Tuesday, June 26, 2007

7 nights, 7 beds

As expected, the preparation for leaving Rwanda for the month of June has been hectic, with the added unexpected work of getting a new accountant started with us in Cyangugu. Today we face a week of changing bed every night : Cyangugu, Kigali, the plane to Brussels, 3 different homes in Sussex and then Scotland. We are hoping not to arrive home exhausted, but the adrenaline of seeing everyone will keep us going and anyway it will be good practice for the wedding at the end of July. This is likely to be even more hectic.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Gold-diggers of Burundi


On the eve of the opening of Bweyeye School and in the middle of the preparations which were well behind schedule, the local government executive decided to take me to see the Burundi border. Admittedly this is only about 1 km away and on the Rwandan side consists of 2 soldiers and a pole across the road. We duly drove across to find that the Burundi side was similar except that there were no soldiers. 2 men without any sign of official status let us through after some discussion about a drink.
Passing through a small trading post, we soon came upon this group of gold diggers. They were very keen for me to see what they were doing and to take photos of them.
The mud was being dug from a hole about 6m deep and then “panned”. This was producing a little gold - I was allowed to hold a piece, which was about the size of a letter "i" on a typical page! The photo indicates that this area is producing few millionaires, as for most gold-mining, I suspect. It turns out that these guys earn about 1000 Frw per day, probably about twice what they could get from digging fields, but it's obviously tough and dangerous work. They had started to tunnel under the road, but there was no sign of any supports or the intention to use them. Another group of people who are cheerfully struggling to make a living in the remore centre of this continent.

Monday, June 18, 2007

The grand opening of Bweyeye School

It’s all over, or at least it nearly is. Bweyeye Primary School was officially opened last Saturday by the local Senator (from the upper house of the Rwandan parliament). This was no small commitment from him - he left Kigali in the dark at 4am for 6 hours’ drive to get to Bweyeye and returned there at the end of the day. The hoped-for television crew did not arrive, but we got some coverage on national radio.
I arrived the day before as part of the advance party to help with last-minute preparations. The pickups were laden with the 600 pairs of shoes, exercise books and pens as gifts for the children and other materials not easily available in Bweyeye. We got there about mid-morning to find a buzz of activity at the school – a shelter being built, cleaning and painting under way, last minute touches to the buildings. No children, however – they were to come at 3pm to collect their new shoes and uniforms.
We were clearly going to be struggling to get everything done before Saturday morning, as everything had been delayed by unseasonal rain, but of course there was not the slightest sign of worry, stress or sense of pressure about this.
This was highlighted by the tailors, who were nowhere near finished the uniforms. They had sewing machines running, charcoal irons going and button-sewers working hard, but the uniforms were piled high in chaotic fashion. Several visits backwards and forwards persuaded them to recruit some extra help, but contingency plans for distributing uniforms in the morning were clearly needed.
By the time we got back after a late lunch the atmosphere at the school was electric and the children charged with adrenaline. They had already been waiting for at least 1 hour for us. The distribution of shoes started well enough, but there were simply not enough uniforms available, it all took longer than we anticipated (of course) and as darkness fell (and being Bweyeye, it was DARK), there were hundreds of children still at school. We sent them home to regroup in the morning.
I managed to surprise a few local people by rising early. It’s very unusual to see a “mzungu” who has spent the night in Bweyeye. At 0630 the potato peelers and chicken pluckers were already hard at work at the back of the pastor’s house, but the uniform sewers had been less productive. Fortunately the guests were late, as expected and so the preparations proceeded reasonably smoothly. We started 1.5 hours late, with about 100 special guests, a few hundred others and about 300 children. They were immaculate in their new uniform and shoes and immaculate in their behaviour, too. It was a proud day for the community.
The event itself was less interesting than the preparations. The preposterous idea that speakers should limit themselves to 5 minutes failed to be implemented, but there was nothing excessive. The star turn was one of the pupils who delivered a speech in heavily accented English which was a model of brevity and directness. The rain threatened but came to very little and we finished about 2 hours behind schedule. Meanwhile the cooks had worked wonders with very limited facilities and the spread was fantastic – over 100 people fed in just over 1 hour.
The day will do wonders for the community, giving an enormous boost to morale for all concerned. The new school, new uniforms and books, visitors from outside are all really important for a place like Bweyeye. There is still lots to do – I chatted to a couple of children who don’t go to school, there is always a shortage of teachers in communities like this and the quality of education and school management give cause for concern. Nevertheless, it was one of those days when it is a real privilege to be working in Rwanda.

Monday, June 11, 2007

God's day

Yesterday we worked in the garden instead of going to church. It had been a long week with a lot of travelling and we needed some exercise. The children who live next door came to visit at one point and Mukeshimana gently took me to task for “working on God’s day”. She is about 15, in primary 7 and is also responsible for cooking for 8 people in the household. She has a very charming smile and not very good English, but she has definite ideas about not working on Sundays.
The type of work is important – she was going to cook that day, “because I have a stomach”. Cooking is “soft work”, but digging is hard work. I didn’t ask, but presumably the school meeting which Sheena had been asked to attend in the afternoon was no work at all!
It’s not about going to church – she was not there either.
When I asked if every day was God’s day, she agreed, but she was very definite about not digging. In general this is not a very sabbatarian society : many of the kiosks open on Sunday afternoon and there are a lot of meetings scheduled. It seems that the tradition of not working the land on Sundays is quite well-established, however.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

1km of fabric, 700 pairs of shoes

In the 10 months since we came to Rwanda, the diocese has been building a primary school in Bweyeye. This is funded by the “Telegraph” Christmas Appeal of 2005, where Bweyeye was heavily featured as one of the target communities. It has been part of my work here to supervise the building and in the process of regular visits I have got to know the community and the people there a little. This is not easy : the route involves 1 hour on pot-holed tarmac roads followed by 2 hours on a rough track down through the forest to near the Burundi border. No electricity, running water or phone signal, of course.
The official opening is now approaching and excitement is mounting. A very generous personal sponsor in the UK has offered to buy uniforms for the 700 children there. On our last visit we took 1km of fabric for the tailors of Bweyeye to work with. A quick survey of one class of 45 showed 5 children with shoes and the same number with any semblance of uniform. This is a very poor community. Tomorrow the advance party leaves with 4 huge sacks containing the 700 pairs of plastic shoes. We also have exercise books, pens, pencils and slates for all the kids in the school. We will sleep in Bweyeye, an adventure in itself, at least for me.
The Minister of Education has been invited to the meeting, along with Rwandan TV and about 100 other guests. No-one has any clear idea of how many of these will turn up, but the food budget should be adequate for all eventualities – 60kg of beef, 20 chickens, 50kg of rice, 50kg of potatoes and 10 hands of matoke, washed down by 1000 bottles of Fanta. It’s going to be quite a party! However, the significance for a community like Bweyeye is huge.