Not Again!

Yay, yet another picture of me! - New Cactus, Lies' Wedding.

How?

How is this possible?

I think there may have been a Cathryn involved.

In fact, I'm sure of it....*shakes fist at the sky*

So, Thursday was a bit of a long day. Was up nice and early to panic about clothes. My domestique, Stratoni, had left my washing the entire bright, sunny, baking-hot day and done it Wednesday evening half-an-hour before torrential rain set in for the entire night, rendering me clothes-less.

Not a situation you really want to be in when you have a meeting with the Minister of Education at 10am. I finally settled on a skirt and top that was just the right side of acceptable, and got a moto (predictably one who couldn't distinguish Kacyiru and Kicukiro with my accent, surprisingly many can't, despite one having a whole extra syllable). Not a good start to the day. I tried to put my helmet on backwards *rolls eyes*

I am within sight of MINEDUC when I get a text to say 'minister cancelled.'

Fan-bloomin'-tastic. No date suggested for a reschedule. Just cancelled.

Turned the moto round and headed to VSO to sit on my own and answer e-mails for a couple of hours before going to the office for our end-of-term DFID evaluation visit with Amanda, Emillienne and Sue Enfield who came to do the mid-term review all those months back.

It was good. I put myself in charge of fetching and serving Fantas and just watched proceedings, really. Loads of Deaf came: Gerard, Augustin, Blandine, Claire, Goreth, Michalline, Emmanuel etc. But it was a baking hot day and sitting in the office was like slow cooking in an oven. Won't be long before the long dry season starts to bite.

I was relieved to get out into the fresh air again and took a moto home for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

Cathryn and I were supposed to be taking Brad out for his last meal: condemned to returning to New York. But the poor guy was run ragged with 101 things to finish off before leaving, so he stayed at Stella for one quick drink and dashed off again with the promise of pizza at SoleLuna tonight.

Cathryn and I were pretty shattered, so we were only going to stay for food and one more beer with Giudi and Maxime... best intentions and all.

G. & M. left us at a sensible hour but we just kept going. Then we were spotted by one of the VSO staff who was there for a meeting with his university tutor. He has his viva today, if he's still alive. It's funny meeting someone you know in a professional sense when you're out getting totally blottoed. He's the nicest person in the world but extremely funny when he's drunk. I don't think he drinks very often.

So, he and his tutor and uni colleagues all came over and Brad's friend Baudouin was there, the guy who gave me a lift home in his taxi after the epic 2am drinking fest at Stella last Thursday. His two brothers were there, too.

Then we spotted a muzungu at the bar by himself with a huge back-pack. By this time it seemed the right thing to do to go and ask him if he wanted to join us. So, we roped him - Raphael - into sitting with us, perpetuating more drinking. His cousins and family are Rwandan but he's from Belgium and had arrived later than planned, so had to stay up until 6am before he could go to his family's house and 'disturb on them.'

Eventually people fell away until it was just an extremely drunk and tired VSO staff member, Cathryn, myself, Raphael and Baudouin, who had to keep dropping out to drive customers around but kept coming back in case we wanted a lift home. He was the only sober one.

At 3:30 - yes, 3:30 - in the morning we finally wobbled out of the bar and into his cab. We dropped Cathryn off first, then got a free lift all the way home to Rujigiro again. And, ermn... maybe a wee kiss *cringe* I've no idea what's going on with me. I've lost all sense of reason. He's not bad looking, very muscular under his good selection of clothes. Completely solvent (hooray! hooray! hooray!), 29, pagan, very kind - knows who's who and watches out for you. Conversationalist. Down side? Father of a 12-year-old whose mother died in a car accident four years ago - baggage - he's looking for a new mother for her type-set-up. At least he's honest about it though. But I guess if I keep it very clear that I'm leaving, that I am not mother material, I think we can see how it goes. Wasn't the best kiss in the world - he was tired, me drunk and tired. But... what was it in that film in Sierra Leone? "Let go, let flow..." (Something New) and let's be honest, it's not like I have much else to do with my time right now.

So, probably going to do pizza with Brad later, then KBC for blues/jazz. I'll see Baudouin and try and gauge whether I like him enough to hang out proper.

Meanwhile, I need to pay to sacrifice a goat. Rose's life's going a bit squewiff at the moment. Her mother passed away giving birth to her and her father wasn't interested. She was raised by her grandmother, who died last month. Although her grandmother left her land and possessions in her will, her surviving children hid the will and started arguing over the land. Long story short, it's quite dangerous to get involved in property disputes here. People are known to 'disappear', so Rose just washed her hands of it and walked away.

Problem being that the family now want to sell some of the land - namely the piece that Rose's actual mother is buried on. Huge problems as it means re-interring her mother and also finding somewhere new to place her. You can't cremate people in Ugandan culture, so you have to bury them. If you don't own land you have to buy a plot.

She'd been warned by the village elders that if she didn't do this and someone built a house over her mother, her mother's angry spirit would come after her. Rose doesn't exactly believe this but she doesn't wish to put it to the test either. She's finding it hard as she never knew her mother and has no family to back her up.

Sooo. After making some enquiries, for USD 150 you can do the whole thing: dig up, move, re-bury on a plot of land you only have to pay for once (included in the above price), which means spiteful family members can't disturb on her, and sacrificing a goat to appease the dead woman's spirit.

Bargin.

It's been stressing her out terribly on top of a seven-day-a-week job and I think it's money well spent to cut the last of her ties/obligations to her Ugandan family who have done absolutely nothing to help or support her.

Hopefully it'll buy peace of mind and some breathing space.

In other news, I finally got around to watching Shooting Dogs. Outstanding dialogue but serious head-spin. Watching a film that was actually filmed here, looks like here, where people talk like here and the products in the shops are what you see here, the places I've been talked about... Tough viewing. Makes you ask a lot of questions about yourself:

"White man come in big truck, make whiney noise."

Hmmm.

The way the guy dealt with the kids in the beginning shamed me. I just shouted my head off in Kinya the other day when accosted. Sort of reminds you where you are, yet in another way it doesn't. It's disconcerting but also makes you strangely proud to be a part of what Rwanda now is.

Anyway, I closed the viewing window at the end feeling really quite unsettled, only to see in my e-mail window a new one saying we've just secured GBP 980 for the Deaf Association to fly in a curriculum consultant from Kenya and run workshops! Huzah! It made me feel that some things you do actually do make a difference :)

Very happy about that.

Finally - a picture of Lies & Kassim - admire the dreads please ;)