En Guard(s)

Ikivuguto

 

[GMT +2 Rwandan time]

Just sitting here with Martine, sorting out our e-mails and blogs in preparation for the internet café later – pop it on the flash drive and take it with us.

Yesterday, I mostly slept. We got to Martine’s, which is a lovely house with two bedrooms (and potential for a third), a kitchen, large living room and a bathroom with a shower, toilet and basin. Funny thing is that you can only get water from the shower tap, it doesn’t go up the shower or come out the basin. None of the volunteers have hot water, either :op

She also has a guard called Eric, who lives round the back. This is very common for female volunteers and the cost is covered by VSO. They seem to cost around FRW25,000 a month (£25), which is about the same wage as a teacher. Martine’s guard is not here all the time so he occasionally acts as a domestic, doing washing and cleaning. 

This is something it’s very hard to get your head around, but most volunteers also pay a domestic to come once or twice a week. I suppose it’s not much different to Mum hiring a cleaner, and local people are grateful to be employed. I had someone ask me to employ him on the bus. He said "I want to work, you employ me." There’s also the problem of working a full day from 8am-5pm, it being dark at 6pm when you get home, and having no time to shop (which you have to do daily because you don’t have a fridge), wash clothes (very hard work – all hand washing), pay bills in town, and so forth. There is also no rubbish collection. A domestic seems to be able to deal with that – usually by burning it. You produce very little waste really, because plastic bags and packaging are minimal. Mostly you just buy food as it comes, which is brilliant.

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Got a bus to the internet café and found an Indian shop run by a lovely guy called Kajal. It’s Diwali at the moment. We have an Indian volunteer, Wanlam, with us too. It was nice to say hello. Both Wanlam and Kajal knew Leicester and Belgrave Road, near where I grew up. There’s always huge Diwali calibrations there – hundreds of sweet shops, sari shops and jewellers. It was as big in my primary school as Christmas. We used to make sand patterns on the doorsteps, paint the windows, make diva lamps from clay, mehndi each other’s hands, and enact the tale of Rham and Sita. Anyway, Kajal told us about another family member who runs an electronics store around the corner. If we need anything to do with computers, mobiles, radios etc., he’s the one to go to. They also run the foremost Indian restaurant in Kigali, which I’ve heard is very good.

I couldn’t believe it at the internet café, though. I have Vista on my computer and, of course, they were running an older version of Windows, so I couldn’t open my blog file! I was gutted. Then, out of curiosity, I found a conversion package online and attempted to download it. Not only could I download it, I could also run and install it! Hence I did manage to update the blog, all be it hurriedly (excuse all typos etc.). Unbelievable. Apparently, you have to be careful as many computers here are riddled with bugs and flash drives often get infected.

It has been a really rainy day today, apparently someone even saw hailstones. It had eased up by the time we got back, although I had to side-step a guy on the bus who was very disappointed that I wouldn’t give him my mobile number. I told him I didn’t have one yet. Martine said that "my mother told me not to" is also a good excuse. Martine’s fruit and veg ladies were out when we got back, and we stopped to buy imboga (‘vegetables’ – confusing as most green things are called imboga, it’s sort of like a spinach) and avocados for supper.

Whilst we were standing there, I was watching this guy shuffling up the street. He had no hands, and no legs beneath his knees, which were tied into flip-flops. He was walking up the hill. It was common during the genocide for Interahamwe and their supporters to hack off people’s hands and feet. In England, if you saw that, you’d probably think it was a birth defect. Here, you know that someone has physically done that to another person. He probably passes the people who did it every single day. Apparently, there’s loads of people just like him. They beg in town because disabled people have big stigma here, but he probably once had a really good job or craft. Just occasionally you see something like that and it makes you stop. Otherwise, you would never know that anything had happened here.

When it got dark, I took the kerosene stove outside. I read my book with a mug of waragi and coke whilst cooking the veg and a couple of eggs. Martine made a fruit salad from papaya, passion fruit and banana. We also bought some cheese. Rwanda makes the most wonderful cheese. It’s a big treat. If you’re going to someone’s house, you take a cheese – everyone likes cheese. We also bought ikivuguto, which is a sour drinking yoghurt, like runny Greek yoghurt. I’m not too sure whether I like it or not, but it’s very good for you. Especially if you’re on doxycycline, as it’s good for your stomach bacteria.