Jus de Fraise

Apr 3rd

The women at the Post Office are almost apologetic that we have no letters today. I don’t even have to tell them our box number any more!

Cathie spends the morning trying to pin Claude down on funding for training courses again. The real problem is that the budget for everything still hasn’t come down from Kigali; there’s nothing left in the kitty from last year and everyone’s terrified of committing money for “extras” like training courses in case their budget is reduced. When you bear in mind that half the entire Rwandan budget comes from foreign aid – a notoriously fickle source – you can understand their reticence, but it’s not helping us. Cathie has an absolute deadline when she goes back to Canada, and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able to do what we need before the end of June.

I try to pin Claude down on my rent for the flat (h needs to pay it to Tom), but there’s another hitch where the person who must sign the cheque has gone to Kigali for a meeting.

Mid morning we have some bigwig Inspector from Kigali arrive unannounced; he’s going to visit the training sessions at Shyogwe and Nyabikenke. I think he used to work here in the District before being promoted to higher things (he might even be Claude’s predecessor) because he seems to know everyone. He was very interested in us volunteers.

By the end of today I’ve done half the primary census forms and I’m completely up to date on everything including maternelle and secondary sections. I’m ready to draw up for Claude a summary showing how we’re haemorrhaging pupils throughout their primary years. Since I’m up to date I’m taking tomorrow off!

Go out with Cathie at lunchtime to look round the craft workshop showroom in Gitarama; it’s out on the Kigali road and so a bit of our usual beaten track, but it’s well worth the walk. Lovely basketwork, and high quality too. Some really exquisite woven banana leaf table mats with a mathematical design on them. Definitely going to get both baskets and table mats before I leave, but not until my next low of money has come through! Cathie herself is slipping more and more into “going home” mode, and is buying stuff for friends and relatives.

It’s another beautiful dry, warm day but with a cool breeze – the climate these last two days ha been just perfect. All the greenery looks fresh (it’s certainly been washed clean enough by all the rain), and the more distant hills are sharp, with some really far-off ones I’ve never been able to see before. It’s a joy to be working here.

.No more news on the INSET front. Cathie and I chew over what we’re going to do next week. Both she and I are going to Kigali tomorrow, me to blog and to see if my visa’s been done yet. I’d like to know if Épi is around and whether she wants to come south for a few days, or whether she’s been dragooned into the INSET training. I’m trying to envisage her jogging at five and doing Rwandan dancing till midnight…. Tiga’s offered us the use of her place if we want it. Cathie and I are wondering about going to look at Cyangugu, which is the frontier town at the south end of Lake Kivu and on the borders with Burundi and Congo. We’d have to find somewhere to stay overnight, and there aren’t any volunteers based there, so I suppose it’d be a guest house job if we went. Be interesting to look at all the earthquake damage, but by all accounts it’s a bit of a dump otherwise; just the kind of frontier place you hurry through on your way somewhere else.

Alternatively, I’ll see if any of the Eastern crowd are around and I might go across to Rusumo and the Tanzanian border area for a couple of days. I don’t want to spend a lot of money; I just want to escape from Gitarama for a bit so that I feel as if I’ve had some sort of Easter break, especially during genocide week.

Cathie wants to eat at Tranquillité, but I’m very good and just have a drink with her while I eat my sandwich. BUT, I discover the house speciality which is strawberry juice. It comes in half litre mugs for the same price as a (smaller) Fanta, and it tastes simply gorgeous. I think it’s made up from some reconstituted powder, and unlike everything else you drink here, they don’t open the bottle in front of you. So unless I go down with a tummy bug in the next day or so, I’ve discovered the definitive Gitarama drink for the next few months!

Get back home and find it’s so dry that my sweet peas need watering!

Spend the evening watching DVDs – I’m beginning to make inroads on my stash, now. Saving the new ones from Caroline till last and working through old classics which I ought to have seen but somehow never did. So “Farewell to Arms” tonight and an Ingrid Bergman one as well if there’s time!

Best things about today – jus de fraise at Tranquillité, and the craft workshopWorst thing – still no rent paid; still no resolution of our budget problem. And I haven’t even dared approach Claude again about the moto….