Liberation is a non-day for me

June 2nd

Today is a Public Holiday today to mark the Liberation of Gitarama in 1994. There’s a big contrast to the Umuganda on Saturday – this event is being taken very seriously. You can tell that from the minute you wake up. There’s no music blaring from the hairdresser’s shop. There’s almost no traffic on the road, and certainly no matatas tooting for custom. There are no women on their way to market with bowls and sacks of produce on their heads. The bakery’s closed and nobody’s waiting outside it.

So I know the District Office, the Bank, the Post Office and the Internet café – the four places I most want to get to – will all be shut at least for the morning. Curses!

Actually it’s all for the good, because my stomach is still wobbly from the weekend’s excesses and I’m dehydrated, so I opt for a quiet morning at home. Tom’s gone to his office because he can hide inside and work, and nobody knows he’s there.

So I spend a lazy morning writing blogs and emails, and preparing materials on VAK and Brain Gym ready for the big training course at Kigeme. I’m fuelled up with endless cups of tea and the odd sambosa.

Outside there’s a steady stream of people walking towards Kabgayi; they are holding a mass to remember the Liberation. I suppose I should be attending it, but decide not to go. I don’t trust my stomach, and in any case the event they’re remembering doesn’t mean anything to me personally.

Tom comes home at lunchtime and we cook up some pasta to go with a tomato base that needs using up. In the afternoon he goes off for a Kinyarwanda lesson and I go out to see if the internet café is open during the afternoon. It isn’t.

So back to the flat and some more reading and listening to music.

In the evening I again try the internet café. This time the place is open, but they can’t get an internet connection, so I’ve made another wasted journey.

We spend the evening watching videos and then go out for a drink.

A bit of a non-day, really!