This schedule is working very nicely for me: six months here, four months in Europe, mostly in Berlin, and two months mostly in New York; but rather less time away in the winter, December and January, and a bit more in the summer, May to August – for obvious reasons. Just the right balance of heat and cold, being on my own and being with friends, contributing and consuming, concerts and a bit of a desert ...
mid-February
I've been back in Kigali for two weeks now, but have to say that this stay did not start well. A cousin of Manu's, whom he had been very fond of, was shot dead – apparently by the police, apparently after having been suspected of three thefts at the school where he was working. No comment! M has 3.5 months left in prison, but they had not been allowed any visitors for more than two months, because of a serious outbreak of measles in 'that other country'; we were able to see him this week, but we had only 15 minutes, and there were four of us. I was a bit sick the first week, though not with malaria, which E insisted I get tested for; but then he fell quite seriously ill himself, with malaria and typhoid, so he could not even take a taxi moto home. And since then Olivier, who is still staying with us, though he is busier again these days, has also been diagnosed with typhoid; fortunately the treatment is quite simple, (and I get myself vaccinated against it every three years.) The rest of life here has been much as usual. Pascal continues to go to a gym almost every morning, working out hard, and to do quite well with his business, it seems, where he is a member of the 'supervisory committee' of the cooperative, so he is out of the house much of the time as well. I am working a lot less this term: instead of 14 hours a week, with AIMS and to AMMI students, I only teach four hours a week to the AIMS students, concentrating on such things as how to write a 'Statement of Purpose' or 'Letter of Motivation'; the students have a lot more Maths to do these days, and they are in a different place of course with their course. The landlady has been here for a weeks now, she had some things fixed up in the compound, (although the painters did an awful job on the outside!) but she has also opened a shop in one of the two shops in the compound open towards the front. Water and electricity have been alright. Two more, positive police matters: In the last three months many of the pedestrian crossings in the city have been emphasized with red paint, and the police must have made an effort to enforce the rights of pedestrians, because the behaviour of drivers has changed very noticeably in a short time! – After years of being disturbed by the loud music late at night from the bar next to our compound, we finally contacted the police, O by calling them and I by text message; both times they came it became quiet, of course. And since a further call to the owner – whom the manager seemed not to have told that the police had come to his bar – we/I now sleep more easily. Holiday memories 1: The 2.5 months away were very very nice too. Just over four weeks in Berlin, with lots of concerts as usual, and reading and seeing friends, but also quite a lot of 'official' stuff, so that I ended up quite busy this time: I finally registered at the Bürgeramt, and got a German ID, as well as getting my British driving licence reissued, changed bank account, (much too late!) finally managed to get the ceiling in my bathroom all fixed up, where there had been a leak from the shower in the apartment above, and the ceiling in the kitchen and corridor repainted, and had an implant implanted, so that I can get the teeth on the right side all fixed up as well. Holiday memories 2: And I had a brilliant trip of just over six weeks, starting and ending with a couple of days in London, where I had not been for 2.5 years, and two days in Paris on the way back. Some long flights, to and from Sydney and New York, (including the third longest flight by any airline, more than 17 hours from Houston to Sydney) but no problem: in fact, all flights I took and even all bus connections, like to and from Washington and Boston, were on time and comfortable. And furthermore, in the whole of the 2.5 months I was not disturbed by rain a single time! – never any need to take an umbrella even, nothing worse than two or three times some drizzle. Holiday memories 3: The fact that the worst experiences were that it was rather cooler in Sydney than I had hoped, so that I did not feel like going swimming in one of those great pools they have in the city, that I missed meeting a friend in New York because he had not yet come back from Columbia, and that I saw rather less of another friend because he is breaking up with his husband – the fact that these were the very worst experiences shows that it must have been a pretty good holiday, no? And lots of great experiences everywhere, especially of course enjoyable, fun and serious conversations with my friends everywhere, but also organ recitals and jazz, modern dance performances, walking amongst nice buildings, and so on. J, whose name people pronounce as two syllables, and who actually looks much younger than in this photo, the close friend of two friends, is also a student at INES in Musanze. |
The usual half-yearly summary (– the academic year for schools in Rwanda has just started, but it is almost the middle of the year at the universities, as in Europe and the US): |
late March
Not so much has happened, but time has been passing quickly. – I was pleased that my birthday passed so well, i.e. mostly unobserved, although we did have some wine that evening at dinner. I have been pleased with the way M, in the past the most unreliable of the people I know here, has been continuing to work and starting to stand on his own feet. And I was very pleased, not to say impressed, with the offer of one not-at-all-rich friend to use his savings to pay the fees for a close friend of his and of M's, so I decided to contribute as well; (I am not sure though if I/we can keep it up: that guy may have to take a year off after this one.) Talking of wine, last 'term' P discovered a very nice, very smooth, dark brown banana wine that he can get in town, quite different from the banana beer that people drink in the village when they can't afford any other alcohol, which tends to be a bit rough. So we sometimes have that. And the liver paté that he sometimes brings also tastes very nice, and sometimes is part of my lunch, now that E has gone to study and I more often than not take care of myself – almost like my dinner in Berlin. And almost precisely a year after my/our last visitors from Berlin, Kado came to visit for a few days, while on holiday in Tanzania, which is where he is originally from. It was easier to put him up in a nearby cheap (USD 17 per night) hotel, but we went to town together, E and M took him to the Genocide Memorial, he went with O to pass half a day with his football team in the village, and of course we talked a lot. |
With many of my friends now being outside Kigali, like in Poland, Musanze or prison, I am making an effort to get to know new people. So this is Edward, a student at UK (University of Kigali).
Kado with E at the Memorial, (photo taken by M.)
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early April
Genocide Memorial Week – Kwibuka 25. But it is much less noticeable than in previous years: apparently the government ordered that only the first and the last day, the 7th and the 13th, need to be strictly observed, on the other days it should be 'business as usual'. And I have not seen any Memorial posters, which even a few years ago, all of the same design, were on nearly every billboard for at least a month, sponsored by the usual advertisers. (Of course, most of the billboards in the country have been taken down ...) But restrictions on loud music and watching football in bars remain, making for a peaceful week for me. Talking of loud music, we have finally called the police a few times about the very loud music, sometimes until early in the morning, from the bar next to our compound. There is in particular one senior police officer who has come out twice and seems to have scared them; once he even introduced himself to me when he was talking to the manager of the bar, at 1.30 am. However, his motives may not have been all noble – a few days ago I received a text message from him saying: HI Would you plese send me ten thausand francs since i,want to go to hospital because i m suffering form backbone thank you very much (sic), to which I, after conferring with some Rwandan friends, replied:Hi Robert. I don't think it would be right for me to do that, I am sorry. But best wishes for your back. Gd night.
The last few days I have been a bit sick, with a urinary tract infection, and for perhaps the first time here I felt I should get some serious medication: so I went to a local pharmacy – there are two within a minute's walk from our place –, described my symptoms – in English, no problem! –, and was given a one-week course of Ciprofloxacin, which cost RwF 700 (= USD 0.63), with the admonishment to finish the whole course. Not that all medicines are so cheap: when E was ill with typhoid and malaria, we paid RwF 20,000 for the meds. – Now, Cipro does indeed seem to be a standard treatment for UTI, but it may be a bit too serious: as it happens, there was an article on the same day in Der Spiegel, that doctors have been told to only prescribe this and similar antibiotics in exceptional cases, because of some very bad possible side effects. A large part of the money I/we spend here in RwF are repayments of loans that I have made to friends and other people, typically to buy property: I make a large transfer to them from my UK account, and they then make monthly repayments over a period of a year or more; all the calculations are done in EUR, the interest rate is 4%, and the borrowers are responsible for all transaction costs. This arrangement benefits them even more than me: the going rate for bank loans in Rwanda is 19%. I am about to make another such loan, to a friend of O's, although I know him too and that he has a steady job, despite the fact that the last such loan – not to a friend, but to the mother (who I think was not honest with me!) of a friend for her business – is not performing well, (which means that I am 'struggling' a bit, financially, these days ...) |
In the pedestrian zone (– in which one never sees many pedestrians: it seems that the local government just felt that, as a 'modern' city, they had to have a pedestrian zone, even if it means messing up the traffic in the commercial district ...)
Pacifique, a nice guy who these days is mostly stuck in his village outside Rwamagana, with whom I had been chatting for quite a few months before we met.
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at the airport
[Being, this year, a Gold Elite member of UA, I have access to the the lounge at Kigali airport, but unlike the one in Istanbul, it is not much to write home about.] In some ways the 'term' did not end well, it feels like it's time to leave. And for the first time in many years I felt it necessary to 'cancel' what had been a friendship, but had already become much less close. But there have also been some very good things; like I feel that I have made two or three new friends this term. A few weeks ago we had another visitor from TZ, Arnold, whom I had not seen for a few years, although I had visited him every summer for (I think) ten years in Dar es Salaam, before I started to spend most of each year in Kigali. Generally quiet and relaxed, he can still be no less argumentative than I remember from before, especially about politics. He seemed to like it here and was talking about coming again soon, perhaps even becoming in a programming venture here. So, this summer: most of May I'll stay in Berlin, with a six-day trip to France, then most of June I'll spend in the US, mostly in New York, but flying back from Chicago, and then I'll have another seven weeks mostly in Berlin, with a three-day trip to Italy. I have already lined up lots of concerts for the next few weeks. This is the longest time I will have been away from Rwanda in the last ten years; but the winter 'holiday' will be correspondingly shorter. |
Arnold and I visiting P at his shop in town, (with Issa/Joshua busy in the background.)
Patrick, whom I met as the friend of the girlfriend (who is also a friend by now) of a friend, a student at KIST, who quickly became a friend too in the last two weeks.
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early September
After a great holiday – mostly in Berlin, where there were lots of music and other good things, and from where I made lovely trips to France and Italy, and where I also had some visitors, and in New York, also with visits to other places: Boston, DC, Vermont and, on 'the way back', Chicago/Milwaukee – I arrived back in Kigali two weeks ago. (The description of my holidays must by now be quite, or even overly, familiar to my friends ... Sorry.) Just a pity that the weather in Berlin was most of the time not summer-y enough; (while in other places in Europe it was of course sometimes rather too summer-y.) Kigali, where things are quite different this time, and will become more so: most importantly, P has moved out to his own – very very nice – place, not far away, half-way between here and where he works; we have to sometimes reassure people that that was not because he and I no longer got along! He is still coming to have dinner with us once or twice a week, for instance, and we talk more about the 'important' things. – And O is going to move to Poland in five weeks; he has started to get busy with preparations, like buying sheets and a new computer and helping a friend of his to take over his job. – So the person who will be living with me in the house is Manu, who has already stayed here most of the time since he got out of prison at the end of a year there, at the end of May; he is learning what he needs to know, including about the use of money, but I am a bit worried that he is/will be quite bored much of the time ... I so hope it will work out!! The VERY nice kitchen corner, designed by him himself, of P's VERY nice new place. Having taught only four hours a week at AIMS (the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences) last term, English, with a little maths and programming thrown in, I am now teaching 8 hours a week again, and may get more time added when the AMMI (African Master's in Machine Intelligence) course starts in a couple of weeks. The teaching is again great fun, (although the replacement of coasters by big buses, in which one usually has to stand, on the route from Nyamirambo, where we live, to town has made the trip to and from work a bit longer and rather more tedious, less relaxed) and requires of course less preparation this time 'round. I am very pleased that the most competent tutor, Jessica from Northern Ireland, who was in a way holding everything together, has come back for a second year. This guy, called Africa, I met at the house of a neighbour who we later found we both don't much care for, where he asked me for my WhatsApp number and then started chatting with me while sitting just a little distance away: pretty poor, pretty bad English, but – I think – a lot of friendship-potential, certainly worth taking a risk with. ("risk": I have recently had to say Bye! to someone, I just couldn't cope with his unreliability.) |
The usual half-yearly summary (– the academic year for some – the different institutions no longer follow quite the same schedule – universities in Rwanda has just started, but the third term has started at the schools): |
late September
I guess it had to happen some time! This is from a recent long e-mail from Omar: I hurt too much to tell you and I even have a fear in me, with a heart that
bleeds. But I love you and I carry you in my heart to continue to lie to
you, it is about my studies that I to spoil because I was stupid and silly.
The year that I failed I had not really failed but because I started trading and I used the money in the trade and that's why I decided to go to Gisenyi and change university to see if I could catch myself but I did not catch up! I do not deserve your forgiveness! But I feel too bad to lie to you, you do not deserve that. ... But I hope someday I will catch up and at any moment I will always thank you, for the luck you give me and I ruin it! From the bottom of my heart I'm sorry. I am in kampala, modeling, until the end of this year. Next year I will be in Nairobi, I will study the fashion and designer ... I don't understand everything he wrote, but it did not come as a complete surprise: I had already told him that I would not give him any more money without having some 'evidence' that he was still studying, and asked him whether his shoe trading, clothes design and modelling had not become more important than his university course, and perhaps than our friendship. (And, fortunately, after he had told me that he had failed the exams at the end of year two at ULK, I had stopped giving him money from one of my generous friends and used my own instead, so at least I don't have to feel bad about misusing funds ...) A slight worry at the moment: I might not get a visa for the remainder of this stay. As always, I got a 30-day visa at the airport upon arrival, and then applied for a 3-month tourist visa for the rest of the time in Rwanda, but this time I reveived a phone call five days later, in which they at first said that I would not get a visa, before going on to ask questions about what I am doing here all the time. I have since then tried to explain that I am supporting a number of friends here and some other people, especially in their education, and that I own a house. So now I have no idea what is going to happen; I am waiting to get another call, or a message, or an e-mail. Will I have to leave within 7 days? Or will I not be able to apply for another visa for a year? Or ...? – So, why only a slight worry? Because having a problem in a friendship, or worrying that I do, affects my well-being – including my sleep – much more than this 'practical' problem does. And life in Berlin is good too, even though I would very greatly miss my friends here till I can come back. |
mid-October
The big change is of course that O, after more than two years of living with us, has left to do a Master's degree in Poland. It had been a busy time for him the last few weeks, with a lot of people wanting to see a lot of him before he left, so he was very busy, especially since he also continued to work almost until his last day; we even had a couple of evenings with his/our friends at our place. He is clearly well-liked and -respected by many people here and they will miss him a lot. His trip to Rzeszow did not go completely smoothly, as he missed his connecting flight in Brussels, through no fault of his, which messed up the rest of the trip. But by now he is there and presumably getting used to the place, as we are getting used to him not being here. Best wishes to him. No news about the visa yet, even at Immigration when I went there to ask – "Wait until you have received a text message from us." OK, no problem. (I think this is a case of "no news is good news ...") Unfortunately I have ended up with a compressed nerve in my neck, which gives me sometimes pain, which can get very bad, or numbness in my left shoulder and arm. While it has improved a bit, and the medication I got seems to help, I have been warned that I may need an operation, though it can apparently wait till I am back in Berlin. Joseph has finally managed to sell the house that I bought for him eight years ago, which he finished repaying me for some years ago already, in preparation for buying a new one: they are particularly looking for one in a better location, closer to a road. – I may have a similar deal coming up with another family, though we still have to discuss what level of repayment they can really manage: people here are generally not good at financial planning, usually being too hopeful/optimistic and then ending up in dire straits. (Perhaps a bit like how people tend to end up being late ...) |
O being visited on his first weekend in Rzeszow by two of our friends, who I hope enjoyed the Mützig they had made him bring and appreciated the ubugali. While it may be cold there, at least it was sunny. |
early November
Updates:
P, who has not been able to find a job since he finished studying civil engineering at the former KIST more than a year ago, has been very involved in different environmental organisations, and as a result has been been able to attend conferences in places like Kenya and Tanzania, with usually almost all of the expenses covered; but now he has an invitation to represent this country at one in Bonn, Germany, at the end of this month, so we are hoping that he will get a visa, so that he can actually go there (and perhaps also come to visit me in Berlin for a few days.) The landlady, who lives in the other house in the compound when she is here, which is only for a few months every year, just arrived from Texas: so we will have to behave ourselves! ;-) |
A poster seen at the Nyamirambo District Office where I spent a couple of hours to complete the sale – when finally a serious buyer had been found – of the house that I had bought for Joseph many years ago, and he had finished a long time ago repaying me for. (The poster below this one explained, in the manner of a comic book, the idea of "presumption of innocence".) |
late November, on the way to Berlin
After still teaching for five hours this afternoon, or in fact today mostly helping some students with parts of various applications, and then a small meeting and meal with friends at home, it was time to go to the airport. The next ten weeks I will be mostly in Berlin, but with almost four weeks in the US around non-Christmas and New Year, mostly in NYC. I feel I need the break! - as well as looking forward to seeing other friends, going to concerts, being on my own, and so on: in short, Tapetenwechsel. But a very nice part of the last three weeks was the visit to Rwanda of Bernd, the friend who first connected me with AIMS, who was teaching there again for three weeks. We were able to talk a few times a week, and he came to dinner one evening, but one Saturday we went swimming, with the 'usual' friends of mine, and then he invited us for dinner in a fancy roof-top place, and a week later we went to the Kandt House Museum in town, with different friends, also followed by a meal, at La Galette. – Richard Kandt, as I learnt on the guided tour, was an explorer, a former psychiatrist even, who first came looking for the source of the river Nile, and was then appointed administrator of German East Africa in 1907. He seems to have been a pretty decent fellow, as colonialists went. A bit incongruously, I felt, the museum also houses a small reptile zoo. [I just noticed a certain amount of repetition in this entry, but am too lazy to rewrite the text. Sorry.] And just today Bernd and three other AIMS lecturers/tutors went to buy gifts, beautiful and reasonably priced, at Talking Through Art, where they are "Creating opportunities for people with disabilities in Rwanda", and where someone I know works. I can't deny that I was – and still am a bit – worried to leave the house and my finances in the charge of M, so I was happy that Passy, a friend of R, P and O, whom I first met nine years ago as R's classmate at ISETAR, and who has in fact taken over the job of O, based in an office in Nyamirambo a few minutes from our house, was happy, it seemed, to stay part-time (and rent-free, although he will contribute to the cost if he takes meals) at our place rather than always going back to Nyamirambo where he is staying with his brother. |
A lovely roof-top dinner, after a nice if not not completely dry afternoon at the pool, (to both of which Bernd had invited us.) – And a week later a visit to the Kandt House Museum, housed in the oldest still existing building in Kigali, mostly of the early colonial history of Rwanda, but with – oddly – some reptiles thrown in, named after a pre-World War I German explorer and later administrator of the country – at a time when the king was 2.20m tall and some men were able to jump clearing a height of 2.50m: some striking early photographs! –, and then a meal at La Galette, (again at Bernd's kind invitation.) |