Nakumatt After Hours

Yes, another picture I nicked from a friend's FaceBook page. Sorry Sarah! Just needed to remind myself how beautiful Rwanda is sometimes :)

Been a fairly quiet few days. Friday was the monthly Disability Working Group at VSO. It was good but I miss the days when we all used to adjourn to Stella for a beer after. Everyone's rather sensible - or busy - lately. Came home and just snuggled up. Began the Lark Rise to Candleford fest, which has gone on all weekend (thanks Dad!). Was brilliant, and nice to see Paul Reynolds and Julia Sawalha in the same programme again. I was saying, all you need is Dexter Fletcher and you've got Press Gang.

Saturday was lovely, it was Steve's birthday. He shares a house with Nidhi in town. It was very mellow and there were loads of people there: Martine, Cathryn, Mustang, Keyaga, Fabrice, Razi, David, Adam, Paula, Sonya, Bruce - and B brought me real Indian sweets! He's such a nice guy.

It was fun and afterwards we rounded off the night by walking up the hill to Nakumatt, which I think I mentioned before turns into a sort of brightly lit club-come-shopping-centre at night. You go get your booze in the 24/7 supermarket, then sit outside in the food court where all the kids who are too young or too broke to get into KBC are putting on their moves. It's quite entertaining in many ways.

Got home about 3am with a bag full of junk food: chocolate biscuits, crisps and the sweets. Spent Sunday slobbing-out with the remainder of Lark Rise and all the yum yums.

Stratoni did come back with water and the sweetheart left another full can outside my back door on Saturday. I was so grateful as I thought I would completely run out over the weekend. I found him sleeping across my porch when I got back from Nakumatt and it was such a cold night, so I went and got him a couple of blankets and a pillow from the spare room. Poor guy.

Things are all feeling a bit up in the air at the moment. Still no job leads. I got one offer for Cameroon but essentially it's a small NGO just starting out and they explained the financial situation of the job as: "remuneration for this position on a contingent basis" - which I believe means performance-based pay provided for in any successful funding applications you make. Oh, well. I politely turned them down.

D called me today using someone else's phone and proceeded to shout at me about why I'm not answering his calls or texts. Really, I don't have the heart for it. It's his birthday tomorrow and I declined the invitation, which sent him into a total spin. He's never raised his voice to me before. He tried to tell me how to behave toward him and I hung up. The point of letting contact slide was, well, to let contact slide. I don't take kindly to being told what to do, especially by someone who spends my money and walks off with my stuff.

So, there we are. It would be nice to have a game plan for when I'm through here, but I won't panic just yet. Off for a beer with Cathryn later to chew the fat (and a brochette or two).