Sunday 23 March 2014

Home leave





A final (short) blog post before I leave for the UK for a month’s holiday.  Going to Kigali on Friday and then fly to the UK on Saturday evening, via Brussels and hope to be back in Lewes around lunchtime on Sunday.

Having been here for 11 months and with this break ahead of me, I guess it should be time to reflect and write about my time here, what I have learnt, how much it has changed me and all that kind of stuff. However, I realise I need to come home to do all this so I can have some time and space to think about the last year and to also think about the year ahead.  I will be coming back out at the end of April, for at least one more year, but realise how quickly these 11 months have gone and how much more quickly the next year will go - there seems to be so much to do here and the needs are endless and quite overwhelming at times.

When I come back, I will be moving into a house next door to the one that I have been living in for the last year that belongs to Bishop Ken Barham. The new house, which will allow me to create a ‘home’ here in Rwanda, is between Bishop Ken’s and Bishop Nathan’s houses so I don’t expect too much bother from the neighbours!

Chez Muzungu is with the white roof in middle of picture between the two Bishops houses
The new house, ‘Chez Muzungu’, requires some work on it and last week builders have started to add on an outside terrace, put up new tiles the kitchen, bathroom and a shower room.  Then they will paint outside and inside, repair the windows, put in a rain-water harvesting system and it should be ready for me to move in apart from getting some furniture made and buying other items - although Ikea is my worst nightmare, the thought of having one here is now quite appealing.

Adding a terrace onto the end of the house

The shower room - the loo really is in that position!
Having had a week of what has felt like endless meetings, I went out on a boat onto Lake Kivu yesterday afternoon, with a few other people, to enjoy a couple of hours on the water to see some wonderful birdlife, fishermen in their boats as well as people and children who live on some of the outlying islands.  

People on Gihaya Island, Lake Kivu
It was great to see the area where I live but from out on the water and to get a sense of what it must be like for the fishermen, when they are out during the night and there is a huge storm – even yesterday the water was fairly choppy but then we discovered a lovely inlet where the water was calm and we cruised slowing along the shore watching the birdlife and waving to the children who ran following us.
Going shopping

Young boy on Nkombo Island


Gone fishing!
So, I now have a few days to get my head around coming home to the UK. I am leaving Rwanda for what is a difficult time for so many here as it is genocide memorial month and this year is the 20th anniversary.  The heavy rains come too.  I will miss all the friends I have made here but look forward to coming back at the end of April but, equally, I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends back in the UK.



Saturday 1 March 2014

Strange goings on in the forest



Saturday started with a plan. I was going to have a nice, quiet, relaxing day in the house, the first for some weeks, but as I have learnt plans here don’t always go according to plan.

I sent one of my guards out to get some airtime for my Internet connection and became quite concerned he hadn’t returned after about 30 minutes, when he should have only been gone a few minutes.  Two of the Bishop’s staff, who are in a house a short distance away, then came to tell me that he had been arrested and taken to prison due, to it seems, for buying tobacco for some passing prisoners who were going to do some community work.  Anyway, after a few phone calls to ask people what I should do, my guard returned looking a bit sheepish but probably a lesson learnt. Think he was concerned as I think he tried to explain that ‘Madam’, his wife, was expecting (lost count how many children he has – think this will be number 7) by the gestures he was making to his stomach so guess she wouldn’t be too happy if her husband ended up in the nick. Although, last time I thought he told me his wife was expecting it turned out to be their cow so I may have got it wrong!

Early morning mists in the Nyungwe
This week the news here has all been about the Nyungwe Forest. A priest from the Catholic Diocese of Cyangugu, who was also their Chief Accountant, was found dead in his car in the forest – foul play was suspected.  And then, news of a bus crash early one morning with first reports saying seven people killed but since heard only it was only one. The first buses leave here at 3am in the morning to get to Kigali at 8am so driving fast through the forest in darkness, often when it is raining with mists hanging low over the roads makes for a challenging journey.However, always difficult to really find out what has happened as so much gossip flies around the ‘Cyangugu Grapevine’.


Boniface, who works here at the Diocese, left later that morning for Kigali as he is getting married today and he could quite easily have been on that bus as many staff use it. Emmanuel, Peace Guest Manager, had taken the 3am bus a couple of days earlier. I have been up and down to Kigali a lot recently on the public buses so a bit concerning.

I’ve been getting used now to the  six hour bus journey up and down to the city. The journey always start with an argument on the bus, as passengers have sat in the wrong numbered seats – if only they sat in the right seat then it would be so easy.  Everyone seems to get involved, except the muzungu who just sits and observes.  The last two drivers have driven exceptionally fast as if they are on a bonus to reach Kigali or Kamembe in record time – perhaps they are.

Driving through the forest you often see it littered with lorries that have come off the road, or overturned as their brakes or something else mechanical has failed. This is the only road, through Rwanda, to Bukavu in the DRC so many big lorries use it coming from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania – it is a real test of the vehicles road worthiness and judging by the lorries that don’t make it, many aren’t fit to be on the road.


One happy Muzungu reunited with his passport after three months

With the news that I had finally, after four months, got my visa and my passport back I was able to attend a CMS Conference in Nairobi last week.  CMS (Church Mission Society) is the organisation I have come out here with and the conference was the bringing together of CMS and CMS Africa and many mission partners from Rwanda, Uganda, DRC, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan and Ethiopia.

The pink Rosa Mystica complete with shrimps
Apart from an overnight stay in Nairobi, due to my return flight to London going technical a couple of years ago; this was my first proper visit to the city. Spent most of the week in the rather strangely named ‘Rosa Mystica Spiritual Centre', more like somewhere you go for tarot card reading and fortune telling – a pink, almost art-deco looking building with strange, shrimp like, carvings around the windows. It is located in a secure compound with high-walls, guards and even electric fences as much of the buildings of Nairobi are.

There was an opportunity to visit some projects in Nairobi and I visited one in Soweto slum that was a very enterprising church community project comprising of a school, church, carpentry & joinery workshop, bio-kitchen gardening, soap & detergent making, tailoring, bio-gas project and a water supply project.  Most of the buildings were made of corrugated iron and tin but it showed you what could be done in these slum communities with no big school or church buildings.  The senior Pastor gave up a good job in the city to come and work here.

Soweto slum, Nairobi

School children playing in Soweto

There were conflicting reports of the number of people who live in the Nairobi slums – I was told 70% of the 4 million city population but someone else said it was only 40% but I have since read it is 60%. Soweto slum has around 200,000 people living there but Kibera, the one that most people know, has around 1,000,000.

One of the most noticeable things coming to Nairobi, having been in Kigali, other than the amount of traffic at rush hour, is the rubbish.  Kigali, and Rwanda, is spotless in comparison and its ban on plastic bags certainly contributes to its cleanliness.

Going nowhere fast in Nairobi

The great thing about my time in Nairobi was meeting up with some people I got to know last summer, when I came back to the UK for mission training and the many new people that were involved in very interesting projects across the range of countries that were represented.

I struck up a conversation with a young man who was at the conference to look after the audio-visual. He told me that he had been a street boy living on the streets as his parents were constantly fighting and his father was always drunk. He had been rescued by a muzungu through an organisation that was supporting the street children, was able to go to school and get a job. He had since gone home to visit and his father had now stopped drinking and things between his parents were a lot better. A heartening story.

From street boy to professional young man

In between looking after a team from the UK, who left Rwanda just before I went to Nairobi, I came back to Kigali to attend the wedding of Enid Kanyana, the Assistant Manager at the guest house and husband Steven Musoni.  They had married in a civil ceremony two weeks earlier as the church, here in Rwanda, cannot legally marry couples. The day started with the ‘giveaway’ ceremony followed by the church ceremony and then the reception which was much more like another ceremony – this is then followed by a smaller, family ceremony so by the end of the day the bride and groom must be ready for bed!

As I’ve said before, in this blog, the thing I love about being here is the observations I make about the cultural differences between Rwanda and the UK and going to these ceremonies allowed me to observe a traditional Rwandese wedding and all its customs.

The invitation announced that the giveaway would start at 9am so I, with a few others, was there on time.  The setting was in some lovely shaded gardens in a small guest house in Kigali with two marquees set-up facing each other – one for the bride’s family and friends and one for the groom’s or should it be wife’s and husband’s as they were already married.  There was then a smaller, more ornate marquee between the two where the bride, groom and attendants sat.

Two hours later, the ceremony started. Waiting for those two hours, I was trying to understand how they knew when it was going to start – the grooms marquee was empty whilst the bride’s started to fill up but then all the groom’s family and friends entered together as they had to be invited by the bride’s family to attend the ceremony.

It made me think about English weddings that not only start on time but normally guests arrive an hour early.

The giveaway is the traditional ceremony where the bride’s family gives her away to the groom – it is also where the dowry is given and I was a bit disappointed when no cows appeared as today money is the common form of a dowry. Elders of the family made lots of speeches, there was lots of giving of bottles of non-alcoholic drink and Fantas, some other ritual where the groom places a hat on someone’s head and the bridal party arrived accompanied by singers and dancers.

Steven & Enid at the Giveaway

All very beautiful but rather solemn with no smiling bride – this worried me a bit but I was assured it was quite normal. The ceremony was over quite quickly and then there was time to change before moving onto the church.  As I had decided to save my suit and tie to the afternoon church and reception, I went back to where I was staying to get changed and due to heavy traffic and getting confused where I had to go to pick-up the Bishop’s wife, Esther and her son, Jonathan, we arrived at the service late.  I wasn’t too worried as I thought, following the giveaway, it would start late but I was wrong, it had started on time.

Kigali can get very hot and under a tin roof, in suit, shirt and tie it can get even hotter.  Strangely, the bride and groom and attendants sat on one side and not at the front so I couldn’t really see them for much of the service until the time they exchanged rings.

It was then onto the reception located in some lovely gardens just on the edge of the city. Again, marquees had been set-up located on the hillside but just after we arrived there was a rumble of thunder, strikes of lightning and a strong wind built up.  The guests who had arrived, ran for shelter under the marquees but rather scarily we realised that, with the strength of the wind, they were in danger of being blown away so many of the guests had to hold onto the metal structures. Once the wind had subsided, we made a dash back to the cars and waited until, finally, the rain stopped.

Holding onto the marquee to stop it blowing away

I was pleased to see the bride and groom get out of the car but then realised it wasn’t Enid and Steven and thought, for a moment, we had come to the wrong wedding reception until someone told me that the used the gardens for lots of wedding photos.

The reception, more of a ceremony, was very similar to the giveaway – lots of speeches, more Fanta, presentation of the gifts and some frenzied dancing for a few minutes, For that to happen at a UK reception, the guests would have had to down large quantities of alcohol, as they often do, so not bad they managed it here on a bottle of Fanta!

Interesting that the brides and grooms families and friends do not mix - there is a very distinct separation with us all sitting there looking at one another.  Then there is the customary cutting of the cake with layers given to various family members and friends. 

Before the wedding, I set myself a task to buy a new white shirt as the ones I have, have turned a shade of yellow. Trying to buy a plain white shirt didn’t turn out to be an easy task – the first shop tried to sell me once that had a collar size of 18.5 (I’m a 16 but think my next has now shrunk to a 15.5) trying to convince me that it would fit. I noticed that all the size were X-Large and no, I didn’t want one with red buttons or flower prints around the cuffs and collars – "I just want a plain white shirt" I said.

Next stop was a shop in Kigali Tower with their brand new shops that, sadly, some had closed down since my last visit.  This shop too had all sorts in x-large but the young chap was very persistent in trying to find me a shirt – the first one was far too big around the collar even though he was trying to convince me that it was OK – he had even persuaded me to try it with a tie and a jacket.  He rummaged around in some drawers and pulled out a shirt that I tried on and it fitted.  I was paying over the odds for it (at least a month’s salary for some of the PGH staff) but I thought I could not face going anywhere else so bought it – I think I may have been his only customer of the day so I did take pity on him.  Found out his family live in Cyangugu so we exchanged numbers, I promised I will go back to his shop when I am next in Kigali and I left with a white shirt and another new friend!

The team I mentioned earlier had a wonderful time here in Rwanda and was transformed by the experience of being here.  I enjoy so much showing people this beautiful country, who come for the first time, and to see how being here changes them and knowing many will come back.  Interesting to see how nervous they seem at the beginning, as not sure what to expect or what they may catch so always there is the smell of hand-gel in the daytime and mosquito repellent in the evening!

Now I have my passport back, I am now able to return to the UK and have booked my flight to come back on 30th March for a month. Only four weeks to go – not that I am counting but I am looking forward to seeing family and friends, not to mention my four- legged friend, again.