Angel

I just want to tell you a little bit about Angel (she's the one on the left of this picture). For those of you who don't know, she had a sad start to her life. Her mother asked a lady on the bus to look after Angel, while she went to the toilet, then she got off the bus, and never came back. The woman left holding Angel, took her to the chief of the village as she already had several children of her own to look after, but the village chief said, "You must look after her, she's yours now." As a result the woman took Angel home, but was unable to afford to feed her properly. By the time she was able to approach Tubakunde for help Angel was seriously underweight and needed to be put on a feeding programme at the local hospital, and to be treated for diseases. Now, however, she is a gorgeous healthy little girl (who is always the first one to finish her food!) Last night, her young carer was late collecting Angel, and everyone had gone home including the child-carers so I was left looking after her. It was lovely to spend some quality time with her. And she is such a determined learner - we had this pop-up dinosaur game and you had to turn or push each of the buttons in a slightly different way to get the four dinosaurs to pop up. She mastered two of them straight away but had more trouble with the other two - but there was no way she was going to give up. I showed her how to do it, but she still couldn't do it until she had tried and tried and worked it out for herself. I was amazed how long she was occupied doing it. Then we played dangling upside down games...after a little trip to the toilet which wasn't quite in time :-) Finally a little girl came to pick her up...I think she was beginning to think she was going to be spending the night with me...I know I was! Could have been tricky when we couldn't speak a word to each other! Since I wrote the above, Angel has started greeting me in the morning - she seems to have got used to me now!

Oh Lord won't you buy me...

...a Mercedes Benz? Not one like Pam’s...you’d be better off with a horse and cart! On Tuesday I was finally feeling better (apart from the cough) and we had to go to Kigali to get the car fixed so we decided it was about time I did some driving. So, (remembering that they drive on the right hand side of the road over here) I had been driving for about 15mins and was just getting used to taking my right hand off the steering wheel to change gear when Pam decided it was a good idea to throw her phone at me as it was ringing and she thought it might be for me...with one hand on the phone, and one hand on the steering wheel I was incapable of dealing with the sensory overload...and I drove a bit too fast into a rather large pothole that had loomed without warning! The Ruhengeri to Kigali road has got much worse since we were here before and there are now some killer potholes which are extremely difficult to get around or through with a low-down Mercedes. Well, there was a big crash as we hit it...but it seemed that I’d got away with it. However, a few minutes down the road, I said to Pam that the car didn’t feel right and that I thought we had a puncture. She got out and looked, and said no everything was fine. So we carried on...and ten seconds later the front of the car collapsed over the right wheel with an almighty crunch. Immediately people came to help, and someone jacked the car up and took the wheel off...exposing sheared off metal...something was no longer attached to the rest of the car...and it became clear that we weren’t going anywhere! Of course by this time there was a huge crowd of people come to watch, and we just had to phone Nathan and get him and his brother to come to us – thank goodness we were no further from Ruhengeri than 15mins! We stood and waited for what seemed like hours, we were even joined by an entire school load of children who came running across the fields in their school break! They soon ran back again when the man who had taken the wheel off waved a long stick at them menacingly! We’d given him some money and he had decided he was going to stay and protect us, even though he didn’t speak a word of English. Actually there were quite a number of people who stopped to help – people who knew Pam, or one group with a blue truck who offered to put the car on the back of the truck...heaven knows how they would have managed that given the back of the truck wasn’t even as long as the car! So we were quite well looked after. Eventually Nathan arrived and sent us back to town with Eben, his brother. He had brought a mechanic with him who took one look and then came back with us to fetch a soldering iron while Nathan stayed with the car. Nathan ended up staying with the car on the road until 6pm that evening when it was finally fixed and could be driven back to Ruhengeri! I felt pretty guilty about the whole thing, but at least it only cost £20 to fix plus £10 for the Eben who drove backwards and forwards all day.

So, yesterday we set off to Kigali again, and actually made it this time. The car needed a metal plate attached to the bottom of it to cover the oil tank – about a month ago the oil leaked out because the bottom of the car hit the ground. So we picked up a very smelly mechanic and took him to his workshop where he showed us this rusty old piece of metal that he wanted to charge us £100 for! We got him down to £56, and took him and his lump of metal to a road where everyone seemed to be selling car parts. The car was driven up onto two very precarious ramps – one for each wheel – and wedged up there with stones as the hand-break is broken. We’d been told it was a 15min job...that would be 15 African minutes...we stood in the searing heat for nearly an hour! We had to stay with the car, to make sure that no other parts were taken out of the engine so we stood outside in the heat of the day and watched them bash this metal into shape to make it fit under the car. We had an interesting conversation with a local lady while we were waiting – she said we were the wrong colour to be standing in the sun...she herself was a Muslim and it is Ramadan at the moment, so she was standing in the sun, with her head covered with a black wrap, not having eaten or drunk anything all day...I’m amazed they can cope without water in that heat – it really is so much hotter in Kigali. Well, the metal plate hasn’t fallen off yet, which is just as well as we didn’t get back til 10.50pm last night after we had achieved all our errands. Going to Kigali is always an adventure!!

I’m just sitting in Pam’s office typing this and talking to Nathan, and about ten of the children have come in to say hello, and pick up books and move things round the office and bang on the drum in the corner! Nathan has gone to play football with them, and I’ve shooed the last few out!! There is one little orphan called Amille and she attached herself to me on the first day. She is quite a cute girl...but she also has a rather naughty side...and she doesn’t do what she is told very often! She doesn’t talk to me much (I’m not sure how good her English is), but she definitely likes hugs. I told her, and Kashia (a little white girl from Tanzania) the story of Jack and the beanstalk yesterday, because they had picked up some “magic beans” off the floor. I was just trying to remember what happened at the end...when thankfully the bell went and they ran off for snacks!

Now I must go and email Emirates...I still haven’t sorted out my return flight and went to three different places to see if they could change it for me yesterday, but there is no representative for Emirates here and Rwandair wouldn’t sort it for me. It seems I will have to get up at 3am, spend all day sitting in Nairobi airport, travel for five hours and then spend all night sitting in Dubai airport...arriving home at 13.00 the following day...what a nightmare!

Goat flu!

I’m pleased to report that I am still alive... though it has been touch and go for the last few days!! I had a temperature of 38.6 which didn’t want to respond to paracetamol at one point and I feared the worst, but thankfully ibuprofen eventually got it under control! I have had a fever for the best part of three days this week, as well as a horrendous cough for five days now...and a growing fear that I was going to be responsible for introducing swine flu to the whole of Africa...however, I have met two other Muzungus this weekend who have also suffered with a similar illness (and they had it before I even arrived in the country) so I have decided that perhaps it is just goat flu after all. Apart from rough nights sleeping now because of the cough, I no longer have the raging temperature so am actually feeling a whole lot better. And Pastor Boris gave me some umuharavumba leaf to mash up and drink, or to chew on and spit out, which is supposed to cure me of the cough...so we’ll see how successful that is! It tastes very bitter on its own and tingles on your tongue, but its not so bad in a tea!

So, Pastor Boris...the story continues...literally! This morning he gave me three pieces of card. Two of them are the bible passages that apparently he was referring to last time I saw him...with questions for me to contemplate...and the third is apparently biblical references to tell me how to find a husband!! If only I could read them...his writing is almost as difficult to understand as his speech. What is perhaps more worrying however, is that he has adopted me as his daughter for some reason! He gave me the umuharavumba leaves “From a father to a daughter. You are my daughter now...” I hope my face didn’t give away my internal panic that this might mean I have to spend any more time with him!! I’m terrified that he is going to quiz me on the little cards he gave me this morning...I’d better do some research in case!

So I went to an extremely lively English service at 7.30 this morning...an unearthly hour to be out of bed at the best of times, even more unearthly when you have been awake most of the night, and even more unearthly when people are leaping around praising God in an incredibly energetic fashion when all you can think about is crawling back into bed and not moving for the rest of the day! Still, I got to meet my old friend the Bishop after the service, which is always entertaining. I didn’t head butt him this time, but I did have an unfortunate coughing fit whilst I tried to talk to him, and he ended up saying “What is Pam feeding you on?!” I remember from last time that he always blamed Pam when I was ill! He then threatened to lay hands on me...I did point out this would be extremely unwise unless he wanted to catch something. Luckily he had moved on to talk to someone else by that point and so didn’t interpret my comment as flippant!

Yesterday we went to Gisenyi (Lake Kivu) and Pam convinced me that a little swim in the lake might be therapeutic and actually I haven’t had a temperature since! We went with Sabine who is a German volunteer who has been living in Rwanda this year, and a New Zealand family who were visiting from Kigali with one lovely son and one thoroughly obnoxious son, who got whatever he wanted as long as he complained and begged loud enough for long enough. And he is nearly twelve! We were all rather hoping the kayak he insisted on hiring would capsize, or drift over the border into Congo territory but instead he came back intact having upset his little brother AND the Rwandan man who had gone out in the kayak with them to keep the peace. Thankfully I was not feeling well enough to get involved in kayaking...had a I been my usual fit self I feel sure that the older son would have talked me into going out with them, but I felt I was doing well to be on the beach at all.

Well, I must go to sleep. I am going to have stomach muscles like the incredible hulk once I’ve got rid of this cough...I shall be the envy of the pool at the Next Generation when I return to York...if the weather is still hot enough to be prancing around in a bikini!

Beginning to find my Rwandan feet!

Yesterday I met up with lots of people who I have been so looking forward to seeing…and a couple who I haven’t been quite so looking forward to seeing! The first came to visit late morning (that should give you the context that I was already a little hungry). In this country if someone comes to see you, you drop everything and you sit and talk to that person, regardless of whether you have anything to say! I discovered yesterday that one of the children at Sonrise googled her name and found my blog and read what I had written about her so I am going to change names a little bit, just to be on the safe side!

So, Pastor Boris turned up, and was let in, hobbled down the drive on his gammy leg and then sat himself down comfortably in the office to talk to me. Pam continued with her work and left me to it. In principle I have nothing against the man…I believe he is very intelligent and has some very interesting things to say…unfortunately his English seems to contain random French words and when you add to this his speech impediment I can honestly say that I understand no more than 20% of his words!! Tracy and I had one notorious journey back from Kigali in the car with him once…and he talked non-stop…I was relieved slightly more in Tracy’s direction than mine (I think because she was the history teacher…or perhaps because she did a better job of understanding him than I did!) Well, this time I had no Tracy, and Pam was firmly embedded in her computer not making eye contact…so I had to pretend to understand him for over an hour!!! I was exhausted with the effort of trying to work out the meaning from the odd words that he was saying, and being on the ball enough to work out when I should be laughing, saying yes or no…or answering a question (the heart-stopping moments in the conversation!) At one point he was definitely talking about John Milton and Macbeth and then we moved on to Christ, Mary and flagellation. All I could keep thinking was “please let Fred arrive soon” (he was due to visit at any time…but unfortunately arrived not quite as early as I hoping!)

Well, eventually he did arrive, and Pastor Boris made a move for the door…what I hadn’t realised was that he was just going to the toilet and when he returned he told Pam that he hadn’t finished with me yet! By this time I was embroiled in some serious praying with Fred who recently had his eye operation and was thanking me and all the people who donated money for his cornea, and God of course. Pam interrupted to tell me that Pastor Boris hadn’t finished, so I went out only to glean that in fact he had been in the middle of a three part sermon, and I had had part one, part two a, b and c but that there was still part three to go! I apologised profusely and explained that Fred was now here…and so he said something along the lines of, “OK, I’ll come again or you can come to my house and I will finish the sermon…” I muttered something along the lines of, “OK…I’ll see how my time goes…” and escaped back to Fred…who was just settling down to telling me the long and involved story of his trip to the hospital. Actually I did want to hear this…it seems that he was incredibly lucky to get the operation at all. There were 50 people wanting corneal transplants and only 20 corneas. After being ignored for some time he eventually got a friend at the hospital to talk to the specialist and to tell him that he was a teacher and the education of the children in Rwanda depended on his being able to see. This seemed to do the trick and he was put on the list. Then there wasn’t a bed, but they cobbled one together and to cut a long story short he was operated on the following day. I’ll spare you the gruesome details of injections in the eye and the even more gruesome details two days later when the cornea had not attached itself properly and he ended up back on the operating table with no form of anaesthetic local or otherwise! Anyway, his sight is improving all the time and whilst the eye still looks cloudy and he must wear dark glasses, he is now able to take the glasses off with no pain from the light, and was able to see the photo I showed him of Tracy’s wedding…which he now keeps in his shirt pocket to the envy of everyone else who has asked me if they can keep it! (Tracy, you are like a miniature married celebrity out here!)

Half way through Fred’s story, it had got to 1.30pm and I just couldn’t wait any longer…we were sitting talking by a table which had, concealed in three containers, our lunch. Finally a suitable time presented itself and before part two of the operation I managed to dive into the containers and serve us lunch…remembering just in time not to start gobbling it down before we had prayed over the food!! I finished my plate of food long before the story had finished! Then Pam said she’d take Fred back to the school where he teaches…and he then declared he had not had enough time with me! I did enjoy talking to him…but I should add at this point that I have picked up a chesty cough thing, probably on the plane and so spent most of yesterday dosed up to keep my temperature down, so the extreme concentration with the pastor and then the lateness of lunch and the length of the hospital story, coupled with being passed over to Fred’s wife as he spoke to her on the phone (who told me I had to go to Uganda so she could thank me personally!) lead to a definite need for time out by this point!! So, we did take him back to the school on the proviso that he gets to see me again before I go! I kept telling him it was money from very generous donors in the UK, not money from me but it didn’t seem to make any difference to his gratefulness which was very touching.

We also saw the matron from the primary school, and some of the children all of whom I was very happy to see again! The evening was spent recovering from the day…and last night I sweated out my fever, woke up in a pool of sweat, took more pills, went back to sleep and woke up feeling better. So hopefully that’s the end of that, I just need to get rid of the cough and make sure I don’t loose my voice like last time I was here!

If there are any Akimbo people reading, I had an extremely exciting meeting with a boy who has shown me four traditional Rwandan drumming rhythms and I have recorded them so that we can use them as the basis for something Rwandan-style. It was wonderful being talk djembe rhythms by an African – he was amazing! I am hoping that we will be able to get together again with a group of people to have a session…the problem is that drums are few and far between out here and they usually play on water containers or anything that is handy, so we shall see whether it ever happens.

I am now sitting here munching on a piece of sugar cane that I have been given...wondering if one is actually supposed to swallow it...or just chew the sweet sugary juice out. Its very pleasant...but I'm not sure I can swallow what is left...

I'm here!!

Well I set off from York at 5pm on Sunday and I arrived at Tubakunde House in Ruhengeri at 10pm....29 hours later!! I can tell the 2hour drive from the airport to the house seemed to go on forever - and I swear there are more potholes in the road than there were two years ago!

I knew I was in Africa when I was standing in a long queue at the "Transfers" desk in Nairobi airport...which didn't move for about half an hour, and no-one really knew why we were there...but we continued to queue patiently anyway! When I finally got the front of the queue it was another 20min wait until they could take the money for my flight and then give me a boarding card and confirmation that the flight on the way home had changed time. It was supposed to be at 11.50am and they had decided to change it to 3pm. No-one even pointed this out to me - I only noticed because I dissected the garbled sheet of numbers they gave me, and when I asked about it, they said yes it had been changed. No-one seemed slightly bothered that if I cannot leave Kigali at 11.50 that I won't make my connecting flight to Dubai!! So, that is something I must sort over the next few weeks!
Well, it was amazing waking up here and hearing the chatter of little children as they turned up for the day...and its so strange because part of me feels like I never left, and the other part feels like I was never here! Some things are exactly as I remember, and other things have changed so much! It is absolutely brilliant to see all the people I remember, but there are lots of new staff who I must get to know, and of course all the 57 children that are here now! Nathan's 'baby' who was born while I was here in April 2007 is now a little girl...and that is the thing that really emphasises the passing of time. The adults have obviously not changed much in appearance, but the children really make me realise that the two years I was away was a LONG time!

Pam and I have just had lunch at a cafe with free broadband internet access (!), so I am using this opportunity (and Pam's laptop) to let you all know that I am here safe and sound, and really looking forward to my four weeks here! I have also had a lovely drink of African tea, but I don't want to make Tracy too jealous so I won't tell you how delicious it was...and so much nicer than the approximation we make in England! (I am missing you Trace, and I've had an extra cup on your behalf!!)

My virgin mobile sim card is working here this time, so I THINK you can text my normal number for what it would cost in England...though it will cost me more to reply, but I may be able to reply on my Rwandan SIM card if I get it sorted...watch this space.

Right, people to see, volcanoes to climb, I must away...I'll write again soon!

DUBAI: 5.30am

Actually it's 8.30am in Dubai and everyone seems remarkably awake! I, on the other hand feel like I'm on a night shift and am desperate to take my glasses off and put my contact lenses back in!! Its already exceedingly hot...I don't know how people work in this country - getting out of the plane I was hit by a wall of heat...but then was ushered into an airconditioned bus and into an airconditioned building!

Incidentally I think this is the only building I have been in where you can walk in an absolutely straight line for about 20mins without having to go round any corners! The internet station is about as far from my gate as it could be, but I have so much time to kill that it wasn't so bad coming to find it.

So, what have I got to tell you? - so far, so good. I have learnt that a) people have a strange propensity to queue in lines when they could be sitting waiting to just walk straight onto the plane b) Emirates gluten-free food is absolutely fantastic c) If I don't speak for 6 hours I begin to be concerned that I can't do it any more! You'll be relieved to know that I can in fact still speak...I tested it on a random woman on the bus!

I had a phone call from Pam the day before yesterday to tell me the rainy season has just started in Rwanda...so a bit of re-packing went on to include sincere waterproofs...only to speak to her yesterday to discover that in fact it was sunny again! Perhaps it was a random shower...she says hopefully. I also remembered that in fact waterproofs, however sincere, were utterly pointless and one would get less wet if one just didn't wear anything. When Tracy and I got caught in a downpour (on several occasions) we were wet through to our underwear...there was little a raincoat could do!

Ooh, Whitney Houston is now playing in the airport...how appropriate since we listened to a lot of Whitney last time we were in Rwanda!!!

OK, that's enough random yabble from Dubai in the middle of the night. I'm going to start the ten mile hike back to gate 223...I'm tempted to hide in a cleaning trolley I can see and hope he's going in the right direction...

Return to Rwanda

Hello again!! So, two years down the line I have booked my return flight back to Rwanda! It is with some trepidation and a great amount of excitement that I make this visit - I will be there for just under a month, and hope to update all my readers on the Tubakunde Project and life in Rwanda as it is now. I expect it to be very different from when I was there before...for one thing Tubakunde House is full of children and has expanded into not only a nursery but also a school. I am very much looking forward to meeting all the children that we worked so hard to be able to help and am also looking forward to meeting up with some old friends who I haven't seen for two years. There is only one little face that I sadly won't be seeing again, and that is the little horned head of Ndashonje Clive (our goat if you need reminding!) who was eaten shortly after we left the country! Ah well, no bleating at 5.30 in the morning...every cloud....