Good Morning Sunday

 
What, exactly, am I doing up at 8:00 on a Sunday morning cleaning the house?

*sigh*

Yesterday was a fun day. I ate so much that I physically hurt. It was the VolCom (Volunteer Committee) meeting on Saturday morning at Café Karibu (karibu = 'welcome' in Swahili). It's always nice - held quarterly. Can't believe it's three months since the last one, feels like yesterday! Time is flying by. I was chairing this one. It was Karen's last one as she's leaving in December! Yet another betrayal!

We ate a huge melange there afterwards - really wonderful, especially the crispy cauliflower cheese and fresh pineapple. I headed home and wrote up the minutes. Then I wrote up a training programme which I'll be delivering to Kivu Writers after my holiday: Funding and Project Management. I'll get two of their bright brass to work with intensively for five weeks. Quite excited about that. Despite my training skills workshop at Harborne, I thus far have not had much opportunity to transfer professional sills.

Then Rose saved my butt by bringing over a friend who is a handyman. Arthur, the guy who was supposedly going to fix my doors, turned out to be a no-show. Friday, he phoned at 10am to ask if I was in. I said 'yes' and he said 'I'll try to come now' - how can you try to come? Either you get on a moto and come, or you don't! 2:00pm I call him and he says 'yes, yes Marion, I'm almost there. I'm very close'...then never turns up.

I learned from Bosco last night that he's currently planning his wedding. That's fine, but why not just say so? I wasted an entire day when I could have found someone else.

So, Rose's guy came over and quoted me a small fortune, but he seems trustworthy and above board. I gave him the cash to go and buy everything and he's coming this morning to fix all of my doors. The handles have fallen off but, apparently, you can't buy handles. You have to replace the entire lock! There's also a couple of lights and taps to fix, plus he worked out why I never have any water! That in itself was worth paying for. My tank has no stop in it, so it fills and then empties. Hopefully, after he fixes it, the water will stay in there and come into the house more often.

Last night Mike, our new Country Director, held a house warming bash. He lives just up the road. I headed there with a new volunteer who has just flown in from Canada (Marjoline), Giudi, Cathryn and Florence. It was a really nice evening. Lots more food, free booze (including gin and wine!) and staff and vols abound. Really lovely, and Mike gave me some Tibetan prayer flags as his partner brings them over - she works there. Most excellent. Going to hang them out back. I've also got another bag of cosmetics that Jo left.

Today, I've got more house tidying to do and a meeting at Republika at 2:30 with two Canadian volunteers working for NGOs in Kigali. They saw our single parent project website and wanted to get involved. Me and Rose (and possibly our Trustee, Florence) are going to go and meet them later to discuss it. Then back for more tidying and panicking!

Roll on the holidays!