Ups and Downs

View of Rwandex Road from front of RNAD office.

After one crap day and one brilliant day, I’ve had a day of ups and downs today!

Was up at 6am to meet Betty and Gerard in town for 7:30. We took another bus to Kicukiro for a Disability AIDS Prevention conference. Met Augustin and Léon there.

What a long day! Seriously. Started off okay – everyone was talking Kinyarwanda, so I had to follow through the AKR interpreter (Betty). Man, interpreters in Britain have absolutely no idea how good they have it! Betty is a volunteer, trained at an interpreting school in Uganda. She's seriously good at her job and interpreters between AKR, English, French and Kinyarwanda. She does whole days on her own for little or no money, never complaining. Rightly loved by all for being a stunning person. She's the only trained interpreter in the entire country! 

Makes those in the UK who get paid £250 - almost a year’s average wage in Rwanda - a day for co-working between just two languages look like child’s pay.

I understood most of it, but occasionally totally zoned out. Just too many languages going on. Lot of information in French, Kinya and AKR, but nothing at all in English. It was seriously draining by the end. I was lagging by lunchtime at 2pm and desperately needed food. Once again, only half a peanut butter sarny and half an avocado (from my garden) for breakfast before I left the house. Not so good.

What hit a nerve was that there is absolutely no queuing system here. I took a plate, managed to get a little salad on it, when 50 people descended, all jostling for position. I stood back at first – fatal mistake, couldn’t get in. Eventually, I walked off for a while. When I came back and the queue finally subsided enough to even see the table, there was nothing left!

I had a mouthful of noodles and a slice of beetroot! Devastating. Then Augustin, being extremely kind, went to get me a drink of coke, but I didn’t want coke. I was feeling desperately dehydrated and would have killed for a bottle of water. But the bottles of water all went at break, before I could get one. Of course, him being Deaf and everyone else speaking Kinya, I couldn’t stop him. 

Again, a really petty thing but, combined with no food and the lack of any form of courtesy in the non-existent queuing system, it just tipped me over the edge. I went and had a cry in the toilets, feeling utterly homesick.

Anyhoo.

The afternoon was much better. Totally long-winded and repetitive, took the best part of four hours to do one action plan exercise! But the outcome was useful and, by the end, I was having a good joke with Augustin and Gerard. I had been placed in charge of taking photographs. I wasn’t much good at it, though.

Another thing that’s a bit weird about Rwandan meetings is that mobile phones are never turned off. If someone gets a phone call, even the executive person speaking, they will answer it and start talking, or walk out of the room! lol It’s bizarre. The conversation you are having is always secondary to whoever might be about to call.

At the end of the day, a lady came around to pay us our travel expenses. I was expecting just 200 or something for the bus. Including going into town, getting there, and getting home, it cost me FRW350 (35p). Instead, everyone was given a cash sum of FRW3000 (£3)! I was amazed – then remembered it’s a common custom here. To get anyone to attend a conference, meeting, or event, you pay them an attendance fee. It’s a big problem for NGOs trying to encourage participation.

Anyway, Léon walked me back to the bus stop and went with me halfway back to mine. I explained to him about feeling homesick before. He was really sweet, told me to call him anytime I needed some company. He’s a nice guy.

I’m not going to the second day of the conference tomorrow as I have my first monthly Disability Meeting at VSO, where all the volunteers working in that sector get together to exchange news and give support. Looking forward to that. Then this weekend I get my first trip out of Kigali. Going up to Gisenyi in the far North-West to see Paula for her birthday with Mel, Martine and a few others :)


[NB 2013: Although not mentioned at the time, this was the first day that I met my extremely good friend, Jo. Jo is linguistically gifted. I had been practising my Kinyarwanda all week. When we were going around the tables doing introductions, I stood up and proudly explained, in Kinya, what my name was. Jo came in shortly after - the only other muzungu there. When she stood to make her introduction in Kinya, she not only told them her name, she told them where she worked, how long she'd been there, and what her organisation did! I hated her on sight, we've been great friends ever since.]