Camaraderie

New American Embassy, Kigali

D came home late Tuesday afternoon :)

All was very good with the world. He brought me a bar of chocolate, some apples, and a bottle of coke lol Really sweet. I cooked an amazing chilli, just like back home. I'd splashed out on a tin of Heinz Baked Beans at UTC for FRW 800 and was saving them. I put it together with dark soy sauce, fresh mince, an onion, black pepper, chillies and, sadly, a magic cube. I can't find enough flavourings here not to use one. With no fridge, there's no point making stock. But it was goooood. Proper grub. Steve came over too. He ate some, and we washed it down with cold Primus from Ndoli's. It was good to have him home.

Wednesday was a slightly frantic day. I was delivering my baby to the American Embassy. My Democracy & Human Rights funding application baby. I'd tried to do it on Tuesday, but the electricity had been off in the office so I couldn't print or photocopy anything. Wednesday was better. I spent an hour getting everything ready, then took a moto to the new Embassy. 

There's a bad omen about funding applications. Each time I've tried to deliver one, I've almost had a moto crash! With the EU one, we skidded down the side of a bus that was pulling into our lane without looking. The driver's head passed an inch away from the large wing mirror. We had to duck! This time it was my driver's fault. He almost went over a guy crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing because he was driving way too fast. It makes life exciting - how much is my life worth? she thought, clutching an application for FRW 11mil ;)

The Americans have just built a new Embassy at the end of Embassy Row. It's almost the size of America. The flag alone is bigger than the VSO meeting rooms. It is huge. It towers.

After making my way through security, a nice young guard escorted me the five and a half miles to the door (okay, slight exaggeration ;) ) and asked me how I liked the place. 'Very... American,' was all I could think to say. He smiled and looked confused.

The woman at reception was a complete moo cow. She couldn't have been less helpful if you'd paid her. Rude, unpleasant, lacking initiative. She tried to send me away to print out another copy of the entire form so that she could sign it as a receipt, because issuing a receipt to say she had taken the document was ooooh sooo veeerry difficult. As the international representative face of America, I wanted to slap it. Standing there with two computers in front of her, and a telephone, I huffed and puffed and suggested perhaps she could type something and print it out? Or phone the funding department? She finally put her 'document received' stamp on a piece of paper, signed and dated it. How difficult was that? It takes twice as much effort to stand there arguing about it as it does to do it.

However, after e-mailing the Funding Co-ordinator that evening just to be sure, she still wasn't in receipt of it *sigh* At least she knew it was in the building.

Everything in this country takes time, but there's a real sense of achievement when you finally get there :)

The Chair asked for a meeting with me at 4pm, just to go over some general stuff. At ten-past five he and and the Vice Chair arrived. We chatted for 20 minutes about expenses, funding, general stuff, then I was told to be at a meeting at Novotel at 8am. Only, I had to remind them that I'd already arranged to go to Gitarama to meet the woman from the YWCA to talk about (sex baby, let’s talk about...) HIV & AIDs.

As I was going out, I bumped into D who was hanging out with some friends at the studio. He wasn't sure what time he'd be home, just 'sometime' - which here counts for anything between 10 minutes and three days.

When I arrived home, I called up Drew and hopped a moto over to his. I needed a break from the house. I'm getting sick of the same walls. When I arrived, apparently D had also called him to say 'hi'. Drew assumed we'd be coming together, and was expecting him to arrive in a while. D had phoned me to see where I was and what I was doing. So, we all ended up at Republika, which is this very groovy bar next to Drew's house, drinking red wine and eating delicious food. I love that place. D had come back from Kampala with some ready-rolled Ugandan cigarettes (ahem), which helped the digestive process.

He and I stumbled into a taxi and got home around midnight. My lady from Gitarama had called at 9pm to cancel due to a family crisis. I'd texted Augustin to get the time of the meeting at Novotel instead - 8am. Ouch.

I crawled out of bed at 6:30, slugged a large quantity of coffee (using up the last dregs of our non-existent water supply - but it was an emergency!) and motoed on over to Novotel for 8am. My boss usually keeps me waiting anywhere from one to two hours for meetings. That's if he shows at all. Yet, for some reason, whenever he asks me to go somewhere, he feels the need to tell me to 'be punctual'. You know that feeling you get when the nails dig into the palm of your hands...? ;)

I am a punctual kinda gal, so I bought a delicious sandwich (rare treat) from the café and sat eating it and reading Ted Hughes' The Dreamfighter (which is alright) by the pool. It was a beautiful morning, shame to spend it indoors.

Impressively, a few people were there by quarter-to nine! Not enough, though. It was 10pm, an hour late, that we actually began. Despite three of the speakers (two from MINEDUC) cancelling, it was an amazingly loooong conference. Nine hours later we were still going strong. It was about access to education for disability and special needs - 'Inclusive Education'. It was entirely in French and they hadn't booked an interpreter. I'm not the only English-only bod. The head of RUB (Rwandan Union of the Blind) is also, and a few other Rwandese prefer English to French, especially if they grew up in Uganda. Really, it should be in Kinyarwanda. If I don't understand, fine, but speakers of the native language shouldn't be excluded on the grounds of colonialist languages.

Great start to an inclusiveness meeting when you can't even be inclusive of languages.

Joanne and Martine were helping by throwing me summaries now and then, but it made a long day even longer. They hate being used as ad hoc interpreters because it is so tiring and means they don't get to concentrate on what's being said. Augustin, Bob, Gerard, Emanuel and Betty were there too. I had to explain that Betty's AKR interpreting wasn't enough for me for such a long day. I need English to take it all in. AKR isn't my first sign language, it's hard for me. Everyone should have access in the language they prefer, otherwise why have an officially tri-lingual country when two-thirds of your audience are always left out?

*shrug*

Anyway. It was an interesting day. Augustin was due to sign towards mid-afternoon, but they rearranged the timetable again. One guy was supposed to talk for 45 minutes and finished two hours later! When Augustin finally got up at the end, he started with a quip about how everyone else had been factored in for an hour or more, but the Deaf were only given five minutes. He did it in such a way that everyone laughed - he's a good public signer. I felt very proud to be associated with their organisation. 

Although, Bob signed across the room that I used to be Deaf and now I'm not Deaf anymore, because I was sitting with Martine and the Union of the Blind for the translation, and over lunch. I signed back that it was okay, I wasn't Deaf anymore but I was Blind. They laughed, forgiving me my desertion.

Novotel lunch almost made up for the boredom. It's one hell of a spread. I had a good chat with RUB, I really like Martine's organisation - there are some really strong people. But by five o'clock I was clawing the walls. They just kept on extending the programme, never making any new points. By this time Martine had left and Joanne had given up interpreting due to exhaustion. I made a break for it.

It's a funny fish 'Inclusive Education'. I have to admit to having real reservations about it. As one guy pointed out, the UK have been doing it for much longer and, even there, there's still a debate raging and it doesn't fully work. What made me smile more was, after this whole spiel about the difference between 'special education', 'inclusive education', and something else (all wonderfully illustrated with square pegs and round holes) and everyone nodding along to the idea of mixed classrooms for all - my organisation stood up and suggested we should support Deaf-only special schools. 

There was a long silence lol

This is the crux of the matter. We come in saying 'yes, equality, mainstreaming, inclusion for all' - but did anyone actually listen to what those people we're mainstreaming actually want? In the case of many Deaf people, including the UK, they don't want to be mainstreamed. They never asked for it. The government in the UK went about closing down Deaf schools. Places where generations of Deaf families had moved to, where a community had built up, where language flourished, where culture, heritage and shared experience were passed down through the years. Suddenly, it's gone. A community destroyed, a group of unhappy students moved into PHUs outside of their community and suddenly treated as second-class hearing people instead of first-class Deaf people. So, yes, I have my reservations about this style of schooling.

Anyway, I went home and then out again to meet Martine in Nyamirambo. There's a lovely restaurant next to her house called Panorama, with a spectacular view of Kigali at night. I took the moto from hell, again. He took 40 minutes, got lost, went in circles, shrugged his shoulders and drove like a snail. I hate when you say somewhere and they go 'yes, yes' but then it becomes apparent that they have absolutely no idea. Then it becomes your fault "It's further than you said!" - "Well you flippin live here mate, you said you knew where it was." But you don't argue, you just nod, smile, say 'murakoze', and fiddle in your purse in front of his headlight to find the right notes.

I finally got there, though. We had a wonderful night. D was out again when I got back, so it was just the two of us, me and Martine. We drank beer, nibbled goat brochettes (still stuffed from Novotel) and put the world to rights. There's something very special about the camaraderie felt from a shared survived experience, such as a nine-hour Disability and Education conference. There's a bond of suffering between you that demands you meet later for drinks to unwind. Not to would be to risk standing alone, traumatised by the ordeal. In meeting for beer you enter a safe zone of warm fuzzy jokes, laughter, and philosophical musings that is nothing short of soul food.

It was lovely. Then I trundled back to Kisimenti on a moto with no visor. I don't know whether it was the wind in my face that made it feel faster, or the fact that he was driving like a bat out of hell - but the stars were the brightest I've ever seen, and it felt wonderful. 

Despite the speed, the guy was the best moto driver I'd had. He actually possessed predictive driving abilities - he'd brake before he drove up the tailpipe of the guy in front. He'd even slow to take a corner... I was impressed lol

D was in when I got home - he's ill. Mild food poisoning or something. Poor baby. I felt bad because I'd sent him a text saying 'I'll be home soon' - only I was testing Rwandan time. When I say 'soon' it means 20-30 minutes max, to him that means 'two hours or thereabouts' - so I arrived on his time, to find him sitting on the porch looking really sorry for himself. I put him to bed with a mug of rehydration salts and a book. He wasn't looking too perky this morning, but he'll live. I'm going home early today. If he's still in bed, I'll cook him something nice and tuck him up with a movie. Failing that, I'll cook myself something nice and tuck myself up with a movie - either works for me ;)

TFI.

Motoing Through Nyamirambo