A Lovely Winter Walk

Today Libby and I went for a 'winter' walk. The birds were singing, the scenery was beautiful and the sun was hot...

Even with factor 50 suncream, my face still got a bit pink...the Doxycycline effect again! 

We walked out of Butare and into Taba, a wealthier neighbourhood where ex-pats tend to live. Here we picked up a couple of followers, and I felt like the Pied Piper. 

Those children were carrying rolls of firewood on their heads, which begged the question: they can't be that heavy, right?

Wrong! Shortly after this photo was taken, Libby tried and failed to lift this bundle off the ground. How on earth those children manage with such a weight, I have no idea, but I have so much respect for them now. 

 We ended up at a fish farm (murky water = no visible fish...) and trekked up what seemed like the steepest hill in the world before arriving back in Butare by the Cathedral.

It wasn't the most wintery of walks since it actually turned out to be one of the hottest days of the month, but it was nice to see more of the landscape around Butare. Sadly it didn't do much for our Christmas spirit (or lack of) but the evening sunset almost made up for this. 

Umuganda Day

In Rwanda, every last Saturday of the month is Umuganda day. It's a compulsory community volunteer scheme where every Rwanda citizen has to undertake community work such as helping to harvest vegetables, cultivating land or building infrastructure. We managed to persuade Hyacinthe and Paci from RVCP to take us along to a local community where we could take part, and this resulted in sunburn, possible jiggle worm infection and mud EVERYWHERE.

Using my long-forgotten netball skills to volley lumps of wet mud onto the 'scaffold'

Paci, Hyacinthe, Me, Miri

Paci and Miri

In true African style, I think we hindered rather than helped the work because everyone would just stop and watch us work. (Great example in the above photo). I think we definitely made everyone's day when we were carrying the bricks, I have genuinely never carried something so heavy in my life, and have never been laughed at so much in my life when trying to pick them up.

The community turn-out to help build this house was actually incredible. It was so inspiring to see people of all ages come out to lend a hand (and in some cases, feet) and use their individual expertise to contribute skills. The men actually constructing the house were local construction engineers and house designers, and so the whole project was well-thought out and we knew that the house was properly designed and built. People divided up their labour, which meant every member of the community could be involved. I was surprised at the amount of children who came to help, since Umuganda is only compulsory for those over the age of 18. However the community was really keen to get stuck in and throw some mud about for a few hours on a cloudy Saturday.

Speaking of a cloudy Saturday, I ended up getting quite sunburnt. I now have what is known as a Doxy Nose (super sunburnt nose as a result of photo-sensitivity caused by my malaria medication. Great).
I really am going to have to get rid of the fringe at some point if I want an evenly tanned face… As for the jiggle-worms, they're little parasites living in the mud which bury into the skin, which Libby is convinced she has after stomping in the mud. They have to be dug out of the foot which is gross, more updates on this later. 

On Saturday afternoon, Miri moved house! Into the RVCP house! Much excitement and much walking with her stuff from one end of the town to ours. We never did catch the mouse but it did eat the poison (or at least some sort of rodent ate the poison) so either it got sick and died somewhere else or it's super resilient to rat poison. Judging by the size of it, it definitely could be the latter...

More information on Umuganda on the Rwanda Governance Board website: http://www.rgb.rw/main-menu/innovation/umuganda.html

Thanksgiving!

My internet has been terrible lately and I haven't had the chance to post anything! Lots has happened in the past few days, but it's too much for one post so here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving celebrations.

On Thursday, Lora had the day off work and Libby and I got down to making her a Thanksgiving feast to remember. Being from the UK, Thanksgiving is somewhat a mystery...something about turkeys and potatoes and pumpkins. First we got decorating the house:

Then we prepared pumpkin. A lot of pumpkin.

Then we prepared potatoes, sweet potatoes, caramelised onions, green bean casserole with white mushroom sauce and pumpkin-and-potato-stuffed chapattis, and pumpkin cake and apple welsh cakes for dessert. 

And then we invited some US Peace Corps guys to celebrate with us and ate an insane amount of food

It was great to get to know some new people, have some great food and celebrate a new holiday! Now we can properly get ready for Christmas - the Christmas music is currently on, the joint Advent calender has been made and plans are being made for the big day (the only plans at the moment involve buying a big box of South African wine).

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.