News & views

Last week I moved into the house next door – my new ‘home’ for the rest of the time I am here in this part of Rwanda.  I still have this amazing view over Lake Kivu to the DRC and a garden with avocados, bananas, papaya and even sugar cane.

My bedroom in new house 

The experience of moving into this house has been quite interesting and it feels it has taken me a long time to get in.  After the initial work that needed doing, I had to get furniture made from a local co-operative workshop and have taken delivery of some good, solid pieces – not all quite to the dimensions I wanted but it’s all well made and now looking to use the workshop to make new furniture for the guest house.  I went to Kigali a few weeks back to get a fridge, a gas hob (two burners but with self-ignition – I was very impressed as it saves me having to use these dreadful, tiny wax matches that are impossible to strike), a toaster, kettle and a sandwich maker.  Curtains were made by a local tailor, from brightly coloured African fabric called ‘Ibitenge’ (actually, made in China!) but have now been sent back for alterations as too short and made to wrong dimensions.  This was partly due to the curtain poles being placed higher above the window than I wanted.  But this is what it’s all about being here – nothing is really quite straightforward and even trying to buy some cup hooks in order to hang my mosquito net proved an impossible task!

Furniture delivery on a back of lorry stopping just in time!

At least it didn't come flat packed

Buying mattresses, sheets, towels and the negotiations that go with it is quite an experience but beaten by the sight of a man putting all of the items (including a double and single mattress) on the back of his bicycle and then pushing it up to the house, up a very steep hill and all for £2.00. Thankfully, they were all there waiting for me by the time I made it home.

The house is a bit back-to-front with the sitting room at the back overlooking a wall and bedrooms at front but a lovely view of the lake to wake up to. The terrace, for cost reasons, has been added to the side of the house, rather than the front and the Bishop said “only a muzungu would add a terrace on the side of the house”. I didn’t like to say that I never see Rwandans sitting in their terraces as they are always indoors, behind net curtains shutting our all the glorious views!

View from the terrace of 'new' house

With me, into the house, has come Isaiah a young chap of 21 to work as my house-keeper to clean, wash and iron clothes, do the garden, shop and cook.  Leaving his Mum, brother and family, he has come from a remote, rural village to work for a strange muzungu in a muzungu house with strange things such as toasters and sandwich makers!  The house is large enough for him to have his own room with a shower/wc and for each of us to have our own space and privacy.  It is quite strange to have ‘staff’ and to stop myself from washing up or ironing a shirt and all those things that I have just done for so many years. He speaks some English but is here to help me learn more Kinyarwandan and to be honest it is nice to have someone in the house.  I’m learning that Rwandans love their beans (they call them the African meat) and Isaiah seems quite happy cooking his rice and beans (sometimes taking two hours each evening) but he has discovered the delights of toasted sandwiches and French toast with honey.  This is not the limit of my cooking skills I hasten to add.

My new member of  'staff" - Isaiah

Isaiah comes recommended through a couple I know as it can be a challenge when you have people live in your homes and I have heard stories of working mothers who employ young girls to look after their babies, who go home to discover they have gone taking possessions from the home but, thankfully, not the babies.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog, as I’ve just been busy with work, the house, buying a flat in Eastbourne (just exchanged contracts and pretty amazed I have done this 4,000 miles away although a little nervous when I did an on-line transfer, of quite a large amount of money, from my UK account to the solicitor thinking it would be intercepted and end up in the DRC!), and looking after lots visitors  so apologies for a rather long (and I hope not boring) post.

Sadly, we’ve had more thefts a couple of weeks ago.  Woke up in the middle of the night, on hearing voices out in the garden, to see the guard and other guards walking around with torches. I guessed there had been a problem with intruders but decided not to investigate and in the morning I discovered that most of my washing, left on the line to dry overnight by Modeste the guard, was no longer there.  Four good shirts, a pair of trousers and some bed-sheets had all gone – annoying really as they were clothes that I had liked and had formed my ‘working’ wardrobe here.  A cost inconvenience too and the hassle of replacing them as will probably mean a trip to Kigali at some point.

Apparently, the thieves had done a ‘sweep’ of houses on Mont Cyangugu where I live. They broke a window in the Bishop’s house, in his eldest son’s bedroom where he was asleep, shining a torch in his face.  Whilst windows have bars on here, they are breaking windows so they can reach in and take things so a reminder that I mustn’t have things too near the window or leave the keys in the lock which I am in the habit of doing.

A review of security is now needed particularly as I live behind high walls (with glass on top), big gates, nightlights and security guards who, sadly, are asleep most of the night and thefts are still taking place.  Another good reason for having Isaiah here.

Night disturbances seem to a bit of a theme at the moment. I had discovered, some months back, that the wife of Andre, my night guard, was having a baby – their seventh child.  The government are trying to encourage families to have fewer children as they cannot afford school fees and medical insurance as well as clothes and food but Bishop Nathan says without electricity and television what else is for them to do in the evening!  At first, I thought Andre was telling me that his cow was expecting until I realised he was talking about Madame, his wife. Anyway one evening this week, I was going down to the guest house for a surprise birthday celebration for Boniface, whose wife was coming all the way from Kigali, after work, to surprise him – they are newly married so still very keen!  Just before leaving the house Andre was talking loudly on his phone (he doesn’t do quiet) and I worked out, with my limited Kinyarwandan and gesturing signs of a large stomach and rocking baby, that his wife needed to go to hospital in town – they live along the lake some two hours walk from the house.

As it was dark, and a taxi had come to take me to the guesthouse, I offered to give Andre a lift to the guesthouse and he was going to get a moto (motor bike taxi) to his house.  Having called Emmanuel, the guest house manager, from the taxi to help translate I had this hilarious journey with Alexi the taxi driver shouting out of the window trying to find a moto driver and Andre and I having conversations with Emmanuel in English and Kinyarwandan. I discovered that Andre was planning to go by moto to the house (along rough mud tracks) and then take his heavily pregnant wife on another moto to the hospital!  I asked Alexi if he could take them but he had other commitments and arriving at the guest house I wondered if I should take the Diocesan Land Cruiser, that was there and drive Andre to his house and take his wife to the hospital but the thought of her giving birth in the back of the vehicle was something I could not have coped with. Thankfully, Andre said a moto would be fine – I wonder if his wife thought so too!

At around 3am the following night, I was woken up by Andre again shouting very loudly on the phone and got up to discover his wife, who had been sent back home from the hospital, had given birth to a baby boy at their house. I worked out that the ‘umwana’ (baby) was an umuhungu (a boy) – his second son. When I asked him a couple of days later the name of the baby it took him a while to remember but told me that it something like “Praise God” (in Kinyarwanda) – babies are often named after an event or situation or to thank God and then they give them a Christian name later.

From a birth to two deaths. People seem to die here at quite a frequency. Bit of a morbid one to write about but that is the reality of life here.  People die suddenly, often without any known symptoms or cause – they are buried the day later and that’s it.  They die young too – the other week a friend of the Bishop, who was 46, suddenly died leaving a wife and children and then last weekend an ex-teacher from the school next to the guest house died in Uganda with no illness, symptoms and again leaving a wife and children.

Driving to the south of Rwanda on Sunday afternoon, with some friends, we passed a woman who had been knocked down and killed in the road.  Driving past (there was nothing we could have done had we stopped) someone pulled back a cloth that was covering her, revealing her face and then we saw a large pool of blood under the body.  A shocking and haunting image but explaining the situation to a Rwandan friend later it hardly provoked a reaction.

I mentioned in my last blog post that I had visited a man who was very ill in hospital. Sadly, Mastac died a few days later - he was transferred to receive treatment in another hospital some three hours away but news came through that he had died.  I went to the funeral, my first experience of a burial (as they refer to them here) joining family and friends as they were leaving the house with the coffin on a back of a truck, loaded with people and someone holding up a large photograph of Mastac and another holding a large cross.  We followed in a taxi whilst others walked to a hill on the opposite side of some fields to the burial ground.

There were some 200 who had gathered for the burial I suspect some were spectators rather than mourners.  There was, at the beginning, respectful silence with none of the usual interruptions of the mobile phone – looking around I couldn’t see anyone on or checking their phones, a rare sight in Rwanda!  Some men went down into the grave to help lower the coffin and then everyone started singing and when I commented to Enid, from the guest house, how lovely the singing was she said “Africans sing at every occasion” and she was right.  A number of men then helped to put the earth back onto the grave and once full, women then decorated it with leaves and flowers. It was somehow beautiful in its simplicity and wonderful that so many people had taken part – Mastac was laid to rest in the hills of Rwanda overlooking his home.

I have mentioned before that my days here are all so different as are the situations I find myself in.  A talent show one day and then an attendee at a burial on another and a hospital visit the next. I went again to visit the young mother with the sick baby.  She was being transferred to a hospital in Huye, a three-hour journey away, but did not have money to pay off the hospital fees and the funds needed for treatment at the other hospital.  Although she has medical insurance, she still had to pay 10% of the costs so with funds available from the Diocese Clinic, donated by a team that came next year, I was able to pay off the fees and also give her money for Huye.  I have just heard that the baby had a CT scan and has been diagnosed with water on the brain or ‘Hydrocephalus’ (as I discovered when looking on the internet).  I don’t think the doctors are very optimistic and now waiting to see if they will transfer mother and baby again to Kigali to see a specialist or send her back to the hospital here.  It all seems a hopeless situation and it’s a big challenge here to find out the information needed to make a decision on something.

I visited again the lady with HIV as the Diocese/guest house had given her a ‘gift’ of the salary she was being paid  - around £20.00 per month so we gave her £100.00. Sadly, the Diocese doesn’t want to guarantee her any more money so I have told her I will find the money from somewhere so she can continue to pay for her carers.

Last week I said goodbye to the final visitors from my church.  Since arriving back in Rwanda, following my break in the UK in April, there have been many visitors including Barbara, Anne and Peter out here to teach English at a secondary school next to the guesthouse. Last weekend, I was visited by Christopher who is working in Kigali for five months and his parents who have come out to see him for a holiday.  On Saturday, we visited the Nyungwe Forest to do a canopy walk – made you feel like “I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here” but an amazing feat of engineering to build a structure like this in the heart of an African mountain forest. It was high and it did swing but great fun to do.

The Nyungwe Canopy Walk

Stepping out

On Sunday, I drove them down to Bugarama in the south of Rwanda, a large, hot valley with rice fields, a large cement factory and hot springs. Having driven past the lady who had been killed on the road, it was good to have some light relief including the sight of Christopher’s Dad, also called Chris, taking a dip in the hot springs much to the amusement of some Rwandans who come to swim and bathe in what, in places, is extremely hot water. Chris did come out of the water looking well boiled.

Driving back, along a very rough track through a rice field, the silencer of the car decided to drop off – not the best of places to breakdown but Chris was soon under the car with some shoelaces to tie it back on.  By this time a large crowd had gathered, as it does when anything happens here and at the sight of the bazungu getting slightly hysterical about their situation.

We were passed by a small bus, with some American ladies onboard who happened to be staying at the guest house but even though I think they recognised us, they drove straight past without stopping.  We were able to get the car going, followed them as we wanted them to take back Christopher’s Mum and Peter to lighten the load in the car and Chris decided to leap out of the car - another funny moment, with him running past them frantically waving until they eventually stopped.

They had been nicknamed, by Peter, the ‘Santa Barbara Babes’ and we discovered, following them, that their number place started with RAC making us all laugh as we had joked, after we had broken down, about calling the RAC to come and get us. Thankfully, we made it back to the guesthouse and the car was repaired the following morning to allow Christopher and his Mum and Dad to return to Kigali.

The staff at the guesthouse love having guests and visitors and particularly, in the case of Barbara and Anne when they are stay for a long time. They became very attached to Barbara and Anne, in the two months they were there, and it was lovely to see them take either by the hand to help them up and down the steep stairs and slopes that connect the rooms. Poor Anne, even at the end, still huffed and puffed up and down the stairs, often taking a seat to catch her breath and I loved the way she would come to breakfast wearing an apron, so not to get food down her dress, looking as if she was running a tea-shop.  Left at the guesthouse, until last Monday, was Peter who had joined Barbara and Anne a few weeks ago but had his last week of teaching sabotaged by two public holidays (Independence Day and Liberation Day) – here, the government only announce the night before, on the radio, whether the following day is actually going to be a holiday so trying to plan anything is really difficult. Unfortunately, for Peter, they announced that the two days would be official holidays, with schools closed, so he lost two days of teaching.

Barbara, they're behind you!

Barbara, Anne and Peter had come challenging times teaching English but they also had some joyful moments. Anne decided to arrange a “Jill Barham’s Got Talent” competition for the secondary school students and around 50 took part – singers, dancers, catwalk models, poetry tellers and even a karate demonstration. I had been invited to be one of the judges and our role was not to pick a winner but to give constructive feedback to all the participants – the other judges decided I should be the one that spoke so found myself standing up in front of around 600 students and teachers.  This is something that I would have hated doing some years back but I seem to be able to take it all in my stride now as you have to be ready here to stand up and make a speech with no warning.

Jill Barham's Got Talent

Finally, this week the muzungu really lost his cool!  A combination of tiredness, frustrations, misunderstandings and bad communications made me boil over and walk out of the guesthouse in a strop.  I think it highlighted that, at times, it is difficult to work cross-culturally and there's no getting away from the fact the we are very different in the way we communicate, the way we do things, the way we keep time and all sorts of other things.  I am pleased to report that all is fine now and out of these moments comes learning’s and, hopefully, a better understanding of how we need to work together to help and serve those people in real need.