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| February in Rwanda |
So what have I been up to? I’ll not go back to last October, as I
can’t remember that far back so I’ll start from the beginning of the year when
I returned to Rwanda after a lovely break back home for Christmas. I find switching between being here in
the Rwanda, going back to the UK and then coming out here again all quite easy
and it is interesting to see how I can quickly adapt from one minute being in here
in the middle of Africa in the south-west of Rwanda, with the DRC as my
neighbour and then back into the Lewes bubble.
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| The lovely Lewes bubble |
The realisation of how different
life is between here and there hit me after I arrived in Addis Ababa airport on
my way back to Kigali. I left
Heathrow on a cold, dark evening and a very high tech Terminal 2 where
everything is now stream-lined & computerised to walking around, the
following morning, a rather warm Terminal 2 of Addis Airport wondering why my onward
flight was not showing on the departure board. Thinking I may be in the wrong
terminal and that my flight was now leaving Terminal 1, I soon discovered the
flight was not leaving at all as it had been cancelled and combined with
another flight going via Entebbe.
Chaos reigned as I discovered there were two flights leaving from the
same departure gate so it was a miracle I ended up on the right bus to the
aircraft let alone on the right plane to Kigali.
After a rather long and sleepless
journey (a passenger had been taken ill in the seat behind me on the flight
from London and there was one of those “Is there a doctor onboard moments?”
but, thankfully, being a flight to Africa where there are normally medics
coming out to work, there happened to be two doctors and five nurses who all
crowded around the seats behind me diagnosing and treating the man who,
thankfully, turned out to be OK), I arrived at the guest house at Solace
Ministries very tired. On getting into the bath for a much needed shower, I slipped
and somehow managed to come flying out upside down crashing onto the toilet and
ripping off a pipe in the process resulting in water gushing out all over the
bathroom and me rather dazed on the floor. Thankfully, nothing was broken (except the WC) but I noticed
there was some blood on the floor and I saw that I had badly gashed my back and
arm.
Deciding I didn’t need to go
to the hospital or rather didn’t want to, I did a quick self-examination and
thought a visit to the pharmacy would do the trick so two pharmacies later and
£12.00 for some rather sticky anti-septic gel I managed to fix myself up.
However, the decision to drive out
to the Akagera National Park, a six hour return journey, the next day and then
a six hour drive back to Kamembe the following day was maybe not a good idea
and arrived back rather battered and weary.
This experience sort of set the
tone for the following weeks I have been back. Emmanuel, the manager at the
guest house, left shortly after my return to go back home town in the north of
the country leaving me manager less for a few weeks and a stream of visitors
coming from the UK. With only two
days notice we had the Rwandan Prime Minister come to stay. We thought we were just getting him and
a few of his staff so we were not too concerned about looking after such a VIP but
the morning of his arrival it was announced that they wanted to have 50 people
for dinner. This did cause me some
concern (more than just some!) as we already had a team of 10 from the UK and a
team of pastors, also 10, who were at the guesthouse for training so having 70
for dinner was logistically challenging if not impossible. After some
discussions with the PM’s staff and at one point being “ordered’ to host people
for dinner we agreed on 30 – 20 in the restaurant and 10 in the Villa where the
PM was staying.
The plan was to have the PM’s
visitors in the restaurant and the other visitors in the small meeting hall but
this plan, as they do here, backfired when the PM decided he wanted to have a 20
minute meeting in the small hall that turned into rather a longer meeting of
over an hour. By this time, the heavy Cyangugu rains had started along with the
power cuts and when the meeting finally finished, everyone rushed to the
restaurant and we discovered the invited 20 had turned to 40 and with the other
visitors we ended up with 60 in a restaurant that comfortably seats 40!
We were hoping the following day
would be a bit easier as the PM was going out in the morning and then would
return to the guesthouse to change before leaving for Kigali. It was decided, again at very short
notice, to invite 20 for lunch and this time we were told would be the maximum
number to then find that 40 turned up and unsurprisingly we ran out of food at
which point I was past caring.
The PM was very nice and was very
appreciative of what we had done to accommodate his visit, as were many of the
other ministers who were there. To be honest, I don’t think any other hotel in
Kamembe could have done what we did that weekend. For those of you who know the
guesthouse, you can see how challenging it can be to be going up and down from
the Villa to the restaurant and the staff were very bemused to see the General
Manager running up and down with jugs of juice and then clearing plates from
the restaurant and serving drinks.
The staff did a wonderful job under a lot of pressure and I was very
proud they did such a good job and I was very pleased that my 20+ years of
event management had been put to great use.
As well as the PM, we have been
busy with many other visitors from the UK. A team from the Glaven Valley in
Norfolk were out for two weeks and now I am looking after a small team of four
from St Peter’s Church in Yaxley. All have been busy supporting various
projects from building a house, training pastors, visiting recipients of
micro-finance loans, medical and sexual health training, installing rain-water
systems in two houses built by teams and much more besides!
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| Some of the Glaven Valley team going off to teach |
Other news from here is on a
sadder note. The sick baby that had water on the brain died shortly after I
returned from the UK. He had slipped into a coma and didn’t recover but really
a blessing for him and his mother who has now enrolled into a local secondary
school to restart her education.
The lady with HIV/Aids, who I have also mentioned in previous posts is,
I feel, coming to the end of her life and what turned out to be a sad and
distressing visit to see her the other day with the realisation of how badly
she had deteriorated both mentally and physically. How she has gone on this
long I just don’t know but she has shown remarkable fortitude and resilience
with a life confined to a small bedroom and more recently no contact with friends as
the doctor had banned her using her mobile phone, her only way of keeping in
touch with the outside world, due to breathing problems she was experiencing.
On a more positive note, is the
encouraging story of Taciana, a genocide widow and her two children who became the
recipient of a house built by the Glaven Valley Church team. A few weeks ago, I
found myself sitting outside a kitchen of the house where she was living – in
the kitchen and not in the house and when I say kitchen I mean nothing more
than a mud hut. Her story was a very sad one, husband and family killed in the
genocide when she was seven months pregnant to be raped shortly afterwards and infected,
as was the baby she was carrying.
A few years later, having remarried, her husband left her as he
discovered he had been infected but, thankfully, her daughter who she shortly
gave birth to was not. Forced out of a house as she couldn’t pay the rent,
someone offered her the use of their kitchen with a leaking roof that meant
whenever it rained they had to find a dry corner and huddle together to keep
dry.
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| Taciana outside her kitchen |
Through an organisation that
supports genocide widows she was identified to be the recipient of a house to
be built, by the Glaven Valley team whose churches generously donated funds, on land given by the government some 30 minutes outside Kamembe. A simple,
timber framed structure with mud-lined walls and a tin roof it promised shelter
and a home for the family and through generosity of others she was also given a
young cow, furniture, bedding and other items and a system to harvest rain
water. She had been welcomed into her new community and it was wonderful to see
how lives can be transformed in a matter of weeks.
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| Moving in day for Taciana and her children |
Talking about weeks I am now into
my final ten weeks here. I have
decided to stay a few more months in Rwanda, probably until the end of October
when my visa expires. I have decided to spend some time in Kigali to experience
life in the city and to divide my time between Kamembe and Kigali offering
consultancy support as opposed to managing projects. I hope this time will give me the space I need to think
about the future with the realisation that my two years here has flown by.
Last weekend I escaped to Kibuye
up the lake for a short stay in the Moriah Hill, a very nice hotel affordable
through a gift from one of the teams to spoil myself – a real treat to have a
comfortable bed, soft pillows, a t.v. walk-in shower and a bathrobe. Time to relax a bit before a text from
the guesthouse to say the drains had blocked and required emergency repairs due
to tree roots getting into the pipes and tanks. This weekend we had have to
have further repairs done, close off a number of rooms, dig some of the gardens
up and deal with heavy rain and mud!
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| Kibuye |
Going to Kibuye reminded me again
what a beautiful country this is.
This time of year is one of the best times to visit as it is between the
heavy rain seasons and the countryside looks green and lush with the trees
covered in colourful red, yellow and purple flowers. I’m often struck by the
colours here, from the fabrics to the handicrafts, jewellery and even the reflections in the water from the colourful painted boats.
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| Local colour |
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| Reflections |
I continue to share my house with
my Rwandan family and to share in their challenges, negotiate myself around the
many pots and pans as well as peer through the washing to enjoy the view of Lake
Kivu. Note to self – that washing
line must come down!
So that’s a quick snapshot of the
last few weeks. Yes, I do mean a
snapshot as loads more that I could write about but will save that for the book.
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| Lake Kivu through the washing! |
