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.
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