"Expect the Unexpected" is a VSO slogan; here's a case in point!

Mar 24th

One of those entirely unpredictable days, and with a happy ending, too.

After a night in candle light, cold shower, and cut off from the rest of the world by a flat phone battery, I breezed into work laden with computer and phone and proceeded to monopolise every power socket I could find at work to get things charged up. I didn’t realise how dependent we are on our mobile phones. Called in at the Post Office on the way and, lo and behold, a birthday card from the Isle of Wight. My birthday really is turning into a season rather than one day!

Spent all morning typing furiously, must have looked really driven and efficient, but actually all I was doing was writing up about five day’s worth of blog entries before I forgot things. It really did take me all morning; perhaps I’m putting too much in but then when I read it all back after a month or so it’s nice to have the detail!

Well, the financial economy drive is in full swing and I dined off a cheese roll rather than go to a café; it felt so righteous!

In the afternoon Charlotte arrived unexpectedly from Programme Office in Kigali to do my three month appraisal with Claude. She spoke to me on my own first, and I laid it on thick about the transport issues here. Then she spent time with Claude. As a result Claude has said I can have use of the District moto, but there’s an awful lot of red tape to do with insurance and training before I can be let loose on the roads of Muhanga. I think it’s a hoot! After all the argy bargy with VSO London about the need for motor cycle training (CBT) and whether or not VSO Rwanda could afford to give me a bike, I will now have to learn to ride a motor bike on African roads in African conditions. At least I’ll have done some off-road training, which is more than those trained in England ever get. Claude seems happy with my work so far, although we both know we haven’t really had time to work together yet. One thing he has said is that in future, when I do inspections, he wants me to take another Head with me so that I can train them up in how I evaluate lessons. That’s fine by me, but it’ll take a lot of organising. The ideal people to use will be my “elite squad” of secteur reps; they’re already the most outgoing and forward looking of the lot and I get on with them. Roll on next term, I say!

After all this excitement I go through a whole bunch of “recensement scolaire” forms which the Kiyumba secteur rep has brought in, and that takes me till gone four o’clock, by which time I’m the last one left in the building. Boy, I must have looked keen today! If only they knew……

As I’m walking back home Tiga texts, asking if she can stay the night. Charlotte was supposed to have brought her passport with visa but has forgotten, and Tiga’s going up to Kigali to collect it tomorrow. She knows I’m also planning to go on Tuesday, and it’s such an easy ride in from Gitarama. (She’s been helping in an English teacher training day at Nyanza with Cathryn and Ken – good example of how all of us work with each other whenever there’s a big training session to do. Even with-it Rwandans like Claude don’t realise just how much we all help each other out in this place)!

Tom’s in Kigali today and might or might not be coming back in the evening. Big question is – have Electrogaz sorted out the power problem in our building. I don’t want to be cooking and entertaining by candle light, however romantic it might be. Think I’m getting too old to be romantic.

So get home and……YES, we have power. Text Tom to tell him, take my shoes off, and the power promptly goes off!

Curses. Realise that I need to get all my preparation done before it gets dark so frantically clearing up in the bedroom for T and moving mattress and my sleeping stuff into the lounge. Then down to the market to buy some extra vegetables. Here I make another unexpected discovery – we’ve been flashing 100 Franc notes each time we want veg, but at this time of the afternoon (gone 5pm) when the women are desperate to sell up and go home, you can get just as much for a 50 franc piece. (Tiga hooted with laughter when I told her this and said it just proved I had no Jewish blood in my ancestry….)

On the way home I realise there’s a general power cut for our district, so it’s probably not the same problem with electricity that we had at the weekend. Sure enough, by the time I get home the power’s back on. When Tom phones to say he’s coming home after all, I’m well organised with veg all ready to cook and feeling very smug.

Tiga arrives quite late, after dark, loses her bearings (after all, she’s only been here once before and that was in darkness, too) and in the night starts walking in the wrong direction. Leave Tom to sort out the rest of the dinner (I’ve done all the cooking and it only needs to make sure things don’t burn etc) and start trying to track Tiga down. I assume she’s gone the wrong way at our garage and is heading off towards Kabgayi. Fifteen minutes later and I’m well outside Gitarama and there’s no sign of her, so I realise I’ve got it wrong and she’s seriously lost. I try to ring her, but at the same time as she tries to ring me. Mercifully the phone network’s up and running and we’re eventually able to pinpoint where she’s got to and meet up.

The rest of the evening is lovely – good food, nice relaxed conversation. She’s off to see a friend in Ethiopia over the holidays, but there’s a problem with her camera and eventually we have to face the fact that she’s lost all the photos she’s taken so far in Rwanda. That’s really rubbish luck. Anybody else would be in floods of tears at losing three month’s pictures, but she’s remarkably unfazed about it. So I burn a disk with most of my photos on; at very least she’ll have a few pictures of our initial training at Kigali and our trip together to Kibuye.

She borrows some of our videos and we all agree there’s going to be a massive sharing of photos, videos and music tracks on our ICT 2 week in April.

Best thing about today – everything. A really lovely day, and all the more so for everything about it being completely unexpected.
Worst thing – nothing at all. Let’s have a more of these! It’s just the kind of day which makes me so happy I’ve come to Rwanda to work.