Resting Up

King Faisal Hospital, Kigali

Most of last week was pretty slow. Put together a schedule for organising the AGM (Annual General Meeting) and spent Thursday whizzing around Kigali on a moto. I hired a guy for a couple of hours (only FRW 3,000!) and went around to the main conference facilities to gather quotes. That was quite good fun and nice being out of the office.

That evening I went over to Hirut & Brad's house in Nyarutarama (where Cathryn used to live) and Hirut and I sat up until gone midnight sipping Chinese Tea from little cups, watching Blackball (one of my favourite movies ever) and chatting. It was a really nice, relaxed night and she cooked pasta with olives and Turkish pepper.

As Nyarutarama is out of the way and motos don't go there because it's a rich area, I crashed in their spare room. The next morning I woke up and my foot no longer hurt! It had been throbbing and I'd been hobbling about, but the tea must have had some magical property or something.

Sadly, that wore off as the day progressed. By the time I got home it was killing again.

I had a shower, caught up on e-mails from work, then packed up and met Cathryn at Stella bus station in town. We were off to Jeff's in Kibungo again as he decided to quit his job (bad diocese to work for) and return to the States, so he was throwing a leaving do.

Nidhi was also on the bus with a friend, and a Korean volunteer I recognised from National Volunteering Day who was also off to a party in Kibungo... guess whose! It was like a party bus from Kigali to Kibungo: mass migration.

We arrive around half-five and headed to the house. Other friends such as Eric, Eric's colleague (also Eric) from Kabarondo, Steve, Tinks and Epiphanie came, as did lots of people I hadn't met before. The food was outstanding: pizza, garlic mashed potatoes, buttered chickpeas, macaroni cheese, vegetable curry - a massive spread but, between us, we finished it all off.

There were three deserts: coconut custard blamonge, chocolate blamonge, and ginger cake - wonderful. Then we all headed to the pub up the road for beer. My foot was screaming by the time we got there. I had to hop a moto on the way back.

After everyone had gone home and Cathryn & Jeff had turned in, I sat up chatting with some of the other people I didn't know, who were also staying over: Penny, Andy and two Daniels. Top people. One of the Daniels took the sofa cushions and the rest of us took the bunk beds.

Unfortunately, I didn't sleep well at all. Come morning, I was feeling extremely tired. Spanish omelette with beans made it all better again and then we started on the coffee! We must have drunk about three cafetieres between six people and we were bouncing off the walls. Hilarious conversation. It's really unusual to meet so many people you really like at a party - often it's one or two that you gravitate towards, but everyone around the breakfast table was brilliant.

Cathryn, Me and the two Daniels at breakfast.

Addison had been ill during the party and collapsed in his bed, then left for Kigali extremely early on Saturday morning, so we didn't see much of him. He may be staying with me tomorrow night, though.

Penny, Andy and the Daniels headed off late morning and Cathryn and I just lounged on the sofas eating pudding and left-overs and chatting to Jeff until about 4pm. We are so bummed to be losing him, having just found him - and his incredibly nice, relaxing house. But that's the way of things in Rwanda, so many people bail out early on the place.

We took the bus back to Kigali and got out at Chez Lando. The bus journey was pretty horrific: three miles-per-hour, sat in the front next to a driver with severe halitosis, horrific taste in music all the way home. We fell out of the bus and straight into Stella for a beer. I could barely walk by this point, the pain in my foot was so bad, but painkillers and Primus (I know, naughty) did the trick.

Then we moved to the new nice little bar opposite my house and Brad and Hirut joined us. Was a strange night. Hirut left early, but we carried on and drank far more than was strictly necessary, waffling on. Then Brad left and Cathryn and I took take-out home and continued waffling on the porch until about 4am! She crashed here.

Two heavy nights in a row - not so good. We were suffering this morning. I didn't wake up until ten. The house is a disgusting mess. Partly because of my foot hurting so much, and partly because I'm moving out in a few days and I just can't be arsed. Coffee cups are festering, there's paper all over the floor, unwashed dishes, grimy sink... not pleasant but I shall tidy proper tomorrow and put things into bags and boxes for moving.

Cathryn headed over the road for breakfast and returned with apple juice, eggs and bread, then proceeded to make scrambled egg, which was delightful.

What came next was not quite as delightful. We'd decided last night, due to the severe amount of pain I was in, to go to the doctor today and get my foot checked out. It's been a week since the accident and seemed to be getting worse.

We took a moto to King Faisal hospital up the road. Before, you were only really supposed to go there in an emergency or for severe complaints but, since the Polyclinique where we usually go was slated in the last volunteer survey for having sleazy male doctors who kept hitting on female patients, we're allowed to go to King Faisal instead.

I'd not been before and was fascinated. It's huge. Proper big hospital. We were sent down to A&E where there was a lovely receptionist who booked me in and gave me a medical card. A lovely nurse checked me out (blood pressure's good apparently) then sent me in to see the doc.

Cathryn came with me and we were having a good giggle. But the foot's not in a good state. Not infected in a bad way, but swollen and dirty. So the doctor gave it a preliminary clean with some magic water - very gentle. Then I had to lie on my belly on the bed whilst a lovely male nurse held my foot down and literally scraped the dirt out of the wound. I was clinging to the ceiling! I sang Yellow Submarine at the top of my voice just to keep my mind off it. It was extremely unpleasant.

They couldn’t do it all in one go and needed to soften the wound. They did as much as they could, then put a dressing on it and gave me a bag of bright pink painkillers and antibiotics. They also told me I mustn't walk on it for five days. So, plenty of DVDs in bed I guess. Not so good with an AGM to plan and a house to move.

Can't argue with the doctor, though.

We got a taxi back. I'm really impressed with King Faisal's professionalism and bedside manner, huge difference to Polyclinique du Plateau.

We went to Chez Lando to meet up with Jeff. He and Addison are flying out on Tuesday and staying in Kigali until then. We had the garden salad, and checked out his very plush room. Nice place to stay if you can part with $100 per night.

Then I had to get a moto to the door. I really can't walk at all now, all bandaged up. Cathryn gathered all of her belongings together, which she'd left here since staying with another friend. She's moving in with Giudi and her housemates over in the posh end of town.

Once she'd taken the taxi, I just crashed out. I'm sooo tired and all dosed up on 'stuff'. Jeff offered a bottle of wine, but I'm too tired and can't drink on the antibiotics anyway. Have to attack the house tomorrow and attempt to pack.

So, I'm on official resting duties this week. Have to go back to the hospital on Tuesday so that they can finish cleaning out the wound. Glad I got it checked out though.

The speed of the internet is killing me at the moment. It's just become really shite. Like watching paint dry.

Gobsmacked by the news about the IRA shooting in Ireland! Jeff told us at lunch. Cathryn's from Northern Ireland. We were stunned.

My landlady is as weird as ever. She was going to replace me with another VSO, hence I'm moving out third week this month, so she had a week to do repairs before another volunteer moved in. Only, VSO suddenly realised they were paying more than they thought for this place and said 'no thanks'. I'm still moving out, but she doesn't have a VSO moving in. She's now got the audacity to ask me to be around so that she can bring people to look at it! So, you throw me out of the house, forfeiting a guaranteed rent for another eight months, put me through all this moving hassle, and you want me to help you find a new tenant? Yeah, right - guess again.

Work is also worrisome. Being laid-up like this is not good now that we've finally got stuff to organise. The problem is, I e-mail colleagues and ask them to do very simple things - like helping me to get a quote for a conference room, or text me some information - and absolutely nothing happens. The point of me being here isn't to do things for them but to help them to do things themselves, through training and skills. That so isn't happening. Nice in theory, poor in practice with this placement. Perhaps being out of action isn't a bad thing because it will force my colleagues to either get on with things or not. It's all in their hands.

Meanwhile, I've still got documents to write for them, which they're giving absolutely no feedback on. How do you write an action plan for the next two months when nobody has any ideas about what they'd like to do?

Still, we'll see how the move goes and what the market's like. Just concentrate on making the foot better for now.