We were coming through the forest recently when we came across a small family of baboons on the road. They ran away, but not very far and this one conveniently sat in a tree only about 25 metres away as if to pose for some photos. Quite a large creature and the alarm calls were certainly scary! Whetted my appetite for a possible gorilla visit at some point in the future.
We finally have our visas! We should have got these before the end of 3 months in Rwanda, i.e. November, but due to a lack of understanding on both our part and the diocese, we were late. The process finally got started in December and has involved at least 6 visits to the visa office in Kigali and a similar number to the Episcopal Province Office. It’s very wearing and especially difficult because we are so far away from Kigali.
Our visa situation is not unusual – during our last visit we met a British vet who was still trying to get the necessary paperwork after 4 months here and a young German girl who had just got her visa in time to go home after nearly 1 year in Rwanda. No-one seems to particularly mind people being here and working : it is only when you want to leave the country that a valid visa becomes important.
About 3 weeks ago a small bite on my neck started to go septic and eventually turned into a boil which, despite a course of antibiotics, ulcerated. Not a pretty sight, although it was not causing me pain. This is how I came to be lying on a couch at King Faisal Hospital in Kigali, my face covered with surgical cloths, listening to the doctor explain what he was doing. I started out at Casualty and worked my way up the seniority ladder to the duty surgeon, as each one wanted someone else to look at it.
By now both the application of local anaesthetic and the treatment of cleaning out pus were most definitely causing me pain, but apparently “bleeding is good”, I was told, because it indicates live instead of necrotic tissue. This is more difficult to believe when the blood is coming from your neck!
The wound is now clean, I am on new antibiotics and I believe well on my way to recovery. I am also sporting a huge, completely outsize plaster on my neck which has attracted a lot of stares and a few direct questions while I have been in Kigali. “Bandits?” was one theory posed for my wound. Asking personal questions of complete strangers on the street is much more acceptable here than it is in Europe.
I have nothing but praise for the medical care at King Faisal Hospital and by western standards it is fairly cheap. The administrative procedures leave something to be desired : they took a lot longer than the medical ones, but in general it seems well run.
Before I came here people said I would need to get to understand Bishop Geoffrey. He had a major operation on his neck last year, perhaps this is a small way of me identifying with him!??
I’ve spent too much time in the last few weeks standing at the side of the road. It’s a natural hazard of driving here that there will be breakdowns, because despite the strength of the Toyota Hilux pickup, it gets some fairly rough treatment and a very constant shaking even on “good” roads. Some of the roadside waiting is at our local garage, which often does repairs in the open air. In December I held an umbrella over the young mechanic while he changed the brake pads during a downpour.
Reflecting back over that month, we have been very fortunate in the location of these breakdowns. In Uganda, a wheel actually fell off, but at very low speed and in front of a hospital near our friends’ house and within easy reach of a garage with a strong tow truck and welding capability. Another time a trip to Kigali was thwarted by 3 simultaneous problems, but all before we left Kamembe town. We were able to get a replacement vehicle on that occasion. Finally, we had a fan belt problem on our way home one night, but managed to limp to a nearby trading station and get some wire and temporary repairs.
I’m reluctant to use the word “miracle” in this context, although the first breakdown in particular felt like that. We travel quite long distances, sometimes through remote forests without a phone signal, yet all our breakdowns have been easily resolved. It reminds me of God’s constant and detailed care for us, of the faithful support of a praying community, of how privileged we are and of the mystery of faith.
I can't answer the question why our breakdowns have been "fortunate" in the middle of a country which has all kinds of physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. Even for me to ask it at this point seems like an intrusion into something holy. I sense a change here - sometimes intellectual questions like that which can seem so important at home become much less important in context here.
For the last 2 nights, there has been no sign of the geckos. Obviously they are digesting their mammoth meal and are unable to eat another thing, or perhaps even to move. Last night there were several good-sized moths resting upside-down on the ceiling of the veranda with complete impunity.
This is hopefully my last word on the creatures : I really don’t want to turn this into a gecko-watching saga, although if you do a blog search you will come up with an amazing number of references.
There was torrential rain for most of last night, undermining our hopes that the break in the rainy season had arrived.
In the morning, the veranda was covered with several hundred small brown leaf-like objects, so light that they moved as I walked through them. I was puzzled for some time, then realised that these were wings, all that remained of a swarm of flying ants. Whether they were sheltering from the rain, or just happened to be passing and were attracted to the security light, I do not know. In any event, our resident population of geckos, which numbers between 20 and 30, must be completely gorged on these creatures and is probably suffering from the effects of the gluttony, if geckos know such a thing.
It is claimed that geckos keep the mosquito population down. I am rather sceptical about this, because we regularly see flying ants, although not in such large numbers as were slaughtered last night. Their body weight is about 10 times that of a mosquito (I'm guessing!), so I can see little incentive for our geckos to go chasing the mossies. I will admit that based on the evidence from last night, their appetites are rather indiscriminate.
There are various medicines which can be taken to cure the headaches which come from struggling with the difficulties of administration and management here. The most recent headache was caused by the process for signing cheques taking more than 1 week.
• Playing chess with Naftar, the 10-year-old boy next door. He is inventing a complete vocabulary of his own – tonight the knights were renamed as zebras (obvious enough) and the pieces were being eaten instead of captured.
• Visiting the more remote parishes, seeing how people live and getting priorities sorted again. This week it was Bweyeye, where the diocese is just completing a very nice 11-classroom school. The health problems among the pupils are many and varied. Sobering thought – there are many children running around Bweyeye who are not even at school because they are too poor to afford the school materials. Primary schooling is free, but not books, etc.
• Being on the veranda at 0630, listening to the dawn chorus, looking out over the lake, reflecting and praying about what has happened and what is to come.
• Watching “The West Wing” DVDs at night before we go to bed – challenging escapism!
Jesus’ parable of the unfaithful tenants (Mark 12:1-11) was read in church yesterday. In the story, some tenants decide that they can keep the vineyard for themselves and attack the servants the master sends to collect the rent.
The church team from Sussex who were leading had asked the girls from one of the diocesan schools to put together a short drama illustrating the story. As we have seen several times with Rwanda teenagers, they rose to the challenge admirably, with a small bowl of soil and some real plants as props, plus LOTS of added conversation to pad out the events. It went o for about 10 minutes.
The really chilling moment, however, was half-way through. Having chased 2 servants and while standing waiting for more, 2 of the tenants turned on the third and accused her of not being active enough in the violence. “You are not really with us”, they said, “you need to get more involved”. Sure enough, as the next unfortunate servant arrived, she was at the forefront. It was a moment of revelation and deeply disturbing.
These girls would have been very young during the genocide, but somehow the notion of group violence requiring everyone to be involved has found its way into their minds, probably at a subconscious level. It’s an indication of something I am becoming increasingly aware of, namely that the effects of the genocide are still very much here, but usually well under the surface.
I’m sure that the spat between France and Rwanda has all but been forgotten in the UK and probably in France, but certainly not here. Here are some examples of what is happening (and I would certainly not claim to be up-to-date with Rwandan politics, living on the very perimeter of the country as I do).
• The “New Times”, very close to the government, has been serialising for about a month a book about France’s role in the genocide. This was written by a westerner and is very critical of France for a whole number of reasons
• I was at a meeting where an army officer alleged that France was spreading rumours about all Rwanda’s gorillas dying of Ebola in order to spread despondency about the future of this important tourism income. (In fact there was a scientific study by some Americans postulating that one factor in the decline of gorilla populations in Africa could be Ebola epidemics).
• News stories like this abound - http://allafrica.com/stories/200612120410.html
I’m reading Romeo Dallaire’s book (*) about the genocide and it is clear that the antipathy between the RPF (now the ruling party) and France predates 1994 by some considerable time and has many strands. This story is going to run for a long time, because it does seem that France has a lot of things it would rather were not in the public domain and there are powerful forces in Rwanda who have a strong motivation for keeping the attack on France very much alive. Like all motives, there are both pure and not so pure sources for this.
(*) “Shake Hands with the devil” - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shake-Hands-Devil-Failure-Humanity/dp/0099478935/sr=8-1/qid=1169151472/ref=pd_ka_1/203-3358965-4742305?ie=UTF8&s=books
On the Saturday before Christmas, we went to a wedding in Kigali, the sister of a friend. As we expected, things were a bit chaotic when we got to the bride’s house – everyone was running late and “this church respects time”. Eventually, two flower-covered cars appeared and to our surprise the bride and groom both emerged, along with 4 bridesmaids and groomsmen.
We arrived at the church about 10 minutes late. It could easily have seated 2000 people but actually had about 300 guests. There was no sign of rush there and the couple were already seated on the stage at the front. A few minutes after taking our seats we discovered that another couple was expected, so (as usual here) our rushing had been unnecessary.
Waiting was made easier by the excellent band, who sang with a jazz style and even had some familiar songs in English. The second couple arrived just before 2 o’clock, at which point we discovered that we were waiting for yet another couple! However, this last wedding party was coming from Gisenyi, a couple of hours’ drive away, so a quorum was declared and the event began.
We had a highly dramatic sermon for half an hour and then vows, when suddenly the proceedings were interrupted by a brass band at the door of the church. The third groom was an army officer and he had brought appropriate music to signal the arrival of him and his bride. There were some lovely touches to the proceedings : the prayers for the newly-weds, the holding up of hands. There were of course also some very odd things to our eyes – the complete lack of any smiles from the newly-weds and the scrum of photographers (complete with floodlight) which was allowed very close during most of the ceremony.
About 20 Christmas cards and letters arrived today, tripling our total for this year in 1 fell swoop. It was a lovely surprise, we managed to hold off until we were having dinner then indulged ourselves in half an hour of reading, proving the truth of “better late than never”.
There are still some missing : the post here is very unreliable and we have lost both parcels and letters. Transit times vary from 10 days to more than 1 month.
It’s no secret that physically we are not “roughing it” here. Breakfast shows this very clearly. Full cream milk only 1 day old, local honey, lemon marmalade made from our garden produce, fresh bread or rolls plus fruit salad of pineapple, banana and orange (our garden again). Unfortunately, the menu also includes 1 doxycycline pill!
Perhaps best of all, however, we can take 20 minutes to sit on the veranda and enjoy it together, with a stunning view over the lake to the Congo mountains. I think back to 5-minute “solo” breakfasts at home, where it is dark for about 4 months of the year. “Quality of life” is a wide and undefinable term, but for quality of breakfast, Rwanda is streets ahead.
