Chicken Dinner and FSLC

Rwandan-style Chicken Dinner

 

Past week has continued the fun since getting back.

Been working my way through the films Dad sent with me, including Che 1 & 2, about the life of Che Guevara. I really enjoyed the first one but felt the second one dragged on a bit. There was a lot of action during the Cuban revolution but Bolivia was just a lot of running around Bolivia then getting shot. I would have loved to see one on the Congo Diaries which I plan to read eventually, it begins with the line:

This is the history of a failure.

Much changed over the past 45 years? :o/

I found the character of Camilo Cienfuegos fascinating, and intrigued he died at 27 in mysterious circumstances. I love the line "you broke your paw". Just amazing how young everybody was. You have to be around 25 to start a revolution and reform the government. Guess I'm a bit past it now. ;)

Also watched Watchmen which was surprisingly enjoyable. I've never read the comics but love the concept of Dr. Manhattan and the Owlship. Refreshingly different.

Some of the best news this week - I finally finished my novel yesterday! WOOP WOOP! I said I'd write one before I left, and I have. Took five months, 92,192 words, 30 chapters and 238 pages. Ruairí's proofreading it now and I'm waiting for a verdict from him and Martine as to whether it's readable or binable.

Wee snippet that caused a chuckle this week:

Nakumatt Staff Strike Flops: "Employees of Nakumatt Supermarket yesterday aborted a planned strike citing poor coordination."

Way to show your boss the initiative that deserves a pay rise ;)

Another story causing a stir:

Microsoft apologizes for altering photo to edit black man out of picture. Yet they forgot to edit the hand colour!

I posted it on FaceBook and it elicited a few cries of 'racism', but it's interesting what they said in the article - it was changed for Poland. A company will always try to hit their target consumer audience. Whereas America is a multi-cultural nation (on the whole, avoiding the Bible Belt) and has a black President, Poland is predominantly white I guess. So Microsoft needs to weigh-up the embarrassment caused by editing out the black guy with whether they'd lose a lot of money in Poland by keeping him in. So is it consumer-led racism from Poland's side?

Last Christmas Coke had a black Santa on a motorbike here as their marketing ploy. Being mythological, he's fair game. But what about Jesus - he was supposedly Middle-Eastern yet always gets depicted as a blond-haired, blue-eyed Arian. Would MTN's Fata Cash campaign get as much respect if they only used muzungus to advertise it, or would people laugh? Do ad campaigns in Africa become more popular if they feature black people or white people?

Lot of interesting issues.

Aaanyway, something less taxing on the grey matter. Met up with Ruairí and his mum last Monday. He's just celebrated his 50th birthday and his mum's just turned 70. She came to visit for three weeks and was flying home on Tuesday, so we went for a few beers at Stella. Was a really lovely evening and Cathryn and I continued on to see Simon and Shakur at Club Tropicana in Remera. Wasn't terribly strategic. I made it home at 4:30am and had work to do on Tuesday. Very almost died during the attempt but it was a fun night, lots of silly dancing and trying not to fall down pit latrines.

The rest of the week was fairly relaxed and work-related, then Friday I met up with Hirut who was back for one week doing some work for TechnoServe and staying at Chez Lando. We went for a drink at High Noon then into town to Republika to meet a lovely guy called Ebbe and his friends. He's a young American architect out here as part of his study, the son of one of the Board of Directors from Hirut's firm. Was a lovely evening. Then, just as we were planning to leave, Steve and Jacob walked through the door with a van they'd hired from the American Embassy and kidnapped me to Stella :)

Was a lot of fun, couple of marines and another English guy called Hugh who is out here researching NGO efficiency. Quite a fascinating conversation.

Ended up getting home at 4:30 again. Thankfully spent Saturday morning comatosed then crawled out of bed at 2pm for one of the nicest experiences of my entire time in Rwanda.

My colleague Léon who has been Project Co-ordinator since I got here is now a fully signed-up member of MINIJUST (the Ministry of Justice) and started his first job. To 'share in the wealth' he took us all out to the Umbrella of Unity bar behind the office for a full chicken dinner. It was totally excellent: Goreth, Michelline, Claire, Parfait and Emmanuel - sadly Gerard was missing as he's ill. We had chicken (a special treat), chips and fanta/beer - it was such a wonderful way to celebrate and everyone's so proud of him.

Later that night I popped over to Hotel Amani where the next generation of volunteers have just landed. Got there around 8:30, just in time for free food, and sat chatting to a few of them. Ruairí and Amy were there helping them settle in and afterwards the three of us popped over the road to the bar for a beer and a fascinating chat on linguistics and literature. It's always weird being back at Amani, especially now this is the last intake of volunteers before I leave :o/

Today is also an exciting day. Before leaving for the UK, I helped write the first Foundation Sign Language Curriculum (FSLC) for Rwandan Sign Language and today we're starting a trial run! The first group will be made up of VSO vols and staff and starts 5:30 tonight. Goreth is going to be teaching. We're charging FRW 10,000 per person for tuition, which is paid directly to the teacher and 5,000 for the end-of-course examination fee, which goes direct to the Deaf Association. So both Deaf people and the Deaf Association will benefit.

It's really quite exciting and there's money from the Charlotte Wilson Memorial Fund waiting so that we can train-up Deaf Sign Language teachers and roll the courses out nation-wide.