First days; first impressions

Last night I didn’t sleep particularly well. I kept tangling with my mosquito net (it feels like being inside one of the old-fashioned muslin meat safes), and although I was tired I felt too wound-up to sleep properly. Then at 4.30 the nearby mosque broadcast its call to prayer, followed shortly after by all the others across the city. Exotic and romantic, certainly, when heard for the first time, but preferably not so early in the day. My body clock was still telling me it was 2.30! Just got back off when at 5.30 the birds started a kind of shouting match right outside my window, and by six I could hear people walking past my room and gave up trying to sleep.

I got up and had a leisurely unpacking of my kit – I seem to have brought half as much again as anyone else but that won’t matter once I arrive in Gitarama. And everything will get used eventually. First problem – the tap on my washbasin was dry. Next problem – I couldn’t get the shower to work. But I had cold water and a bucket, so problems were over. If we don’t have water on tap in Gitarama I’ll have to pay someone to bring me jerry cans of water for everything, and showering with a bucket will be par for the course. It certainly jolts you into action!

Plus points – the electricity is reliable, so no problems recharging phone, laptop etc. I have two rooms, a small bedroom and a huge dressing room-cum-bathroom.
The rooms are cool and clean. Just a few small spiders and the odd very big ant. Oh, and a fat little lizard who lives in an airbrick in the wall and (I hope) eats any insects who might be tempted to visit me.

I haven’t seen any mosquitoes in my room (yet), but they’re certainly in Kigali city and the most prevalent form of malaria is the worst sort which goes onto the brain. Gitarama, where I’ll be going on Jan 17th, is nearly 2000 metres high and almost beyond the reach of mossies, but for the meantime I’m taking no chances – lariam tablets, mossie net at night, and wire netting over every window!

Our daily routine on this training course is going to be exhausting. Today we started off with finance. Within half an hour we six volunteers had three million Rwandan Francs between us – half a million apiece. We were given a cheque for our first three months wages in advance, and instructions on how to open a local bank account. (Remember we’ll be doing this in French, with all the usual form filling to complete…) Then we were given 100,000 RwF to provide our household goods – bedding, curtains, buckets, pots and pans, a stove, cutlery. VSO provides us with bed and water filter. On Saturday we’ll all go to the Chinese supermarket in the town centre and the market place and haggle for our things. By the way, the conversion rate is £1 = 1000RwF, so we’re not all about to decamp to the Caribbean and party the year away…. And the picture on the 5000RwF note is…………..a gorilla.

After finance we filled in applications for our work permits. We are employees of the Rwandan ministry of education (teachers) or the local education authorities (for advisers like me. My employer is the Mayor. But Gitarama doesn’t have a mayor at the moment; he was sacked just after Christmas for carousing and enjoying the company of women other than his wife! English politicians take note! Not sure where this leaves me legally if my employer doesn’t exist, but, then, nobody seems to be worrying so why should I?).

Next, we piled into pick up trucks and were driven through Kigale to the VSO head office to meet everyone there and see what facilities they have to offer. It was a jumble of names, procedures and the like, but it meant that I’ve met the VSO official who is in charge of me during my time here, (Charlotte), as well as a whole bunch of other serving VSOs who had come in to collect money or kit for particular projects. They seem a sociable crowd and provided we’re all prepared to travel within the country, we won’t be getting lonely.

By lunchtime it was hot and humid, and we had a traditional Rwandan lunch of “melange”. Melange means mixture, and it’s an apt description for a massive carb feast – rice, chips, polenta, pasta, all with peas and stewed goat and fried fish. There’s always a salad side dish. There’s plenty of fruit – pineapple, sweet bananas, passion fruit. And lots of water. We’re trying to stay hydrated but somehow we never quite seem to drink enough. I think it’s because the water comes in little half-litre bottles (nobody here would dream of drinking water that didn’t come from a sealed bottle, and it’s a social gaffe if you don’t break the seal in front of a guest to prove to him that the water you’re giving him is clean). We feel guilty about all the pile of water plastic bottles we’re accumulating day after day.

Next came our first official lesson in Kinya-rwanda, the language. I prided myself on having done a lot of work on this before leaving home, but soon discovered that my pronunciation was rubbish because most of the words aren’t pronounced as they seem. We’re trying to wrap our mouths round something like “mngwaramutse” or “ni bgyiza”. It’s funny to watch others trying, but it feels like trying to talk with a mouth full of mashed banana. Still, by lunchtime we could say hello and goodbye in several different ways, and knew which we could use with our friends and which we mustn’t use in front of the boss etc Let’s just say it’s a lot more complicated than English and after a heavy lunch in stifling heat we weren’t at our sharpest. We ended up being given homework to do before the next morning’s session.

Meanwhile outside there was the rattle of gunfire from an army shooting range not far away, and the occasional heavy thud much closer. In the guest house where we’re staying there are mango and avocado trees. The avocados are ripe and fall off the tree at intervals. Kind of deters you from sitting under them: it would be tragic to get concussed by an avocado on our first day in Africa!

Finally, two VSOs who have already been in the country a year spent a hilarious hour telling us some of the local customs and how to avoid making gaffes. For example: Handshakes – with left hand on your right elbow to show respect to an elder or superior. Phone calls are expensive here, so nobody ever switches off their mobile. If a phone rings during a conversation, the person will just break off whatever they’re doing so they can answer the call – even if it is someone addressing a room full of people. There’s a national obsession with toothpicks; after eating you pick and flick the bits of goat or mango stuck in your teeth all over the table (or your neighbours). A lot of communication is non-verbal – raised eyebrows means “I agree”, for example when you’re negotiating a taxi. To get someone’s attention you hiss loudly. But never hiss to a woman; if she responds you assume she’s “loose”. If she’s virtuous she’ll be offended. It’s common for people to visit you at any hour of the day, and expect to be invited in and given food or drink.

By this time we’d had enough. We mutinied against further work and walked down into the city to find an internet café to be able to contact home. This turned out into a mini epic in itself. It was already dark and rush hour was at its height. There seemed to be a total free for all and almost complete gridlock with cars, mopeds and minibuses all weaving around each other; pedestrians everywhere including the middle of the road, and huge lorries loading at all the most awkward places. On unlit roads it’s lethal. We found a café and sent our messages, but the lines are very slow and I’m not able to send photos on the blog until I find somewhere with a faster link.

You’ll understand that after yet another meal of melange and fruit we just flaked out straight to bed!