Arriving in Kibungo

Yesterday morning I was picked up in the Ngoma District car by a driver and the Head Teacher I had met the previous day.  I was called at 8am to say they were on their way and would arrive in two hours.  Having experienced the relaxed approach to time-keeping, I was unsure how likely this was, but got ready.  Sure enough, at five to ten they arrived.  My bags, pots and pans were loaded into the back of the car and off we went.  We passed some beautiful scenery – lush green hills and lots of busy villages.  Once we reached Kibungo, we unloaded my stuff at the house (more on that later) and then set off for some lunch.  After a bit of melange at the nearby Centre St Joseph, I was given a tour of the town – banks, bus stations, market, shops, radio station, prison, post office.  Then I was taken to the District Office where I met the Mayor and then had a meeting with the Executive Secretary.  By this point I was so very tired and slightly over-whelmed so was delighted to be returned home where Cathy made me a cup of tea.  We had a chat and she had to head off to Kigali.  I spent a couple of hours unpacking and sorting out my room and then decided to investigate my neighbours.  I caught up with Denis and Stella – two volunteers who live opposite and we went to St Joe’s for a beer and then they kindly took me back to their house for dinner.  Which was not melange!  It was delicious local produce and we had some waragi (Ugandan gin) with passion fruit syrup.  Yum, yum, yum.

I got up early this morning – well not that early as I went to bed at 10 and got up at 7am.  I was warned that the Police Prison next door starts drumming and singing at about 5am most days.  I don’t know what time they started, but I was not aware of it until 5:55, so I was awake from them and decided to listen to the BBC World Service.  I managed to wash myself in the cold shower (brrrr) and then made some breakfast.  Electricity was working so I could boil the kettle!  Then I met Denis and a moto-driver and we went on a 45min drive to a school in a neighbouring sector, which will fall under my remit (note to self: waterproofs are also useful for dust-proofing self.  Now look as though I have a tango tan and my trousers are a disgrace!).  The teacher knew we were coming as she and Denis had arranged the visit.  Upon arrival she apologised that she had to leave to go to a meeting in Kibungo.  She had only just found out.  So we had an hour with her and she showed us around the school.  This involved a couple of visits into classrooms where I caused much excitement amongst the children.  They were very keen to ask me questions: “Aleecey, where are you from?”, “Aleecey, do you know Broom Leys school?” “Aleecey, did you go to university in Rwanda?”, “Aleecey, what is your subject?”  Harmless enough so far... “Aleecey, do you have children?”  What would be the next logical question to ask if the answer were “no”... “ Aleecey, are you a nun?” Hmmm.  We all had a laugh at that one.  The children were very polite and attentive.  I then spent about an hour talking to a Geography teacher and the Deputy Head.  The Geography teacher had recently been to visit their partner school in Leicester and had been to London (Global Schools Partnership – primary and secondary schools needed – let me know if you would like to be paired up with a Rwandan school!).  He was amazed by all that he had seen and very impressed by the UK.  So then we discussed me coming back and I arranged to visit again in a couple of weeks.  Jean-Bosco will let me go to watch one of his Geography lessons and we will plan to teach a Geography lesson together.  This is very exciting news and I feel like I had a useful morning.  My plan for today was just to get to know my house, so it was nice to do this instead.  I returned home at lunchtime and had a lunch of bread and avocado – the avocado is from one of the two trees in my garden, which are laden with them!  There is also a passion fruit vine, but they are not ripe yet.  And that’s probably enough excitement for one day!