Sorted

Apr 4th

Today is one of those lovely days when you start with nothing and end up really satisfied – and all for little personal effort!

Went to the bank in Gitarama and, hooray, my salary cheque has gone in, so I’m solvent again. Thank God! This is one place on the planet where you can’t rely on your credit cards; it’s a cash economy with a vengeance and most of Rwanda’s business is transacted in grubby, greasy RwF100 notes. They’re supposed to be green and beige, but after passing through countless mucky hands and dropped in the market they end up a caramel colour and you wouldn’t want to eat after handling them unless you could wash your hands first!

Into Kigali with Cathie, then leave her in Mu Muji to get fabric for clothes (she’s giving away most of her western clothes before she leaves and is ordering Rwandan outfits to replace them).

To the VSO office in a matata so clapped out that we keep coming to a halt in mid traffic while the driver fights to get the gear change to work (quite a hairy experience with all the Kigali traffic); we all clap when we reach Kimironko at last.

In the VSO office there’s the only bad bit of the day. Neither mine nor Geert’s visas are ready yet, but there’s a chance they might be done by the end of the afternoon if I’m prepared to hang around. No problem.

Then up to use the computer and who should be there but Épi. At last! I thought she was avoiding me, but it turns out to be a combination of impossible mobile phone reception, a wrong email address, and general end of term pressures on her. So within half an hour we’ve agreed she’s coming to stay at Gitarama on Tuesday night, then going down with me to Butare and Gikongoro. We’re planning to use Tiga’s house while she’s away in Ethiopia, and Samira has the key and with a bit of luck will be there some of the time for extra company. We might even be able to get Soraya down to join us unless they’ve made her do this INSET. (By the way, for those of you who aren’t teachers, INSET = IN SERvice Training. – Ed)

Speaking of which, Épi says she was told she had to do the INSET, and duly went in with her Head teacher at 8.00 last Monday morning. Cue a wasted day of complete chaos and confusion (bear in mind she’s much further away from the centre of power than we are here at Gitarama). By 4.00p.m. the thing was just about getting started, and it became clear there would be no translator for her, and every other non-Rwandan had escaped out of the country beforehand, so the Head relented and has let her off. A brave move on his part, given the three-line whip that MINEDUC is putting on this (“I don’t know how you could even think of asking for any of your staff to be excused” is the standard Government response to what we see as perfectly reasonable things like “How is this INSET going to be useful if it’s all in a language we foreigners can’t understand?”).

So I’m just sorted with Épi when Geert comes in and says “Ah Bruce; we’re all sorted for Uganda next week…….” Well sorry, Geert but no I’m not: I’ve assumed he was out of the country already. Turns out he has been ill for a few days and then working very hard doing some HIV/AIDS training in some of his schools. He’s stumped by the lack of visa. So we have a quick think and find we can manage a compromise. We agree that I’ll come with him and his Dutch friend on Sunday night to Ruhengeri in the far north of the country, and we’ll climb Bishoke volcano on Monday. That’s the perfect way to spend Genocide Day – away from people and in the fresh air and exploring a new corner of Rwanda. Geert will then return with me to Kigali on Tuesday to collect our visas; he’ll go back up into Uganda and I’ll return to Gitarama and wait for Épiphanie.

Bishoke isn’t either the highest of the volcanoes (Karisimbi) or the most perfect (Muhabura) but it has a crater lake and is very steep and is do-able in one day. The others can wait for a while!

So within the space of an hour my genocide week has gone from a blank sheet of paper to totally sorted. And so things go on throughout the day – lots of VSOs arrive at the office; the one thing they’re all doing is trying to sort out accommodation, travel and the like for the next few days. If you live in Kigali you’re always being tapped for a bed for the night; if you live on the fringes of the country like Hester and Joe at Rusumo, you’re going to be tapped by people like me who want to “do” the sights of Rwanda. But Gitarama is neither close enough to Kigali for people to stay when coming to the capital, nor far away enough to be interesting; I think our main attraction is hot water at the flat and a western style bathroom!

The arrangement with Épi is complicated because her Rwandan relatives want to take her to a Genocide memorial somewhere near Kibuye where there are family members laid to rest, and she doesn’t know which day next week they’ll be going. (It’s even more complicated because you can’t get to the place by public transport so they’ve got to hire a taxi, and that won’t be easy next week). So I won’t know for sure when she’s coming down, and that part of the plan could still go pear shaped if her family wants to take her out on, say Thursday. Never mind, she can be dropped off at Gitarama en route because if the family are going from Kigali to Kibuye they have to go through here. Gitarama may not be pretty, but it’s central and that has a lot of advantages!

Sorry if all this domestic stuff is boring, but it’s what occupies quite a lot of today!

By late afternoon it becomes clear that Geert and I won’t get our visas today, and I’ve done all the blogging etc I can (at least I’ve got my Birthday Bash and Nyungwe Forest pictures on line), so back to Kigali on an excruciatingly uncomfortable and worn out matata. Rush up to the German Butcher’s in Kigali before the bus leaves and buy a load of sausages; Tom’s got two guests round tonight and we’ve decided to go western. First bangers since leaving England!

Lovely supper – home made onion gravy and lashings of veg, and our fruit salad served straight from the washing up bowl….. our guests were suitably impressed (and very full).

Final nice thing today – Tom has collected a letter for me; it’s a birthday card from the New Elizabethan Singers and inside it Teresa has slipped a load of Euros to replenish my emergency supply. Scribble a quick thank-you letter to the Elizabethans; hope it’ll reach them before their summer concert.

Best thing about today – everything except not having a visa and that my feet are really aching from being cramped up in the matata! (Stop whining – Ed!)