Madness

This has been my general state over the last few months; it has been something of an unstoppable whirlwind sweeping up in its midst a variety of different towns, villages, beds, people, transport and events. All have been rich experiences in their own ways but somewhere in the confusion I have neglected to report back! This has been a terrible omission for which I must apologise. But here I am ready to bore you senseless with ‘Anti AIDS Clubs and other stories’.

We begin with the grand competitions! These were much anticipated events for all of the Anti AIDS Clubs in all four Districts, only that in my District and Samira’s which have already been in the programme for over a year instead of having one big event we took judges to each of the schools to judge their theatre or song in situ. As ever this turned out to be three full days of much crazy driving over rough terrain, getting stuck in schools for two hours because of rain showers, eating in great little restaurants in rural areas and of course much singing and dancing. The schools were each given themes around sexual health and HIV to perform on in the category of either theatre or song, and then the winners in each category were invited to participate in the big event to be held in Ngoma (the new District in the East). The big event was a huge success despite the odd difficulty with buses (as ever) and lots of fun, with the two Nyagatare schools winning again!

No rest for the wicked, however, and it was straight on to planning our next big event which was a Summer School for the two new Districts, and to which the two runners up in my district and Samira’s were invited. The twist in this tale is that Ellie, who was the Coordinator for Ngoma District, left before the event so yours truly found herself on the first day of the Summer School surrounded by over 200 young people packing them into 3 54-seater buses (yup it doesn’t add up!) to take the 6 hour journey across country to Kibeho where the Summer School was held. Despite the seeming chaos everything went according to plan and the young people enjoyed the 4 day Camp with training on HIV, how to work with their communities, how to make their clubs sustainable, and fighting stigma and discrimination. Despite being a logistical nightmare, as the village where we were based had little phone network, no electricity, little running water and situated an hour from the nearest town, it was incredibly fun and a huge success. In fact when it was all over the three Coordinators (Jane, Samira and I) slumped into our chairs, shattered but nonetheless shedding a few tears that it had all come to an end.

Amidst all this there have been the ‘other stories’ with two lots of visitors coming to experience the thousand hills with me. First up was Jon (for the second time), as ever he joined me on many work-related adventures and got stuck into Nyagatare life wish surprising relish! Then my Fantastic Fundraising Friends (Kathryn, Nicole and Georgie) arrived bringing with them all the cash that they had raised back home and we headed straight to Macmillan on their arrival to purchase hundreds of books for our Anti AIDS Clubs. So thank you to everyone who contributed to that massive effort which will be so very appreciated by all the schools involved in our programme.

And so the Rwandan tales are ending, with only 6 weeks to go in this wonderful country I am getting increasingly emotional at everything I am doing for the last time, and having finished the main activities for the project. The wind-down period is turning out to be the hardest with occasions like the last meeting with my team of facilitators and the last party in my lovely house bringing me back to the brink of tears, but I am trying to hold it in until I actually leave, after all six weeks as an emotional wreck will not be good for anyone…

Half Mast

Last Sunday marked the end of Genocide Memorial Week in Rwanda, fourteen years after almost one million people lost their lives. The week began on Monday 7th April, the official start of one hundred days of mourning for those lost in the war. The mood has been unsurprisingly sombre, and of course for many this has been a very traumatic period with horrifying experiences being relived as memories are revived.

In Nyagatare, and across the country, the first act of commemoration took place on the Monday afternoon as the residents of the area processed through the town in silence ending with a meeting in the centre. Throughout the rest of the week the whole town shut down every afternoon and all the adults attended conferences on the Genocide, where survivors gave testimonies and films were shown. Children were not required to attend these conferences which meant that the whole place was eerily silent except for the sound of children’s voices.

I cant deny that the whole feeling behind this period left me a little uncomfortable, not that I do not believe remembrance is very important, of course it is, but because the revisiting of this horrific time is so thrust upon the population that there is no escape. Every afternoon not only are the conferences happening throughout the country, but televisions are only showing Genocide-related programmes and the radio playing Genocide-related broadcasts. It must be different for every individual and is undoubtedly a matter of personal perspective but one can’t help but wonder what effect this has on individuals.

Meanwhile, all primary and secondary school teachers have just come the end of a three week ‘political camp’ for solidarity training, which took up the whole of their holidays. As a result the President announced at their closing meeting, held (amidst great traffic chaos) at the national stadium, that they would get an extra week off. This will inevitably throw the school term out of whack and is bound to have repercussions for our programme as well as students’ timetables. But this is the way Rwanda works, and so I will work with it.

Here, there and everywhere

This has been me - everywhere - and this is my feeble attempt to explain the lack of blog contact over the last couple of months. So now I will endeavour to sum up what has passed as succinctly as possible...

Performing in Primary

The first highlight was a trip down to a fellow volunteer's home and school in the far south of the Eastern Province with Samira. The two of us were to give a training for Primary and Secondary School teachers on running an Anti AIDS Club at the Primary School where Joe is teaching. Having managed the trip from either side of the country we were both thrilled to be finally having the opportunity to actually run a training ourselves, but a little intimidated by the idea of mixing primary students with teachers and all talking about Puberty, Sex and Contraception. As it turned out we had nothing to worry about somehow the combination of condom demonstrations and the hokey cokey worked a dream particularly as we had the support of Joe's wonderful Headmistress and an incredibly dynamic translator. All in all it was a great day and fantastic to visit another volunteer who is so comfortably part of the community where he is living, with neighbours popping in and out all day and a brilliant relationship with his school.





Happy Travels

And then my parents came! Six months in and I was definitely ready for a bit of TLC, which I got in spades. I was thoroughly treated and looked after for two weeks and had the chance to see a different side of Africa on the other side of the border, in Uganda.

Not only does Uganda seem huge in comparison to Rwanda with travelling distances seeming to stretch almost painfully far, but attitudes are remarkably different too. Starting with care for the roads, to levels of traffic, to corruption, to music and dancing - all are just a little more relaxed than we find here in Rwanda, for better and worse in different respects. The poor roads, lack of respect for the traffic laws and the demands for a little extra cash 'on the side' can be tiring and in contrast to what I have become used to in the highly regulated Rwanda, but the enthusiasm and openness of the people made for a refreshing change and fun times!






Back to Business

After two weeks of adventure, filled with waterfalls and wildlife, it was straight back into work on my return with Joan (the motorbike) and I out and about visiting schools for end of term project evaluations. Despite the fact that school visits remain one of the highlights of my job, filled with singing, dancing and theatre they also remain one of the most daunting as Joan and I face the ever-uneven roads of Nyagatare District. I have recently been pondering the relative danger of cow, goat and chicken, as well as that of mud versus sand. These questions were answered the other day when riding at speed to avoid the impending rain I was faced with the split second decision of cow or solid ground, it appeared to me at the time that if I hit the cow I would face a double danger of cow and ground, so I decided that braking hard on gravel and hitting solid ground was preferable. Indeed I stick by the decision as I managed to escape with only a few bruises and some pulled muscles, but I am not sure Joan would agree with her broken indicator and wonky steering. It has cleared my mind at least that cow and sand are the worst combination! But the important thing is that we got it together and made it to the school club who gave a fantastic performance sharing messages about HIV with the whole school. And so it was with many others, great ideas but not enough resources available to make the most of them; we are hoping to work on that next term.


Green Fingers

Meanwhile on the home front things are going really well. My house has been painted and looks beautiful, and I even have a tap in the kitchen so when the water is working washing up is a dream! Furthermore my lifestyle is becoming increasingly self sustainable, I have hardly needed to go to the market at all in recent months what with the spinach, carrots, cabbage, tomatoes, beans, coriander, parsley, broccoli, butternut squash and sweet potatoes growing in my garden. Although I cant claim all the credit as my guard has kept the vegetables going despite is failure to grasp the concept of weeding! Nyagatare, and Rwanda in general seems to be struggling more and more to provide electricity and water with any regularity, not to mention telephone network which has prevented me from accessing the Internet over the last month or so. But thank goodness for the internet café, candles and jerry cans I say!


Birthday Partying

Thank you for everyone who sent me birthday wishes, they made for a very happy day. We had celebrated the weekend before dancing the night away at a near deserted bar on lake Muhazi, followed the next morning by an Easter egg hunt in the rain and the long journey home. Samira stayed with me over my birthday and decorated my house beautifully all of which meant I was one spoilt little birthday girl!


And now as we enter the rainy season and school holidays I am back to desk work but the rest will be good and hopefully set me up for the term to come.

Me and My Moto

So at last here is the much requested photo of me on my motorbike - go ahead and laugh at my expense! My beautiful Princess of Darkness is called Joan (or Jeanne to her francophone friends) after her fellow crusader Joan of Arc, not so much for her message but more for her resiliance and strength in the face of almost impossible conditions...

Shake it all about

So, yes, I have experienced my first earthquake and to be honest if was all quite exciting (if a little unnerving) at the time, until later in the day when we realised how many people had been killed or injured in the tremor which had destroyed hundreds of homes in the South of the country close to the border with the DRC. As for me I was staying at Jane’s house in a place called Kibeho (famous for a vision of the Virgin Mary) with Samira and Hannah B. We had all only recently risen from deep slumber and were gradually getting ourselves together when the tin roof began to shake. At first I though it was just a very large crow (we get a lot of their antics – dancing around on the tin roofs) but then the whole house was shaking…

We all stood looking at eachother for a while, gradually realising that it was in fact an earthquake and desperately recalling those geography lessons which talked of door frames and underneath tables as safe places. Eventually we just ran outside and rode the wave! It felt as though it went on for quite a while, although it was probably only a minute or two and was a very strange sensation, leaving me feeling slightly motion-sick. But the house was still standing as were all the others around us, and their contents! So until our return to Kigali in the evening when Hannah’s parents informed us what had happened, we had no idea of the extent of the earthquake we had experienced. All in all my first earthquake was a reasonably understated affair and we must be grateful that the damage all around was minimal.

But what else has been happening? Well we had a fantastic training in Kibungo a couple of weeks ago, managing to coordinate 120 people with reasonable success and no huge nightmares! Best of all was that everyone seemed to enjoy it and there were no major upsets, which makes for a couple of happy coordinators!

And there are some new Muzungus in town, yes we are almost over-run by them now (6 in total including me!). They are with the Salvation Army Emergency Services and are here to coordinate the building of house for returned refugees from Tanzania. They are great neighbours (staying in the guest house next door) and have already visited me for tea and supper, bringing Tesco’s cappuccino sachets, along with oranges and apples (which I haven’t been able to afford since arriving here) so it was most welcome!

The weekend at Jane’s was great; she is one of the most rural placements with no running water, a pit latrine and limited electricity from a generator. However, we amused ourselves with a great deal of eating and creating costumes for ourselves out of teaching aids and household goods. Some may think from the pictures that I have regressed since coming out here, I fear that in fact I never grew up!

Work continues to have its challenges, the current one revolving around unexpected budget constraints that hamper my efforts at every turn but encourage increasing creativity, which can only be a good thing. On the plus side I love the schools and the students so spend a lots of time out and about on the bike which is great.

I thought I would just finish off this entry with a few things that I have learnt from Rwanda and about Rwanda:

From Rwanda…
1) Pineapples grow on the ground
2) Peanuts grow underground
3) You can have a shower with a bucket of water that would fill a toilet sistern (half a sistern if you aren’t washing your hair!)
4) Tea plantations are beautiful
5) When buying a chicken from the market carry it home upside down and then kill it immediately while it is sedated!
6) Gekko poos are long and black with white tips!

About Rwanda…
1) Rwanda is the most expensive country for importing and exporting, as it is landlocked
2) Rwanda is the country with the highest number of female MPs – the law states that there should always be one third female MPs
3) Rwanda has the biggest mountain forest in Africa
4) Rwanda is the source of the Nile?!?!?!?
5) Rwandans love milk and they love goats but goat’s milk – hell no! A wise people indeed!
6) Rwanda has the best chips in the world (Fatty Mc Chip Chip here!)

A Rwandan Life

I am very aware that up until now my entries have been very much me me me. And much as I am loathed to admit it, it goes without saying that my life and the way that I am living it over here remains quite different to that of the majority of Rwandans. So I thought it was about time that I give you a slightly clearer picture of the bigger picture!

While I struggle out of bed a 6am every morning (well more like 6:15 thanks to the snooze button) others around me have mostly been up for an hour already (don't worry I can hear them - so I know!). My next move is to crawl from bed to yoga to shower and then to a massive bowl of porridge with bananas. Meanwhile most of my Rwandan colleagues will be having a cup of tea if anything at all before either heading to work for around 7am or if they are subsistence farmers living in the villages the work of tidying the house will begin. And here is another point of shame for me - the average Rwandan house is immaculate, however large or small, and is swept and mopped daily (mine is swept weekly and mopped when I can face it, which is rarely!). However, I comfort myself with the fact that most families with a house my size or smaller have some kind of houseboy or help which I do not have - yeah well I have to have some kind of excuse!

Then its out into the fields for the whole family; however small you are there is something that you can do to help. From the early hours you see women bent double hacking away at grass, harvesting crops or hoeing the fields, while children carry bundles of straw twice their size from place to place. By the afternoon bushes are strewn with laundry (the replacement for a washing line) and children returned from school are carry jerry cans of water back to the house. By this point the bars may be full of drunken men sipping on jugs of banana beer around the market, but for most the work never ends...

And in the midst of it all most people will have one big meal a day (generally cassava and beans with other carbs depending on availability) and otherwise just tea, milk or water, while I tuck in to my three hefty meals with snacks in-between. The number of times colleagues have spotted my flask of tea at work and wished me 'bon appetit' or 'enjoy your breakfast' before I have time to point out that breakfast was hours ago and I am famished already! By 8pm I am exhausted and crawl back to bed soon afterwards, well aware that others around me will be up for many hours to come, only sleeping if this is deemed truly necessary. But for me the sleep remains of utmost importance and I gladly indulge myself of a good eight hours...

This is just a glimpse of life in Rwanda and I cannot claim to be all-knowledgeable, in fact in six months I may realise that life is nothing like what I have claimed above, but this is how I see it and thought I would share a little of how things are from this perspective. Tomorrow I am off to run another training in Kibungo with Ellie, this time 120 young people and teachers, so think of us trying to keep a track of 80 over-excited teenagers!

The Long and Winding Road

That leads back to my door. So here I am again at last but it has been an interesting few weeks of festive fun and African adventures which all began with the arrival of my first visitor, Jon. For him it was something of a whirlwind from the start, but one which he seemed to embrace despite the frequent deviations and inevitable mishaps along the way.

The first stop was back home to Nyagatare where we got straight into preparations for my Christmas Party; borrowing a fridge, stocking up on food and drink, making decorations (even a tree from my garden was incorporated) and generally filling the house with the festive spirit that had otherwise been completely lacking. Possibly to the confusion of many readers, despite this being a very Christian country Christmas is a much understated affair, in fact outside of Kigali it would have taken a very cunning observer to notice any difference at all save the odd Christmas ringtone on the bus! But fourteen adventurous VSOs braved the taxi buses to Nyagatare where many silly games and fantastic food was enjoyed by all (Jon even managed to construct a BBQ from a few bricks and so meat was cooked for the first time in this house!). All of which was followed the next morning by some impressive Muzungu football watched by a crowd of slightly confused but clearly enthralled Rwandans who later joined in when some of the party set off for Kigali.

The aftermarth was a welcome week of quiet with me finishing up at work and Jon getting stuck into Nyagatare life with all the laundry and jerry cans that that involves! And then the real fun began… From our simple life up North to the British Embassy Christmas Carols, where many an eager VSO volunteer could be found tucking into the first free red wine and mince pies that they had seen since touchdown! But we were there for the Carols of course! A couple of days later we were back out East to Akagera National Park for my first Rwandan Safari, where we mingled with the hippos, giraffe, zebra and buffalo from the top of our jeep.

But what about Christmas day? Well, I think I can safely say that I will never have another one like it – fantastic but certainly not Christmas as I know it and more just like a great long stream of food and fun. It all kicked off with a cup of tea at Mel’s house where seven of us were staying, then a quick journey on the taxi bus to Joanne and Morley (a wonderful Canadian couple who happen to make great pancakes!) for an enormous breakfast of pastries, pancakes and fruit salad (and you thought I was starving!) and handing out of Secret Santa presents – all of which went down a storm. Then it was back to Mel’s to prepare for the huge banquet that evening, again more food than you can imagine for around 20 people washed down with plenty of beer and a singsong.

No time to recover however we set off the next day for Gikongoro (where Samira lives) for the start of our travels and from there through Nyungwe Forest to Cyangugu on the border with the DRC where we gazed across the calm lake to the lights of the war-torn country and found it hard to imagine it was anything other than the colourful land it looked from where we were standing. A couple of days later I took over Jane’s bike and with Jon on the back set off on the bumpy but incredibly beautiful road to Kibuye – the journey was five hours of incredible pain (many a broken bone was narrowly avoided) but worth every bump as the views gave new meaning to 'breathtaking'. Once at our destination we were understandably reluctant to move and remained there swimming in the lake and relaxing on its shore until New Year which we saw in with the guest house staff (no one else was there) and a few too many rounds of Charades.

But all good things must come to an end and early the next morning we were on the bike (Samira’s this time) back to Kigali where Jon caught his flight back home and I attempted to slowly nurse myself back into work. And now here I sit back in Nyagatare slightly daunted by the prospect of returning to the office and trying to get used to the little trials of life in the sticks once again; so far electricity has cut off, water has cut off, a storm has descended, batteries have run out and my loo smells. But really it’s good to be back, only there is no denying that Christopher Robin was right – it’s much more friendly with two.