than I realised and I got soaked!! Sheltered at home until the rain ended and then headed to the office. By the time I got home for lunch, it was scorching hot!!

No English class today (Tue-Thurs only from now on) so I worked through to 1600 and then met Enock for my first official Kinyarwanda class – in Vestine’s, over a beer (best way to learn a language). Enock is quite strict about pronunciation and had me repeating things over and over again (‘Nta’ is pronounced ‘nhhhaaaaa’ or something like that and it crops up a lot!) to the hilarity of the other customers!!

Got home to find out Alexandré had thrown out my last few tomatoes, with which had been going to make a pasta sauce – must have figured they were in too sorry a condition. So potato salad it was – with onions and mayonnaise, what more could a body ask for.

The Section (Rwandan Leaving Certificate) results were due out this week – I wonder where they are?

Then another attic incident – see observations later!!

I also got some emails from VSO Ireland – wanting me to write stuff or source info on various Rwandan-related topics: should keep me and my friends busy for a while!!

TUESDAY
Work was a little quiet today – Francois had gone off to Kigali to collect the Section exam results and we were all waiting with bated breath. The last two years in a row our District came first in Rwanda and everyone is hoping it will happen for a third year running! Meanwhile I did the usual preparing school inspection forms, looking over old reports, preparing training materials and helping people install English learning material on their laptops. People have an amazing number of beautiful brand-new laptops and absolutely no idea how to use them (with a few honourable exceptions). They pay for them themselves – basically, if your boss(es) tell you you need a laptop/motorbike/whatever for your work, it’s up to you to go out and get it!

Alexis vanished off to Mugombwa for a meeting (that’s about as remote a spot as we have here in the District) and I had the afternoon to myself in the office, which was great as I actually get to chat to people who call in, especially school directors, without the others around. They feel they can actually be a little critical and more open about stuff when the director and chargé are not there to overhear!

English class was doing and acting out adjectives – good fun once sufficient people turned up for class. Walked to the bar with Enoch and two soldiers who reminded me so much of the two main characters in Of Mice and Men it wasn’t true!! Enoch had seen the school’s results on the Internet and English was again the best subject in his school and his school the best at English in the District. And, out of the whole District, only one – yes, one – studenthad failed the exam (Alfred: his name is Martin and he goes to .... ah, no, I'll spare his blushes), so Gisagara looks set to be number one on Rwanda again!

(Alfred: educational aside - usually it is Ruairí who does this but never mind. As Ruairí teaches in a private school – and, if I can say so on his behalf, a pretty damn good one – it is ironic in a non-Alanis Morisette way that it is the very lack of private schools in Gisagara district, due to its poverty, that make the exam results so good. Students have to achieve a certain grade in the O-levels to be allowed to go to upper secondary. However, if you have the money, you can always go to a private upper secondary school, which will be filled with those who failed the O-level exams. Inevitably these students will do less well in the A-levels and thereby drag down the average. There is no social cachet to going to a private school and paying fees, outside of a few really posh ones in Kigali – you go because you were too ... educationally disadvantaged ... to get into the state school!)

Enock went off at 1800 to teach his colleagues but I had been joined by another work colleague, Sosthène. I installed some stuff on his laptop while he told me about his work in the health unit. I had translated some stuff for him recently – a summary for his mini-thesis on malnutrition rates in Gisagara (MUCH higher than anyone had realised, by the way) and even though he is still waiting for official word on his mark he has already had inquiries about publishing it, as it is a really good piece of research (sample size of over 6,500 children).

However, Sosthène is also very religious (I need a word other than ‘very’ here) and winced every time I took a sip of beer. He isn’t exactly trying to convert me (though I feel he really would like me to) and contents himself with explaining how happy religion makes him and other people, the solace he finds in God’s love and the many miracles he has seen with his own eyes following meetings of his prayer group! My rejoinders of:’ If you believe in God, then God is everywhere and you don’t need to go to a church to find him’ didn’t go down particularly well! But he is a really nice guy and extremely good at his job. And he is also the only surviving member of his family – his mother, father and all his brothers and sisters are dead (he was showing me photos on his laptop, I didn’t want to ask why at this early stage of knowing him!)

When we were leaving he paid for his Fanta and the brochettes he had ordered for us but then went into an orgy of explanation as to why his religion would not allow him to pay for my beer!! I’m not sure what branch of Anglicanism he belongs to, but it’s not the Church of Ireland!!
Dinner was egg-an-onion sandwiches – far too late to cook at this stage!

WEDNESDAY

François arrived with the Section (A-level) results and they seem to be as good as we hoped, though – in the usual Rwandan way – things are never as simple as they seem. Students sit different versions of A-levels and subject combinations: optional subjects sometimes only count as 60% of a subject, sometimes it’s the best five of six or six of seven, so there’s a lot of work to be done before we can be sure we are number one in Rwanda! We also have a scare when Francois’ computer refuses to open a 27k file saying there isn’t enough space. Turns out he has a virus – he spent €900 on a new laptop but didn’t invest in any antivirus software! So I am trying to download AVG for him but at 60MB and a connection speed of 2.5kbs (at best – it actually registered 0.04kbs for a good while) it’s going to take me days!

In English class this afternoon I had designed a crossword for them to do – opposites of adjectives (if the clue is ‘white’, the answer is ‘black’). Easy – well, no. None of them, and I mean none of them, had ever seen a crossword before and it took most of the class to explain to them what it was!! Talk about taking things for granted!! They felt it was really hard work and asked if we could stick to word searches instead!!! (Alfred: he’s typing this while the class do a word search on Thursday – it also appears that the idea of alphabetical order doesn’t mean anything to some of them – every time they look for a word on the list they just start at the top and read down through all of them – the fact that the word starts with ‘w’ and the list is in alphabetical order .......)

Dinner was green pepper and lentil savoury curry – and it was great. I am eating far better these days, might even start to put a little weight back on (though the total absence of fat and near-total absence of sugar makes that unlikely).

OTHER NEWS
I’m still reading loads – in the evening by candlelight/kerosene lamp it’s about the only thing I can do after 1900! A couple of OK thrillers (Linda Farstein and James Patterson, though the former is a bit too stuffed with legal procedures for my liking and the latter – about vampires – a bit too weird and gruesome). I finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind and it is one of the best books I have read in ages, equalled in its magnificence by Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which I am just amazed I never read before. I have now started Anthony Seldon’s biography of Tony Blair and Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which my friend Éamon posted me from Dublin (her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, is one of the all-time great first novels, comparable to Iain Bank’s’ The Wasp Factory though bearing no resemblance to it in style or content!).

WHAT THE &@!* IS LIVING IN THE ATTIC?
This is getting a bit creepy. I finally figured the squeaking was bats because I heard them around the pub and Enock said that’s what they were. Then, on Monday night, something HEAVY walked across the ceiling, I mean no way was it a mouse or even a rat (as far as I know). I did the sensible thing which was to put in my MP3 earplugs and go to sleep. But I am going to have to summon up my courage pretty soon and send Alexandré up there to find out what is going on!

TELLING THE TIME – Enoch in Kigali
Do you remember a few weeks ago when I was supposed to meet Enock in Kigali and come down with him to Butare on the bus? He texted me to say he would be in Kigali at 9 p.m. so I decided to head off on my own, only to find him at my house when I got there!! It turns out he meant 3 p.m. Most East African countries tell the time from 0600 in the morning and 1800 in the afternoon: so what is nine o’clock for us is three o’clock for them. He just forgot when he was texting me which time reference to use! This has happened to me a few times so far – it makes learning telling the time in Kinyarwanda very hard!

KEROSENE LAMP
Figured out the problem – when you light it, the flame is low, but it will flare up quite quickly as the glass heats up and the air inside it also heats, so you need to keep on turning down the wick for the first ten-fifteen minutes. It also helps to wash the glass regularly (Alexandré gets annoyed if I do it so I let him).

DOGS and PUPPIES
I am not going to get a puppy – much as I want to, but I am just away too much and while I feel Alexandré would guard it with his life if I asked him to, minding dogs is not a common Rwandan trait and, especially with a puppy, I think I’d just feel guilty all the time. I’ll just make do with Box, the dog at the local pub, and my pictures of Milli and Bess!

FOREIGN POLICY DEVELOPMENTS
Well, wasn’t Lauren Nkunda the surprised man when he arrived in Rwanda with his diamonds and cash only to be tossed into clink by the Rwandans. You have to hand it to the Rwandans, when they make a decision they don’t do things by half. Growing criticism, threats of aid reduction from the Dutch and a general feeling that he was getting out of hand and Hey Presto! Complete policy reversal and joint operations against the interahamwe with the Congolese army.
NEWS FROM HOME
Glad to be in Africa at the moment.

St PATRICK’S DAY LOOMS!!!
This will be the first ever official St Patrick’s Day celebration in Rwanda! Big posh bash in the Serena Hotel in Kigali on Friday 20th March with the Irish Ambassador and his ex-Rathdown School wife (Pamela Uwakwe, class of – I think – 1986). Going to be FUN!!!! Lots of pics and stories to come.

MOTORBIKE
To buy or not to buy – that is the question ...