Hello

Just a quick one as I am busy packing up my things to go to Uganda tomorrow. The school is open!

Here’s Eric standing outside it. It opened last Monday and 20 children came on the first day. There were 35 children there today, and 36 is the maximum so it seems to be popular. It’s pretty standard in Rwanda for children to arrive at school anytime in the first couple of weeks of opening so I think they were relieved to have so many on day 1.

A few people have been asking whether I did sing…. Nope, ‘fraid not. I did a spoken version of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes instead.We did want the children to come back.

I’ve had a great time in Rwanda working with DIZA, and I will do a proper blog covering the last few weeks once I reach Kampala. Fingers crossed they don’t bribe me too much to cross the border! TTYL

 

 

Christmas Time, No Mistletoe, No Wine

Hello and Happy New Year. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

My Christmas Day was pretty different from English Christmas, although still very enjoyable. I visited Eric and Providence (Eric’s niece) for a lunch of beans, chips and rice. Excitingly, I found Cadbury’s selection packs in Kigali the other day so I took round one of those and a few other bits to give them a true taste of English Christmas (no turkeys available). Here’s Providence and I before lunch:

I also gave them both a couple of small presents each. These were the first presents they had ever received. This is a photo of Eric and I.

After lunch we got a lift to visit one of Eric’s friends, Patrick, at his family home. I was pretty pleased that we were going in a car as the buses here are super crowded. After all 5 of us had got in the back seat we set off. Patrick’s mother and sisters had kindly prepared a meal for us to eat (beans, rice, chips, plantain, beef, dodo (a vegetable, not the extinct creature)). Before the meal began I was treated to a taste of two traditional Rwandan, and pretty disgusting, things. The first of these was sogum beer. Sogum is not on Wikipedia so I don’t really know what it is, probably some kind of root. Rwandans use it to make home brew beer. Sogum beer basically looks like muddy water. And it pretty much is muddy water. I didn’t want to look like I didn’t like it but it’s the sort of drink that makes you noticeably wince as you drink it. Here’s Eric, a child, and I “enjoying” some Sogum beer. You’ll notice I look slightly apprehensive in it. That’s because at that point I thought I was going to have to drink the whole glass.

Luckily after the photos the Rwandans all had a good laugh at me and offered me a proper beer. They then proceeded to add coke, beer, sugar, anything nearby to their own drinks. Eric commented that this beer was not ready and was pretty horrible. Thanks guys.

The second disgusting thing was cassava root mash. This is a pretty tasteless white blob looking thing that has the texture of chewy dough. The texture is what makes it hard to deal with. I’m assured by other Muzungu’s that it grows on you. I think I might not have time for that.

(Stocking) Filler

• Christmas Eve I was invited to the wedding of the couple whose dowry service I visited a few weeks ago. They are catholics and got married in a catholic church in Kigali. Fairly standard apart from the fact that the priests here like to marry in bulk so it was four couples getting married at once. I do I do I do I do I do I do I do I do. (and they did actually go up the line like that)

• The school is opening THIS MONDAY! Building work is still continuing, and we only have a teaching assistant at the moment. Pressure is building for me to sing (yes sing!) on the first day. I don’t think so.

• The Shield obsession continues unabated. Series 5 now. The new music craze though is Serge Gainsbourg.

• For anyone who wishes to donate some money to DIZA the account is in my name, sort  401918 act 41460412 I’ll be giving them the cash around 15th Jan.

• In snake (no) news, nothing to report. I was in Akagera National Park this week which is home to mambas, cobras and puff adders. Seen’s as we couldn’t zip our tent up at night I was very pleased there was no sign of them. And I’m starting to think I should be more worried about the birds anyway…..

TTYL

Happy New Year!

Hello, it’s not really a proper post but I saw an article in the Guardian about Tony Blair’s activitities in Rwanda. It gives a bit of an insight into the politics here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/31/tony-blair-rwanda-paul-kagame

I’m just off to a party with all the DIZA staff to celebrate their work in 2010. We’re having a chicken and a fish barbecued especially.

Proper blog soon!

TTYL

Loadsa Mon(k)ey(s)

Hello and a slightly belated Merry Christmas!

Once the festive season is over I’ll be giving you all the intel on Christmas in Rwanda. So far it’s been fun, although very different from england. No crackers.

The weekend before Christmas I visited Nyungwe National Park in the South West corner of Rwanda. It is famous for being a large preserved area of montane forest but, more importantly, it has lots of primates! (w)ooo (w)oooo (that’s a monkey noise for anyone who hasn’t seen it written down before). The forest looks a bit like this:

And when you’re hiking in it it looks a lot like this:

Anyway, lets get to the main event, the monkeys! Here’s a Mona monkey I (actually Anthony, my guide) spotted on a walk:

And here he is running away from us: After the walk I went Angolan Black and White Colobus monkey trekking. This proved to be pretty easy as they were just hanging out right by a dirt road.

Here’s a young colobus and its dad/mum/whatever:

When this type of Colobus monkeys are born they are white, and their coat gradually changes over the first 3-4 months. I was able to get within 3 metres of this little guy. The monkeys here are habituated so are used to human presence but still wild. They have a tracker with them throughout the day (who guards against poachers) and then tourists can visit for an hour at a time.

Head of the group is a male monkey who is a cross between a Mona Monkey and an Owl Faced Monkey. Both of those species are omnivores so would kill him if he tried to hang out with them, so instead he chose to live with, and rule, the vegetarian Angolan Colobus Monkeys. Pretty cool hey.

Anyway that’s a pretty uninteresting blog for those of you who aren’t monkey fans. Less monkeys (although definitely not none) coming up.

TTYL

A very small house in the country

Sorry for delay in this week’s blog. Monday was Arsenal v Man U (more on that later), tues we had a work meeting and tonight I have spent visiting Ellias’s family (treasurer of DIZA) and drinking pints of hot milk (Rwandans appear to use tea and coffee as a colouring rather than a flavour).
I’m going to start this week’s blog with some serious stuff. This week I have visited two villages in Rwanda with DIZA. Prior to this I have just been in towns, and travelling through places on main paved roads. There is poverty, a lot, in the towns but the villages are worse. So, first up, an insight into Rwandan village life.
On Tuesday morning Eric and I get a bus to Kigali. After half an hour we bang on the roof of the minibus, jump out, cross the road and walk up a brown dirt track. Like everywhere I’ve seen so far in Rwanda it is beautiful. There are lush, green, rolling hills, covered in banana trees, tea plantations and various crops. The sun is beating down and it is a beautiful day. We walk for around 500m towards a cluster of brown, mud houses. We near a large one storey building on the left. It has smashed windows and looks derelict. It really smells. Eric points at the building, this is the communal toilet of the village. I don’t look inside. In the village there is no electricity, no running water. There are cows, chickens, goats, pigs. The houses are made out of mud, with metal rooves and generally have 2/3 rooms. Looking through the doorways I can see women sitting inside, often with a baby or a toddler in their arms. People smile and greet us. I find the contrast between the beautiful landscape and the obvious poverty disconcerting. In England poverty is ugly.
After around a km of winding dirt tracks we reach the house we have come to visit. It is solidly built, and surrounded by a vegetable garden with banana trees, beans, maize etc. A girl in her mid teens lets us into the front room. It is clean, with a stone floor. Against one wall there is a bench made of a wooden plank on two legs. There is a small coffee table with a child’s exercise book on it. There are 5/6 religious posters on the wall. That is all the furniture there is in the room. We have come to visit a family who have requested sponsorship for the three children. Their father died ten years ago. The family was referred a year or so ago to DIZA by the eldest daughter. She had finished school and was working, helping to support the family and paying the school fees of the other 3 children. Then, her husband died of HIV / AIDS. She contacted DIZA as she knew she would not be able to support the family for much longer. She died shortly after this. Since then the family have survived by growing food on their small plot of land to sell and to eat. This provides nowhere near enough income to pay school fees for three children.
I am surprised to find a fourth child in the house, a boy of around 14. I ask Eric who this is, and he says he is a house boy. A house child is a child who has been orphaned or left their family (maybe because of abuse, maybe due to a new step parent who demands the former partner’s children leave). The child will go to a city and ask people to work for them in return for a home and food. In this case he will get no education and once he becomes an adult he will leave and look for unskilled work. Despite all this the family is cheerful. The eldest girl tries out her English with me and all the usual rules of Rwandan socialising – greetings, escorting the guests homeward, are obeyed. There is no hint of desperation, or grief. Rwandans do not show their feelings in company. This family is not unusual. In villages there is no paid employment, where both parents are healthy it is common for one to work away from home to support the family. Where there is illness or a death there is little way for the remaining healthy parent to earn an income.
I hope that description provided some kind of insight into the lives of some Rwandans. Visiting the villages was certainly an eye-opening experience, and gave me a reminder of the desperate need for support of some of the people here.
So now something more light-hearted. Man U played Arsenal on monday night. In Rwamagana big premiership games are shown on a screen in the Muslim centre. I left my hotel at 9.15 to walk to the centre to walk to watch the game and the streets were quiet. In Rwamagana people don’t stay up late. I am frequently locked out of my hotel and have to bang on the door to wake the security guard up. Eric and I paid our 300 Rwandan Francs (35p) and went inside. Inside there were 200-300 Rwandans (pretty much all men) crammed onto benches, white plastic chairs and window sills. A small tv  was being projected onto the wall. Watching the game was really exciting. The lights were turned out and the crowd was noisy. It seemed to be around 49 per cent man u fans, 49 % arsenal and a few chelsea. The man with the vuvuzela was definitely a man u fan. It finished at midnight and everyone poured out onto the streets. I have never seen so many people around at night here! Anyway, well done Man U and sorry Arsenal fans and friends.

Other stuff:

• There’s currently some more building work happening on the school. Construction wise it should be finished by Christmas although as yet there’s no furniture or funds for opening expenses. We’re working on that.

• Spent the weekend hanging out with American and English volunteers drinking cheap Ugandan gin. Fun times.

• Kigali nightlife seems to involve a heady mix of Gaga, Peter Andre, prostitutes and midnight moto rides. Like most places in the world.

Right that’s it for now. Next week back to the usual ramblings. TTYL

Photos!

Hello,

Double blog fun this week. I’ve finally put some photos on my computer so will share a few on here. Above is a view of the surrounding countryside of Rwamagana. The bits of Rwanda I’ve seen so far are mainly like this, lush, green with rolling hills.

Next up some DIZA photos. First up is the school building. As you can see it’s not quite ready to open yet.. But hopefully there should be some building work taking place next week!

Then the DIZA offices where I spend most of my time. These are also home to a nervous lizard and a family of swallows

Next up a few photos from Rwamagana market. The market is open every day, and on Wed and Sat loads of extra traders come. It sells clothes (lots), veg, and that’s pretty much it.

Spot the salesman:
And finally some cheerful ladies at the market, we had a pretty garbled conversation mixing english, french, kinyarwanda and settled on some gesturing:

So what else? Well, I spend a fair bit of my time on minibuses travelling between Rwamagana and Kigali. They’re pretty interesting rides as a) anyone who speaks any english will accost me and b) the minibuses are quite squashed. The aisles have been fitted out with fold down seats and every seat is expected to hold 1.5 people. Still the views out of the window are interesting:

On way to Gisenyi:

Oh yeah, and I told you I’d been eating a lot of goat right?

Now a few of the dowry ceremony snaps. Apologies there’s a few people in the way, can’t edit them here. I sadly missed getting a photo of the topless men in blue skirts, but here’s a female dancer:

And here’s the soon to be happy couple:

Right, now onto serious business. It has taken me ages (in excess of five beers)to upload these photos and I didn’t do it for nothing. I’ve been doing a bit of investigating about the best way of donating for those who are interested. I’ve set up an online savings account in my name (sort 401918 account 41460412) and when I leave in mid Jan I will withdraw the cash and give to DIZA.  I am happy to provide statement evidence for anyone who requires it! There’s two things DIZA are raising funds for at the moment, the school building and a library which can be accessed by anyone in Rwamagana. I’ll elaborate on these projects in future blogs. If over the course of these blogs anyone is interested in donating over the long term DIZA have a lot of children and teenagers looking for sponsorship to cover school fees (approx £20 a month) so let me know if you are interested. Here’s a pic of one of the type of children DIZA could be helping:

And finally, something that amused me. As a caveat Rwanda is trying hard to get equality for women and there are lots of programs aimed at educating women. However I did see the below advert:

Right, have a lovely weekend everyone. I’m testing out the nightlife of Kigali this weekend so if it turns out to be weird (fingers crossed) I will let you know.

TTYL

A wedding in Gisenyi

Hello all,
Blog time again. This week I’m writing it by the light of a head torch as there’s a massive storm and the power is down.
So this weekend I visited Gisenyi with Jean Marie, DIZA President, to attend a Rwandan dowry ceremony. In Rwanda the family of the groom still pay a dowry to the family of the bride. It’s traditionally cows although now money is sometimes given. The ceremony is held at the family of the girl and the girl’s family (“GF”)  sits separately from the male’s family (“MF”). Nowadays it’s all role play as everything is decided between the couple. The ceremony starts off with basically a load of joshing where a representative of the male side asks to see the girl and her family say she doesn’t exist / it’s the wrong house / she isn’t there etc etc. After a while it’s established that it is the right house, and the girl is there and that maybe the family will let the BF see (and possibly marry) her.  At this, the BF give the GF some booze and everyone has a little drink to celebrate. Then comes the business of how many cows the BF will give to the GF. One is the standard. Once a number is decided on (in this case the standard one) a few people go and check out the cows to see that they have four legs / udders / whatever. Then it’s time for the groom to reveal himself.  In Gisenyi he was wearing a rather fetching leopard print skirt, carrying a spear and was attended to by 4 other men in skirts. They wander about for a bit and then have a sit down and wait for the girl. The BF call for her.
The girl appearing is a BIG THING. I think it varies depending on how far a family want to go with it. The first people to appear from the GF house were some topless boys in blue skirts with some drums. They were followed by 4 girls in blue dresses who danced to the drum beat. Then there were 4 bridesmaids in golden Rwandan dress. Then finally the bride and her chief bridesmaid appear. The bride and groom meet, share a kiss, a drink and some food and then everyone eats. Once the crowd has been fed the BF leave the house and the GF get down to some serious drinking / dancing. As you can see from the photo below, even Congolese and Rwandan ladies dance around their handbags.

Quick Bits

• I was slightly horrified bemused this week to wander down the dirt track to work this week and hear the  sounds of Shania Twain. Loads of the shops here have speakers outside playing music, sometimes Congolese, sometimes terrible imitations of terrible Western pop, sometimes Shania, sometimes Whitney.

 

• The craving for red wine has got too much. Luckily there’s a supermarket in Kigali selling Hardy’s for 7 quid. Result.

• I’ve been trying to feed my snake phobia / obsession by asking everyone I meet about snakes in Rwanda. I was rewarded by a story of a snake trying to get into a house in Kigali and biting a dog. Now I am PROPERLY scared.

• At bars you can’t buy spirits by the shot, you have to buy 300ml. Some would say a wine glass full of Johnny Walker red is too much, I would disagree. FYI Mum, I shared the 300ml, I didn’t drink it all myself.

That’s it for now. TTYL