Wet Fridays

Mar 28th

To Kigali for a VSO day, but not before checking at the Post Office (no mail yet again, despite the fact that I know there’s at least one parcel and three or four letters en route….), and to the office. Nine more census forms, so I collect them to do over the weekend.

Only problem is that it’s been pouring steadily since half past nine last night and shows no sign of stopping. The sky’s like lead; there’s cloud down in all the valleys, and I can hear rain dripping through our tin roof in the flat onto the top of whatever the ceiling’s made of. I keep looking for wet spots but so far there’s nothing. I think there must be a layer of either plastic or tinfoil on the upper side of the ceiling.

So I’m all dressed up in boots, over trousers and cagoule to do my errands in Gitarama and then on to Kigali. Of course, as soon as we leave the dizzy heights of Gitarama the rain stops. There’s no way I can take off my boots in the cramped confines of a matata, so I arrive in a sunny Kigali looking like Scott of the Antarctic. I’m glad to reach the VSO office and scuttle inside to get out of my wet weather things, and end up paddling round all day in socks because the boots are too heavy to be comfortable all day. This causes great amusement to the Rwandan staff (but not a murmur from the Europeans).

At the VSO office, to my surprise, I’m able to get onto the computer, so send blogs and have a good sort-out of email. Can’t send many pictures, unfortunately, because by ten o’clock the computer is on a go-slow.

There’s a real end-of-term feeling at the Office; all the teachers are coming in en route for wherever they’re going for the school holidays. Paula and Judie are off to Tanzania by road and train, and thence to Zanzibar (three days’ travelling even if all the connections work). But we hard working District types have a series of meetings; Global development followed by Education Managers, followed by Capacity Building group. Best part of the day is where Mans gives Marisa and Els and I a tutorial on doing fancy things with Excel spreadsheets (I’ve got thirty odd separate excel files with school census data and I need a method of hooking them all together to extract data from each file. Mans comes up with the goods. This co-operation between all the Volunteers is a great system because if you think about it, each District with a VSO has access to around 50 VSO’s expertise. I didn’t have that degree of back-up even when I was working at Beaminster)! And there are at least two new arrivals to meet, one of whom (Vivienne) wants to com and talk to me in Gitarama about the job. I think she’s finding herself in a similar situation to Polly’s and we mustn’t let her struggle in the same way that Polly did. (Hi Pol if you’re reading this!)

Back home with all my District and VSO homework to find the power’s off again in our block, whereas every other light in Gitarama is blazing. It’s these bloody pay-as-you-go electricity meters Electrogaz has installed – every time there’s a major power cut they seem to trip out and there’s no obvious way to reset them. So Tom and I are cooking and eating by candle light again. Decide it’s too early to go to bed at half past seven so we adjourn to the nearby bar for a beer. But in the bar they’re all rapidly getting drunk and intrusive, while out in the gazebo it’s already too cold for comfort. So back home.

However, just when I’m about to write off the day as not one of the best, we have a brainwave. If I don’t use my Tesco SIM card on my phone in the next few days they’ll take away my number. And the MTN network won’t let me phone England on the Tesco SIM. But I can text. So send texts to Rachel and Catherine and ask them to reply if they’ve received them. A couple of hours later I’ve had replies from both, so that must mean my Tesco SIM card has been used. Problem solved (I hope)!

Best thing about today – sorting out my SIM card, and getting to grips with the huge Nyabogogo bus station at Kigali (we got dropped there rather than in the town centre). It’s scary until you know whereabouts to go to get your bus. The golden rule is to ignore whatever the signs say, and just ask several people. If you ask four people you can assume two will send you to the wrong part, but as soon as two people agree on where you should go, you can be pretty sure you’re sorted. Hey ho for the Rwandan way of getting directions.Worst thing about today – a power cut; but tomorrow’s Umuganda Day so nothing will happen in the morning.