Visas and peanut flour; a day in Kigali

Mar 25th

Off to Kigali with Tiga. Nice to have someone to talk to on the bus; the journey seems much shorter. Tom’s off to Burundi on FHI business; too bad a parcel has come for him today at the Post Office with a jar of Marmite in it! He’ll be gone for the rest of the week, so I have the flat to myself. Best of all, there’s still several days’ worth of food in the freezer, and the power cuts of last weekend don’t seem to have spoiled anything,

At Kigali we try to sort out our visas; we need them if we are to travel during the holidays, and we also need our visas to get our green cards. Tiga’s in luck, her visa is ready and she’s able to go off in the afternoon to get her green card. My visa’s not done yet; all my documents are in order, so I simply have to wait for however long it takes officialdom to process the paperwork. Geert has asked me to collect his visa if it’s ready but it isn’t; we can’t find his police clearance form in the office and we think it’s waiting for him at police headquarters where it has been needed for one of his other documents. Honestly, the bureaucracy here gets Kafkaesque at times. The upshot of all this is that neither Geert nor I might be able to go abroad during Genocide week in April. That’s not a disaster for me; I will use the time to visit some of the far-flung VSOs in the East and work towards completing my grand tour of Rwanda. But it would have been nice to have had a look at Uganda and perhaps bag Mount Elgon in the process!

There’s competition for the computer at Programme Office; I’ve forgotten that the schools have already effectively broken up, and as well as Tiga there’s Joe and Paula from the East who want to use the machine. So all I can do is download emails and upload my blog text. Unfortunately the photos of my birthday bash, and a picture essay on a school visit, will have to wait until later.

It’s gratifying to find that several people who are nothing to do with my Bridport circle are reading the blog. Today I’ve had an enquiry from someone at Essex University who’s been reading this blog and is seriously thinking of doing VSO herself – provided she can do it in Rwanda. That means a fairly long and detailed reply later this afternoon, to send a.s.a.p.

It’s also good to see that Heather is really getting the office administration speeded up, and everything at Kigali seems already to be moving along more efficiently. We have a new national director coming, from England, and while some would see it as a retrograde step that there are fewer Rwandans holding the key posts, we have become very frustrated with the way the Programme Office has been working, at least in some respects.

A quick bash round the Kimironko shops and we pal up with Jane, who is the most southerly of all the VSOs. Like Samira, she does HIV/AIDS prevention work in schools and youth clubs, but she is based very close to the Burundi border, an hour’s drive beyond Butare. I never realised that Rwanda extended that far down. So that’s another corner to explore….. Back to the town centre, me to change the last of my reserve of Euros, and the girls to get their green cards.

While I’m waiting for my bus home I make a note of some of the religious slogans on matata windscreens. They’re very keen on these in Rwanda; most are in English with just a few in French or Kinya. In half an hour I saw:
God is Good
God is Great
God is Sweet
All the Time God is Good
No God, No Hope
My God
The Power of God
Amen
Jehova Shalam
Yezo Biolgi
Come to me (but that could just be an appeal for custom)
Jesus
“Dali Bread” (a prayer, or recognition that the bus is his earning potential?)

And, on a Ugandan juggernaut,”we trust in Allah” (and looking at the state of his tyres, he’d need to…..)

Apart from the Holy Trinity, by far the most important other person on the matatas is Bob Marley. Everything Rasta goes down big in Rwanda; at times you could be mistaken for thinking you were in a corner of Kingston, Jamaica.

Finally back to Gitarama on a sweaty matata, and call at the Office to see if there are any more census forms waiting processing. As I’ve been skiving all day I’m willing to work all evening. But there’s only Innocent in the office; everyone else, he says, is off because it’s Gacaca. But I thought Gacaca had finished. I really don’t get this place sometimes! And there are no more census forms, so I troop back home and start to catch up on myself. Spend most of the rest of the afternoon writing return emails to people, while a thunderstorm gathers and breaks outside. It’s actually quite relaxing to just have myself to worry about, even though I’ve got to cook for the night guard as well as me. A nice, relaxing evening.

Best thing about today – catching up with Tiga
Worst thing about today – I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to be doing at this Head’s training day at Kamonyi on Thursday and its starting to worry me. Must work at it tomorrow when I feel fresher.