Friday 5th

Suzanna has commenced her epic journey to Africa!!! I think this was the slowest day of my life. Every time I looked at the clock, thinking an hour had past, it was only two or three minutes later. I think at one point the sun actually stopped in the sky.

I cooked this morning for the street kids, but I’m thinking you had already guessed that. You're probably starting to notice a pattern in my weekly schedule. Its hardly advanced algorithm (I’m not sure what it is either but I heard them say it in popular US drama Numbers and I thought it sounded cool).

We got to the airport at ten to one, anticipating her arrival at ten past. At half one I asked the information desk for information on the flight. They should have called it the non-information desk. An hour later, I went back. 'Hi, it's me again, Any news?' So, the plane had been circling Kigali for thirty minutes but was unable to land due to a tropical storm over the city. I love the power of a well placed adjective. They had gone back to Burundi to wait it out. Never complain that UK airports don't keep you updated on delays. So I paid the taxi guy and was left stranded at the airport, hungry, cold and alone, with no money and no sister. I guess I hadn't expected the flight to be delayed, so didn't have anything with me. It was a bad call I know.

At four thirty, just a shadow of my former self, I saw a pasty creature stumble across the threshold of the airport, and I knew at once that this creature was my sister. We sat at a coffee shop and ordered some food, Suz paid, then we went home. That evening at dusk, we went for a walk along my road. The idea was to prove to Suz that my neighbourhood is really safe and that a white can live here without incident. After fifteen minutes we were mobbed by a group of between twenty and five hundred kids. It was horrible. They were climbing all over us shouting, 'Give me money!' I found it really unpleasant, and was annoyed that I've lived here for 7 weeks without incident but this happened on Suz's first day. Not a very nice welcome to Kigali. Fortunately I had enough Kinyarwanda to ask a couple of local women for help, and they chased the kids away with sticks.