Alfred's Leaving Do

Alfred: As you may have noticed, whatisname has been too 'busy' reecently to write up the blog, so I decided to have a big going-away party with all my friends to cheer me up (I did invite Ruairí as otherwise there would have been no-one left for him to see that night). And we had a great time in Zaffran Indian Restaurant in Kiovu, Kigali: great company and awesome food (well, of course awesome food, that's why I picked Zaffran!). In fact, other than Kerry Carrington's constant efforts to sexually interfere with my person, it went off just about perfectly!!

Anyway, here are a few pics for now to give a flavour - more details to come. Also: Ruairí's ride home on the moto afterwards and what happened when they met the army patrol pickup, Ruairí's encounter with a drunken Rwandan in the Kisimenti branch of BCR, hilarious anecdotes from the Leavers' Conference and much much more if he ever bloody gets around to writing about it!!

Day 647 in Rwanda - eleven days left

As Carol Bayer Sager once said (more tunefully than I could) 'You're moving out today.' Just finished packing and, while I will be back here on Monday night, it'll be more as a guest than a resident. I moved into this house 568 days ago and have beeen very happy here but, wow, I do seem to have accumulated a lot of stuff!!! Anyway, one way or the other, it is all packed in suitcases, boxes, rucksacks and backpacks and I am splashing out and taking a taxi from my house to Kigali as I just cannot bear the thought of lugging all this stuff onto and off buses (but a big 'Thank You' to Christine Mack for offering to help!!). All that remains here is to unplug and turn off the laptop and wait for the taxi driver. Mind you, there's a lot of work still to be done in the last eleven days!!! Will keep you posted!

CÉAD SLÁN LE RUANDA!

OK, that’s a bit premature, I’m not quite saying ‘Slán’ yet but having had my first big official going way party it certainly has dawned on me that I am definitely leaving. (Alfred: Hmmm, ‘dawned’ – if one can compare sunrise to being hit on the back of the head with a cosh I suppose the idiom is reasonably accurate). Alfred has a point: sitting there beside the new swimming pool that President Kagame recently opened and looking at the 82 school directors for the District assembling to bid me farewell, it really did hit me for the first time that in two weeks I am heading off into the unknown.

Yep, the unknown, because that is what it really seems like. It is hard to cast one’s mind back accurately a whole two years but I definitely think I feel (Alfred: ‘definitely think’ – for goodness’ sake!) more nervous about returning to Ireland than I did about coming back to Rwanda in the first place. It would help if I didn’t actually like this place so much (Alfred: Duh? You think?) and if there weren’t so many people I am going to miss (Alfred:Yeah, but most of them are also VSO volunteers and they will be leaving eventually even if you stayed, so, same difference. Think of all the people you already miss who have headed home before you...). But, in the most commonly used French phrase in English ‘c’est la vie’.

The farewell ceremony went well apart from a rather dreadful speech by me. At the last directors’ meeting I had made a brief speech because it was the last time I would be attending such a meeting and I basically gave the same one all over again and only realised half way through. Ah well, nta kibazo, as we say here. Below are some photos and commentary in between.

The day started with going late to the office (an unofficial farewell at the bar the previous night turned into a four-Mutzig session and I wasn’t the best when I arose). Then, while there, I tried to find out if anyone knew exactly when or where the thing was going to take place. At 11:30 someone came in and handed me the following (really sweet) invitation:

INVITATION
GISAGARA DISTRICT EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

Due to his contribution in the quality of Education promotion, Educators in GISAGARA District wish to invite you in the party celebrations prepared for “Good Bye & Providence” Allowed to “Mr RUIRI”.

The party will he held at 11th June 02pm in GSO BUTARE (piscine) at Huye District.

Your Presence will be highly appreciated

Two o’clock?? And being held in a swimming-pool? There is only one bus an hour from the village so I would need to be on the 1300 one to be on time. So rushed home to change, grab overnight thingies and head for the bus. As it happened the 1200 bus was so late I got it at 1235 into Butare and had plenty of time to go to the Ineza and find a room (Alfred: Number 8 of course – see all blog entries for September, October and part of November 2008 if you don’t know why Room 8 is significant) and then get a moto to the new swimming pool near Groupe Scolaire Butare.

I had never been there before and it is really nice but, despite the invitation saying the event would be held in the swimming pool, it was in the garden with lots of little tables and big umbrellas against the scorching sun. And it was great! All the directors were there, some more punctually than others. We had beer, some speeches, then food and more beer, and then more speeches, then my (forgettable) speech, then presents being ... presented, then a final beer while most scattered to their homes. There were all the schoold directors there, some sector officials and both my bosses – Alexis the District Education Officer and Sukuma Simeon who is the Co-ordinator of social affairs.

Then it was off to the Faucon to watch Uruguay – France (via some beef burritos in Matar), more beer, hoping Uruguay would score so I could leap around and cheer and annoy all the Rwandans who were furiously shouting for the French as if they were still best friends (Alfred: Actually, consciously or subconsciously, Ruairí was hoping someone would come over and ask him WHY he was cheering for Uruguay so he would get the chance to do the whole Thierry Henry whining thing again. Get over it!!). And then to bed!!

The setting - nice and peaceful. The swimming pool is behind the hedge at the back. And me sitting beside Bigira Alexis, District Education Officer and my boss




Beer is good; beer with chicken and roast potatoes, awesome! And it was good chicken too. There must have been almost 100 people there and everyone got half a chicken - what did that cost??

Sukuma Simeon, the Social Affairs Co-ordinator, my presents waiting for me, and me with my friend Antoine, the Gisagara District Labour Inspector and someone I am going to miss a lot.

The hat was one of my many presents: this is Alexis modelling it and on the right, Aimable, the Director of Mugombwa Groupe Scolaire

Me speechifying - enough said.

Coolest shirt at the party, and me receiving my presents.

Alfred: OK, he's not getting away with this. One of the two boxes showed a kettle and tea-pot on the outside and Ruairí spent ages telling everyone how well-timed it was because his kettle had burned out that very morning. Everyone laughed and then Ruairí said he would just open the other box, which had the gorilla in it. It was only much later that Enock pointed out to Ruairí that the other box probably did not contain a kettle and teapot but was merely being used to transport other items he had been bought (.i. see photos below). This meant that by the time he actually opened the box, most people had left. Igicucu!)

Me holding gorilla aloft; later, at home, all the presents laid out (bar the hat which I left in town and will collect tomorrow): gorilla, minature drum in frame with 'Thank You' message, table mats, bamboo decorative hanging and banana-leaf football.

Close-up of gorilla: the box in the shape of Africa is mounted on his ... well, arse to be blunt. Then you remove the lid and it is a box to hold things in. BUT - and this is the awesome bit - when you remove the rest of Africa, the East African Community countries DO NOT MOVE! Love it!

Gorillas in the ... well, mist, actually.

So I finally went to see the gorillas. I had been debating this with myself for a long time – I had no burning desire to go but at the same time it is what Rwanda is best known for (in a positive sense, anyway). In the end, it was Karen and Melanie sending around an email wondering if anyone else wanted to accompany them that finally got me going.

We headed up to Musanze on Friday (I thought we would continue on to Ruhengeri where the ORTPN – Rwandan tourist centre – is located, until Melanie or Karen gently informed me that Musanze IS Ruhengeri, yet another of the confusing name changes of recent years – c.f. Rusizi/Cyangugu, Gitarama/Muhanga, Gikongoro/Nyamagabe, Butare/Huye and many, many more). We stayed in the Bamboo Inn, whose rooms were amazingly good value at RWF6000 per night for one, RWF10,000 for two but everything else was pretty much to be avoided (Alfred: When Ruairí was sorting out the drinks bill the first night, the two fair maidens having taken to their beds as a sensible hour, he was a bit shocked to be told a Mutzig was RWF1500, which is what you would pay in a pretty fancy bar in Kigali. Apollinaire’s (the manager) response – ‘Mais oui, monsieur, nous sommes un hôtel’ – really tested Ruairí’s powers of self-restraint to the maximum). Good cheap place to stay for seeing the gorillas but go elsewhere for your food and drink.

Anyway, our driver picked us up the next day and off we headed. It was all pretty straightforward – up to the centre, form into groups of eight and we were going to see group 13, one of the middle-distance groups so a reasonable walk but not too far. Our groups was composed of one Swede, one Brazilian, one Uruguayan, two South Africans, one Englishwoman and two Irish – pretty eclectic all told. Melanie did ask me if I had brought Alfred along as well but I explained that he didn’t do family reunions very well (Alfred: Huh? It’s not like I’m not used to not being brought along on anything interesting that is going on ... but what the hell does he mean by ‘family’? I’m a BEAR!! You gotta go pretty far back the evolutionary tree before that becomes true, way way beyond where Ruairí was sitting in a marshy clearing picking his fur clean, scratching his hairy behind and munching on bamboo shoots!)

Anyway, long story short, we drove a short way and then walked a surprisingly short way again until we got to the group. We spent most of our time watching the silverback and the babies/juveniles who were together – the females were off feeding individually apart from one who was nearby with a baby on her back and all the little ones had been left with the silverback (whose name is Agashya, though I am not sure he is aware of this fact himself). Other juveniles, slightly bigger, were playing in the vines hanging down the cliff-face behind the group.

We had been told to stay seven metres away from the gorillas at all times but, what with them wandering around and, I think, once the guides could see they were settled and calm, we ended up a lot closer than that quite a lot of the time!!

Anyway, you can see the photos below. It was a great experience but, hand on heart, I can’t say it completely blew my mind the way so many other people had told me it did. I am absolutely glad I did it (even if the entire experience – park fee, driver, travel and accommodation – came to over $300 or one month’s allowance) but ... I don’t know, thought it would be a little more magical somehow (Alfred: Can’t say I am surprised – look back at the very early blog entries in late 2008 to see how early on Ruairí manages, with a flick of his baguette magique, to turn the magical into the mundane. I mean, look at the photos for goodness’ sake – how much more bloody magical can you get!! OK, I admit the photos aren’t exactly professional standard – trying to be kind here and it WAS very overcast to be fair – but you can still see how amazing the experience SHOULD have been!)