Rwandan Run

Last weekend, I found myself in Kigali once more.  This time I had arranged to meet up with another volunteer to attend the Kigali Hash Harriers run.  I arrived on Friday as I had some business to attend to at the VSO office before it shut for the weekend and then I stayed in the dorm at VSO.  Saturday morning was Umuganda, but I had not arranged to attend an event in advance so was uncertain where to go.  Not being part of an event leaves one with a feeling of being useless and a bit naughty.  The city was silent and there were no cars going up and down the usually busy dual carriage way next to the office.  I decided to spend the time doing a little bit of work.  Once it reached 11am, I could hear a bit of movement outside and decided it may be a good time to see if I could head into town to get a few more jobs done there.  There does not seem to be a specified end time to Umuganda, but things do seem to start up again after 11am, so at 11:30 I wandered out to see what was going on.

I got a moto into town and upon arrival, which was about 12:30, everything was eerily quiet.  Except for the quavering tones of the Muezzin from the mosque floating over the city centre, the usually bustling streets were strangely silent.  Slowly shops began to open one by one and life crept back into the sleeping streets.  I stopped at Cafe Simba for what is (in my opinion) the best latte in Rwanda and then went to the bank and to buy a couple of bits before meeting up with other volunteers for lunch.  After lunch I had to dash back to the dorm in order to get ready for the run.  Judy and I headed off to Nyamirambo for the meeting point and psyched ourselves up for the run.  Kigali – like the rest of Rwanda – is enormously hilly.  The run itself was approx 10km and there were points where the route climbed endlessly uphill at a gradient too steep to manage a run.  The locals looked at us as though we were mad, although a few offered shouts of encouragement.  And of course, if there are uphills, there must be downhills.  These were equally sharp and several of them involved running through rutted drainage ditches with enormous potential for twisting/breaking/destroying ankles if you took a wrong step.  There were several sharp corners, and on one of these there was a recently dug well excavation, which I very nearly ended up in thanks to the strong shove provided from the runner behind me.  There was also a ravine to jump.  Well, I say ravine – it was a stream that had down cut the surrounding area so was over a metre deep and about a metre wide.  I just decided to go for it and see what happened.  I was not overly convinced I would make it to the opposite bank, but my foot managed to land just over the edge of the cliff and I ran on through the banana plantation to the next obstacle (more hills).  The cruellest part was that most of the last km was uphill – I thought it would never end and was looking out for the red signage of the bar the whole time, desperate for it to be over.  I was parched.  Still, it was nice to get back and have a cold fanta and bottle of water before heading off for a shower and a night out in Nyamirambo.  Judy and I were dead chuffed with ourselves for making it round the course in such style.

 Nyamirambo is a suburb of Kigali and has quite a nice vibe to it.  We went for dinner in a Congolese restaurant (similar to Rwandan food).  We had a very long wait, so had a few drinks and a good chat whilst we waited.  After this we moved on up the hill to a club.  It was extremely lively and there was lots of dancing going on, but I’m afraid I was a bit tired by this point after my earlier exertion, so decided just to sit quietly and watch whilst sipping on my water (living on the edge!).  After about an hour we headed out to see what else was happening around Nyamirambo.  There were plenty of spots in which to sample the nightlife, but I decided it was time to say goodnight and head home.

Beyond Kigali

Since my arrival in Rwanda, I have mostly been stayed in the Eastern Province and have not ventured further than Kigali.  So, with a two week break from my own training, I decided it was time to go to see some fellow volunteers.  My first port of call was to see Mary over near Lake Kivu, in the west.  The furniture was being delivered to her Teacher Resource Centre (TRC) so I volunteered to help her get rid of the old stuff and put in the new stuff.  Mary is a 2hr drive from Kigali.  We met up in the capital and travelled out together.  It was a very scenic journey and the town Mary lives in, about 15km from the Lake is lovely with a lively market and several bars which serve delicious brochettes and potatoes.  After much movement of furniture, we retired for a cup of tea and then to the local bar for some food.  I have to say, the brochettes really were delicious and far superior to the ones I can get where I live.  Next day, we visited Kibuye (Karongi) on the shores of Lake Kivu.  The sun was shining brightly when we arrived, so we went for a scenic walk around the town and along by the Lake.  Everything looked lush and green, it really was beautiful.  We stopped off at a Church with a memorial to mark the events of 1994. 

It was a peaceful place to sit for a while and it had the most beautiful stained glass windows. We continued on into the town.  We stopped at a small beach on the edge of the lake and had a drink whilst admiring the view.

Then we continued on to a hotel/conference centre and stopped for lunch.  We had our books with us, so spent a bit of time reading whilst we waited for the food to arrive, and plenty of time looking out over the Lake too.  It felt a bit like being in the Italian Lakes.  The weather was beautiful and the scenery was superb, it is definitely somewhere I want to go back to and I think any visitors to the country would be impressed by it.  Mary and I sauntered back to the bus via the market and purchased some cloth in there. 

Last week, I had arranged to go and shadow Isy, who was running workshops in her district.  We had all heard that she lived in a far off place, but I really had my eyes opened to how lucky I am in my placement.  I set off at 7:30 one morning.  I got a bus at 8am and it took 2hrs to Kigali and then another half hour across town to the main bus park.  I then managed to be incredibly lucky and get straight on a bus bound for Huye (formerly known as Butare).  This journey took nearly 2 and a half hours.  On arrival in Huye, I went to buy my ticket for the next leg of the journey.  I had a long wait and I really was hungry, so I had some lunch and then a wander around town.  I then boarded the next bus.  unfortunately this was a small bus and I had a large bag, so it had to sit on my lap for the journey.  This journey was on dirt roads so it was, to say the least, uncomfortably bumpy.  After 2 and a half hours, the bus arrived in the village of Munini – the end of the route.  I had rung Isy in advance, so she had sent her moto driver to meet me.  It was then a 30min moto journey to Isy’s house.  So, I eventually arrived at 5:30 in the evening.  It was getting dark, but I could see that it really was a very beautiful part of the world that I had arrived in.  Isy has no electricity or running water, but she did make a reviving cup of tea, for which I was very grateful.  We also had a lovely meal which had been cooked earlier in the day – rice, chips and a stew.  It was very tasty.  Before it got very dark, Isy (who had 2 other volunteers visiting at the same time!), Jo, Mark and I set off for the nearest village, which was about a 15min walk away.  We went to a bar for a drink.  We had a lovely chat and eventually walked back with the help of our torches and got ready for bed.

The next morning, we were up early to get ready for the training session.  Motos arrived at 8am and the four of us set off in convoy – much to the delight of everyone we passed.  FOUR abazungu!  The school where the training was being carried out was a 30min journey away and a small part of this we had to walk as the road had got wet in the rain and was impassable by moto.  We had a great morning of training – discussing the importance of visual aids and how to use them effectively.  The last part of the session was when teachers got a chance to make their own rice sack visual aids.  In the afternoon, we returned to Isy’s and went for lunch at the local bar.  We had some very tasty brochettes and potatoes.  Then Mark and Jo headed for the bus to return to their respective placements.

Isy and I decided we would go for a walk to explore the valley near her, so we set off down the hillside.  The hills are really endless here and as with much of the country, they are covered in lush green vegetation.  On our way down the steep and very narrow track, we passed many people on their way up with jerry cans of water.  We discovered at the end of the descent, that they had filled them up from a stream that ran along the valley floor.  To reach the stream, you had to cross an area of swampy land that had many pools of stagnant water.  Once over the other side of the valley, we started to look for a way up to Isy’s house.  This was quite fun and we tried out several narrow tracks before finding the right ones.  In some places, we were a bit lost, but we just had to ask any of the children trailing us which way to go and they pointed us in the right direction.  Then it started to rain – we had been watching the rain approach across the hills, so were prepared and donned our raincoats.  Another local child then guided us back towards the road so our walk home would be easier.  However, the rain quickly passed and we continued on our walk, stopping to greet many of the locals and explaining we were walking to look at the hills (we received plenty of laughs after saying this).  Once back at the house, we had a cup of tea and ate the food that had been prepared for dinner.  As darkness arrived, we decided we would make use of the charge on my laptop to watch a film (it is very hard for Isy to charge her laptop and telephone as she does not have electricity and most of the schools she goes to don’t either.  However, electricity pylons were on their way towards her house and she may soon be able to connect to it.  We decided upon a film and settled down to watch it.  Unfortunately 5mins before the end of the film, the battery ran out and we could not see the conclusion to the film.  How frustrating!  So we went to bed instead and read our books for a while.

The next morning we were to go and do another training session.  We started to get ready, but the weather had turned from being a beautiful clear and sunny day the day before, to being very cloudy with quite limited visibility.  The surrounding hills were invisible – in fact it was almost hard to see the latrine at the end of Isy’s garden.  Then the rain began – I had just managed to get a wash in the shed outside before it really started to bucket down.  The rain did not stop until after 11am.  The training was due to start at 9am, but as it was raining, the motos had not come.  They cannot get through on the roads when it rains hard.  We sat around reading and drinking tea and hoping the sky might clear.  Unfortunately it rained for the entire time the training session was meant to last, but we eventually had a short break in the rain and managed to get to Munini in order to get a bus to Huye.  The moto ride to Munini was a bit hairy – the roads were muddy and sticky in places and we had to walk a hill as it was not possible for the moto to get up it.  I was so relieved to be able to get the bus to Huye as I knew what a long journey home it was and I was hoping to break it in Kigali.  By this time, the rain had started up again, so we were very lucky to leave when we did – otherwise I would have been there for at least another day!  Enormous respect to Isy who has been in her placement for a year and has one more left.  Despite the difficulties, she has done an excellent job and really seems to be a part of the community.  I now realise just how lucky I am to have electricity and water (most of the time) and tarmac roads for some of my journeys!

Practicalities

There are many things I had not really thought through before moving to Rwanda and some of the realities have made me think that I will view life quite differently upon return to the UK (we’ll see how long that lasts!).

At the start of each day I have a shower.  Well...I say shower.  I was using the shower as it was for the first few weeks – this meant subjecting my body to an icy chute of water that tumbled full pelt out of the shower head (no spray cap to soften it!).  My asthma soon began to object to this, so for the sake of avoiding illness, I now get up and boil a kettle of water.  I fill a jug three quarters of the way from the shower, top up with hot water and then wash in the shower tray.  I use about four jugs of water max (Mum and Dad - imagine the units I save!).  Nothing like the amount I would have used at home!  If the water is not working (as it wasn’t this morning) I make use of the water I have stored around the house.  I keep two large buckets of water in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, and I also have two jerry cans of water and a huge plastic bin full.  I have to remember to top these up once the water comes back on if I have taken water from them, otherwise I could find myself without water.

This task complete, I get dressed and then wander to the kitchen.  I switch on the hotplate and hope that I have electricity (it quite often goes off if it rains!).  I am normally in luck, so I make some porridge.  A couple of spoons of Quaker oats and either “real” (UHT) milk, or some milk powder and water.  I also chop in a few bananas and maybe some nuts, raisins and honey.  I also make a cup of tea.  This all takes a lot more time than my usual bowl of cereal and glass of juice back home.

At this point I am usually about ready to go to work, so I tend to be out for the whole day.  Upon return, I again hope there will be electricity.  It frequently goes off at about 5:30-6 as I suppose there must be a surge in demand.  If I am home early, I try to cook my dinner before this happens.  Without an oven, dinner is always something cooked on the hotplate – pasta and sauce, chilli, curry or some such delight.  I am becoming quite creative with the cooking though, so do not go hungry.  Once I have cooked my dinner, I fill up two large saucepans with water (unless there is no water, in which case I cannot do this).  I then set the pans of water on the hotplate and wait for it to boil.  It can take about an hour.  The water needs to be at a rolling boil for about three minutes.  I lift the pans off once they are done and set them on the floor.  They will cool by the morning and then I can pour them into my water filter.

The water filter is a huge stainless steel contraption with two sections.  Water is poured into the top half and inside there are 5 chalk “candles” (pillars).  The water filters through these and into the bottom half.  The bottom half has a tap so you can get the water out.  Because the candles filter out all the impurities – seems to be a lot of rust! – they have to be cleaned every so often.  This involves taking the filter apart and carefully unscrewing the candles.  I have to boil a pan of water before I do this.  I then plunge the candles in one at a time and scrub them with a brush reserved for this task.  Soap cannot be used.  Then the whole thing is put back together again.  Usually the first batch of water through the candles has to be discarded as it tastes too chalky.  On the whole I am not bothered by the taste of the water – I drink it quite happily.

Usually I am lucky and have electricity in the evenings, but this is not always so.  I make sure I keep my laptop charged so that if there is no electricity I can at least watch a film.  I also keep my headtorch handy after 6pm (when it goes dark) just in case there is a sudden loss of electricity.  There are no streetlights here anyway, but once all of the surrounding houses are plunged into darkness, it becomes REALLY dark.  If I go out after 6pm, I take my headtorch, although my eyes are becoming quite used to the dark!  If electricity is gone all evening, I make use of my back up – I have a kerosene stove.  This requires filling with kerosene and then I have to light the wicks and put the guard on it before I begin cooking.  It is quite efficient, but the fumes can be a bit over-powering, so I prefer to cook outside if it is not raining, or with the backdoor open if it is raining – although this means the mosquitoes come in.  I also have a charcoal stove, but I am hopeless at lighting this...

As I cook, I separate out my rubbish.  I thought I was quite good at this in the UK – I always sorted everything for recycling.  There is no refuse collection service here – you arrange your own disposal.  I have a collection of buckets with lids in my kitchen and bedroom.  I put food waste in one for the compost.  Things that will burn go in a separate bucket to be burnt by my night guard.  The ash is then put on the compost heap.  Empty tins (I don’t really have many of these as most of my food is fresh from the market), I collect and take to a man on the market (along with glass bottles).  He makes small kerosene lamps out of the cans and glass bottles are sold as rolling pins.  If I buy a bottle of fanta or beer from the shop, I have to return the bottles as they are re-used.  There is a deposit charged for this purpose.  Anything else – plastic, foil etc – I put into a paper bag and save up for a trip to Kigali where I put it in a bin (they collect refuse there).  Some of it I cut up into small strips to make shiny things to scare the birds away from the vegetable patch!

Having to dispose of your own rubbish really makes you think about what you use.  There are no plastic bags in Rwanda, so I do not amass a cupboard of them like at home.  My vegetables do not come in plastic, polystyrene or tin trays.  They are purchased in piles which have been carefully counted out by the market sellers.  I take my own bags to put my produce in...a special bag reserved for the potatoes as they are very dirty...several bags for everything else.  And I buy things in order from the heaviest to lightest so that my tomatoes are not all squashed.  I always reserve the end section of my bag for the pineapple I buy as it is both heavy and awkward!   I always carry a small paper bag so that I can stop at the local shop on my walk back from town to buy some eggs.  And – if I am very lucky – they might have a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate.  No such luck today.

Asthma – as mentioned earlier – is another thing I have to think about.  With the exception of the irritation of the cold shower – I have mostly been well.  I have tried running and it is hard work as I am at altitude, but I am staying in good health on the whole.  The VSO Medical Unit had to agree to me coming out with a medical condition.  I came with a stash of inhalers to keep me going.  I thought I would be able to buy replacements here.  I can’t believe I cannot.  My inhalers have to be sent from the UK.  This is not as easy as putting them in the post.  Because of the containers they are in, they cannot go in the hold so they have to be brought in person.  This means I need to be ultra-organised and make sure I order them well in advance so that any staff travelling back and forth can bring them.  Other medication appears to be readily available and you can buy most things in the local pharmacy.  I came with a good supply of vitamins, so I make sure I take them as my diet, although healthy, is lacking in many things – notably meat and dairy products.

I’m sure there are other quirks and peculiarities that I could tell you about, but these are the ones I can think of for now.

Views from a bus window

Children playing; people cultivating land; children hoeing; women bent over fires; men, women and children carrying loads on their heads; goats chewing plants; cows seeking shelter; people stopping on the street to greet each other; women sweeping yards; goats sitting on logs; babies crawling; men fixing gates; children swinging on poles; women sewing; church groups moved out to the shade of a tree; dimly lit rooms; children hanging from signs; people sitting outside homes talking; children watching; smoke curling; birds swooping; sun shining; rain clouds forming; boys pushing heavily loaded bicycles; people sitting in the shade; children hopping; people sleeping; clothes laid out to dry on bushes, trees and grass; the shadow of a cloud passing across a hill; a congregation spilling out of church; sun glinting off a roof-top; children spinning tyres; men carrying jerry cans of water; rich red earth and lush green vegetation; endless hills and endless valleys.

Holidays = training

As of this week, Primary Schools are on holiday in Rwanda (this is the end of academic year holiday).  In just over one week, Group Scolaire students and Secondary Schools will have joined in, but for now they are busy with National Exams, which students have to sit at the end of each year in order to decide if they can progress to the next school year.

Unlike in England, school holidays here are not necessarily a time for rest and relaxation.  Teachers are expected to be available for training during the break.  Last year much of this training was focused on providing English language training, and it was assumed that this would be delivered again this holiday, but so far we do not think it will.  So that means that there is much time for us to deliver other training sessions that schools in our districts have requested.  Here in Ngoma District, Denis and I attended a Head Teacher meeting two weeks ago to find out what they wanted.  English language came up, as did using visual aids and active methodologies.

Upon further discussion with our DEO (District Education Officer), Denis and I discovered that there may be a mentor scheme launched in schools in the near future.  FWe were keen to seize upon this idea and we decided to develop a training session that targeted potential mentors.  So it was that we found ourselves delivering training this week to at least one teacher from every Primary School and Group Scolaire in the District.  We had booked the Petite Salle at the District Office and had photocopied our resources, procured a blackboard from the local church and were raring to go.  We returned from our meetings at VSO in Kigali on Monday evening to a flurry of text messages and phone calls – did we know that Tuesday was now going to be a holiday?  We did not know this, so tried to discover more, only no-one seemed certain if it would be a holiday or not.  We decided to go ahead and see what happened.  We arrived early to set up on Tuesday and contrary to all my expectations that people may not turn up, or if they did they would arrive very late, there were already two participants waiting in the room.  A whole hour early!  They helped us set up the room and slowly participants began to arrive.  We were expecting 30, but by 9:30 we had 19, which we decided was good all things considered, so we started our training session.  For the session on Wednesday, we had an excellent turn-out of 35 out of 36.

We began with a session on classroom language and polite use of English.  Because of the differences in language, sometimes children can sound quite abrupt, or demand things, so we taught participants some of the preferred phrases and language of request in English – for example saying “may I borrow” rather than “give me”.  We then moved on to a model lesson on the importance of trees (P4 Science curriculum).  In this session, I had to get participants to be my students and we spent about one hour modelling reading, writing, listening and speaking skills and a variety of active methods for the lesson.  Some of these things seemed like small things, but in the feedback at the end it was interesting to hear teachers state which aspects they wanted to take back and ensure they used in their own lessons.  One of these was giving students thinking time.  But, I suppose, as I pointed out, as teachers we are sometimes a little afraid of thinking time...if students do not immediately shout out the answers we are looking for, we get a bit worried we have not taught the content. I explained that what I have seen so far in Rwandan schools, is that some students are so enthusiastic and shout the answers out straight away, so that others never get the chance to think through answers themselves.  So it is good to enforce a minute of silence – or more- in order to allow students to think independently.  We also played a sentence jumble game.  I have seen my students in the UK get enthusiastic about these, but doing this activity with the groups of teachers was hilarious!  The competitive spirit was well and truly alive.  I had people elbowing others out of the way to get to me first, queue jumping to be the first in line to show me a sentence in order to get the next...everyone wanted to win!  So many teachers said in their feedback that they wanted to do this when they returned to their schools.  I hope they do, because if their students enjoy it half as much as they did, there will be lots of happy, active students out there!

Explaining the sentence jumble game

We completed our training session with the use of visual aids.  There are an increasing number of visual aids in classrooms in Rwanda.  Most schools now have sets of textbooks and posters and more, but there is not a great deal of training provided on how best to use these, so they often just end up as something to look at or be presented to students.  In groups, we had teachers come up with a list of suggestions for ways to use the rice sack posters to help students learn.  We encouraged participants to think beyond the obvious and consider a range of subject areas.  They had some great ideas and this was really encouraging.  For example, we had one poster of a home in a compound.  In the compound were a family and each of them were doing a different job – pruning plants, cutting trees, sweeping, cutting grass, clearing manure, burning rubbish.  We had a huge range of suggestions – it could be used in English to teach tenses by describing the actions in the picture in past, present simple, present continuous, future...it could be used in English to do some creative writing by writing a story about one or more of the people in the picture; it could be used in Social Studies to teach about the need for hygienic activities around the home, or the importance for caring for the environment, or about gender equality; the list of ideas went on and it was great to see that these teachers had many ideas and were thinking creatively.  Once we got going, the ideas were just flowing and we came up with long lists of ideas for six posters.  This was another useful thing that teachers felt they could make good use of back in school and that they would try to think more creatively about how to use the visual aids they had.

These teachers are going to help myself and Denis deliver two more weeks of training at the end of November/beginning of December.  They will support us and present sections if they feel confident enough to do so.  The hope is that, once we leave at the end of our placements, we will have left behind a core of people who will continue mentoring and advising teachers in the district so that our work becomes sustainable.  It has been a busy but productive couple of days and I look forward to working with the participants we have met.

Umuganda

Yesterday being the last Saturday of the month meant that it was Umuganda.  Umuganda is when everyone joins in a morning of community service.  Each District (like UK counties) is organised into Sectors.  The Sectors are divided into Cells and the Cells are divided into Umudugudu (great word!).  This is a small community – maybe a few streets - and there is someone who over-sees this area and ensures that Umuganda happens there.  I attended a local umuganda near where I live.  We went off at 8am and there was a crowd already there with spades and hoes and machetes.  I did not bring any of these items with me, but the locals were more than happy to share!

It was a beautiful bright and sunny morning, and I soon had to strip off the extra layers as the hoeing made me warm very quickly.  We were clearing an area of vegetation at the back of one of the houses in order to help someone build a kitchen house.  Apparently my hoeing skills are quite good and I was complimented on my strength.  Once this was done, we were sent down to the track to help clear the vegetation that was growing over the path.  I was handed a machete and asked to start slashing at the plants.  Now, I have seen very small children handle a machete and believe you me, they make it look like it’s really easy and just a case of swinging the blade back and forth.  Not the blade I was given!  I was pathetic and was unable to slash any vegetation.  After much hilarity and a reasonable crowd gathering to give advice on my technique, I was asked if I was sick.  Apparently my strength for this task was no good and I was removed from machete duties and given a spade in order to help dig up and clear the roots.  Unfortunately it was quite a rusty old spade and it had a “v” shape missing in the centre.  So I had to refine my technique, but it was generally agreed that I was doing a very good job and I was told I was a hard worker.  Yep, that’s right – I was described as a hard worker.  I was delighted to have made such an impression!

It had now become very hot and I found myself retreating into the shade for a short rest.  Secretly I wanted to examine my wounds and I thought I could do this without people watching me as I didn’t want them to think I am soft.  Alas – they all saw me examining my hands.  I had 5 blisters.  They were quite sympathetic, but also thought it a bit funny.  After more tree clearance and vegetation removal, and a lot of chatting to the local people in a mixture of English, Kinyarwanda and French, I left in the hope of catching the midday bus to Kigali.  Others were heading off to a meeting, which is what happens after umuganda – local issues are aired at a meeting and any problems are solved.  It is a great way to build a community and the fact that everyone pitches in to help and takes turns is really nice.  It is also a fabulous way to meet your neighbours and it felt like a nice way to spend a Saturday morning.

I made it on to the bus at midday (it was the first bus since the night before – no shops, buses or anything operate during umuganda as everyone is expected to be doing their bit).  I was very excited to arrive in Kigali – it had been a few weeks since I was last in.  I went straight into town and...had a manicure.  Well!  My hands needed the attention as they were wrecked from all that hard work!  I know what you’re thinking – “princess”.  But you can’t slum it all the time and it did only cost the equivalent of £5.  After that I met up with Daryl as I was staying with him and Lynne.  Once back at theirs we shared a beer and then got dressed up for the Halloween party we were attending.  I went as a cat (dressed entirely in black with ears fashioned out of duct tape, a cardboard box and fabric scraps plus a tail made out of fabric scraps).  This meant I had to go to dinner dressed as a cat.  And dinner was great – we went to Sol e Luna for pizza.  It tasted so good!  Then we headed to Sarah’s for the party where everyone was dressed up and there was dancing and apple bobbing and limbo and lots of conversation and laughs.  And I found a Snickers bar in a shop that did not cost a fortune.  A Snickers bar has never tasted so good!

It was the latest I have stayed up since arriving – I didn’t go to bed until after 1am!  (now, now, I’d been up since 7am).  Today I have spent a nice day with friends in town.  We met for coffee this morning and then had a wander around town before going for lunch – which we managed to time well as it coincided with a big rain shower.  I am staying in town for one more night as I have a meeting at VSO tomorrow and then I head back to Kibungo to do some training for the rest of the week with a teacher from every school in the District.  It’s not all manicures and coffees!

The kindness of strangers

As you may have noticed, I am constantly overwhelmed by how kind people are to each other in Rwanda.  In particular, I feel that local people have been very kind to me and I feel quite protected within the local community.  Last week at the market, the assistant at the potato stall suggested that the potato seller should charge me more for potatoes.  I have limited language – but I understood what he was saying.  She looked at me and we smiled and she shook her head at him and said “Oya!” (no) as if he had made an outrageous suggestion.  All around the market, it is the same – I get charged the right price for goods I buy and no one seems to try it on.  Occasionally there are times when bargaining is appropriate, so when I hear the first price I sometimes laugh very loud and tell the vendor what I am pretty sure the price should be.  They laugh in turn, pat me on the back and sell it to me at the price I have given.

My language teacher, Theo, has been teaching me small bits of Rwandan culture.  This week, Mama Blair came to do my washing.  Upon arrival, she looked around the compound and declared that she would also need a hoe and a brush.  We borrowed a hoe from a neighbour and I gave her the rather sad looking brush I had.  When I returned from my meeting 90 mins later, the washing was all hanging on the line, or clipped to the trees, the compound was swept clean of all the leaves that have blown from the trees, and a verge had been dug all the way around the house.  She was partway through cleaning the front and back porches and had spruced up my brush so it was sparking clean.  Before he had left, I had asked Theo how much extra money I should pay Mama Blair for the work she was proposing to do.  He said this would be an insult and in Rwanda, people help out their neighbours knowing that at some point people will help them in return.  Even so, this woman had done far more than I expected of her and it was such a hot day that I was exhausted just walking down the street – never mind doing all that hard work.  I made her a cup of tea and afterwards offered her some more money.  She was taken aback and refused it.  She explained in Kinyarwanda that we were now friends and this is what friends do. 

In a similar situation, my neighbour – Mbabazi – came into my garden the other day with a friend.  They had many big bits of wood.  He had called out to me on his way in, so I went out to greet him.  He explained that he had come to fix the fence (it had blown down in a storm).  I thanked him and asked him what I could give him for this.  He said a cup of tea, with a big grin on his face.  I got the impression he thought this was a bit of a joke.  However, having been brought up in England and with my Irish roots acknowledging that tea is sacred, I went and made them both a cup of tea.  They were genuinely delighted when I came back with it and I was bestowed with many blessings from God.  People here do really just seem to do things for others just because they can.

So amongst all this kindness, I decided that it was time I set to running again.  I am just below 2000m here, so think I have given myself enough time to a) acclimatise to the altitude and b) get completely out of shape.  With a small amount of fear I set off at 5:45 one morning.  I ran along some of the tracks that go around the town and run along the top of the valley.  The views are stunning and the sun was just completing its ascent into the sky, casting a soft light over the landscape.  It really was beautiful and this distracted me from the ache in my lungs as I forced them on my short run.  I passed a few people on my way.  They all stared, of course.  I greeted all of them and they all greeted me back – many sharing a smile as well.  I planned my second run to be on a Sunday morning.  I decided this was a good time to go out as most people would be in church, so there was less chance of bumping into people.  So, having said a few prayers of my own at home, I set off.  It was only 9:30 but already the sun was high in the sky and blazing down.  I ran the same route and at first I saw no-one.  There are so many churches here that I passed one every minute or two and all of them provided me with a pleasant soundtrack to my run.  Then I got towards the main road and saw many people.  Most of them stared and laughed and greeted me.  Some of them shouted what sounded like words of encouragement.  Unfortunately, I managed to coincide the final part of my run with the end of a church service and there were huge crowds on the main road just outside my house.  I had a 100m stretch to pass between the track I was on and my front gate.  Oh dear – buses were passing with everyone calling out the window to me; children ran alongside me as I wheezed like a broken bellows and people were just staring in astonishment.  Then my neighbour called out to greet me and it felt a little better.  I do feel a bit like I am the local entertainment at times!