Rwandan Ramblings

This week has been very busy with a visit from the VSO film crew, more Sign Language sessions and a visite educative to a Usine du the the other side of Nyungwe Forest with one of the classes of children from the Centre Sourds et Muets.

The film crew were great although I was somewhat thrown by a few of the questions- what skills have I brought to Rwanda? Not many of any use or interest to anyone!! What skills will I be taking away when I leave? Endless ability to sit and gaze into space during interminable ceremonies, learning to shake hands a hundred times a day, controlling one's temper under extreme duress, making oneself very small on a taxibus??

Then they asked me to speak some Welsh and of course my addled brain could only throw up French so I had to read it instead!

The Sign Language is going really well and I had all the teachers pretending to shop at the market to practice the fruit and veg vocab!!

Friday was the day of the great trip to vist Gisakura - a tea factory. It was a very long journey but it wa amusing to see the childrens' disbelief at miles and miles with no sign of habitation or any people! We saw a few monkeys on the way - wild excitement and then had a good tour of the tea place which was quite interesting - I had no idea the tea leaves started out so big! Rwandan tea is very fine and it wa fascinating to see the whole process in continuous operation.

We then had a picnic prepared by myself -nothing too elaborate - I was assisted to dispense it by the older girls as the teachers were far too busy taking photographs of themselves to do anything useful! I was pretty irritated with them and refused point blank to photograph them eating as they demanded,  telling them to take their own photographs as they had brought 2 cameras with them!!

The big excitement was returning to the forest fragment by the tea factory where there is a troop of very tame Colobus monkeys at which we gazed for ages. There were several babies and some big males all engaged in grooming, eating and monkeying about so the children and staff were tres contents. The drive home was very beautiful as the light now is perfect - very soft and glorious pink mauve sunset.

Next week I'm going to Kigali and Giterama to join the rest of the Disability tema to do some training in the VSO office and at a teacher training College. I haven't yet decided if I'll go to the Brit Embassy Queen's birthday do next weekend.

The most amusing headline in one of the English newspapers reads" Kigali sluts for CHOGC" accompanied by a picture of the Queen. Apparently the fairly imminent Commonwealth heads of Government Conference is to take place in Kampala so all the Kigali prostitutes are rushing hotfoot to Kampala "where the grass is greener"!!

This week has been very busy with a visit from the VSO film crew, more Sign Language sessions and a visite educative to a Usine du the the other side of Nyungwe Forest with one of the classes of children from the Centre Sourds et Muets.

The film crew were great although I was somewhat thrown by a few of the questions- what skills have I brought to Rwanda? Not many of any use or interest to anyone!! What skills will I be taking away when I leave? Endless ability to sit and gaze into space during interminable ceremonies, learning to shake hands a hundred times a day, controlling one's temper under extreme duress, making oneself very small on a taxibus??

Then they asked me to speak some Welsh and of course my addled brain could only throw up French so I had to read it instead!

The Sign Language is going really well and I had all the teachers pretending to shop at the market to practice the fruit and veg vocab!!

Friday was the day of the great trip to vist Gisakura - a tea factory. It was a very long journey but it wa amusing to see the childrens' disbelief at miles and miles with no sign of habitation or any people! We saw a few monkeys on the way - wild excitement and then had a good tour of the tea place which was quite interesting - I had no idea the tea leaves started out so big! Rwandan tea is very fine and it wa fascinating to see the whole process in continuous operation.

We then had a picnic prepared by myself -nothing too elaborate - I was assisted to dispense it by the older girls as the teachers were far too busy taking photographs of themselves to do anything useful! I was pretty irritated with them and refused point blank to photograph them eating as they demanded,  telling them to take their own photographs as they had brought 2 cameras with them!!

The big excitement was returning to the forest fragment by the tea factory where there is a troop of very tame Colobus monkeys at which we gazed for ages. There were several babies and some big males all engaged in grooming, eating and monkeying about so the children and staff were tres contents. The drive home was very beautiful as the light now is perfect - very soft and glorious pink mauve sunset.

Next week I'm going to Kigali and Giterama to join the rest of the Disability tema to do some training in the VSO office and at a teacher training College. I haven't yet decided if I'll go to the Brit Embassy Queen's birthday do next weekend.

The most amusing headline in one of the English newspapers reads" Kigali sluts for CHOGC" accompanied by a picture of the Queen. Apparently the fairly imminent Commonwealth heads of Government Conference is to take place in Kampala so all the Kigali prostitutes are rushing hotfoot to Kampala "where the grass is greener"!!