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| Christmas Day - Rwanda 2013 |
So that was Christmas. Here, it was over in a flash – it
arrived on Christmas Eve with a few trees and decorations appearing (probably
having arrived in a container lorry) and by Christmas Day it was over. No
commercialism, no hype, no endless TV advertising but also, sadly, no carols,
turkey, mince-pies or green triangles from a large tin of Quality Street. Yes, I did miss it.
Christmas lunch was rice, beans,
matoke (cooking bananas), meat and the customary Fanta but I enjoyed it all
eating with some of the guesthouse staff who themselves were far from home and,
for some, the first time they had stepped inside the restaurant – not to
mention having lunch with the General Manager! Have to say I did take myself
off the next day to a very nice little hotel down the road and treated myself
to a more western style lunch.
New Year is the bigger event here,
they kept telling me but even that was nothing to write home about and for me
it was home alone and an early night!
Went into the bank today and they still had their tree up and I tried to
explain about Twelfth Night, Epiphany, The Three Kings or just bad luck if you
leave your decorations up (is it?) but they didn’t really get it. Maybe, they
are just making up for the fact they put everything up so late but it does feel
odd, being here in the sun and warmth, still seeing trees and decorations and
having no sense that Christmas really happened.
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| Morning rush hour on Lake Kivu - January 2014 |
So, we are into a New Year and I
am starting 2014 where I ended 2013 with my visa saga! And what a saga it has become but I am
pleased to say, finally, I can laugh about it. The latest, and I will keep it
short as I feel I am boring everyone with the story now, is Immigration
insisted I produce a new Police Clearance Certificate from the UK and to get
this by 31st January. The
slightly crazy thing is they ask for a PCC “from the country that you have
lived in for the last six months” which technically is Rwanda but I have given
up trying to be technical about anything to do with this process and just do as
I am told.
They did say, just after Christmas, they would give me three-month
temporary visa but backdated to 1st November 2013 so leaving me very
little time. Had to send papers back to the UK, using DHL and have had to plan
it like a military operation so I can get the certificate sent to me in Kigali
so I can go there to pick-it up, go to Immigration with my £100.00 fee for the
visa and hey-presto they will give me my passport complete with visa/permit or
I have got it wrong and they do want a PCC from Rwanda and not the UK!
I am now tracking the progress of
my DHL shipment via the website – it went from Kamembe to Kigali by bus (that
bit wasn’t tracked) and there seemed a delay before anything began to appear on
DHL.com, so I began to wonder if it was still sitting on the desk at the DHL
office here, but then I could see it had reached Kigali, had been sent to
Nairobi and is now at Heathrow. I
think next stop in Gatwick and then, hopefully, Lewes and Baron’s Down Road.
I had to make 4 trips to the DHL
office here as I am learning it is always good to do a preliminary trip for
something important so you can find out when the office is open or closed and
what is actually needed if a process is involved, how much it will cost and
that kind of thing. Also, I have
learnt that it is good to get to know someone first, have a bit of a chit-chat and not do the muzungu thing
of diving straight in to get something done.
The first two trips proved
fruitless as the office was shut and there was no answer to the mobile number
that was on the door – I later found out, when the office was open, that the Congolese
staff working there had gone back across the border to the DRC as rumours had
emerged on social media that Paul Kagame, the Rwandan President, had been
assassinated in the DRC – fortunately, the rumours were false. I discovered
that the DHL staff member only spoke French or Swahili and I was a bit
perturbed when she didn’t seem to know where either England or the UK were but
with the help of Jimmy, the Bishop’s driver, who speaks Swahili, we managed to get
the shipment sent off.
So, now I have to wait but good to
have some respite as this process has really taken over my life in the last few
months. I have been given some
hope in that the new British High Commissioner to Rwanda has heard of my plight
and I can now contact his secretary for support if my next visit to Immigration
proves problematical.
I am now beginning to look ahead
to coming back to the UK, at the end of March for a month’s holiday. Not exactly counting down the weeks but
feel in need of a break and having a MOT – check my teeth are ok, have a few
top ups on vaccinations and also to find out if being on anti-malarial tablets
for a year are causing me any problems. Feel my diet is lacking a few things
and really missing things like cereal but a packet here costs around £5.00 and
I don’t feel I can justify paying that when it is a quarter of someone’s
monthly wage.
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| Recent visitors from Virginia USA |
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| This one tried to get in on the photo! |
Before all that, have a busy few
months coming up. Quite a few visitors coming here from UK and USA and have a
group of 14 I’m looking after for a couple of weeks in February. Then I head off to Nairobi, for a
week’s conference with CMS, the Mission organisation I am here with, then I
come back here for a month before I head home.
There is much excitement in the
guest house as we have two staff weddings coming up. Enid, our Assistant
Manager, is getting married in Kigali on 8th February followed shortly
by Boniface, Development Manager, on 1st March. It’s interesting getting to understand the
wedding culture here – the groom has to give a dowry to the bride’s father which used to be a cow or two but now it’s money; then there is the civil
ceremony that can happen a few weeks before, followed by the presentation of
the groom to the bride’s family (hope they like him!), then there is the
giveaway ceremony where the bride’s family formerly give their daughter away
and then, finally, there is the church white wedding followed by the honeymoon.
Lots of embarrassed laughter when you talk about this bit – think it is a big
thing for them when the husband has much to prove!
What happens at the reception has
made me laugh as so far removed from what happens in the UK. Apparently, anyone can turn up – even
people walking past can just join the reception and they are usually the first
ones who eat the food! It is seen
to be rude not to allow them to come in and also not the thing to have someone
at the door checking their names and turning them away. In the UK we would have no hesitation
in going up to someone, who wasn’t invited, and asking him or her to leave.
I think learning and understanding
about the cultural differences is the great thing about being here and to see
how each culture will approach and deal with a situation.
There are many moments I enjoy
observing such as going to the Bishop’s house in the morning, if on some days
we drive down together to the guest house, and he is still in bare feet with
their ‘housekeeper’ trying to find him a dry pair of socks or the concern so
many people had recently when I had a flu-type bug. Nothing serious but
everyone was worried that I had malaria but nothing that a paracetamol or two
couldn’t cure so stream of visitors checking I was OK – lovely moment when
Esther, Bishop Nathan’s wife, came with two of her children to bring me lunch
and they entered the house each carrying a pot looking like the three wise men
– actually, it was on 6th January so some relevance there!
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| Picking tea just outside the Nyungwe Forest |
Have been doing quite a bit of driving
recently taking some of the visitors to the Nyungwe Forest or down to the Hot
Springs. Never quite sure what
Diocesan vehicle I will get to drive – the Land Rover Discovery or the Toyota
Land Cruiser. Both quite old, one left hand drive, one right hand (although
I’ve been here long enough that I don’t have to check myself all the time that
they drive on the right here) but after a while you get used to how they each
handle the roads and which work better in first or second gear going up a steep
incline. I made a complete hash of
trying to get the Discovery out of the Bishop’s compound and up and around a
very steep and rocky incline with ditches either side – took me several
attempts much to the amusement of the security guards. However, in my defence I
did do it in one go in the Land Cruiser.
Driving at night is quite a
challenge here, particularly when you can’t work out how to turn the headlights
on, as I forget what vehicle I am in and then feeling quite stupid when you
find out how they come on! Some
drive with headlights on, some with full-beam so you get blinded, some with no
headlights on at all or suddenly turn them on at the last minute blinding you
in the process. And, people walking everywhere in the dark with no torches and
sometimes all you see is the glow of a mobile phone.
Have now been asked to take part
in ‘Umuganda’ the community workday – think they noticed I was not doing this
so someone respectfully suggested I should do it. I did the first one at the end of December, where we tidied
up the gardens of the local genocide memorial near the house. Some 10,000
bodies here so a sudden reminder of those events in 1994 – Rwanda is having its
20 year memorial week this April. A few trees where suddenly chopped down
nearly falling on me as I was concentrating on doing some weeding, so a new
bridge could be built to allow vehicles to get across a big ditch into the
memorial.
At the end, everyone sits for a
meeting and the local “cell’ leader talks about the community and reminds
people to have health insurance or to start paying rent for the land that their
house is on. I understand that the
government gave land to people after the genocide but are now asking people to
pay rent – not easy for some people as they earn so little and struggle to find
school fees and money for uniforms and books.
It’s a good way for the “muzungu”
to get to know people in the community and to understand more of the problems
they face here – life is not easy for many of them.
