Thursday 7th

Today marks the start of a week of mourning to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the genocide. I cancelled all my lessons for the day to give my students more time with their families.

This evening we went to the stadium with David along with thousands of other Rwandans to mourn the nations horrific loss. The first few hours were strangely light hearted, with fairly upbeat songs and most people holding themselves together. The other interns and I mused that none of us had really experienced loss before, and we were unable to understand what the people around us were going through. I finally plucked up courage to ask David his experience. His father was a doctor. He was killed just outside the parliament buildings trying to bring in an injured person for treatment. David was six years old at the time.

At 9pm we lit candles to remember the lost. By this stage many individuals had broken down into sobbing wretches and were carried out by aides.

By 9.30 many of the aides themselves had lost it.

We left at 10.30 as they were showing a film documenting the awful events of 94.
Not long after we left the film was cut short because most of the people in the stadium were at that point weeping and wailing uncontrollably.

It was precious to be part of this but I felt understandably disconnected from the mourners around me. I was a spectator at one of life's greatest miseries. I had no words of comfort or empathy. All i could do was take photos and hope that it would never happen again.

(Photos by Karyn Makins)

Tuesday 5th

I taught another English lesson at Ubuzima today. We had considerably fewer people attend than last week, and all those who came were exremely late. This does not bode well for the future.

Perhaps my singing did more damage than I thought?

Monday 4th

Dora, myself and Karyn went for Ethiopian food this evening. The meat was really tasty; I had lamb, Dora had chicken. But I do not like Injera bread. I imagine its like eating vinegar soaked tripe.

3rd April

I’ve been wanting to skype with Corinne for a while now but our internet connection has been really bad. Today I decided to go into town so that I could speak with her. I chose to go by bike because I really don't have the patience for bus travel when I’m on my own. I tell the bike guy that I want to go to BNR, in Kiyovu, town. No problem, he says, 1500 rwf. Fine. But halfway there the bike breaks down and another bike is beckoned over. I hear the original guy say BNR, and I assumed that he gave sufficient explanation to get me to the right place. The new guy takes a different road, but I guess he's just taking a short cut. So we drive and drive and I’m looking around me thinking, 'where am I? But I confirm that we're going to BNR and I trust him. That is until we turn onto a dirt road into a forest. Flipping heck, I think. This certainly has the potential to turn bad. I’m thinking news headlines.

So I stop the bike and demand that he tell me where we're going. 'To the houses of the BNR workers' he replies. 'But I want to go to BNR itself.' 'And I’ll be happy to take you there for the small sum of 2000 rwf' he says. I was so cross. But what was I supposed to do? Stay in the forest told my whole life? So I agreed to pay him 1500rwf and he took me into town. It cost me 2500rwf to get into town, which is 10 times what I would have paid on the bus, and the probably would have been quicker too. How ironic. Needless to say, by the time I arrived at Shokola I was feeling fairly tightly wound.
“I am calm and happy” I said to the waitresses. “I am calm and happy”, I told my friends. “I am calm and happy”, I told myself. No one believed me, myself least of all.

I go online to speak to Corinne and she's not there.
SMS:
Nic -Where are you?
Corinne -Sorry Nic, I can't make it. My plans have changed.
Nic-Get your butt over here right now.

I am calm and happy.

Saturday 2nd

Oo, I love the beach! We left home at six am to get a seven o clock bus from town to Gisenyi. The journey is three and a half hours long each way, so seven hours in total. Some of you might feel that this is a bit too much travelling for one day, and normally I might agree, but Karyn, Mike and I are so hilarious that it just flew by. Gisenyi is is up in the north-west corner of Rwanda, and the road takes you past a volcanic mountain range. The volcanoes are beautiful.

So anyway, we get there at ten thirty all busting for the loo. Immediately my Kinyarwanda skills are put to the test. “Mbese hari umusarane? Umusarane muri he?!” -Is there a toilet? Where is the toilet?! You can sense the urgency in my tone. A kindly shop keeper allowed us to use their private bathroom, which was very much appreciated. Then to get to the beach. Here I came a crupper. “Turashaka kujya kuri plage.” Fortunately French is widely spoken here so the taxi guy knew what I meant. And because I’ve been before I knew that the beach was really close and that the taxi's initial estimate of 300 rwf was was too high. I’ve never really been one for sunbathing, especially when you're the only bazungu on the beach and there are thirty or so guys staring at you. So I sat in my hat of almost Ascot proportion and studied Kinyarwanda.

Karyn and Mike went for it though, despite the fact that we're right by the equator and it was by this stage midday. Classic. I can never emphasise enough how you can never wear too much suncream. As this photo of Mike's back proves.

We went to the Serena for lunch, and got there just in time to miss the afternoon rainstorm. Back to the beach quickly to make certain that we were sufficiently crispy before heading home at half five. The return journey shenanigans convince me that we all had heat stroke and dissaproving looks form other passengers that highlight that we had way too much fun.

Bus to Gisenyi: 6000frcs

Lunch at the Serena: 9000frcs

Laughing at Karyn and Mikes' sunburn: Priceless

Friday 1st

This morning we cooked at the church for the street kids. A large percentage of them still haven't purchased their health insurance, so by we're usually done cooking by nine thirty but don't serve the food until twelve. We take take this time to prepare for the Ubuzima meeting on Tuesday and to go to the shop to buy Fanta and chapattis.

Today we had lunch with Yvette. She's been wanting to take me to this one place for ages, but I’ve always been a bit nervous to go there. It looks like the sort of place you go into but never come out of. But now Mike and Karyn are here I figure there's safety in numbers. So we go into this restaurant, and it wasn't that bad. Granted, we were the only customers there, if you discount all the stray cats begging under our table. And the food wasn't great. But we came out with our lives, and that was better than I was expecting.

But I think the thing that made the experience really special was the list of etiquette guidelines they had displayed in the loos. My favourite part is the afterthought on guideline 10: 'No spitting...in a no spit area'. (I made a quick scan around to find a sign demarcating a 'spit area', but to my dismay, none could be found).

After lunch I went with Karyn to buy our our bus tickets for tomorrow. We're going to the beach! So we walk through this alleyway and climb up some stairs into a crowded office. We're the only bazungu there, so I thought it wise to try and use my Kinyarwanda. I told her our requirements; day, time, destination, number of people etc, to which she nodded. Yes, I thought. I’ve done it. A successful booking. But then the questions came. The woman just opened her mouth and let it rip in fast, fluent Kinyarwanda. Then she looked at me for my response. I turned to Karyn and said, 'I knew it was too good to be true'. Of course the woman at the booking office spoke perfect English and we were able to sort the whole thing out, despite my linguistic shortcomings. On the plus side, my Kinyarwanda can't be all that bad, as it was enough to fool her into thinking I’m fluent. Boo ya ka sha.

Thursday 31st

We went to visit Alice today. If you remember, she's the one who lives at the top of a mountain, and as Ida and Carl can testify, I’m no mountaineer. A certain bouldering experience comes to mind... But as luck would have it, our bike guys agreed to take us all the way to the top, right to her house. Kerching. And the journey wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The bikes struggled a bit to get up the steep, dirt paths, (some of our bikes more than others!), but we made it in the end. And it definitely beets walking.

Alice is a real sweetheart. She was so excited to see us and had one of her kids climb up their tree to get us some fresh mangoes. Alice is a real blessing to me. She doesn't speak any English at all but ever since I arrived she's made a real effort to be my friend. We wanted to return the blessing, so we decided to buy her a goat, preferably a quiet one. Unfortunately you can't specify that when you buy it, you just have to make a quick judgement about the goat's basic nature when you first meet it. It's hit and miss I’ll admit, but it's all we've got.

We spend about an hour at her house before walking down the hill to go home. About halfway it started raining so we had to take shelter in a kindly potato seller's shop. All in all, it was a very nice day.

Wednesday 30th

For the past two weeks we've had an American girl called Maddy here. She is twenty three and looking to relocate to Rwanda. Well today was her last day so Jen and I went out with her for lunch at the airport, which was very nice.
And Cat sent me a package from Vienna. Woop woop! It was chocolate. So a big thank you to Cat.

Tuesday 29th

We had our first English lesson at Ubuzima today. For weeks the women have been begging us to teach them English but until now we haven't really had the time. And it's a challenging job in that they have no foundation in English and don't speak any French. But Praise the LORD, my Kinyarwanda is now just about good enough to translate everything I need in order to conduct a successful lesson. And because I’ll just be teaching them the basics of English, we should be fine for the duration. Boo ya.


And after my mum's inspirational performance of 'Jesus' love is very wonderful' at Yvette's a few weeks ago, I’ve decided to teach them a song at the end of every lesson. It's gonna be awesome. Lesser persons might be afraid to teach singing without having had any formal training themselves, but I draw my confidence from knowing that I am my father's daughter, and that despite a few minor hospitalisations, his singing hasn't caused any serious injuries or deaths. That we know of. Yet. What I’m saying is that there's no way I could be worse than him, so I feel confident that the singing will be a success.

We're using the covered outside area at the church as a classroom, and Shumbusho managed to dig out an old blackboard for us to use. As we can see, I am well on my way to founding 'Nicole's School of English for those students who don't mind the occasional missing punctuation mark or frequent spelling mistake'.



I’m sorry, but who knew there was no 'u' in forty? It doesn't make sense.


After the lesson I tutored Jean Claude for a couple of hours. The reason it took so long is not because there was a lot of material to cover but because there was an exponential amount of fart acting going on. We were covering a section entitled Business Ethics and Morality, which despite being part of a business textbook, looked suspiciously philosophical. There is a good reason why no one calls me socrates. And not just because I’m a girl and I’m not Greek.

I had to talk really, really slowly and start sentences with phrases like, 'mmm, this is a very interesting point,' or 'ah yes, I know all about blah blah', just so I had enough time to figure out what I could possibly say that would explain the point without exposing me as a fraud. But the end of the afternoon I was ready to hit my head against the wall. Or drink hemlock or something.

Monday 28th

This afternoon we went to visit our friend Peggy at her house in town. We had pastries, peanuts, crisps and Fanta.


Sound like a menu to you? I don't think so!

Sat 26th

Apparently there are some of you who think that my blog reads like a menu and that all we do here is go out for dinner. Quite frankly I think that's ridiculous. So what did we do today? This afternoon we went to Shokola for dinner. I had beef brochette with spicy potato wedges and a curry sauce.

In the evening we went to Heaven with Jen and Serge to watch a film. We watched a film called Ghost Writer in which Ewan McGreggor proves, before an international audience, that he cannot do an English accent. At least not a passable one anyway. Seriously, I could barely concentrate on the film because I was trying so hard to figure out what accent he was trying to do. But despite this I still respect him as an artist because of his fundamental role in the Beatrice Potter works. And of course, no trip to the movies would be complete without Fanta and popcorn.

Friday 25th

“Nicole, you're looking awfully red. Maybe you should get out of the sun for a while.”
All I can say is too little too late Karyn. Too little too late.

Wednesday 23rd

Rwanda must just be the most beautiful country in the world. I’m telling you, it's stunning.

Absolutely, one hundred percent-ly gorgeous. Enough to justify making up a word to express it. (In case you're wondering, percently isn't recognised by Spell Check, which is why I inserted a hyphen. It still doesn't recognise it, but I’ve taken the liberty to add it into the dictionary thus eliminating the angry red line highlighting its non compliance with standard English orthography). (And if orthography isn't the word I’m looking for here, I’m sure Suzanna will let me know asahumanleyp). So grammar aside, Rwanda is breathtaking. We were out in the country visiting the secondary school of one of our former street boys to celebrate his graduation.

It was a long journey so Jen hired a jeep for the day and we took supplies of chocolate chip muffins and baby bananas. There were ants crawling all over the bananas by the time we went to eat them, and when I get angry, I get British. “Get off!” I yelled in my best British accent. Mike and Karyn aren't going to let me forget it anytime soon.

Tuesday 22nd

This morning Mike and I went to visit one of the Ubuzima ladies at her home in Kiyovu. You'd be amazed at how much entertainment you can get from a bunch of small bananas.

In the afternoon I went to Ubuzima. We finished late and as a result it was really difficult to get home. It's hard to believe but Kigali has a rush hour just like any other city. If by city you mean small rural village in the south east of England. Anyway, between 5 and 7 pm the city is in chaos. There were no bikes down by the church so I decided to walk up to the bus stop and try and get one from there. The bikes hang around the bus stops like vultures, hoping that some of the weak ones won't be able to make it onto the buses in time. But today there were no bikes at the stop. So I kept walking. And walking. Three stops down I decided to give up on the bikes and try and get a bus, but they were all full! They were full I tell you! Weak from lack of nutrition, confused by the throngs of people and possibly suffering from sun-stroke, I did what any one in my position would have done; I gave up all hope, threw myself onto the ground and waited for the end to come.

Well, that's what I did in my heart. My body just kept walking. And boy oh boy does the journey seem much shorter when you're on a motorbike. I walked for over an hour until I reached Sonatubes. And I’m telling you, in that hour my world just about collapsed. I was so hungry and exhausted, there were no bikes and the buses were all full. You'd think I’d never done Year of Training. It's at times like this that your Hell-Week learnt resilience should kick in, but today it was nowhere to be found. I want my money back.

Monday 21st

We had some of the guys (guys= boys IT took off the street and have found homes and schools for) over this afternoon for cards and snacks. It was way loads of fun.

Sunday 20th

The time has come for me to select my modules for uni next year. I’ve come into town three times now to use the internet, but we just don't have the capacity to fill in the form. It's so frustrating!

Saturday 19th

Today was a real adventure. We went way out into the countryside to visit Patrick at school. It was a hour by bus to Gitarama, and then an hour and a half from there through the mountains. Flipping heck the roads were bad.

And the bus was a 'knees round your ears' sort of affair. The matatus are fine for running around town, but three and a half hours on dirt roads in the rain, was brutal. We desperately wanted to get some photos, but it was so bumpy that most of the shots were blurred beyond recognition.

But the Rwandan countryside is gorgeous.

Patrick showed us round the school, but because of the rain and the mud it was really difficult to get around. As he was helping me up a muddy hill (I was wearing flip flops), he said, 'Nicole, I wish you were more like Karyn', pointing to her skinny waist. The three other bazungu went silent and looked at me, horrified. 'Trouble is Patrick,' I said, 'I just like chocolate too much.' We walked to a local cafe to get fanta and play cards for a while, but our time was soon up and we had to go home.

On the way home the bus was in fairly bad repair, and every time we went over a bump the boot would pop open and everyone’s' luggage would fall out. We were on the back row so every few minutes we would have to yell, “Stop the bus!” and someone would have to run back down the road to pick up all the bags. The guy also found my mobile phone at one point, which had fallen out of my pocket, on the floor and out of the bus. Talk about lucky break.

We stopped to get some pineapples, three for 50p, and then went into town to get some less healthy snacks.

We all really wanted Doritos so we traipsed through town for about thirty minutes looking for them and the fourth shop we tried had some. Score. I really miss Tesco.

(All the good photos are by Karyn Makins!)