Creative in Kigali

Café Torero

Yet another thoroughly pleasant few days.

Tuesday night I met up with Giudi and Cathryn at Stella. Han, Mans, Antonia and one of the new vols were there (Peter?) and I had a swift drink with them as I was on my way to Café Torero to sus out the Kigali Creative Writing Group on behalf of Kivu Writers. Firmin's worried that now the founding members of Kivu Writers are finishing their degrees and getting jobs, there won't be anyone left to look after the organisation. I suggested making contact with the creative writing group I'd seen advertised in LooseLips as it might be a way to network.

I'd e-mailed the organiser, Emily, and she was encouraging, so I said I'd drop by and introduce myself. I was only going in order to work out if it was worthwhile for Firmin to send a contingent, but I ended up enjoying myself so much I've joined! Really lovely bunch of people. A small group, but friendly and talented. Had a lovely time. Every Tuesday, 7pm, Torero people - come get creative :)

Turns out they do have contacts which might be useful for KW, hopefully I can get them there to give an introduction.

So, that was really nice. Then, last night, I had a couple of CouchSurfers stay: Jeff and Addison *waves as she knows they'll probably be reading this at some point.*

Jeff's been in Rwanda for about three months and also has a couch available in Kibaho (I can't spell!) out towards Kayonza/Lake Muhazi way in the East. That's also towards Eric's place in Kabarondo, so I'm hoping to go visit them both in a couple of weeks, after the VSO dinner's out of the way. I'm determined to get out of Kigali more this year.

We may have drunk rather a lot. We started off in High Noon for draft Mutzig, then moved to Stella for Primus, fish brochettes and ibirhy, then ended up on my trusty porch with a bottle of waragi and coke. Ho hum. The scary thing was, they were up at 8am! I made a brief appearance, mumbled something to the effect of 'great to see you guys,' and passed out again :op

I'm having an extremely lazy day trying to organise a meeting with either Steve or Nidhi to get information on National Volunteering. Both Kivu Writers and RNAD want workshops. I'm browsing funding pots for the single parents network, and just sort of floating about. I've washed all my bedding, and myself.

Yesterday, I spent in the office. I met the dictionary publishers, who seem like a nice bunch of chaps. I wrote the Forward and the Acknowledgements for the dictionary. I'm down as 'Managing Advisor,' rather a nifty title really :)

[NB 2013: I didn't actually choose that myself.]

I also stuck up sheets for 'Fundraising Training' and 'Capacity Building Workshop' - the idea being anyone who wants the training puts their name and contact on the sheet and, if I get more than one person, I run the training. I'll check it tomorrow or Monday and see if anyone's signed up.

Other than that, there appears to be a huge amount of nothing for me to do. I'm trying to invent tasks that I won't be too disappointed about if they don't achieve anything. Small things. I'm thinking about writing a very basic 'how to set up an e-mail account' now that our office finally has internet. Did I say that? It's only taken about a year, but we have it! People in the office are much pleased, and so am I, as I wrote the funding proposal. It's about the only part of it that did get funded, but it'll make a big difference.

Oh, and two things to mention:

1. Check out January's issue of British Deaf News (formerly Sign Matters). There should be a feature on our work here at RNAD. I'd love a copy if anyone gets it.
2.  My friend Chloe (Phil's lady) appears in a featurette for Dove. It's a really sweet video, check it out :) (she's the first person you see).

[NB 2013: That second point linked to a video that is no longer active. Also, Torero has since closed, which is a shame, because it was awesome.]