Conclusion

Well, I've been back in England for less than a week. Its cold, its damp, its busy... and I haven't stopped all week! On the other hand, I'm living near to my friends, I can phone people any time I like, and people understand what I am saying first time without me having to simplify my English or explain things another way. On Monday I was glad to be back in England, on Tuesday I would have given anything to get on a plane and go back to Rwanda, on Wednesday I definitely decided that I preferred Rwandan stresses to English stresses, on Thursday I spent more time thinking about Rwanda than England, and on Friday I had a hot bath instead of a cold shower which cheered me up for a while...and then I just got exhausted! Now I have the heating on, I've done a music workshop with some great children at Foston Primary School this afternoon, I've got three new flute pupils and an exciting job with the arts council in the pipeline and England is not seeming so bad! I also have a comfortable bed to get into any minute!! I also happen to know that Pam is staying in the guest house in Kigali tonight with the cockroaches, mosquitoes and nets that don't stretch over the bed, so I'm counting my blessings!

Rwanda is a very special place, and there are some very special people living out there who I miss greatly when I'm here. It has its stresses, but they are very different to the stresses here - a welcome difference. I really enjoyed my month out there - playing with the children, recording and collecting music to teach to people in England, swimming in the lake, photographing birds of prey, relaxing in the heat, making a difference to Pam and her workload (if only for a month), seeing some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen all year... the list continues. But now I am lucky to be able to convey all the wonderful things about the country to the people here - my job allows me to share my experiences with others...in a music way or an informative way. Of course, there are issues that I cannot and would not want to share with the public - Rwanda has a history which clearly still affects the minds of its people. But every culture has its negative aspects - and England cannot even blame its negatives on a genocide! To travel into another culture, particularly one as different as Africa, always causes you to re-evaluate of your own culture as well as the alien one and I highly recommend it...even if it does lead to mild confusion.

I shouldn't have called this entry "Conclusion" because I've gone into degree essay mode!! Sorry, before I get too deep and philosophical I think I'd better go to bed! Right now the moon is out in Rwanda and its the same one I can see from my little house in York. If only I were the moon I'd be able to keep an eye on what was going on wherever I shone on people.

...Yep, I definitely need to go to bed. I guess I'll sign off until next time I go to Africa. Thank you for reading, you've been a wonderful audience :-)

I'm home!!

What a journey! I finally made it to Manchester, only to wait about 45mins for my case to plop onto the conveyor belt. By this time I had decided it had probably got left in Nairobi after the handwritten label had smudged or fallen off after leaving Rwanda! Actually I think I was at Dubai airport so much earlier than any other passenger that my case was the first onto the plane and therefore the last off! Well, the journey actually wasn't quite as much of a nightmare as I thought it would be, and although the floor in Dubai airport is by no means comfortable, it is more comfortable than the strange reclining seats they have...and the free Emirates breakfast I got at 6am was definitely worth the enquiries I made to get it!

This is not a long entry because I am off to bed ready to face the busy week ahead, but I thought I'd let you all know that I made it home safely. I've also had a lovely bath (thought the water was a pretty disgusting colour by the end of it!) and my first jacket potato in a month! The exhaustion is now catching up with me and I will be soo glad to be in my own bed with its gorgeously comfortable mattress, my fluffy clean pillows and no mosquito net draping itself over my head...

The final countdown...

Time crept up on me, and suddenly I found I only had three sets of contact lenses left... only three malaria pills, only three pairs of clean pants...and still so much to do!! The last few days have been pretty busy - hence the lack of update. There were so many people who wanted to say goodbye that it was a miracle we ever got in the car and made it to Kigali on Friday. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Thursday night...as far as Thursday night goes, I can only assume that the string of occurrences were there to help me with the parting process and make me a little happier about going home. What an evening! For further details send me an email and I'll send you the uncensored version of this blog entry!!

In the afternoon we went with Pam's business partner to see the island that he has bought. He will be setting up as a camp-site / hotel place on the island eventually as well as having a bar and grill on the mainland. I have concerns that it is going to be very difficult to encourage tourists to go such a long way off the beaten track. There are lots of lovely hotels in Ruhengeri which is easily accessible from Kigali and they never seem to have many people staying there. Anyway, what was very exciting about this lakeside place was the incredible birds of prey swooping around - I have some great pictures of eagles - which I can't share with you now because I'm in Dubai airport but eventually I will! (and here they are now)



So after we got back from the lake...much later than we expected, we went to see Francis who had returned from Uganda. He had sent a text saying that something was "haunting him" which worried me, because I thought something had gone wrong with his eye. However, it turned out that he had been to see the consultant that day and everything was improving, which I was very happy about. What was "haunting" him was the cost of the consultations every month! I told him that Sabine (the VSO worker who is in Rwanda until November) had talked to Doctor John and that he had said that all the follow-up consultations would be included in the 1000pounds that we paid in the first place, but it seems that Francis has been paying every time. So I rang the doctor there and then and he confirmed that yes Francis needed to come every month and if he couldn't afford it he could come for free - and he had told Francis this but I don't think he was strong enough to stand up to the people thrusting bills at him! I explained that we just couldn't afford to keep paying for consultations if we had any hope of raising the next 1000 for the other eye next year!

Then the conversation moved on to the visit I should have paid to Uganda...apparently when Francis first came to see me I had said that it would be great to meet with his family. Now I cannot remember specifically saying that, but if I did, there was no way I realised they were in Uganda as opposed to Rwanda. So, when I got a text message from him last week saying "I will see you in Uganda on Saturday, we will meet with my family, stay the night and then go to the National Park" I had to reply to say that unfortunately I was busy and the visa cost $50 which for Pam and I plus petrol to get there was just too much. We had discussed going to Uganda to see the child with cross-eyes that Pam wants to help but decided that we didn't have the time or the money. Well, apparently I offended him and his family...he said that in Rwanda if someone is coming to visit the family prepare, they fix up the house, he had invited the pastor, everyone was expecting me... I felt terrible!! But he didn't tell me he was organising any of this and I just had no idea he was expecting me to go to Uganda! I apologised profusely and he did eventually say that he understood the situation...and he said it was alright he had put me on speaker phone when I phoned him to explain the situation and his entire family was listening to me try to wriggle out of the engagement!!!!!!!!!!! No wonder the line was so bad, I spent most of the conversation asking him to repeat himself!!

Thankfully Friday was lovely - the children sang "Bye bye Emma, we're gonna miss you" a song specially composed for people leaving! I gave them all sweets and took lots of pictures. Sabine also came to say goodbye...Then Francis came to say goodbye again (he had actually planned that we might spend the whole day together but I had wriggled my way out of that too), then...well who else but Pastor Boris with a picture of his twins! I'm going to say no more.

So, by 12noon we did actually get in the car to head of to Kigali...only an hour later than we had planned. My case had suddenly filled itself up as all the teachers and childcarers decided to give me gifts to bring back for Anna, Margaret and Tracy - I really didn't think it would be as full as on the way, but it was in the end (though not quite as heavy - luckily gifts here don't weigh much!)

We met Hazel for a drink at Umabano in Kigali, and then checked in at the EER guest house and went for dinner at Hotel des Milles Collines. It was a nice end to the day (despite the slight smell of drains at Milles Collines, Pam!!)

Then we went back to the guest house, I got attacked by a cockroach the size of my fist, and put down my mosquito net to find it was full of holes and not big enough to stretch over the bed. This realisation was accompanied by a symphony of humming from above which lead me straight to my bottle of tea tree oil which I covered myself in! I got away with one bite in the night, which was a small miracle - tea tree obviously works!

Well, its time for bed, I need to go and find a nice comfortable bit of floor to spread myself on for the next six hours...then I shall get my free Emirates breakfast at 6am (which will feel like 3am as I'm not three hours behind!) Can't wait to get to Manchester airport tomorrow!!

Sonrise revisted

On Saturday it was the visitor day at Sonrise Boarding School where I spent a lot of time in 2007 as Pam was still chief matron there. I was very excited to see some of the children - there were a couple specially who I remembered very well. Immaculate, in this picture with me made Tracy and I laugh such a lot when we were trying to teach her PE. She was actually quite a naughty girl...and there was no way she was going to exert herself in any way for a PE lesson! She also used to tell us she was 30, and white! At the same time as having this wicked personality she was also quite shy and awkward, but two years down the line, she has really matured and she even tells me she is behaving herself! She was so happy to see me...and she couldn't have been more surprised! The other little girl...who is not so little any more who was happy to see me was Jennifer. She was only in P1 in 2007 and didn't speak brilliant English, but I was able to explain to her that she had the same name as my sister, and Jennie in England wrote her a letter with a photo, and little Jennifer wrote back. She is now in P3 and introduced me to her Mum who had come to visit that day. I remember how she cried when I left - it was lovely to see her again.

Below is a picture of Flora (chief matron at the High School now...when we were there she was in Primary) and Pam. One day we are all hoping that they will work together again...if only Flora can be persuaded to give up working as a school matron, and come and look after younger children...she says when Pam has boarding children she'll consider it. She would just be such an amazing and trustworthy addition to the staff team here.

Gisenyi

We have managed to spend every weekend while I've been here in Gisenyi, by the lake. Had another lovely weekend sitting on the beach in the blazing heat... and sitting at the Presbyterian Guest House in the blazing heat waiting for someone to come and jump-start the car. Yes, it is actually impossible to go anywhere without at least one small catastrophe occuring with the car! This time we had apparently left a very small light on inside the car...and when I went to the receptionist at the Guest House to ask for his help pushing the car, he was able to tell me in French that yes he had seen the light on all night. (Thanks for coming to tell us, mate!) So after three or four running start attempts, we gave up and waited for a mechanic...who was on another job. Then eventually another "mechanic" came to help instead...he turned out to be a bus driver who had removed his bus battery and with the leads (well wires really) that we had in the car, he managed to get us on the road again...and we finally made it down to the beach. It occurred that we are "Wanted" in Gisenyi by quite a few people...and we almost considered fake moustaches in order to move about. There are the motorcycle drivers who weren't happy with the amount of money we gave them, the Batwa (although I don't think they'd be moving round the town) and the big group of UN Indians who insisted on taking their pictures with us last week, and then going swimming with us, trying to help teach Justus (senior) to swim and offering to feed us...and generally not leaving us alone! We were worried about going back to the Serena Hotel where we could sit on the beach, in case they were there again, and at one point a group did turn up but thankfully weren't the same group; we remained relatively undisturbed!

This picture is tea growing - it is one of Rwanda's biggest exports I believe, along with coffee. There are many tea fields around, and we even went past Pfunda Tea Plantation when we did our epic motorbike ride into the hills last week. Of course, the roads are lined with people carrying things on their heads...I still reckon that this is the way forward - we'd all have much better postures and less back problems if we carried things like this in the West. Well, I'm waiting for my ten hand-made shirts to arrive, to be brought back to England for my African workshops. If anyone wants to book me into their school/other institution I'm going to be teaching drumming, songs and dance in real African clothing (if the shirts turn out how I'm hoping!)

King of the Guinea Pigs

Kashia (the little white girl whose Mother is a gorilla vet) said to me the other day, "All the children say you are the King of the Guinea Pigs!" I said, "Do they? Why is that then?" She looked thoughtful for a minute and then said, "Because your hair is like a guinea pig's." I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or not!! However, I do know for a fact that the Rwandan children haven't got a clue what a guinea pig is. They have never even seen one! Kashia has six guinea pigs, as well as a whole menagerie of other animals, two lovely dogs and a toad she rescued from the playground here because other children were throwing stones at it! They also have a tortoise that lives in the foundations of Pam's unbuilt house...and Kashia often has to stop the children from throwing stones at that too!

The picture above is of two little girls I was playing with this morning...I was fed up of sitting in the office, because there is suddenly a lot of work to do...so I went outside into the sun. On the right is Amille - one of the orphans. She attached herself to me quite soon after I arrived which was quite cute, but she can also be quite possessive...especially of my hair! She is also one of the naughtier children, but given her background I think you have to make some allowances. I'm sad that I can't speak to her more - she doesn't speak much English yet. The girl on the left is Jennifer Claire (even spelt the same way as my sister!) So this one is for you Jen! This is the King of the Guinea Pigs signing off...

The pastor returns!!!

Argh! Pastor Boris just paid me another visit! I have to say this time though, that I got off lightly...he only stayed about 40mins! Well, I have sort of got to the bottom of all his visits...to be honest I don't think they were purely to check up on my health! It just so happens that he has twin daughters who are just about to take their National Exams and if they pass he needs to find someone to fund further education for them...so he was asking me if I knew anyone who might like to sponsor them through education. I explained that I wasn't in a position to now because any spare money I have come to Tubakunde (not that there'll be any of that now I've spent it all on my flight!) but I did promise him that I'd ask around! So this is it folks...if anyone feels like sponsoring two Rwandan children through further education...its about £45 a term I think (so three times a year) just let me know and I'll pass on your details to Pastor Boris. If, on the other hand, you feel your money could be better spent sponsoring Tubakunde which will be in need of running costs as soon as January comes round then again let me know!!

At the end of the conversation Pastor Boris dived into a prayer in French...and the only way I knew was that he shut his eyes! Then I walked him to the gate and he muttered something about if he was my boyfriend (I don't know what it was...but it was in relation to the fact that I told him Tracy's friend had just had a baby, and it also had something to do with my hair...) Perhaps that will be my last visit seeing as I'm only here for one more week!!

Primary 1 class

This picture shows you the P1 class that I was teaching yesterday. They wrote some letters to the children I teach in York...though their English is not brilliant so they needed quite a lot of help. They were quite excited about it all though so where their English was lacking, they made up for it with enthusiasm! They also very much enjoyed having their individual pictures taken so that I can take them home to Headlands School.

This poster made me laugh - amongst the days of the week, the numbers, the items of clothing...was Killer Diseases! Obviously learning the English for these killer diseases is most necessary...

In fact I've just noticed the poster next to it...another one you'd be unlikely to see in England!!

Car theft

I forgot to tell you...while we were in Gisenyi last weekend I managed to lock the car keys inside the car...in the ignition! You can't even lock the drivers side door from the outside, so locking all the doors is a huge palaver including clambouring around inside...so to manage to do it at all was quite a feat! Anyway, I did manage it. So, we went into the restaurant where we were supposed to be eating lunch and asked if anyone knew how to break into a car and thankfully one of Pam's friend's Rwandan husband did indeed know how to do it.

And now so do I!! It was surprisingly easy with the right length and thickness of metal wire, the right angle and somone to prize the door open far enough to get the rod in. I'm seriously considering a change of career!

Teaching!

Just a quick line to say that I am sitting in the office drinking porridge (not made with oats...its milk and some derivative of maize I think but its very delicious!) and in a minute I will be teaching an English lesson to the older children. We will be writing letters in response to the ones written by the children in my after school club at Headlands in York. In fact, time is ticking, I must go and get ready...if only this porridge would cool down quicker!