A Hundred words in Kinyarwanda

Landscape near Gitarama - land of a thousand hills

(photo from Google earth)

Every day I'm slogging away learning about 10 new words or phrases. It's slow progress and maddening because the language is slippery as an eel. I'm told that people use "r" and "l" fairly interchangeably (so I can expect to be introduced as Bwana Bluce), and sometimes "k" is pronounced as "sh". This means the capital city could be pronounced as Kigali or Shigali or Kigari or Shigari. Oh what fun.....

Never mind. I can count laboriously to a hundred. I can ask directions and follow directions. I can greet people. I know enough words for food to survive.

I love the poetry of the language. Apparently the word for goodnight, "mwaramucye", really means "may you not die during the night"; the word for good morning "mwawamutse", means "I am glad to see you have survived the night". Lovely.

Went to Poole last night to a Dorset VSO meeting to see Heidi Farrow's photos of her 3 years in Rwanda. Lovely pictures and I already feel a real attraction to the place before I've even been there. Rwanda is green and profoundly beautiful.

At last - getting a handle on the job!

Street scene in Gitarama (photo from Google Earth site)

Sixty seven days to go (my departure date has now changed twice; the latest change came through while I was typing this posting). A good few days with lots of progress. Made contact with Bola Ojo, who I am succeeding in the post at Gitarama. (Thank you, Skev, my ultra-efficient placement adviser, for linking us together). Bola has sent me a detailed summary of what he has achieved during his time in Rwanda, and what needs doing. It is exactly what I needed and I feel energised and terrified at the prospect. But it's so good to at last have some details and specifics to work on.

My patch consists of 106 primary schools, 23 secondaries and 23 private schools. That's slightly more than in the entire county of Dorset. Also, ten of the secondaries have full or part-boarding establishments attached to them.

I now know the name of my boss - Claude Sebashi - and Bola says he is a good man and hard working, so I'm looking forward to meeting him.

I've discovered the main Rwandan website with details of the education system (see sidebar to this blog), and can begin to get to grips with it.

Other little snippets from the news.....

• class sizes can be enormous - up to 87 I have seen in one particular case


• according to the newspaper, thousands of school textbooks in Muhanga district have been stolen from schools, presumably to be sold off cheap in the markets of Kigali


• some primaries still work in double shifts, i.e. one population of children in the morning and another completely different set each afternoon

On the other hand, Bola says nice things about Gitarama town - "the Birmingham of Rwanda" (yer what??) "it has electricity and water supply, inside loos, and even a hot shower is possible if you're lucky".

I'm intrigued. On Bola's "activities yet to be done" list it talks about the "Radio Maria Project" = "use local radio to broadcast a weekly English lesson aimed at teachers/students and the general public keen to learn English". Now that sounds like a real challenge/opportunity. Move over Chris Moyles; Radio Brucey could hit the airwaves some day soon............

Bola - you've made my day. I salute you!

I've been SKWID-ed!

Another week closer to departure. Just finished my second training course at Harborne Hall in Birmingham (it's a converted convent: little statues of Mary in niches along corridors). Very intense course; I think we all felt emotionally drained after four days. I have to say, the VSO training regime is very detailed and thorough. Such a great bunch of other trainees, too - nobody in common with my first course, but at last I've met another volunteer who'll be in Rwanda with me! The range of posts and countries between 14 of us is simply amazing - Cambodia, the Gambia, India, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Jobs ranging from paediatrics, to working with HIV positive sex workers, to education, to compiling a signing language for deaf people. Restores a bit of faith in humanity.

Our course ended up with VSO's customary health and safety advice. This can be summarised as:

Don't eat anything - it's nearly all buggy, or you'll blow yourself and half the neighbourhood to smithereens if you tinker around with your gas cooker

Don't drink anything non-alcoholic - 'cos it's swimming in bacteria, even in ice

Don't go anywhere - 'cos the roads are dangerous and everyone drives like maniacs

Stay indoors - 'cos if the bugs don't get you then the sunshine will

Don't have sex with anyone (or even anything) - you're guaranteed to end up infected or married

Can someone please bang me on the head and remind me why I signed up to VSO?

Now it's back to reality; yet more injections (3 this week alone); insurance to sort out and all sorts of boring domestic finance to prepare for departure. My clockwork radio has arrived and I've been fiddling with it to try to get short wave reception (world service is going to be a life saver); my new camera works beautifully but I need to get more proficient on close-range shots, and at last I have a moped helmet which fits me. (Apparently it's the biggest size they make, but if I tell you all then you'll make the obvious comment back).

Au centre du monde

OK, here's proof that Rwanda really is at the centre of the world!

Now I know what a pin-cushion feels like

Today I'm almost half way through my jabs. I've had hepatitis B in my left arm, and rabies in my right. A while ago, both arms felt as if they were made of lead, but that's worn off now.

All in all I need at least 10 jabs - 3 each for rabies and hepatitis, one each for typhoid, meningitis and polio/tetanus/diphtheria, and a booster MMR to cover measles, mumps and rubella. Just about the only thing I don't need is japanese encephalitis. The sole jab from previous expeditions which seems valid is my yellow fever one. I've no grumbles with the Bridport Medical Centre - they're incredibly thorough.

It's the little asides that surprise me, the things I wasn't expecting. Apparently some of the immunity from the BCG jab I had back in 1961 might have worn off, so they want me to have another test to see if I still have resistance. All very well, but now that they've stopped doing the BCG jabs in schools there's hardly anywhere left to do the testing. I have to go about 35 miles to Stalbridge twice in November - once for the test and again in two days' time to have it read. If it transpires I need an injection then apparently I'll have to go all the way to Bristol for it.

No problem; it'll be a day out in the autumn sunshine/pouting rain! But why Stalbridge, of all places? - it's a village lost in the middle of Blackmoor Vale in the wilds of North Dorset. The most random, illogical place I can imagine to use as a repository for specialised medical treatment!

Then I've got to see my G.P. about anti malarials. Of course, the common-or-garden chloroquine and paludrine are no good for Rwanda as the bugs have become immune to them. So I need either mefloquine (side effects: bad dreams, sleep disturbance, headaches, rash, anxiety, depression, diarrhea and -{beat this} - paranoid hallucinations), or doxycycline (side effects: photosensitivity or heartburn). Photosensitivity for a year on the equator, anyone?.....

The jabs are expensive, too, even on the national health. Rabies - £105; meningitis £30, mefloquine - about £170, or doxycycline about £200.

And then I read about an outbreak of ebola in the Congo. No immunisation possible, 90% mortality rate, unbelievably awful way to die, no known cure. Fortunately it's a long way away from the Rwanda border, but, then again, diseases can travel a long way fast with long distance lorry drivers and the like.

So, I think, why am I putting myself through all this? Can't answer that yet. But Rwanda had better be good when the Bridport pin-cushion finally gets there!

Rwanda progress report - 100 days to go.......

Well, folks, in just over a hundred days I'll be on the plane winging my way over Africa and wondering what the hell I've let myself in for! Part of me wishes I was going next week; the other part is in a slow panic, thinking about all the things left to do and all the "what if"s both out there and back here at home.

At the moment I seem to be half drowning in bureaucracy. Over the past couple of weeks I've sent off all the documents for my work permit (including having to get 6 copies of each of four academic certificates and five copies of my CRB clearance, all notarised by a solicitor). I've arranged for my medical jabs - they start tomorrow. I've also arranged powers of attorney so that Teresa can deal with any financial stuff that crops up during my absence.

I've started trying to learn Ikinyarwanda; I've got about thirty words so far and then I seem to have stalled. I'm finding it really hard because it's so different from any other language I've looked at. The words all seem random and many are very similar to each other ("gatatu" = 3 and "gatanu" = 5).

I've ordered my helmet for moped riding. However, VSO in its wisdom has decided I won't have a moped of my own while I'm out there; I'll either have to be taken as a pillion passenger by someone else or I'll have to hire a bike locally. I can't quite reconcile this with a job description which seems to imply I'll be travelling round from school to school but no doubt it'll all become clear when I get there. In the meantime I've sent off for a International Driving Permit in case I decide to buy a second hand land rover or similar.

I'm compiling a master kit list, mainly to see what things I'm going to need to buy between now and Christmas.

There's also lots of busywork on things like insurance and the VSO setting-up grant.

On a positive note, I went to a local Dorset VSO group meeting last week and met Heidi Farrow who had just returned from three years in Rwanda at Butare, about 50 miles from where I'll be based at Gitarama. In her three year stint she managed to acquire a Rwandan husband, so clearly the country suits some people very well indeed! She was so reassuring about all the stupid things I wanted to know about, and It'll be great to have her on hand to answer any last minute panics. I've also made contact with three Canadians current out in Rwanda, one of whom will be one of my closest colleagues in Muhanga district.

I've spent hours on line googling everything I can think of to learn about the country; google earth is absolutely brilliant. I think I've already got a good feel for what the landscape is going to look like but I'm sure it's going to be a huge culture shock when I arrive. For the first few days I'll be based in Kigale, the capital, for intensive briefings on things like security.

The first question I get asked by friends is "is it safe to go there?" The answer seems to be a definite "yes"; in fact by many measures Rwanda is safer than most other countries in Africa.
It seems to be making an exceptionally fast adjustment back to normality after the genocide of 1994. The remnants of the interahamwe rebels and disaffected Rwandan army soldiers seem to have been pushed into Burundi and the Congo, where they're still causing mayhem but don't cross the borders and therefore don't cause trouble inside Rwanda proper. We're banned from going into the Congo and very strongly discouraged from Burundi because they're so dangerous. That's a shame, but, then, the situation could improve during my year there.

The mountain gorillas are in the north of Rwanda, right up against the borders with Congo and Uganda. So also is the big Karisimbi volcano - 14500 feet, very active, and just begging to be climbed......

So, it's onwards and upwards, and roll on my SKWID training course in mid October.

Grandad's Flight

It's August 16th and we've finally got Grandad airborne (at the third attempt). What a saga! When we arranged this back in Christmas 2006 we thought it would be a doddle to turn up and fly. And with Grandad being 90 it seemed a beautiful way to celebrate his birthday. In the event, however, it turned into such a marathon that we wondered if he would be 91 by the time we got off the ground!


After all the faffing around fixing a date when both Ruth and I were free, after booking ferries to the island, meeting up and collecting "Biggles"................... on the first attempt we arrived at the airfield to find the plane had broken down that morning. On the second attempt we got there to find the weather had closed in and the cloudbase was too low to allow a flight.


Never mind. On August 16th the sun was shining, the plane was working, and we were all there ready and waiting. We were airborne around 45 minutes doing a complete circuit of the island, clockwise from Sandown. The cabin on the plane was too cramped to get any decent pictures of Grandad, but I was able to take lots out of the window. Here are two of my favourites. Firstly the Needles and Alum Bay:

Secondly, Yarmouth harbour:

The views were stunning - everything we could have wished for. Flying through a rain shower, looking at individual houses (we were only about 1500 feet up and only doing about 80 knots), identifying from the air the places we've visited on land - magic! The island looked very green and pleasant.

The only negative thing was the constant lurching around of the plane whenever a gust of wind took it. That took some getting used to!

When we landed we asked the pilot to take a picture of the intrepid crew:

So here's to you Grandad! Not bad at all for a 90 year old. The spirit of Biggles lives....