First Week Back

Gloucester Folk Museum

Right, time to begin the catch-up I suppose :)

Dad and I had been planning my return trip for about three months before Mum’s Birthday. I used the Socor travel agency in Kigali, up near KBC bank. On the whole they were pretty helpful, although, when I finally went to buy my ticket, I did feel somewhat invisible as everyone in the room carried on their conversations as if I wasn’t there. They focused on office gossip rather than on the customer and then they lost my phone and e-mail address so sent my e-ticket to Martine because we’d been booking our flights together and they remembered her contact details.

I had no idea what happened to my tickets as Martine had limited internet access, so she didn't forward them instantly. I ended up having to go all the way back to their office to sit there with my laptop whilst they re-mailed it to me from the other side of the room. Bit of a pain in the arse, and completely defeated the object of e-tickets saving time over printed tickets, but, essentially, the details were right. Although the price had gone up considerably in the two weeks between my first quote and actually buying the tickets, I was starting to get excited.

The weeks flew by and I got a taxi from town to come and collect me at around 4pm on Saturday 18th July. He stopped to refuel at Gikondo garage and I feared I might die before reaching the airport: chatting away on his mobile and idling his engine whilst the tank was being filled! The gods of health and safety were on holiday themselves that day ;)

But, we got there, and I started smoosing in duty free. I met a woman from Capacitar International who works with trauma victims and knows Father Murenzi and the Komera Centre, and another lady who is a haematologist and trains people how to use specialist blood testing equipment at the hospital – she even trained Pierre. I sat next to her on the plane and we spent most of the journey chatting about life, the world, and everything.

[NB 2013: She also taught me that the fastest possible bleed-out occurs in alcoholics. An aortic aneurysm or something similar. Fascinating stuff.]

I got to Kigali airport just as the sun was starting to go down, and treated myself to a large glass of Amarula Cream whilst watching it from the comfort of the big leather sofas. I couldn’t really imagine what I was going back to because it’d been so long, but I enjoyed watching the people and the traffic going past: a lasting image of the place I was leaving behind.

The flight was pretty uneventful: Kigali to Brussels via Entebbe, then a quick 20-minute hop over to Heathrow.

I was horribly underwhelmed by Brussels Airlines, though. The food was congealing and, in this day and age, having tiny monitors down the central isle on a long-haul eight-hour flight is just not on. Kenya had personal entertainment systems and the food was much better. Kenya Airways, in my not-so-humble opinion, earned their slogan: “The pride of Africa” (for their safety record if nothing else) but I would have expected much more from a major European provider. Their staff could at least have cracked a smile instead of the glum back-of-a-bus expressions they touted.

When we touched-down in Brussels, I saw rain for the first time in two months. It was a wonderful sight, but one that sadly lost its novelty value over the coming weeks.

On the hop-over flight to Heathrow some guy had sat in my window seat. Usually, I wouldn’t make a fuss over such things, but it was my first time home in almost two years - damn right I was pushing him to the isle. I sat with my nose pressed up against the glass as we did a spectacular descent over central London: Canary Wharf, that giant pine cone thingy, the Mayor’s Office, Tower Bridge, and all the way down across Kew Gardens – it was spectacular.

Dad and Marilyn were waiting for me on the other side of customs with a banner and balloons. They bundled me into the car and took me for a full English breakfast at Reading Services (glam, eh?). It tasted divine, but the first thing that blew my mind was the speed of traffic on the motorway! Well, firstly how big and shiny all the cars were – and how numerous – and then how fast everyone was driving! Took a good couple of weeks for that to wear off. Little bullets of multi-coloured alloy fired along a straight tarmac barrel. Scary.

Dad lives in Gloucester within easy walking distance of the centre of town. I spent the first couple of days just wandering around in a total daze. It was p’ing it down with rain, which quickly lost its appeal; the cold, wet, grey kind of rain. At least in Rwanda it has the decency to throw in some thunder, a bit of lightning, and a mud slide – and it’s still warm enough to drink a beer outside. Rwandan rain is just more sophisticated than that half-hearted, continuous drizzle stuff we get in the UK ;)

I quickly bought shoes and some clothes and tried to unwind by attending a singing bowl meditation at the local hippie shop, which was a mistake. I thought it would relax me and help me to unwind, but it didn’t. I used to go to FWBO Buddhist Centres when I lived in Croydon and Colchester, attended the Metta Bhavana and Mindfulness meditations and got a lot out of them, both experientially and socially. This one was a bit odd, more like listening to a one-woman concert. I like the bowls when they run the wood around them and they hum, but the gonging of them grates on me. 

I’m just getting into the vibe when ‘clunk, ping ping, clunk’ – it’s like trying to drift off to the chimes of Big Ben in miniature. Didn’t do it for me, and I wasn’t quite ready for the obligatory general chit-chat about whose nephew’s done what, who shops where, or what the papers say about climate change. I’m glad I went, but I was also glad to leave. I took a wander down the road and sussed out Gloucester Folk Museum, which was good for a couple of hours.

I also treated myself to going to the hairdresser, which is something I do about once every six or seven years. Only, I almost tore my hair out trying to find one. Some new EU directive says that hairdressers aren’t allowed to dye your hair without doing a 72-hour patch test, which includes any products you bring with you. This same ruling also seems to have led to a national henna crisis, as shops like Body Shop stopped selling it as they feared they couldn’t test the product accurately, or something to that effect. So, not only could I not find the henna I wanted, I couldn't find anybody willing to do it even if I could! Although, oddly, Lush still sell it, but I wasn't sure what you did with the bars.

Thank heavens for hippie shops and Barton Street. One box of ‘mahogany’ henna powder and a Jamaican hairdresser equalled the best conditioned hair I think I’ve had in years. It was lurvely.

I always get fed well at Dad’s. He and Marilyn are great believers in decent veggie fry-ups and we went to our favourite Indian where we had a meal just before I first flew to Rwanda. It was a lovely, relaxed way to begin the holidays. Then, on the 24th, we did Mum’s Birthday and I stayed on with her.

Oh, and, after all this time, I finally got to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean. Thanks Julie, I fair enjoyed that :)