The weight of poverty

Today I spent 2 hours walking around the island of Nkombo, with some visitors from Kigali. Nkombo magnifies all the problems of Rwanda : overpopulation, soil erosion and poor agricultural practice, inadequate housing, limited education and health care, poor hygiene for the children. There is no electricity or running water on the island, which has nearly 20,000 inhabitants. Without fishing, people would be starving. There are children in rags everywhere.
Nkombo is not unique by any means : several of the parishes in the diocese are similar in the standard of living. However, it was one of those days when the extent and depth of poverty here weighed heavily on me, as it sometimes does.

The Message gives Romans 12:8 as “if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated by them or depressed by them.” It’s good advice, but can be hard to follow. Two things help : the usual cheerfulness and friendliness of Rwandans even in desperate poverty and the evidence everywhere that faith in God is strong and a real help in hardship.

Cuddly toy

Our day guard, Modeste, has been seriously ill with malaria. I went to visit him : his house is several kilometres away. When we came out, there was the inevitable group of children waiting and looking at me. One seemed to have a cuddly toy in his hands – strange, because they were barefoot and in rags, like most of the children in that area.
A closer look revealed that the cuddly toy was actually a dead mole.

Strawberries

Strawberries are grown in Butare and made into jam there, too, but they are not common elsewhere in Rwanda. On our last visit to Kigali, we bought a small pail of them. After 3 hours in the car back to Cyangugu, they were much the worse for wear. Naphthali, our 10-year-old neighbour, came in to see us when I was “husking” them. When I asked if he liked strawberries, he answered with one of those memorable phrases only those who do not have English as their first language can produce :
“What is the meaning of a strawberry?”
After tasting one, of course, this question became completely irrelevant.

Mystery solved

It is perhaps a sign that I am becoming Africanised that I first tried to solve the mystery of the inzibyi by asking people. Not much progress there - people knew of it, some had even seen one, but no-one could identify it exactly.
Of course, even children (or perhaps especially children) in the UK would have looked at the internet first. Sure enough, there is more information than you could possibly imagine or want about Lutra maculicollis, the small spotted-necked otter or inzibyi. Numerous photos are available too. Strangely, however, the top hit in Google is now this blog wondering what an inzibyi is!
Among the articles is an academic study of the distribution of inzibyi in the lakes of Rwanda. It was carried out in 1990, a sign and reminder of what a different country this was before the genocide.

The mysterious "inzibyi"

We were talking to a young Rwandan friend last night. He has often ben out fishing for sambaza, small sardine-like fish which are very popular in the market here. They are attracted by lights and then caught in nets. The presence of dozens of fishing boats in a small area of lake gives it quite a magical quality most nights.
In the course of the conversation, he mentioned that they also sometimes caught an animal in their nets - the "inzibyi", English / French / Swahili names unknown. This was described as :

about 20-30cm long
black, with a large mouth
like a small pig - an animal with legs, not a fish
capable of biting people
not eaten by humans, but given to dogs to eat

I am intrigued and have no idea what this creature is, although its description and name was confirmed by several others in the company. Suggestions welcome, I am going to try to find out.

Breaking the fast

This is how our last week-end in Kigali felt. It is now 6 weeks since we ventured out from beyond the forest and we have had virtually no ex-pat company in that time.
The week-end was luxurious in that regard - meeting some new people, hillwalking in the mist and rain with Scottish friends and collecting another friend from the airport to bring him to Cyangugu for 10 days. In all this, it is the chat that is important, both the serious and light-hearted. While we are here in Cyangugu we don't often "miss" people from our own culture, but when we get quality time with friends, it is just wonderful.

Two approaches

"Paying taxes builds the nation" declares a billboard in Kigali (in French), appealing to ther nobler sentiments of taxpayers.

"Pay your taxes on time to avoid penalties" says another, using a more pragmatic approach to tackle the problem.

The secret shortage

I first heard about the shortage of diesel in East Africa in an email from the UK. Apparently the problem is a broken pipe near Mombasa. There was no sign of any problem in Kamembe until last week, when suddenly only one of the seven garages had any supplies. When I asked about this, I was told that the shortage extended as far as Kampala and Nairobi. There is plenty of petrol and paraffin, but diesel is hard to find.
However, a search of the “New Times” website reveals nothing and there has been no news on the radio about this problem.
The approach to such things is so different at home, where there would be news bulletins and rumours abounding. I still remember the huge queue of cars which appeared at the garage outside my office window just 2 hours after (untrue) stories of an impending petrol shortage were broadcast on the morning news. It illustrates the different attitude of the public, accepting that such things will inevitably happen and also the tight control that there is over the news.