Hooray, I'm, back on the road!

June 10th

Well, today I’m off to do a school inspection. Cyeza primary is some way up-country and I’ll need a good moto to get there. I’m wandering down the main road into town when Alphonse stops for me in the District pick-up truck, so I get a lift into the office. The census forms still aren’t there, so I leave straight away to find a moto to get me to Cyeza.

There aren’t any motos around because its rush hour, and I walk right down to the main road before one of the little bikes stops for me. This isn’t what I planned; I expect I’ll have to get off and walk every time we come to a hill. However, this bike is in good shape and the driver is competent, and we get all the way to the school without having to dismount.

Cyeza is a middle sized primary school with a mixture of brick and mud-brick buildings. There are neat flower beds, respected by the children. The headmistress is welcoming, and shows me round the site. The school grounds are extensive, with loads of manioc plants, plus coffee trees and even three or four banana trees. They’ve even terraced one plot of land to make it easier to work. Not bad for a primary school!

I launch into the “inspection administrative”. I’ve done my homework thoroughly and come with all sorts of questions about drop out rates and so on, but I don’t get any of the answers I want. The head is not being evasive; I think she genuinely doesn’t see what I’m trying to show her, and my French isn’t quite good enough to pin her down. Her admin is actually very thorough; I can’t fault her at all. Cyeza has some of the worst results in the district, but this woman is well aware of it and has a plan to combat it. She’s in the school all the time instead of swanning around like many others; she checks lessons regularly; she demands to see her staff’s work plans and matches them against what they should be doing. They test the children every week and there’s a big practise mock exam for the 6ème coming up at the end of term. (See tomorrow’s blog entry). I’m here to support her, not to condemn, and I don’t see what more she could possibly be doing. I tell her she has my total confidence and offer to help in any way I can.

I watch a year 6 English lesson; very traditional – can’t fault it except that it’s deadly dull. But the teacher’s English isn’t bad. I watch a 1ère French lesson where they’re learning prepositions of place – “sous la table”, “sur le pupitre” and so on. This is better – the teacher makes good use of mime and gesture, and despite having a class of 55 she copes very well. She must be exhausted at the end of it, though.

I debrief with the head and borrow from her a load of previous P6 exam papers which I’ll get photocopied and then return to her.

I dismissed my moto when I arrived at the school. I decided to start walking and flag down a moto when one passes me. Three miles later, and up a very long hill, I’m still walking. There’s been several motos, but they’re either going the other way or they’ve got passengers. I’m being asked for money left, right and centre by everyone I pass, especially the children.

Eventually a moto stops for me, and takes me all the way back to my flat. In the afternoon I write up my report.

Teresa rings me and is happy with the itinerary for her trip. Good – now I can get on with booking things like accommodation.

Also, I finally get through to the priest in Rongi to ask if I can stay at the presbytery tomorrow night. It’s so nice – I was afraid he’d have forgotten all about me, but he remembers my name and what I’m doing, and he’ll be pleased to entertain me tomorrow night. They don’t get many visitors at Rongi; it’s the parish the furthest out from their Kabgayi headquarters.

Karen texts to invite Tom and I out for a meal tomorrow, but I have to decline as I’ll be away.

Best thing about today – getting out on the road again. Yay! It feels good. Also I’ve discovered that Busekera primary is a “satellite school” of Sholi, so I can visit both in one day next week. That means I’ll have done all the Cyeza schools. So, Claude, please can I have my brownie points?

A totally wasted day

June 9th

This is one of the days you wish you’d stayed in England.

At the office there’s no sign of Béatrice, and I discover she’s off on her annual leave for virtually the whole of June. Fortunately the census papers are still around, but the young lad who has been transcribing some of the data has them at his home and can’t get them today. I’m off inspecting tomorrow and up-country Wednesday and Thursday, so there’s no chance of doing any proper work on them till Friday at the earliest. I’m getting so Africanised that this doesn’t even bother me now; I just do a Rwandan shrug and move on to “plan B”.

What the hell was “plan B”? Come to think of it, I don’t think there was one.

Védaste breezes in mid morning, with my flash drive which he seems to have appropriated. Collects a lot of data from me and leaves a virus on my laptop which my checker won’t kill. (I suppose in fairness it’s a couple of months since I updated it). Then he’s straight off to do some other job, and taking my flash with him. He’s more trouble than help at the moment, and I want shot of him (and my flash back), but I need him to help me finish the translations on my presentations and look over my secondary stuff.

Venantie’s computer has the Odinga virus again so nobody dare use it except to print stuff that’s already on it.

There’s no sign of Claude at all, and I have an envelope with money for him – a delayed wedding gift from Bola Ojo. Oh well, it’ll have to wait like everything else!

Agnès, the Head at Kivumu, breezes in full of smiles as usual. They’re all looking forward to the jolly up to Rongi on Wednesday, and all keen that I come up there with them. Étienne is also in the office; he’s the Rongi secteur rep. I learn from him that the inspection on Wednesday will be at Kadehero (new ground to me), and the training on Thursday will be at Rongi school itself. Rongi was the second one that Cathie and I inspected, and the most dismal. I wonder if it’ll seem any better on a sunnier day and when they’re actually expecting us! Unfortunately nobody yet knows what time we’re setting off on Wednesday. All Étienne knows is that we’re going in a matata and we’re going via Kabacuzi – using the “road to the end of the earth” rather than the “great north road”. Seems an odd and cross-country way to go, but could be interesting from the scenery point of view. I’ll make sure I take my camera, and bag a window seat!

My newspaper has arrived in the post, so the only really useful things I do all day are to read the paper and RSVP to the British embassy ready for Friday’s bash.

I finally decide it’s time to do some more inspections. I try Sholi, but the head texts back to say he’s out at a Diocesan meeting at Kabgayi that day. True, or just another excuse to fob me off? I wonder! So I try Cyeza school and the headmistress texts back right away to say that’s fine by her. I’m very guilty when I realise it’ll be first formal inspection since my birthday in mid-March!

Tom brings William home for supper. William is the Texan intern who’s doing a week’s work experience with FHI in Gitarama. He seems pleasant enough, full of business talk and big ideas but without much of a clue as to how Rwanda works.

During the evening our water goes off, and we’re left with a tiny trickle from the taps.

I try and try to get hold of the priest at Rongi to arrange accommodation with him for Wednesday night, but his phone is off most of the evening, and engages the other times I try him. As a last resort I’ll have to travel back on Wednesday night and up again Thursday morning, but I really don’t want to if I can avoid it. And in any case I want to suss out the presbyteries as a long term solution to inspecting up in the far north!

Last thing before bed is to go through all my statistics and look up all the stuff about Cyeza. Its exam results are truly terrible, and it’ll be interesting to see what state the place is in.

Best thing about today – not a lot. Tom’s tomato sauce must be the high point of the day.

Worst thing – it’s so cold and grey, I’m not getting anything done and not helping anyone out here. Why am I here? Never mind. Tomorrow’s another day and I’ll be out on the road.

Plumbing, Rwandan style

June 7-8th

Well, this is the weekend of the plumber. Early on Saturday the plumber arrives, has a look at the leak, and tells us that, yes, it’s leaking. It’ll cost us RwF3000 (£3) to fix, plus parts. That’s fine by us, and we agree to pay. We still hope it’s just the washer but really we know it’s more serious. The plumber comes back with a mate, and the night guard, and they clatter and bang in the bathroom. In the process of sorting out the problem they discover that the tap has sheared off from its feeder pipe. I think it was a bodged bit of plumbing in the first place when the building was put up. The workman needs to go and buy a part; it will cost RwF5000. We give him the money up front – that’s the Rwandan way – and off he goes.

Over the rest of Saturday he comes and goes at regular intervals. A tile has to be knocked out of the wall. The supply pipe has to be chiselled and dug out of the wall. The bath and floor end up full of bits of plaster, broken tile fragments and general gunk. The bathroom floor is under a centimetre of water. All the time, the damaged pipe is leaking a stream of water which gurgles its way down the plughole. Fortunately the water is included in our rent, so it’s SORAS rather than Tom and I who will pay for all this wasted h2o

Having the plumbers coming and going means that Tom and I can’t both be out of the flat at the same time. I go out late morning and do some internetting – for once I’m really caught up on both text and picture blogging and feel really happy about that. Also, I’m able to sit down and plan Teresa’s itinerary for when she comes. Several things have fallen into place over the last two days, and the clincher has been Kersti telling me that Nick is prepared to hire out the car he’s importing from Dubai. RwF40000 a day is a reasonable rate by Rwandan standards, and if I’m hiring from an acquaintance then I won’t be robbed. (Kirsty won’t let him!) The main things now, assuming Teresa is happy with what I propose, are to book accommodation. The only dodgy thing is whether Nick’s car will have arrived in time, but even if it doesn’t arrive we can access most of what we need by bus. It’s just that a car makes things faster and much more comfortable.

Suddenly its late afternoon and we haven’t really done anything all day. The night guard comes to tell us that they still haven’t fixed the tap, and will have to leave it for tonight and get a replacement tap on Sunday. It means that we’ve got no water in the flat. However, we’ve filled up our filters so we have clean drinking water, and there’s a tap outside the building so we can get buckets to use for flushing the toilet and for washing up. We’re still a lot better off than most volunteers on a good day!

We go out for a meal at Delta and watch videos all evening.

On Sunday it rains really heavily for hours during the small hours. Everything is cold and damp and all the Rwandans passing the flat on the road looked hunched up and miserable. Tom’s off to Kigali later this morning to pick up an intern from the airport. This lad, Will, will be shadowing Tom all week and Tom’s worried as to how he’s going to find Will enough work to keep him occupied. Tom stays in during the morning to sort out the plumbers, but fortunately the new tap arrives and fits and they soon get the job finished. The tap itself has cost us RwF15000, so the entire job – one and a half days work for two men, plus parts – has cost £23. This is an outrageously large sum for any normal Rwandan family, but fortunately not for us. In any case, we’ve decided we’ll just deduct it from the next quarter’s rent.

I decide to go to church because I haven’t been for a fortnight and won’t be able to for the next fortnight. The service goes on for almost three hours, and I’m well fed-up by the time it eventually grinds to a halt at 12.30. Next time I’m going somewhere different – possibly the Catholic cathedral at Kabgayi, where masses are in French at 9.00, or St Andre where they do a French service at 4p.m. The masses only last an hour. You’re just as shriven, but in half the time!

Today is amazingly cold and grey – it must be colder here on the Equator than it is in England. After sitting I the flat for an hour I have to put on a fleece in the middle of the day! It’s constantly threatening to rain, or comes on a brief shower and then stops again. It’s too wet to venture out for a walk.

I had intended to either do bread making or make flapjacks this afternoon, but we haven’t got enough marge to make flapjacks and we’re well off for shop bread. And I’m feeling too lazy. I decide to catch up on some videos. Karen has given me a copy of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with Callista Flockhart and Michelle Pfeiffer, and it’s a brilliant production. From that I go on to an old Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn film, and then a thriller. That’s taken care of the rest of the day!

In the evening there’s the usual meal with Karen and co, but tonight there’s only four of us. Tom’s still in Kigali; Christi’s just arrived back from Kigali and is exhausted; Nix and Ulrike are both working at their orphanages. The two deaf girls are really concerned that a teacher at La Misericorde School (for handicapped children) is beating the boarders. Karen has already confiscated a length of rope the man was using, but apparently it’s still going on. Not in school – he doesn’t dare do it when muzungus are around, but in the evenings when children are back in their boarding accommodation. This man is influential and has powerful friends, so it’s not just a problem of threatening to tell the head. I think we’re going to have to alert Claude or even the Mayor if he doesn’t stop.

Best thing about today – getting the plumbing fixed. But they’ve still connected it up so that the red tap is cold and the blue tap is hot water………

Worst thing about today – three hours on a hard seat in church! I’m mutinous.

A pretty good day in Kigali: typhoid, visas, and an invite from the Queen

dJune 6th

Into Kigali on a fast bus, and good connections up to Kimironko and the VSO office. So far so good. Then I discover I’ve left a library book behind that I wanted to return, and also left a textbook I needed to photocopy from and my “things to do” list.

Firstly some very good news. Soraya is not only better but out of hospital and right in front of me in the flesh (well,not literally) in the VSO office. She is still very groggy and pumped full of medicines, and she has a horrible hacking cough. But she’s on the mend. She’s had a long talk with Mike, the new Rwanda Director, and Charlotte and at last everyone has agreed that she’s got to be pulled out of Mushubi. I don’t know when, but sooner rather than later! She’s been given the option of packing up altogether and going home to the Philippines, but she wants to carry on here. So they’ve given her three of the upcoming September placements to have a look at, and a week to decide where she wants to go. Two of the placements are in Kigali, and the third is in a place called Gitarama – she would be picking up where Cathie finishes. It means she would be working with me. We have a laugh about this. I think she’ll go for one of the Kigali placements, but it would be lovely to have her here and working with me. Soraya doesn’t speak any French, but her Kinyarwanda is pretty good and I’m sure we’d manage.

I pick up my VSO mail and some stuff for Cathie and for Karen. I’m the Gitarama postman once again.

In the conference room is Épi, having her hair braided and extensions put in. She’s been there since eight o’clock this morning (and is still there and nowhere near finished when I leave at 4 in the afternoon). It’s nice to see her; she was at Cathryn’s party last weekend but we didn’t really talk to each other. We talk about going up to look at Gisenyi on the first weekend in July. Her family lived there at one time, so she’s definitely interested. Giudi might come with her, and I’m still hoping Soraya will come as well if she’s not in the middle of moving house and placement at that time.

I manage to get all my stuff done on the internet, which is good news, and also some shopping – flour (I’m going to have another go at breadmaking), honey and porridge oats (so that I can have a bash at flapjack), and local peanut butter.

In my pigeonhole is my official invitation from the British Embassy to the Queen’s Birthday bash on Friday evening. The invitation is all fancy lettering, with gold royal coat of arms on the envelope, but some clown has spelt the monarch as “Queen Elizaberth”. Everyone has invites; because VSO England is the “lead” body for VSO, everybody is included. So Épi as a Canadian, Soraya as a Philippina and the Irish and Dutch volunteers will all be there. I have to RSVP by phone on Monday.

Kersti’s in the office, so I quickly bag a mattress space for Friday night at Nick’s place. Then on Saturday there’s Han’s science fair down at the secondary school at Gasarenda, so I’ll travel down there with Kersti and Épi next Saturday morning. I’ll sleep on somebody’s floor at either Gasarenda or Kigeme, and I can talk to some of the gang about accommodation in that area for when Teresa comes in July.

I have a lot of travel expenses to claim – RwF37000 for moto journeys to schools, and 22000 for a planning meal for the English group at Butare. That last isn’t my money; I’ll have to distribute it at the English training sessions. The amount is so much that they won’t give me cash; they’ll do a direct transfer to my bank account. Eventually. Good job I took out a lot of money last week!

By early afternoon I’ve had time to do some looking up on line for the “brain gym” and VAK work I’m doing at the English training sessions in mid June, and it’s turning into a good day. Outside it’s pouring with rain again, and quite chilly. Verily, the rainy and dry seasons are all to pot!

Josianne in the office has a CD of Rwandan music; it turns out to be religious music by an up-and-coming young woman who is only 20. One of the other women in the office introduces herself and tells me she wrote one of the songs on the album. I get Josianne to put a copy of the CD on my flash drive; I’ll listen to it during the week and see if it’s any good.

In the afternoon we’re supposed to be having a Capacity Working Group meeting, but only two other people besides me turn up. I think there’s a lot of confusion because of a change of date (my fault, by the way), and because VSO have said we have no budget left for these meetings. The three of us decide what we’re going to do next – plan one further meeting, email everyone to say it’s going ahead and either they turn up or we reluctantly wind up the forum) – and then it’s time to gather up all my stuff and leave. Épi’s still sitting on a cushion on the floor; she’s about two thirds finished and is going to look sensational when it’s all done. The extensions she’s having put in are a reddish-brown colour, and they’re giving her hair highlights because her natural colour is absolutely jet black. (She’s got the blackest long hair I’ve ever seen).

Back to Gitarama with a moslem driver, the most aggressive and impatient bus driver I’ve experienced. Hooting at everything and making no allowances for anyone. How we didn’t get shunted around the Kigali roundabouts is a mystery. And I’m sitting in the front middle seat which means I don’t have the luxury of even a frayed seatbelt, either.

Back home I distribute the mail to Karen and Cathie. One of the letters for Cathie and Elson turns out to be from the Canadian Embassy in Nairobi, and is asking for Elson’s passport and for proof that Cathie has been applying for jobs in Canada. Cathie can trump that – she’s got documentary proof of an actual job offer! So it means that Elson will have a visa very shortly and hopefully both of them will be able to leave for Canada together. It’s nice to be the bringer of good news.

The leak from our hot tap has been getting really serious, so we ask the night guard to speak to the SORAS manager (he’s the representative of the people who own the flat) and we need to get it repaired. The SORAS man comes up with the guard and both peer at the leak for 5 minutes. It’s agreed that we’ll have to pay for the repair; I’m not 100% sure whether we can knock it off the next lot of rent or how it’s all going to work, but we discover the cold tap is leaking as well. It’s probably not the washer; it looks as though one of the joins in the pipe work is leaking, just where the pipes are embedded in mortar into the outside wall. Oh well, the job must be done and while parts are pricey in Rwanda, labour is dirt cheap by Western standards. The guard says he’ll get a plumber to come in tomorrow (Saturday).

Best thing about today – lots of things! Soraya’s better and being got out of Mushubi; Elson’s going to get his visa for Canada. I’ve caught up with internet and downloaded stuff for my training course. I’m all sorted out for next weekend.

Worst thing about today – nothing really – even the stuff I left behind when I set off for Kigali doesn’t matter because I’m coming in again next Friday for Her Majesty’s booze up! I’ll hit the photocopier in the VSO office (before going to the Embassy….)

The road to Kibangu

Here is the series of pictures I took on the way back from Kibangu (see blog for June 5th). Apologies that some are blurred; they were taken from pillion seat of a moving moto on mega-bumpy dirt roads! And apologies if some are very dark; it was about to pee down with rain at any minute!

Wisps of cloud far below us. But just imagine living in the middle of these hills and needing to travel anywhere....

Charcoal burning, with planks of wood drying next to the kilns

A whole mountainside cleared of trees for making charcoal. You can see plumes of smoke from the charcoal burning

On this one you can see the tree stumps left to regenerate, and the deep trenches to prevent rainwater washing all the soil straight off the mountainside.

A nice moody shot of clouds. As we entered the cloud the heavens opened and we got soaked to the skin for the next hour!

To Kibangu by the high road!

June 5th

My alarm goes at ten to five, and I haul myself out of bed. I haven’t slept well because I’m still wondering whether we’re actually going training today or not. By six o’clock I’m all ready to leave and I’ve tried both ringing and texting Cathie several times, but all I’m getting is “number unavailable” or some even sillier message that her phone number isn’t listed. Obviously the MTN network is in crisis and I can’t rely on phone communication at the precise time when I most need it. So I have to walk up to Cathie’s where my worst fears are confirmed. They’ve received none of last night’s messages; she has assumed we’re not training and she’s fast asleep.

My first thoughts are to leave her and forget the training. But the Kibangu teachers would never forgive us if they all turned up for training and we muzungus left them in the lurch, so I feel we have to go. I bang and bang on Cathie and Elson’s door until they open up. An hour later, and after frantic phone calls to the moto drivers, we’re on our way at last. The drivers are charging us RwF12000 each, which seems an outrageous sum. (But when you read about where we go, it is actually money well spent and reasonable in view of the terrain).

The first part of the journey is the usual road up past Muhanga, and skirting round Mushushiro and Kabacuzi. I’m assuming we’re going to pass Nsanga and then turn off north. But no, we turn off on a steep mountain track and rattle and lurch up a scary slope until we’re right on top of the highest hills in the district. Mountains, really. The views are staggeringly good, but there are mist banks rolling up and around and every so often all views are blotted out. But then it clears – well, what views! Hills in all directions; it’s like being in a low flying plane.

The track goes on and on for miles. We pass a mine adit going into the hillside; I can’t work out what they are mining but it might be tin. We pass a vast area where every tree has been cut down, and men and women are making charcoal on dozens of ovens. Every single tree has gone, and the hillsides are bare. They are slightly terraced, with deep ditches parallel to the slope to intercept drainage and stop gulleying. I’m told that because they leave the roots in the soil, the trees re-grow from the root stock, and that the re-growth is very fast.

The charcoal ovens are piles of wood cuttings covered with soil and turf, and bound about by wooden planks. Everywhere you look there are plumes of smoke from them, and the air is caustic with the smell of partly burning wood. The trees they’re using are eucalypts, and it’s a slightly aromatic smell, but sulphurous at the same time. Not pleasant.

The charcoal makers are living in rough wooden huts dotted around the hillside but mainly along this one track which runs along the ridge. Every few yards there are stacks of sacks of charcoal ready for market, with a plug of grass in the mouth of the sack to keep any pieces from falling out.

Also, where the trees have been felled any decent timber has been sawn into planks and these are all stacked neatly in piles about ten feet high to weather. In some places it looks as though they are using the heat from the charcoal furnaces to steam the planks, or to speed up their weathering, but I can’t be sure exactly what’s happening.

The slopes are very steep in places, and the bikes are now teetering close to the edge. The track starts its descent and down and down we go, through wooded valleys, with bands of rock crossing the track every few hundred yards giving a bone-jarring ride. Through the trees there are more and more beautiful, rustic valleys opening up to our vision. Little houses dot the hillsides. There are precious few tracks in sight anywhere. It’s unbelievably rural and far from civilisation. Every few yards there are people walking, carrying ridiculously heavy loads up the mountain. Women with babies on their backs, a big bundle of wood or shopping on their heads, and an umbrella in one hand, walking as elegantly as if they weren’t carrying a thing. They all stop and wave at us as we pass. In about ten miles of mountain road we pass only one other vehicle.

Most roads and tracks in Rwanda go along the sides of hills, and not along the tops. And most of the very biggest hills are densely wooded. So this track is really rare – right along the ridge, for mile after mile, with wide open views for score of miles. I’m sure that if this mist would only lift we’d be able to see all the volcanoes.

We plunge on down and down again until eventually we reach “civilisation” – a health centre. Shortly followed by an enormous church, and a school. We’re at Kibangu, our destination. Just down from the primary school lies the secondary, with its Rwandan flag fluttering in the slight breeze. The day is clouding up and getting chillier by the minute.

Well, we’ve arrived. We’re on the right day, at the right place, and at the right time. But there’s nobody here to meet us. Its nine o’clock, and all the children are inside at their lessons. As we try to find the head teacher’s office, the usual chaos erupts. Teachers abandon their lessons and lounge in the doorways of their rooms while the children hang out of the windows, and in some case climb out of windows to come up close to us and stare. None of the teachers deigns to come and ask us what we’re doing here, or if they can help us. There’s no sign of the head teacher, who is also the secteur rep and the person responsible for making sure we have a room and an audience.

This goes on for a full five minutes while we begin to fear that, after all this journey and expense, there’s going to be no training.

At last one elderly teacher comes up to us and we explain to him why we’re here. Immediately he says they’re not aware of any training today. We’re both furious. What on earth was the head of Murehe up to when he told me late last night that the training was on, and at Kibangu. Was he just trying to tell me what he thought I wanted to hear?

We try ringing Viateur, the head at Kibangu. He’s not on site. I’m getting fed up with the head teachers who seem to spend as little time in their schools as possible. My phone’s still not working, and the whole network still seems to be only functioning sporadically. Eventually Cathie gets through and reminds him that he’s supposed to have organised a secteur-wide training session for today. Viateur plays the innocent and claims he never got the letter telling him about it. Well, if that’s true, then he’s the only one who didn’t. Every other secteur rep has organised the event, and most have done it well.

By now it’s 9.30, Cathie’s mutinous (I did dig her out of bed, and for a wild goose chase), so we get back on our bikes and decide we’ll go back home, take a load of pictures of the scenery on the way, and do some other work together back in Gitarama.

Just as we’re leaving the site Viateur turns up in his tee-shirt and gardening trousers. He’s making great play of phoning all the other schools in the secteur. “Don’t worry”, he tells us, “Just hang on half an hour and they’ll all come”. We’re doubtful; it’ll be more like an hour than 30 minutes, and it assumes that teachers in all the schools in the secteur can just abandon their classes at the drop of a hat and get themselves to Kibangu.

Cathie’s all for storming off and leaving them to it, but I persuade her that, now we’re here, we ought to stay and do a session. But we’ll abbreviate the session because our moto drivers won’t want to be leaving much later than half past one.

Eventually Viateur throws a class out of their room, and we get started. It’s an hour and a half before the last clients arrive, and by then we’re half way through the event.

Considering the inauspicious start, the session goes well. We leave in all the fun stuff- games and songs – and concentrate on the teaching pedagogy. I’m writing summaries of stuff on one blackboard while Cathie’s doing the talking, and this way they can copy down a lot of things what we won’t have time to explain I detail.

Just as we’re finishing and packing our bags for a quick getaway it starts to rain. It rains, it pours, it comes down a torrential downpour for a full 40 minutes. All of us are marooned in the classroom. Cathie and I are starving – I had my breakfast at just after 5 and it’s not half past one. We make a dash to Viateur’s office so we can chew a sambosa or two to hold us together till we get home. (We’ve given the Rwandans some sweeties to thank them for their good humour in coming at such short notice, too).

The rain will have made the earth tracks treacherously slippery, so we – and the moto drivers – are very anxious about getting home. It turns out to be a slow and slippery run. The tyres on my driver’s moto have very little tread left, and I can feel the back wheels sliding away time and time again. But both men are really excellent drivers, and we never once come near to being thrown off the bikes. These lads are really earning their money today.

I take lots of photos on the run home; most turn out to be unusable because they’re too blurred, but a few are really nice and give us a lasting memory of the fantastic panoramas from the ridge. I’d even think about paying this small fortune to do the ride again for fun, on a clear and sunny day when I’m not pushed for a deadline and can stop at will to take snaps.

When we’re about half way home it comes on to rain heavily again and within minutes we’re all soaked. I have my cagoule on, but I can feel rain running down inside my neck. Inside my helmet my head is completely dry, but all the rain from the helmet is dribbling down my neck. We can’t stop and shelter; the track will become completely impassable. As it is, there is a muddy stream erupting down the gulleys along its length, and manoeuvring the bike is becoming so difficult that we’re down to a slow jogging pace. And anyway, we haven’t passed a house or anywhere we could shelter since the mine entrance a mile or so back. It seems to take forever to return to the main road. At Mushishiro there’s a covered market stall with what looks like half the parish crowded in to shelter. We barge in, too, and they part to stare at us. The local “care in the community” type, an elderly man with a club foot and stick, tries and tries to engage us in conversation even though we keep explaining to him that we can’t speak Kinyarwanda. Eventually our moto drivers take pity on us and shoo him away.

Back at the flat I’m quite literally soaked to the skin. My receipt book is so wet the moto driver can barely sign it. Fortunately my camera seems OK. But it takes me a good hour to get warm again, and I’m shivering like mad at one point.

Can this really be the dry season, and the Equator?

Best things about today – making the best of things, and the very best moto journey of all so far. It’s difficult to think how any other run could possible best the combination of scenery and excitement at coping with adverse road conditions.

Worst thing – its very stressful when you aren’t sure whether things are going to happen; you’re constantly adjusting what you’re going to do. Being flexible and adaptable is what we’re all about in VSO, but today’s experience is definitely taking flexibility a bit far!

Another wasted day

June 4th

Another wasted day. No Védaste, no Claude. Béatrice, it seems, has gone on leave. Nobody knows where the census forms are. Venantie things Béatrice might have sent them to MINEDUC at Kigali. So I can’t get on with any of the things I want to do. By Mid-day the only positive things I’ve done are blog a load of photos of the Mwami’s palace at Nyanza, and email the final information on the Shyogwe bid to Holland. I faff around creating charts and diagrams on the secondary school data that I do have, but it’s only for 9 schools instead of the full 26 or so. It’s a reliable sample, but I’d prefer to have the whole picture.

Then in the afternoon there’s a power cut. I stick it out for nearly an hour, but the electricity is clearly not coming back on any tine soon, and now my laptop battery is just about exhausted. There’s nobody at all left in the office, either. So I pack up and go home.

I’ve written two letters to email to people, so I go back to the internet café. They have power, but the electricity cut has stopped their internet connection. So I’m frustrated yet again.

Cathie’s spending the day at her old school in Gasarenda, saying goodbye to teachers and some of the pupils who remember her. She still hasn’t rung me to tell me any details about where we’re doing training tomorrow, or what time we’re starting.

I do a big shop-up in the market; at least that’s something positive I can achieve. Tom has rung to say that today is Christi’s parents’ last day before they fly back to America, and we’re all going to eat out tonight. No problem; the vegetables will keep another day.

Just as I’m walking down to the restaurant Teresa rings to say there’s a problem with our car back in England. I can’t tell her exactly what to do over the phone, but she’s got the situation in hand. It had to happen sooner or later! No sooner have I finished that call when Cathie rings. She can’t make contact with any of the head teachers in Kibangu, and at the moment we don’t know where we’re doing the training tomorrow.

It’s nice to say farewell to Christi’s parents; they’re lovely people and we’re all the better for having spent some time with them. I think they’ve learnt a lot about Rwanda, and also a lot about us crazies who’ve come here to work

Back at the flat, and for the next two hours until nearly eleven o’clock, both Cathie and I are getting increasingly anxious as we try to make contact with anyone from Kibangu. None of the head teachers’ phones seem to be working. The secteur rep, Viateur, who is the key person, is completely unreachable. We get to the point where we agree that if nobody gets back to us with information, we won’t go there tomorrow.

Shortly before eleven I get a phone call from one of the heads. It’s in fast, heavily accented French, but I clearly understand him to say that the training will be at Kibangu primary, starting at nine. I try to ring Cathie, but get a stupid message saying her phone number isn’t listed. That’s rubbish! So I text her – twice – but I can’t tell whether the texts have gone through or whether she’s read them. So I phone again and again. But every tine I get this stupid message saying that she doesn’t exist. There must be something dramatically wrong with the MTN network tonight. I even dismantle my phone and reassemble it in case there’s a problem with my battery giving the false messages. But nothing I do makes any difference. Eventually I decide it’s too late to do anything more tonight. I’ll get up early tomorrow and hope the phone system has righted itself, and that I can make sure Cathie’s got the message and is up and about in time to set off for Kibangu at six.

Best thing about today- the meal with Christi’s parents

Worst thing about today – just about everything else!