Cats Ho!

New Cactus

It is my absolute pleasure to announce that I have just met the most wonderful vet ever. Justin Ngarukiye. He was recommended to me by Lies, and I’d like to recommend him to anybody who needs a vet in Kigali. The man has a real ability with animals. He gave Sula and Inshuheri their rabies jabs and they absolutely adored him for it! Unbelievable. I was expecting a real struggle, but he was wonderful with them and it makes such a difference that he can do house calls. So please do spread the word.

I’ve also just de-wormed them for the first time: crushed down a tablet each in a little bowl of milk. That went smoothly, although Sula didn’t finish all of hers. Rewarding them with proper tinned cat food from the MTN centre: lamb in meat gravy. They more than deserve it for being so good. He also removed a tic from Sula’s ear – first one she’s ever had! It’s all excitement in the de Kittypuss household. :)

For my part, I got slightly more sun than I needed for the first time in ages. Not proper burn, but a little red, which is aggravating this weird skin rash I’ve got. It feels like heat rash, but isn’t. Think it’s just the thick layers of dust caking themselves to me from the dry season. I don’t usually use face products but I’ve started using a mild cleanser someone left in the resource room. Every night the cotton turns brown.

Otherwise, it’s been fairly quiet. Spent Friday night in Nyamirambo visiting Martine, which was totally lovely. We had brochettes and shandy (Primus and Fanta Citron) at Panorama. Then I met up with Cathryn at High Noon in my old stomping ground of Kisimenti. We chatted away until it closed around 1am, then headed to Stella (surprise, surprise!) until that closed around 3am. Actually, it didn’t quite close, we were sooo tired by then we couldn’t finish our beers!

Saturday was a lovely lazy day in bed. I popped over to Rose's to drop some things off with her, then headed to New Cactus for dinner with Lies, which was excellent. I had a mince and spinach lasagne, then ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce for pudding! Her and Kassim are off for a month in Belgium at the end of the month, so that’ll be their belated honeymoon.

Sunday, Cathryn and I met up at lunchtime at Simba to meet Tiga, who is in town to deliver some training. Thought we’d have lunch there, but Tiga's bus from Butare was heavily delayed so she was really tired by the time she got in. We had a cold drink then she went off to her friend’s, where she’s staying, and Cathryn and I decided to go find food.

We walked around for a while looking for the new Indian, Handee, but when we finally found it, it was closed. We walked all the way up the road to Republika – closed. So we continued aaall the way up the hill to New Cactus, which was just about to open, so we had a drink and waited for food. Was another lovely evening, but felt disgustingly decadent eating in such a posh place two nights on the trot. Was a bit jammy as Lies paid the lion’s share of the bill in a 'thank you' for doing her hair, and Cathryn did the same as she owed me some money anyway, heehee. Felt a bit spoiled.

Work has been pretty quiet. Meeting up with Goreth tomorrow to discuss setting up the trial run of the Foundation Sign Language Curriculum. Going to use VSOs as paying guineapigs ;)

Heard back from Kenya. The guy we were hoping to get involved came back with "it’s not enough money – go get more and come back." I just snorted my disapproval by politely explaining – in case he hadn’t been able to work it out from the project outline – that this is a charity organisation, not a business venture.

I'm going to see if I can re-work the funding so that we can set up training for tutors on the curriculum we’re developing ourselves. It’s a shame, but I’m sure we’ll survive.

MTN’s crap-arse new charging system also now means that our office is without internet most of the time. The money we budgeted for it now doesn’t come close to what we need. It’s really sad, poor Peace sits there all day with nothing to do, just keeping the office open, and now she can’t even brows the web. None of our Deaf volunteers can either. Don’t think MTN had the blindest consideration for NGOs when they made that decision. However, the one e-mail my boss was able to send me today was hugely complimentary and so kind. I think they’re getting all sentimental already and I’ve still got a couple of months to go. Best get my references drafted whilst they’re all in such a good mood ;)

I swung past the Post Office today to pick up a parcel, and post a friend in America some tea which I’ve been promising him. I learned an interesting fact. My parcel cost over FRW 8,000 (GBP 9) to send a box of tea that cost FRW 700 (GBP 0.80p) because I had already sealed it before asking for the stamps. If I had packed the parcel in front of the woman at the desk, it would only have cost around FRW 3,500 (GBP 4)! As it was, the woman was extremely kind to me and let me have the cheaper price without having to open the parcel again, but she told me to bring it open next time. Worth knowing.

Oh, and the annoying guys outside the Post Office are still there. As I walked past, one just shouted ‘You are white.’ I felt like replying ‘Yes. And you’re a moron.’ Blah.

But now I have chocolate and I ate so much I made myself feel sick :o/

But importantly: yay for cats. Cats are cool :)

PS: between writing this and posting it I just watched The Notebook and am now blubbing my eyes out! Warra film!