Final countdown

Rwanda here I come! In three days' time I shall be in Africa. Hard to believe on a wet, grey Dorset Saturday. I'm still piling mounds of clothes, hardware and medicines onto our spare bed, while wondering "how can I possibly carry all this?" I have been given a 40 kilo baggage allowance which is wonderful, because there's no way I'd ever be able to keep it all within 20kg.

I've been simply bowled over by the support and goodwill from so many people in Bridport and Beaminster: the churches, our neighbours, the Brit Valley Rotary, the New Elizabethan Singers. Our mantelpiece is crowded with good luck cards, and everyone seems to have looked at the blog already. I can't describe how reassuring it feels to be leaving England with so much encouragement.

Everyone in our family has also been so amazingly encouraging, and at the end of December we had a family gathering on the Isle of Wight for Dad's 91st birthday and for my farewell. Thank you, all of you, and especially to Teresa who has been so patient when half of me has for months been thinking and dreaming about Africa.

As for accommodation in Rwanda, I now know that I'm to share a house with Tom, who is a church-based aid worker. Sounds fine to me to be sharing with someone who already knows the ropes. And, I understand, he has a working fridge: what luxury!

On a lighter note, I'm determined to finish the final "Harry Potter" book before I go - all 600 pages of it - so I'm reading furiously. I've bought a clutch of Dorset calendars to take with me. They'll make useful presents, and also serve as visual aids is people want me to describe what life in West Dorset is like.

The news from Kenya is grim; fortunately I'm flying direct to Kigali and not (as most volunteers do) via Nairobi. But in the Rwandan newspapers there's much talk about a resurgence of "genocide ideology" - the attitudes and inter-ethnic hatreds which made the 1994 catastrophe possible - so there's clearly an important role for me in helping schools promote tolerance. In fact, it seems that schools are very much the front line in creating or dispelling sectional hatreds within the country.

We shall see.

Well, the goodbyes have all been said and now it's time to pack my things. Teresa's taking me up to Gatwick on Monday evening and I'm staying overnight in a hotel there ready for a crack of dawn flight to Brussels (then transferring to the main flight to Kigali). VSO have booked me a seat on the plane with extra legroom which is wonderful.

Once again, a huge thank you to all of you who have been so encouraging to me. The next blog, I hope, will be from Kigali. Africa beckons.

Viva Cuba

Just returned from a holiday in Cuba with Teresa. We had intended to go last Spring, but couldn't get onto a trip, and had to wait until November. (Summer months are the hurricane season, so to be avoided). Those of you reading this who were with me at VSO training at Harborne Hall - this is the reason why I couldn't start my placement in September when you all began!

So what was Cuba like? First of all hot, HOT, HOT! Good training for Rwanda, though. I must make sure I don't let myself get dehydrated, and I have to learn to move more slowly and not charge about like a bull in the proverbial.

Good things about Cuba: the music (everywhere and always competent; even the smallest cafe has its little band and absolutely everyone has a sense of rythm). Watching people dance - so fluid, so transported. The scenery - almost complete lack of adverts (but plenty of political slogans on billboard sized hoardings), litter-free in most places, vivid greens everywhere. The old American cars - they're eveywhere, kept going more by faith than physics. The safety - even in the most run-down parts of Havana we didn't feel threatened (though if I went out on my own I could barely get two blocks before being propositioned by a statuesque young jinetera). Old Havana where the buildings have been restored - high quality restoration. The courtyards inside some of the older colonial style buildings are simply wonderful oases of calm and coolness. Going round a crocodile reserve/farm, then eating crocodile meat for lunch. The aerial ropeway at Las Terrazas eco-resort - in fact just about everything about Las Terrazas from the landscaping of the main hotel to the wonderful vegetarian restaurant and the orchid collection in the botanical gardens.

Grotty things about Cuba: public transport (not that we used it, but literally hundreds of people crammed into the camel-buses in tropical heat must be unbearable). The unrestored buildings in central Havana - literally falling down, though with people still living in them. Turkey vultures - they're everywhere; the first few are interesting, after that they're boring. They gather in flocks of two dozen or more. The waste of land - thousands of acres of fertile land left idle because the combination of world sugar prices, the American blockade and the lack of lateral thinking by national planners means that growing and refining sugar is unprofitable. Pollution from ancient lorries and modern oil refineries or power stations (especially in Cienfuegos).

Here are some pictures which sum up my experience of Cuba:

Ah, the palm trees. Coconut palms, royal palms, even "pregnant palms" with suggestive bulge in their trunk in Pinar del Rio. Everone a slightly different shape. The curved ones were especially beautiful.

This is part of the World Heritage site in Trinidad, on the south coast of Cuba. Old, colonial style buildings, some restored and others stiull waiting. Cobbled streets. American car. Lack of traffic, lack of adverts. Chaotic jumble of phone and power wires. The whole town dozing away in the mid-day heat.

These are the "mogotes" - weird limestone formations in Pinar Del Rio province in the far West of Cuba. The flat land around them dotted with tiny houses, all of them small tobacco farms. Little tent-shaped huts thatched with leaves, where the tobacco is cured.

Once Edouardo, our guide, had sussed that none of our party had links to the secret police, he was amazingly open about the pluses and minuses of life in Cuba. Everybody wanted to sound him out about the big question: what will happen when Fidel dies. His take was that nothing will hapen until Fidel goes. Hopefully, Bush will be gone in the USA and replaced with Clinton or Obama, or other more moderate politicians. The Helms-Burton act, which has imposed a trade embargo to strangle Cuba's trade with the rest of the world, will be lifted. At the point Cuba will change very quickly. Whether it will be corporate America rolling in and swamping everything, or whether Cuba can control America's influence while welcoming its dollars, is a moot point.

One thing is certain: if you want to see the "classic" Cuba, the Cuba of Castro and Che Guevara as it has been for the past 50 years, you need to go as soon as poss!

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!