Into the office

Monday Jan 21st

First day at the office. Up bright and breezy, half hour walk through cool morning and the sun just getting some heat as I reached the office. One of the first to arrive, so interesting half hour greeting people and practising my Kinya-rwanda on them before Claude arrived. Having been here twice already, at least the office begins to feel like home even if it isn’t very homely. Bleak is the best phrase I can use – no pictures on walls (not even in the offices), just a few calendars and curling notices.

We started with a meeting of the whole District Office team, from accounting to PR. I had to introduce myself in Kinya-rwanda, then the rest of the meeting was also in Kinyar which meant I understood nothing except the occasional word and the tone of conversations. Seemed aimed at motivating all the team.

Claude announced he had to go to Kigali for a meeting with the Ministry; and left me with a load of school roll statistics to input into his computer. This took an hour or so; even allowing for the variations in spelling of some school names.

From time to time people would appear round the door expecting to get favours or do business with Claude; I had to do my “je suis desole mais il est alle…..” routine. I felt sorry for some who had obviously come in from up country on the off chance of a meeting.

At half past eleven the VSO truck arrived with my furniture. Well, just my bed, really – nothing seems to get done in a logical way here. The rest of my furniture will arrive during the week. Had a lift in the truck to the flat and then an entertaining half hour trying to match up bolt holes in the bed frame. Sort of IKEA comes to Rwanda. But it has been custom made for me, extra long, and with a good mattress. It looks wonderful!

Back to the office for lunch at my desk and spent the afternoon trying to make sense of the statistics. Only about a quarter of boys and a third of girls seem to finish the six years of primary school. And because of missed schooling during to war, and having to repeat years, a typical year 4 class will have children aged between 11 and 17.

Posted letters on the way home – 555Francs seems a lot per letter. Huge rainstorm just after I got home; this is supposed to be a dry season. Everyone skittering for shelter into shops.

High points of today – having my new bed arrive. Feeling I’d done a proper day’s work at the office.
Low point – sitting through a two hour meeting without being able to understand what was going on.