My life in the RVCP House

Having been in Butare for 4 weeks now, the RVCP house and the town really feel like my home. I realised that I haven't really posted any photos of the house or what we get up to in our spare time so here we are. (For those of you in the library or working, enjoy some procrastination!)

Here's our kitchen. When I first saw it my heart sank with disappointment - no oven in a kitchen? However now I have grown to love the barbeque pit, so no oven is no problem. We can cook just about everything on the barbeque....more updates on this after Thanksgiving as we have an ambitious menu planned (I swear all I talk about is food, sorry).

Party party in the living room (DJ booth in the corner on the chair). Apparently in Rwanda it isn't a celebration without Fanta, it's like the equivalent of Champagne here. 

Here's Libby asleep on the sofa, wrapped in her Pokemon duvet (I'm still jealous of the Pokemon duvet...)

Here's Libby doing some colouring in. We have done a lot of crafts since arriving here, mainly for decorating the house for Thanksgiving tomorrow (which I will blog about on Friday!) I don't think I've done this much colouring-in for years as I have done in the last 4 weeks (cue jokes about me doing a geography degree, thanks guys).

Here's the What Is In My Bed photo. Being on the top bunk and trapped in a mosquito net every night, I have a weird habit of accumulating stuff up there. English phone, Rwandan phone, iPod, watch, torch, Kobo, bite cream, aloe vera, antiseptic cream, lip balm, hair grips, at least 2 jumpers, the essential TUBBS hoody, my Ugandan blanket, Kenya Airways blanket and of course childhood soft toys. Spot which book I'm reading....

Lastly here's Miri, Lora and I having supper (I'll say it again: we make such good food).

Only a short blog post today since not much has happened over the past few days. We're embracing the true Rwandan lifestyle of relaxing and not taking everything too seriously if things don't go to plan. Buhoro Buhoro is the motto here - slowly slowly. This is something that doesn't come naturally to me, since I like being busy, but accepting the Rwandan culture and learning how to adapt is all part of a new challenge. I have actually been looking at what I could do when I return from Africa in the summer, whether I go on to do post-graduate study or progress further into the development sector with the experience I have gained here. But at the moment there are more important things to think about, like planning the Thanksgiving menu for our American friends, arranging training meetings with RVCP members and wondering just when Lucy and co. are going to send me the only English food I crave right now: crumpets.

Bicycles and Micycles

Today has been incredible. I have seen the ACTUAL Tour Du Rwanda (I was joking about there being one but it actually happens every year), a giant mouse and Jay Polly. And we're having curried potatoes for supper. It is such a great day.

We kind of stumbled across the Tour Du Rwanda the other day when we saw it advertised on a poster. It turns out that it is an international event that attracts teams from all around the world, including the USA, Canada and France. So it's a pretty big deal for Rwanda! Today was the second to last stage, Butare-Kigali.

Spot the man in the tree...

We managed to sneak to the front and ended up getting some pretty good photos of the riders warming up.

While everyone else was warming up, the Tanzania team just posed for photos

Dylan Girdlestone, Yellow Jersey

Team South Africa who won in 2012

After a huge build up, the start was (predictably) a bit of an anti-climax since it was over so quickly. I'm pretty sure Libby and I were the only ones cheering and getting excited, but it was really fun all the same! It was great to see a part of the Tour because it is clearly such a big event in Rwanda that promotes sports and puts Rwanda on the international (or at least African) sporting map.

In other news, in the immortal words of UB40, there's a rat (mouse) in ma kitchen (Miri's room)...

So in the afternoon we went round in the hope of capturing it and setting it free, instead of buying one of the ancient torture implements that were passed off as 'mouse traps' in the market (trying to explain to someone who doesn't speak a word of English that you want a humane mouse-trap proved impossible, my 'mouse in a box' sketch did not work and we ended up buying some rat poison - the said mouse had already been chased away but had come back so we were resorting to desperate measures...)

Sadly we didn't get any pictures of the mouse because it leapt out at me from Miriam's wardrobe, ran under the bed, into the bathroom, then evaded us again and ran out of the room altogether. All of this lasted less than a minute and prompted much screaming (much to the amusement of the students in the courtyard). So sadly the mouse has been condemned to death, with some dodgy looking rat poison mixed with stale bread crumbs. Will update regarding the corpse situation...

On the way back from Miri's we stopped off at an outdoor concert where Jay Polly was performing. Whilst I had never heard Jay Polly before, he's a really big deal in Butare which was why hundreds of people were stood in the pouring rain watching him (he's from round here apparently). Here's a video of his best song (it's actually pretty good..!)

Lastly, in an apology for the lack of mouse hunt photos, here's some wise words from the back of a truck: 

What's happened over the past few days?

Not a great deal, except for parasites, ice-cream, Satay, Computer Club, planning training for the RVCP committee and us all having the same song in our heads every waking minute.

Poor Miriam has been ill over the last few days, with Amoeba. It's quite funny actually because all our Rwandan friends are like 'Oh it's not bad at all' while us Westerners are like 'OH MY GOSH that's terrible'. It actually did sound really awful but at least it wasn't malaria. I haven't been ill at all yet, but seeing as just the tiniest bit of dirty water or bad food could make us very sick, I guess it's a bit of a waiting game before it's my turn...

On a brighter note, here's a picture of Computer Club which is currently happening right now. We're planning our first training session for RVCP, which will be a recap on Communication Tools (Handover Documents, GoogleDocs, Communication Protocol and Communication Logs). (Actually, right now, Libby and Miri are doing work, I am blogging. They think I'm also doing work...).

The guy in the background is Nyamwasa, our housekeeper, sweeping the floor. I think it's the first time I've seen him without his woolly hat on. He's great at doing his job as far as cleaning and helping us make stoves is concerned, but he also brings his friends into the house and shows them round (which is a bit strange) and peers through the windows when it's dark which is ridiculously terrifying. We try and talk to him in Kinyarwandan but we only ever get 'yego' (yes) or a laugh in return. But we're going to keep trying and I will let you know when we get a response...

Yesterday we went to Inzozi Nzizi for coffee and ice-cream (charitable, guilt-free ice-cream!) and last night we had Satay for supper. It was incredible. I was definitely going to take a photo of the end result but I was too hungry and only remembered I wanted to take a photo once I'd finished it. Here's a picture of Libby and the BBQ Pit anyway 

And here's a picture of the leftovers (which looks totally disgusting actually but smells incredible). 

And finally, we've all had this (really terrible)

song in our head CONSTANTLY. They love stuff like this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO3gg2cVfxg

Food Adventures

There have been a couple of great meals at the RVCP house recently. Having got bored already of rice, beans, vegetables, chapattis, more rice, vegetables etc. we decided to make cake, biscuits and pizza. This could have been a bit of challenge since we only have a charcoal stove (the barbeque pit) but we're not ones to be put off by such a small detail...

The biscuits were never going to win any beauty prizes but the taste would have been good enough for Bake-Off. They were mixed spice and cinnamon and simply cooked in a frying pan. Extra good warm with jam on. We have already planned to make these for Christmas - how hard can it be shaping dough into a Christmas tree?!

The cake (made for a friend's birthday) turned out a million times better than I thought it would. We just made a basic chocolate cake batter and steamed it in a pot of boiling water on the stove for an hour. The only problem with it is that it wasn't big enough. Double mixture next time! Other plans for cakes include ginger, lemon and honey. 

The pizza again was a basic pizza dough (with added spring onions), and cooked in the frying pan on the stove. We added guacamole, tomato sauce, cheese, spinach and pineapple and it was AMAZING. Pretty sure this will end up being our Christmas dinner (I think the only thing we wouldn't be able to cook on the stove would be a roast...!)

A visit to the VIP latrines

Yesterday was a milk and RVCP project day. In the morning Miriam took us to Jose's Milk House, where we had half a litre of milk and some Mandazi - a sweet fried dough. 

The mandazi was delicious but there was no way I could managed a half-litre of milk, especially when it was so creamy. It's definitely something I'm going to get used to though!

In the afternoon, Miri and I went with Paci from RVCP to visit a project run under RVCP's Hygiene programme. RVCP work in Mpungwe village to build Ventilated Improved Pit latrines (VIP latrines) for families who do not have a clean and safe latrine. This programme was started in response to a government programme which seeks to move Rwandans from remote rural areas into villages, where they can concentrate infrastructure and house construction, thus ensuring that most people have access to electricity and water.

This is part of the Rwandan government's Vision 2020 initiative, which was launched by Kagame in 2000. In short, it seeks to transform Rwanda into a middle-income country, and this is to be achieved by reducing poverty, increasing and improving education, good governance, efficient agriculture, improving health systems and creating a united Rwanda. The housing initiative was first started to provide houses for widows of the genocide in 1994, and is continuing under Vision 2020. Therefore, villages such as Mpungwe are growing fast.

The houses built by the government however do not have latrines, since it is expected that the residents themselves will construct their own latrine. However, most people lack the resources and skills necessary to do this, and so have very unsafe and unhygienic latrines. RVCP seeks to improve the health and hygiene of the villagers by buying and building long-lasting and sustainable deep pit latrines.

RVCP build 4 latrines a year in Mpungwe, and the project started in 2005. The latrines built in 2005 are still in use, so the latrines are a long-term solution to provide improved hygiene in the village. RVCP provide materials, labour and money to buy expert labour to dig the pits (which are 8 metres deep). RVCP volunteers also provide education about how to keep the latrines clean and hygienic, the importance of clean water, how to practice good hygiene and how livestock near the house can spread diseases.

Out of around 156 families in the area, 97 families currently benefit from a VIP latrine and RVCP is currently researching where to construct the next four latrines. In the future RVCP hopes to be able to teach the villagers with the capacity to do so how to construct their own safe latrine.

The village of Mpungwe is spread over a hill above a valley, and the scenery is incredible. Again, photos don't do it justice, especially with that annoying speck on my camera lens which I only noticed until I was at home and uploading the pictures. I'm really keen to do some trekking in this area, so we're planning a walk to Mount Huye in a few weekends time which will be amazing.

Interesting information about Vision 2020 is at http://www.rwandachamber.org/rwanda+vision+2020

Projects, pigs and washable tan

Yesterday, we visited some RVCP projects. One was an agricultural cooperative ran under the Maternal Health initiative, and two others were incoming generating projects. Visiting these projects involved an adrenaline-filled motorbike ride, a lot of dust and even more pigs and rabbits....

The agricultural cooperative involves about 100 women, providing land, fertiliser and seeds for them to grow crops to sell at local markets. This falls under the Maternal Health initiative, and seeks to promote women's health and to provide them with an income to buy medicine and food for their babies. We spoke to some of the women and it was inspiring to hear that the money they earned through the cooperative was spent on improving the life and health of their children, and provided the women with a job that they would otherwise not have. With any development project, it is often difficult to fully understand how they work and whether they do actually have an impact upon the target community, which is why it is so important for me to visit these projects and speak directly to the people involved.

The photos don't quite do justice to how beautiful Rwanda is, it is by far the most incredible place I have ever been. It is also more hilly than Bristol (which is impressive). 

We then met with the project heads of Income Generation, and visited both the pig and rabbit projects. The pig project involves ten families, who each receive a pig. After a year, the pig will have piglets, and the family will be able to breed from them again, or sell them to make money. RVCP has two piglets from each family, which are then given to other families, and so the project is sustained once the initial ten pigs have been bought. We visited four of the ten families, who all told us how much the pig means to them and how it will help them make some money once it has piglets. 

We then visited the rabbit project, which I was a bit dubious about. But happily all the rabbits looked healthy and well-fed! The rabbit project involves a youth club, and in return for looking after the rabbits, the youth club can sell the rabbits and make an income from them.

I asked Benedict why the youth club have rabbits and what they can sell them for, and this was met with a incredulous 'But you don't eat rabbit in England then?' It turns out that rabbit is actually a popular meat in Rwanda and that hotels can sell rabbit for around 6000RFW (£6), so the youth club can get pretty good prices when selling the rabbits at market. I told Benedict that no, people don't really eat much rabbit in England, and anyway I don't at all because I don't eat any meat, and this was met with another incredulous exclamation of 'Oh no!' and a facepalm. Telling people I don't eat meat will never get old! 

After a day in the Rwandan sun (it's been seriously hot the past few days) I was looking pretty tanned. But sadly a dust tan is not permanent, and it all washed away in some very disgusting shower water. I also lost a fight with a mosquito and I am covered in more bites, one of which is on the sole of my foot which is the WORST place to have a bite. But apart from dust and vicious mosquitoes, Rwanda is a pretty amazing place to live, and visiting some RVCP projects has made me even more certain of this. 

A weekend of worship, sugary tea and Great Mutual Expectations.

This weekend involved a visit to LLCCM, an orphanage initiative supported by RVCP, a leg of the Tour de Rwanda (of which there are sadly no photos...), The Great Mutual Expectations Meeting, a three hour Church service, Primus, dodgy sun-burn, an insane amount of mosquito bites and a lot of HALLELUJAH! AMEN!

On Saturday, Libby and I joined Miriam and went to LLCCM, a community-based voluntary organisation to help children orphaned by HIV/AIDs or the genocide. The initiative aims to place children back with any family that remain, and the organisation acts as a centre to support the children and their families. Saturday is Children's Day, which includes Bible/worship sessions, games and lunch.

Since LLCCM is based in a village outside of Butare, the easiest and cheapest way to get there is by a cycle-taxi. Next time I promise I will take photos, it was absolutely hilarious. It's quite nice to sit on a cushion attached to the back of a bicycle and be pedalled along, but everyone does stare at you (because clearly seeing a white person on a bike is the FUNNIEST THING EVER).

The worship part of Children's Day at LLCCM was also an experience. All in Kinya-Rwandan, it involved a lot of singing, dancing and a call-and-response shout: 'HALLELUJAH!' 'AMEN!' x 3 (this randomly occurred throughout the morning). I felt slightly awkward not knowing what was going on, and the entire session lasted 2 hours so it was quite hard work to pay attention for all that time without understanding a single word (except the HALLELUJAH! AMEN! bits). Afterwards we played some games with the children and met the cows and goats that are kept there before having a lunch of extremely sugary tea, rice and beans which were the best beans I have had in Africa so far.

On our ride back to Butare, I sadly got a bit burnt, which was annoying cause I was wearing a necklace at the time so now I have a vaguely elephant-shaped tan line. This goes well with all the bites I have, my feet have never been so itchy. If anyone wants to send me a present, then send Aloe Vera gel because one tube is not going to be enough for 8 months.... My address is P.O Box 696, Butare, Rwanda by the way (Christmas is soon, right?!)

After returning to Butare, Miriam and I went to have ice-cream at Inzozi-Nziza, a non-profit organisation from a New York ice-cream company (which our housemate Lora works for) to empower women and provide them with jobs and income (as well as making amazing ice-cream available for Butare!)

Saturday evening was the evening of our Great Mutual Expectations Meeting. This was with the RVCP committee and aimed to do several things: explain who BVDA are and how we work, outline why BVDA have sent two long-term capacity builders to RVCP, and to discuss our expectations of each other while we are here. The meeting itself went really well; the RVCP members thought it was useful, interesting and the discussion about what we expect from each other was very productive. However, when we did the session evaluation at the end, all the members thought of the same problem: there wasn't enough sugar in the tea. This is a totally Rwandan thing - each cup of tea has to have about three large spoons of sugar in it before anyone will drink it. Which is 1) totally alien to me and 2) meant we got through about half a kilo of sugar in just one evening (and still this wasn't enough).

The Great Mutual Expectations Meeting

On Sunday morning, I met Peter and went to Church. I wanted to experience a Rwandan Church service, and thought that it would help me immerse myself into the community even more, because going to Church plays such a huge part in the Rwandan week. I chose to go to the Protestant service Peter attends because of the music and the dancing, and this definitely didn't disappoint! I was immediately made welcome, and someone appeared next to me who translated the entire service. There was a stage at the front with a band (electric guitars, keyboards, drum-kit - it was like being at a school concert) and a huge gospel choir. Everyone was standing up, dancing and singing, and I was given a child to look after more or less as soon as I arrived. My translator translated everything for me, which was great because I would have definitely fallen asleep during the guest speaker's hour long speech if I hadn't have been able to understand him. The service ended up being about three hours long (and we missed the first hour) which was way too long but we met Miriam and Hyacinthe afterwards and went to Shekina for lunch (more on Shekina another time. This blog post is way too long).

If you've read this far, you can be rewarded with a photo of us trying (and failing) to light our stove:

Interesting reading:

LLCCM: http://www.llccm-rwanda.org

Inzozi Nziza: http://www.bluemarbledreams.org/

Some things

- Libby: 'There's a film I think you'd really like. It's called Mothra. It's about a moth the size of a human.'
- I went to choir rehearsal - everything was in Kinya-Rwandan and I had NO IDEA what I was doing - but helpfully one of the guys who ran the choir translated the songs for me and one of them was about a native Rwandan leaving Rwanda and singing about how much he missed the cows
- I did some laundry with some luxury Joules triple-milled soap (thanks Em and Freya, my clothes now smell amazing)
- I'm going to teach the choir some barbershop tags next week (any suggestions barbershoppers?!)
- Moth count: uncountable. Huge yellow one at rehearsal: very unhappy Olivia
- Watching Libby's and Miriam's reactions when watching the Japanese Transformer Owl youtube video was INCREDIBLE!

So this was a really good blog post until it deleted itself.

My first weekend in Butare involved the sun, a party, some hilariously bad karaoke, learning to dance African-club-style, sunbathing, a meeting with the coordinator and vice-coordinator of RVCP, some questionable meat and some al-fresco German dining (complete with German apfel-wine).

Peter, Libby and I

Normally at parties in the UK, you don't really dance until it's late and you're drunk. Here, the whole point of the party is to dance, whether there are 4 or 40 people there. As a terrible dancer, this takes some getting used to! However, good news - there's a traditional dance class at the university that I want to join so hopefully it won't be long before people stop laughing at my dancing.

I had written a really really really long post about my entire weekend but STUPID blogspot decided to delete everything except the first two paragraphs I'm SO ANNOYED because I can't bring myself to write everything again. So bulletpoints are happening instead

- I'm also going to join a choir at the uni. It's not barbershop but should be pretty fun!
- We went to a club which was like a weird hotel reception room, when we arrived there was some very formal karaoke going on (which was terrible, except the Kanye West impersonator singing Coming Home, he was awesome) and everyone was sitting round tables like in a wedding reception or something. After karaoke the place turned into a 'club' - the first song played was Mysterious Girl which clearly meant the DJ peaked WAY too soon, cause nothing else topped that. Also Primus beer was around 50p, bargain!
- On Sunday Miriam, a German girl volunteering at an orphanage, cooked us some German food - fried potatoes and onions and meatballs (fried egg for me (no-one understands vegetarianism here, I told some RVCP guys I have never eaten meat and they genuinely face-palmed)). We stored the meat in our fridge for Mim during the day, but because in Rwanda stuff is stored in paper not plastic bags, the meat bled all over our vegetables. Who stores a chunk of raw meat in a paper bag, no-one will know. The food was so delicious, everything cooked outside on fire stoves tastes so much better! (and takes about 3 hours to prepare)
- We bought a thyme plant at the market today and planted it in the front garden, Nymwaza came over and was laughing at us, we must have looked so ridiculous, two white girls in flip-flops trying to dig a hole in rock-hard soil for a pathetically small and wilted thyme plant. It had better grow but I'm worried it might just be washed away in the ridiculously heavy downpours we get over here!

Dufatishiriza Imbabura?

BIG NEWS: So we managed to set up Libby's laptop as a wifi hotspot so now we can both be on the internet at the same time (thank you computer expert Jon from the UK).

It's SO hot here which means I already have tan lines on my feet from my Toms - I now have half white and half tanned feet (and it's definitely not dirt!). 

Here are some photos of the house: 

I have learnt some Kinya-Rwandan: Dufatishiriza Imbabura? which roughly means Could you help us make a stove? which we ask Nyamaza the house-keeper when we need to cook. Normally he just laughs at us when we try and speak Kinya-Rwandan but this morning he didn't so maybe I'm making progress (or maybe he's resigned himself to the fact I will never be able to speak it). 

Last night we went to our first RVCP meeting, their general committee meeting they hold every week. It was at the medicine department of the university - a lot of RVCP members study either medicine or pharmacology. The meeting was really interesting, as we heard about what activities RVCP members had been doing in the week with their projects. Trying to remember everyone's names and what their role is in RVCP is pretty much impossible at the moment cause there are so many people we have met in the past day or so, but we're having a big welcome party tonight at our house with all the members so hopefully that'll help. Since the house is actually really small I have no idea how people will fit in but it'll be fun! 

Gonna go and get myself some sun, I can't wait to be bronze and blonde-haired again! 

So I arrived!

After a 8 hour flight to Nairobi (in a huge, empty plane), a connection to Kigali (in a tiny plane), a two-and-a-half hour journey to Butare (in a tiny bus), Libby and I finally made it to the house we will be staying in for the next five or so months. And we have internet!

For those who haven't heard of Rwanda, let alone know where Butare is, here's a map:




Libby and I will be working with Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP), a Rwandan student-run charity who run projects in the community which include malaria awareness and prevention, HIV awareness and prevention, gender empowerment and income generation. As long-term volunteers from Bristol Volunteers for Development Abroad, who fund some areas of RVCP, we will be advising RVCP on how to run the charity more efficiently, especially in areas of budgeting, finance plans, long-term strategy and social media. Our aim is to provide RVCP members with skills to secure the charity more external funding and to enhance the sustainability of RVCP, essentially making them less reliant on BVDA.

Now I've explained why I'm here, here's a list of stuff that has happened in the past two days:
- I found out that being woken up at 4am for an in-flight breakfast is the worst way to wake up.
- Libby's guitar made it in one piece HOORAY.
- We arrived at the RVCP house. We have internet. (but only one dongle, which means we can only have internet on one laptop at a time cause we're both useless at setting up Internet Connection Sharing. Will provide updates as to when we finally manage to figure this out...)
- We also have a fridge, but no oven. Priorities! We also have a house-boy, who doesn't speak any English or French but who has already proved very friendly and useful at mending locks and lighting stoves...
- We cook on a charcoal stove outside the house - culinary successes already include rice and vegetables and chapattis.
- We have bunk-beds which is great cause I can store/throw all my stuff on the top bunk instead of the floor!
- I have been sneezing A LOT. Nothing changes!
- It's really hot during the day and the first night we were here it rained really heavily.
- I have had to start learning Kinyan-Rwandan and French, here's an example of my new language skills at the market: 'Combien?' or 'Nangahe?' when pointing at various vegetables. Baby steps!
- Finally, hair update: I have both washed and brushed my hair, but my fringe is driving me crazy already in this heat, so that's going to have to go.

Next time I'll upload some pictures, haven't got round to taking any yet!