Marathon Day

Today I went to another community clinic in Rushaki, in the north of the country. I had been told it was a long journey so we would leave at 4am! Based on my previous experiences of waiting around for a couple of hours after the stated departure time for anything to happen, I was not convinced we would leave on time.

The events of the day unfolded as follows:-

4am – alarm went off, got dressed and went back to bed!

4.50am – phone call from the physio to say everyone was ready to leave so I walked up to the centre to find about 10 people all hoping to get a lift to Kigali or another destination along our route.

5.10am – vehicle loaded, including the team of 5 of us running the clinic and 5 passengers and 2 large boxes of equipment in the back, we set off in the dark and thick mist. At times you could only see the next white line in the middle of the road.

6.30am – arrived in Kigali having been swung around blind corners at high speed along the way and dropped various people off at the bus station before continuing on our journey.

8.30am – arrived in Rushaki. The last 30 minutes of the journey was through tea plantations on dirt roads and stunning scenery. Greeted very enthusiastically by one of the (Spanish) sisters who helps run the day centre and had tea and biscuits for breakfast – I drank my first cup of Rwandan tea!

9am – started seeing patients. As the morning progressed the room seemed to be getting fuller rather than emptier. We saw a mixture of children and adults, some who’d had treatment before and had been going to the day centre for a long time, some new patients, so quite disabled children and some who were absolutely fine.

2.30pm – finally finished assessing, giving exercise and activity suggestions and deciding on a treatment plan for 46 patients, all in French. Was shown the local health centre and was found by another mother who wanted her child to be seen. Found the driver changing the wheel of the van because we had a puncture!

3.15pm – finally had lunch, rice, beans, potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, meat and fresh fruit.

4pm – the ophalmology nurse and physio assistant finished seeing the 48 patients who had come to see them and had their lunch. Some of the patients travelled over 20km to be seen at the clinic.

4.45pm – left Rushaki, with one patient joining us – an elderly lady with a broken prosthetic limb which had broken and needed repair by the orthopaedic technician.

6.30pm – arrived in Kigali in rush hour just as it was getting dark–saw some crazy driving!

7pm – stopped in a small village outside Kigali for 15 minutes to buy a sack of potatoes!

8pm – stopped by a police check point to be asked where we were going and if we could give 2 people a lift to the next town. They piled into the back of the vehicle and off we went!

8.30pm – finally arrived safely at the rehab centre having narrowly avoided a few head on collisions on the road with cars overtaking on bends in the dark, unloaded the truck, walked home and collapsed in exhaustion!

Cooking on....gas?

On Monday afternoon just as I was leaving the house, our houseworker announced that the gas had run out. A little surprising as a tank should last around 3 months and it was only changed 6 weeks ago. My neighbours said they had a spare one we could use until they were able to drive to Kigali to get the empty one refilled. No problem, until we discovered that the spare tank was also empty – my neighbours tank had been changed by their house workers without them knowing. Fortunately they also had a 2 ring electric hob and grill so we proceeded to make scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. It is the slowest cooker I have ever used. It took 10 minutes to cook scrambled eggs and almost as long to make toast, but at least we were able to cook. Fortunately the gas tank was refilled on Thursday so we are now cooking on gas!

Choir Practice

Yesterday I went to a practice of one of the (many) church choirs. I was invited by the orthopaedic technician at the centre a while ago but had not been able to take up the invite until yesterday.

I was told that it would start at 4pm, thinking I would go a little late to adhere to ‘African time’ so at 4.30 I walked past the church and heard a choir singing, great I thought, they do start on time (or possibly a little late) – only to meet Eric, and another gentleman in the choir walking down the road. Apparently they don’t start until 4.30pm and even then we had to wait for the other choir to finish their rehearsal and people drifted in until about 5pm.

They were practising a couple of songs to sing during the service on Sunday. One was their ‘getting up song’. On person starts singing, then the rest of the choir joins in and at a designated point in the song, they all stand up!

They also rehearsed their main song. There were long and at times heated discussions about which actions they should do a different points in the song. The last chorus seemed to create the most problems!

The songs and discussions were all in Kinyarwanda (of course) and they don’t have song books, so I watched and listened, although by the end I had picked up some of the chorus of one song, as they sang it so many times.

Pineapple…. How do you eat yours?

When faced with a whole pineapple which method would you choose to peel and eat it?

- Do you slice the top off, then slice rings to peel and eat (usually cut into segments)?

- Do you cut it into quarters longitudinally then cut out the flesh to eat?

- Do you use a fancy pineapple corer, peeler, slicer?

- Do you eat the rings or segments from the can it came in?

- Or some other way?

Today on my way to a community clinic I saw an intriguing scenario (at least it was for me).

A gentleman was by the side of the road with his bicycle. Tied on the back of his bicycle was a large sack which had pineapple leaves poking out of the top. I can only assume the whole sack was full of them. Next to him was a small girl with a pineapple in her hands. The whole pineapple had been peeled, I assume adeptly with a machete, she turned it upside down, held it by the leaves and was eating it like a lolly pop. The whole thing was about as big as her head!

A Bug's Life!

As you might expect there is a whole host of different animals, birds and bugs here.

Night time can be very noisy and the birds start early in the morning.

Gekos dart across the room from time to time and the crickets love the shower cubicle!

After it rains the flying ants come out in force, then the army ants have a feast on them.

Here are a few pictures of creatures I’ve encountered so far and they’ve stayed still enough to take!

Chasing Chickens

I had another trip to Kigali today -2 in a week! But this time I went by myself on the taxi bus. I also managed to negotiate my way around various parts of Kigali on moto and local buses and get the taxi bus back again. I seem to be getting the hang of it now! I spent most of the day sitting and waiting in various different offices for different things, collecting the post (none for me L) and food shopping. The trip was partially successful, so will have to repeat the venture again next week.

Whilst I was in Kigali there was an afternoon of activity at the local football pitch. A group of Mother’s Union members for Tanzania are visiting for the weekend and had an afternoon of sporting challenges with the local Mother’s Union. Unfortunately I only saw the very end but was told about what went on.

Firstly a tug of war – won by the Tanzanians, then a relay race – won by the Rwandans. The next activity sounds the most exciting- the participants stood in a circle alternating Rwandan and Tanzanian, and a chicken was let loose in the middle. The winner was the first team to catch the chicken. Apparently a Tanzanian lady landed on top of it, then everyone else landed on top of her! The last and most important event was the football match, which the Rwandans won with all the local school children watching and cheering.

No one here is certain how many days we have off over the Easter weekend. It seems that they have to wait the public holidays to be announced the day before on the radio!