Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye to anyone is hard, particularly as I have spent the last 10 months living and working alongside the people of Gahini and sharing in their lives and culture. The hardest part is not knowing if or when I will see many of the friends I have made again.

I've had a few different events to say goodbye to different people.

I had a lovely lunch in Kigali with a group of expat friends who have during my time here, provided me with relief from rural living as well as accommodation in the capital (better than any b&b).

The church choir sang in english on Sunday morning - stage fright got the better of them but they made a good attempt at 'He's got the Whole World in His Hands', then I had to give a speech to the congregation. After the service we had what seemed like hundreds of photos around the place, dressed in an interesting outfit.

On Monday evening the choir threw a farewell party for me with tea and cakes, speeches and singing. I was also given a banana bark picture, a picture of the choir and rwandan pot.

It transpired that my colleagues at the centre also planned an event on Tuesday - but didn't tell me what or when. The first thing I knew about it was when one of the members of staff told me at lunchtime to tell my neighbour to come at 4pm to say goodbye!

I was there at 4pm along with all the patients and mums, but no other staff. Slowly they drifted in. Again we had drinks and food - this time fanta, samosa and mandazi. Then singing and dancing, speeches, photos and gifts. A truely Rwandan party.

I will miss all the friends I have made, the children I have treated and everyone who has touched my life during my time in Rwanda.

I hope you've enjoyed sharing my adventures.

The view from behind the scenes

Today is International Day for People with Disabilities, so we decided to mark the occasion with a party at the centre. The planning started well in advance (at least 2 weeks ago) but yesterday at 5pm noone really knew what the plan for the day was and there wasn't much sign of preparation except the arrival of a cow to be slaughtered.

At 8am this morning the centre was a hive of activity and I got involved. Several mothers were peeling potatoes and preparing the food which was cooked in huge saucepans on wood fires, the men were erecting a gazebo out of tree trunks and tarpaulin and the rest of us got down to cleaning. We cleaned every door and window and other bit of paintwork around the place, then mopped the walkways, arranged the chairs and tables for the guests of honour. We also cleaned hundreds of plates in washing powder and cut and folded serviettes.

The official programme (we discovered) was due to start at 10am but only by 12 noon were the finishing touches finally being put to the gazebo and seating arrangements and the sound system started pumping out music.

The event proceeded with speeches from various people and singing and dancing by the children and mums of the centre. One lad with an amputated leg was hopping around like crazy!

Rather than being a guest of honour, having to sit at the top tables which I normally am as a Mzungu I got to help out and see what was going on behind the scenes.

My jobs included handing out fantas, plating up portions of food on the floor of the orthopaedic workshop, running home for various utensils they suddenly realised were needed (as I live the closest), and distributing the food. At one point I stepped into a large hole which had been dug for a tree trunk but had not been used, almost sending plates of food everywhere. We didn't have enough plates for all the guests (no one know how many people would turn up anyway) so just reused the ones the first people had finished with and people got a toothpick to eat their food with if they were lucky. At one point I thought there wasn't going to be enough food to go around but how wrong I was! As a helper we got to eat in the workshop after all the guests had eaten. I have never seen people eat so much food in one go, and still be thin. There seemed to be endless buckets (yes, buckets) of potatoes, ibitoke (green banana), meat and coleslaw.

The mamouth job afterwards was the washing up - done in cold water with either bars of soap or washing powder. I was on rinsing duty and must have been at it for almost 2 hours. Then dried everything with a pillowcase!

Once the clearing up was done we watched the last half hour of Rwanda v Zanzibar football match. I was about to head home but was told I had to stay for the after party party- apparently when all the people organising the day sit together, talk about the party, thank each other for their work, oh, and eat MORE food!

In praise of Edisa and Gatete

Edisa has been my houseworker since the beginning of April and she is amazing. I will surely miss her. Every day I return from work at lunchtime to a hot meal cooked from raw ingredients – there’s no Dolmio sauce or ready meals or even a microwave here! If I want any particular fruit or veg from the local shops I just leave a list for her in the morning and by the time I get home they are all there. She will even go to the market in the next town for me too. I do have to write the list in Kinyarwanda though. My clothes washing is done by hand and hung on the line to dry and is usually ready in 24hrs – delayed only by the weather!

No matter how hard I try to straighten my bed covers in the morning, she always does it 10 times better for me and keeps the red dust or mud at bay. Oh and her homemade bread and chapati’s are delicious.

I do provide her with entertainment when I try to communicate with her in Kinyarwanda. It gives her a good laugh but she does help and corrects me and we usually understand each other in the end!

Gatete is the gardener but his abilities are extended far beyond tending to the garden. He makes sure the water filters and barrels in the house are full and clears the rain gutters. He even cleaned the inside of the rain harvester out when it was empty in the dry season. He guts and fillets the fish when Edisa buys it from the fishermen who come to the door. He’s repainted the longdrop and kitchen walls, helped fix bicycle pumps and kept me in good supply of eggs and papaya.

In the garden he cuts the grass by hand with a machete, keeps the front yard weed free, clean and swept – very important in Rwandan culture, and looks after the vegetable patch. I bought some seeds for him in April and since then he brings deliveries of the results to the door….green peppers, chilly peppers, lettuce, aubergine, carrots, parsley and papaya.

I think adjusting to independent living in the UK will be a challenge.

Karambo

I was invited to spend the night at a place at the other end of lake Muhazi with some friends on Friday. We set off from Kigali on the tarmac road heading north. After about half an hour we turned off onto the 17km of dirt road to our destination. Except in several places it wasn’t a dirt road, it was a mud pool. Despite being in a 4x4 we skidded and bounced and splashed our way through large sections of deep mud. The car ended up sideways across the road at least 2 if not 3 times!

Fortunately the road was wide and we were not half way up a steep sided hill like the road the Shyira, although the lake was below us. We arrived on an adrenaline high and the car covered in mud, but the scenery was stunning and very peaceful so we soon relaxed. We spent the evening enjoying the view and quiet, chatting and playing cards and the following morning exploring the area and relaxing. The road had dried out considerably by the time we made our return journey on Saturday so the trip wasn’t half as exciting!

Customer care and communication

I arrived at the airport for my return flight to Rwanda to discover the flight schedule had been changed and I was now due to fly 24 hours later although no one had told me. I was told the change was ‘better for everyone’ and ‘the good news is you will arrive at the same time tomorrow’. Fortunately I returned the relatives I had stayed with and rearranged my plans for the following day.

Hippos and Crocs

After the wedding we had a couple of days in St Lucia on the Elephant Coast in a UNSESCO world heritage site. We were told it was one of the safest places in South Africa and it was fine to walk around the town at night but there was a high possibility of meeting a hippo or leopard wandering the streets too!

We spent one day driving through the game park and being beaten by the waves of the Indian Ocean. We saw a few different animals including buffalo and monkeys but no leopards. Afterwards we went on a boat trip along the estuary where we saw loads of hippos and some crocodiles. The hippos hung around in large groups with the younger ones near the middle. One of the crocs was huge and apparently they can move from water to land at 70kph! A couple of fish eagles were keeping watch over the river and we were treated to an African sunset on our return to the jetty.

Wedding with Warthogs

The wedding took place on a private game reserve about an hour out of the city. While we were there we were taken on a game drive and saw lots of different African animals including zebra, impala, wildebeast, giraffe, kudu, mongoose, ostriches, hippos and rhinos. The rhinos were grazing outside our lodge as we had a picnic lunch.

The setting of the wedding was beautiful. It was held in a small chapel with seating outside with a small lake nearby and amazing views across the countryside and the weather was perfect. As the photos were being taken a couple of warthogs came trotting past and others were hanging around in the background to see what was going on!

We were entertained by a group of Zulu dancers and had a delicious meal and good speeches then we danced the night away.