The Kigali Expat Housing Roundabout

Recently Bettine came back to Kigali after a 3 year absence – her husband is back again working for DED, a German government cooperation agency. She told me I was one of the few people still around from her former days, Kigali expats usually have a two year or under turn around time…there’s only a few odd characters who stay longer.

Bettine told me a good story the other day. She had been invited to a party at someone’s house and while being given directions to the place, she suddenly realized that the part was in fact being held at her previous residence.

Strange, incestuous ex-pat circles…

Surely you're joking Mr Kagame

Immigration deposit? Immigration donation, more like...

The tale of my battle to wrestle back my 1000USD from the Goverment of Rwanda continues. I went to Immigration on that Monday and after waiting two hours and nearly having a melt down in the process, I finally got my letter.

So its happily ever after? Not quite....
Immigration tell me I need to bring the slip to Rwanda Revenue Authority to get my cash. So bright and early the next morning I go to the shiny new RRA offices (all paid for by the British taxpayer I might add). I talked to 3 different people before I finally found somone who understood I was trying to get my deposit back and not PAY it! There was then a little confusion since I paid the deposit to the Banque Nationale de Rwanda in 2005 and since then operations have changed and been taken over by RRA. After a few phone calls to the boss, we were in business. I was told to call the Acting Head of Finance the following friday to see if she had treated my request. Y'see as the letter from Immigration was addressed to the Commisioner General of RRA, the commisioner would have to review the letter and scribble something on it before it would be treated.

I was busy on Friday so I called back last Monday morning instead, where I talked to the nice Finance lady a couple of times before we worked out that I could pick up my letter on Tuesday morning. When I got there on Tuesday I found the new building atomspherically being circled by vultures. My friend Kieran the Taxman, a fellow Irish working on a DFID contract in RRA for more years then he cares to admit, assured me that that birds of prey were there for the crickets who swarm on the building becuase of the floodlights and not because of any kinship between taxmen and vultures. In any case I felt like I was approaching the bad guys castle in some fairy story.

After an hour of waiting for the finance lady to come to her office or answer her phone, I left. Sometime around 2pm, she called to say I could pick up the letter so I went back and got the letter. The copy of a letter address to the Secretary General of the National Treasury in Minecofin (Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning), directing THEM to repay my immigration deposit.

Lets recap here: in order to get 1000usd back I have had to spend 5 weeks and visit no less than 6 goverement and parastatal bodies looking for various forms. Now I've been around enough to know about the convoluted processes in goverment but this was getting bloody riduculous. The National Treasury were now getting involved in the fiasco?!?

After another small meltdown and taking the decision that this was not the week to reduce my dose of tranquilizers, I hopped on a moto and went to Minecofin to see what horrors awaited me there.

I was shown to the central secretariat where I found the ICT director, who I knew from my time with the Ministry of Infrastructure. After the usual greetings and general chit chat it was ascertained that the orginal of my letter had not yet arrived from RRA - where I had just come from! I was silently fuming....why give me a copy of a letter and tell me to investigate here and leave the orginal back at the office I just came from...everyone told me it was madness to chase the immigration deposit, now I was fuelled by pure thickheadedness...the more shit they threw at me, the more determined I was to cut through it. Maybe that IS the definition of madness??

So, the nice lady at the secretariat told me there was nothing they could do for me that day, esp since all the directors were at the annual Goverment-Donor hug in for the next 2 days. The DPCG Conferenence as its called proports to be a partnership excercise between GoR and its main donors but mostly serves to tell the Govt what the donors are prepared to give money for in the next year so that they can adjust their plans accordingly. So I left in search of some lunch and some tranquilizers.

I returned for more punishment yesterday morning, to be told that the letter had only just reached the secretary of the SG of the national tresury and that I should check back next monday 3rd dec.

My flight to Europe leaves on 16th and I was hoping to get out of Rwanda before then. Its looking a bit tight though...once the SG gives his order the cash goes from the National Treasury to the National Bank and then to my Bank. God only knows how long that will that. As a side note, back in 2005 when I made the deposit the process pretty much stopped once Immigration gave the all clear. Immigration would issue a letter to the National Bank to pay back the money, in cash if desired - essentially subventing the whole RRA-Minecofin-Bank transfer route.

Sometimes there's nothing like progress to really screw things up...

Yet another day at the bank...

I went to Central Bank today to try and cash my cheques from KIST. There's so much overhead in terms of staff time to prepare and sign cheques, then take them to be cashed that I wonder why they don't have a system whereby employees can get paid via bank transfer for off payroll monies. I guess that would be far too sensible...

Although the queue is small, I wait in line for ages as the cashier disappeared off somewhere for a while. I'm 3rd in line behind the customer being served and an enormous man in a suit. Some friend of his approaches and they banter a bit, the friend ending with the question in Kinyarwanda "is this your mzungu?" obviously intended for me and with not too subtle, lecherous undertones. I banshee them both in French, pointing out that I have nothing to do with his friend and that its extremely rude to talk about someone as if they weren't there. The friend looked suitably chastend and sloped off, and I'm left looking like a bit of a loon. Again.

Immigration has the last laugh....

So I need to get my immigration deposit back, almost 1000USD held by the national bank of rwanda untill I can prove I'm a good girl and get it back again. But the process is so long and problematics that most expats I know just leave it in the bank!

Knowing this, I hire a student to do the running around for me. Get immigration to sign a paper authorising BNR to pay you back your deposit currently requires:

Clearance Certificate from Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA)
Clearance Certificate from Caisse Social (CSR) , social security agency
Clearance Certificate from Electrogaz, the water and electricity company
Clearance Certificate from Rwandatel
Copy of passport
Copy of visa
The orginal deposit recieving certificate from BNR
plus the ORGINAL bank slip on which the deposit was made

Clearance certificates essentially state that you owe no debt to the institution. Rwandatel and CSR were fairly easy as I never used their services. RRA meanwhile, require you to apply for a Tax number in order for them to tell you that your (brand new) tax number has no tax oweing on it. Ahh...the wonders of well implemented IT systems in government. Electrogaz required my prepaid electricity meter number (hello? debts on prepaid systems??), the rental contract with my landlord (which i only had for 2005, but solved with some creative photocopying), and a letter from the friend with whom I've been staying since the rental period elapsed stating I have no obligations on bills at his place. Each institution of course required a fee for the certificate which needs to be paid, in advance, at the revenue office in the city centre.

So last friday, my student finished her work and presented me with the 4 certificates after a mere 2 weeks of full time running around Kigali. Best 50$ I spent in a long time. And I depose my papers at Immigration to be told that all was in order and that I could collect my BNR repayment instructions yesterday. I go there yesterday and wait an hour to be told that there was an error and someone forgot to take it to be signed, but all is in order and I should come back today. I ask if I can call someone to see if its ready before coming again. I get a number.

So today I call over 6 times to the number, which no one picks up. I'm already pretty pissed at the guy for giving a number that no one answers - its the guys own mobile I later find out. So 45 mins later when I get to see him, he tells me its not signed becuase I need to bring in my current work permit to be cancelled because I'm leaving Rwanda. I point out that the deposit relates to my 2005 work permit and thats already cancelled, and anyway I can claim my money back without leaving Rwanda.

He tells me thats true but since I stated on the demand letter that I'm leaving, now I have to bring in the work permit. Bollox! The lady at work who deals with visas has my work permit in her office...or at least she did before she left her job to join her husband in the uk. What do you think my chances of finding this particular needle in the administrative haystack??

For the next 30mins I proceed familiarise the guy with KIST administration, flight problems, resignation memos waiting for the orginal copy to reach to finance from salaries, the logical premise of the deposit being attached to OLD permit not my current one until he relented and saw that it was more of a pain in the ass not to help me than to help me (this is usually the only way to get service in govt offices here). So he made a few calls and it was agreed if I change my cover letter to remove a reference to leaving rwanda AND brought a copy of my current contract, I could collect the signed certificate to present to BNR that same day. I was still furious and upset at the same time, I didn't know whether to cry or punch the wall. It was a timely reminder of exactly why I can no longer operate in this country.

After a lunchtime spent in immigration, I hurried back to work hungry and found the HR guy in the hope he'd be able to give me a copy of my contract. My plan was to print a cover letter and get my collegue at work to deposit the docs and collect the certificate for me, as I couldn't stand to see Immigration again, PLUS if I came back on monday they may have changed their minds and wanted yet another document from me. I couldn't go myself as I had a presentation to make.

In the end almost no one turned up for the presentation because of rain and my collegue came back emptyhanded because I had failed to impress upon him enough that he should not listen to the Immigration guy but should stand there and annoy him till he got the certificate signed. Now I'm left with a particularly Rwandan ex-pat afflication: Post Immigration visit Homicidal rage syndrome.

And I have to go back there on monday...

Another day at the Bank...

I had to go to my Bank today to get them to authenticate my signature so that UBS in Switzerland can open an account for me before I get to Europe. This is so I can pay my appartment deposit so I can get the keys when I arrive. Honestly with Rwanda exit process and Swiss entry process, I may be a dribbling mess by the time i arrive. But I digress...

I am directed to a Customer Manager chick with an office and while she is gone to verify my signature with the one held on their computer, a couple of random Rwandans come into her office and talk among themselves, not really acknowledging me. Untill I hear the guy say to the woman in Kinyarwanda "Oh, this is a nice looking white lady". I turn and say thanks to him in Kinyarwanda and they both howl with laughter. And I'm in a good mood, but I still dislike the habit here of talking behind peoples back while being in front of their face, just because you assume they can't understand you.

The dangers of flaunting contraband

I visited my tailor on the way to work today. I'm getting a load of clothes copied before I head back to the frozen north. André is a great little guy, even if he never has the clothes ready when he says he will.

At lunch i'm still walking around with the plastic bag I had some of my clothes in...I took it out of my wardrobe where its probably been hanging for years. I go to the Happy Rwanda buffet for lunch, and I go there at least once a week cause it has Rwandan lunch buffet convience but with European twist. Its owned and run by an italian and its relatively expensive but goood. Anyway the waitresses there know me a bit. After I've finsihed my lunch and paid and am about to leave, one of the waitresses says to me "they will condemn you for that".

And while I'm processing this and trying to parse it, i see she is pointing (with her lips of course, not her finger) to the plastic bag. She's right, some idiot with a uniform or maybe even a member of the general public will give me hassle for an illegal plastic bag even though its probably been in my house since before the ban in 2005. I thank her and hide the plastic bag in my breifcasey bag....only in Rwanda...

I need to kill the security guard...

There's a security guard at my bulding that I pass almost every day, and I greet him sometimes. Or I must have done something to make him think i'm nice! As i'm walking into the building today I get greeted by a guy I don't recognise (not a normal occurance in Rwanda so I'm wondering what he wants). Immediately he says he's heard i'm running a project and I might need staff and his wife is unemployed. Not for him, you see, for his wife and she needs work cause she's unemployed (her and a large proportion of the population). I told him we were all booked up, thanks. But he kept insisting and even going as far as to say that it was like a favour he was asking from me (hello? A personal favor from a guy I've never met?).

At this point I decide to get Rwandan on his ass. I ask him where he works - he is a KIST technican, so I probably dont know him, as opposed the to many other people who approach me and seem to know me, and who I have met but can't remember - then I ask him how he knows about my project. He tells me the security guard told him!!

Now about two weeks back, I was giving out questionnaires to 26 surveyors and the only meeting room in the building was occupied. My office is too small for that kind of logistics so I had to improvise and use the space under the stairs near the student toilets. I remember the guard asking what was going on and, thinking it was a security concern, I told him I was runing a survey and these were my surveyors. I had made the fatal mistake of volunteering information and now I was paying for it.

Sometime later in the day, we did some planning for the second week of the survey and it transpired that we needed extra staff to cover all schools remaining. I turned to Albert who had helped me recruit the first batch. One guy he sent looked a bit, well, rural. Smelt that way too. He said he'd done a HIV survey at some point but seemed extremely shy and nervous. I began to wonder how he would talk up to school directors. I gave him the contract to sign, and told him "Print your name in capitals on this page, signature and date on this page" (its a two page contract). He hesistated and his hand was shaking when he took the pen, it hovered over the page in an ominous fashion before he began to sign where he should print. Not a good sign, I thought, two clear directions and he has fucked it up. Maybe not the brightest (or the cleanest).

The clinch came when it transpired he didn't have a phone. We said we needed him to have one and it gave me the excuse I needed not to give him a contract. He went away dejected looking, meanwhile I was relieved. He returned some minutes later saying he could get a phone, but we still said no. Then he tried a different tack, claiming what was he to do, he was poor and needed work.

God that pissed me off, was he looking for a job or begging on the street?

I told him that a lot of people were poor and that we were sorry he wasn't right for the job. Then, a thought struck me....how did he know Albert? He said he didn't but that he heard about the job from his brother - the security guard!

And just when you thought it was safe to enter the office...

Its 11:05, I’ve been in work for just over three hours. This is my day so far:

Visit to the Director of Finance (DF) to get him to sign an invoice for Microsoft. He already signed this yesterday and I sent it off but MS said I needed to address it them. So I come in early to find the DF. I get there and he asks for yesterdays copy, so I return to my office and bring it for him. He signs and destroys the first copy.

Now I need his secretary Milly to put the official stamp on the invoice so I can scan it and send it to MS to get the money to finish the survey that we are in the middle of…

Meanwhile, I need to see the Vice Rector Admin and Finance on some urgent matters relating to getting payment for my surveyors by next Monday. But he is ill so I return back to the DF for advice. He tells me I need to see Celestin the chief accountant about accounting for the Imprest (petty cash) they gave me last week so I make the request for the surveyors salary and more petty cash at the same time.

Celestin tells me I need to have a copy of the original payment slip to fill in the Imprest retirement form and that this should be with Milly. While I’m up in the accounts department I decide to check on my request for my flight home (a benefit of my contract) with the Procurement officer. I sent the request for my terminal benefits to the Director of Administration last week and she says she’s sent it on to all concerned. But Raymond, the procurement officer is not around, so I ask JB the purchasing officer for advice. Unfortunately he is more interested in getting me to go out for a drink with him and although he does help me speak to Raymond, I have to endure a bunch of shit from him about taking him for a drink. Some people just don’t recognise a big glaring NO when they see it.

So anyway Raymond hasn’t seen my flight request as yet and he suggests I follow it up with DA. When I go to see her, she isn’t in. So I go back down to Milly’s office, and luckily she is in this time. I get my letter stamped but she tells me that the payment slip is still with the cashier, Jean Baptist up in accounts! I trudge back up to accounts again to find out that Jean Baptist is at a workshop till tomorrow.

Final act of my ‘Asterix in house of insanity’ drama: Celestin tells me that there should be a copy of my payment slip, with the required cheque number, down in Milly’s office. We find it there and Celestin shows me how to fill out the Imprest retirement form, we return to his office and just when I think we are almost done, he tells me that the paperwork for my photocopying expenses is not correct. The recipts say “Bordereux d’expedition” and not “Facture”. So I run down to Secam, the photocopy joint, where they give me an identical piece of paper to the one I had, except it says “Facture” on the top. As an extra bonus I find both Raymond and the DAs secretary. My flight request is up for approval in the Director of Finance office, BUT I can already book my flight with on of the approved travel agencies.

As I settle down to a well deserved cup of tea, I try not to think about how none of the running around I’ve done this morning is actually part of my job. It’s the same all over the Rwandan public institutions, every single person has to do their own administration and so much time is wasted doing “non-work”. I thankful for tranquilizers…or I’d have been pretty angry by now.

Desperate Housegirls

Like a strange African version of Desperate Housewives, you might find it hard to believe what goes on with domestic staff around here. It might be a little weird to some of my readers who have never lived in a country where manual labour is dirt cheap, but you get quickly very accustomed to have domestic staff - to cook, to drive, to clean up after you, wash your clothes and do your gardening.

Most people have at least one live-in staff member, either the guard or the “housegirl”, or maybe both. My male friends have been telling me stories about the odd behaviours of some of their staff.

Take the case of Mr. A, happily married with two kids and wife all living in Kigali with him. He starts getting protestations of love from an unknown person over email. At first he thinks it’s a practical joke by one of his friends. Then the emails start to get a bit psycho (“I can’t live without you and I see you around with female friends. I don’t like it”) and very, very sexually explicit. Mr A was freaking out a bit by the end. He eventually found out that the emails were from a young woman he had engaged to give him language lesions!

Next is the case of Mr B and Ms C, who are expecting a baby. So they move from Ms C’s one room apartment, where they have been living, and move into a 3 bedroom house taking Ms C’s married cleaner, who has worked with Ms C for several years, with them to the new place. Ms C flies home a few months earlier to wait for the birth and Mr B stays to continue working. During this time he temporarily rents his spare room to Mr. D (single and on assignment in Kigali for a short time). Still with me?

Well, no sooner is Ms C out of the way than the cleaner starts leaving notes for Mr B declaring that she is madly in love with him. Mr B is a little perturbed and doesn’t know what he should do…he wonders how the heavily pregnant Ms C will take all this nonsense. So he goes out with Mr D to have a few beers and discuss the problem, only to find the cleaner has been making the same declarations of love to Mr D!

Sounds like the plot of a badly dubbed Spanish daytime soap? Nope…just another day on the weird side of life…

Kigali is short on entertainment so I’m engaging in some Prison Breaks

One of my particularities is that I can live without TV quite happily but when I do get some opportunity to watch, I tend to overdose. While in Kenya I brought the complete 2 seasons of Prison Break on a pirate DVD with Chinese subtitles. Most people know of the series about the brother of an innocent man on death row getting himself incarcerated in order to break them both out of jail.

On the surface, it sounds like a modern day remake of The Fugitive, except that the whole of the first series cleverly takes place in the closed world of the prison. The second series manhunt is more reminiscent of the Fugitive but in fact the whole franchise owes much to other, more modern sources...

It has LOST’s focus on a ensemble of characters and their multiple storylines, it has 24’s “one highly skilled man against the system, with insiders double crossing each other” and its breakneck pace. It has both 24 and LOST’s page turner endings and also has elements Big Brother in the “who is going to be eliminated next?” angle. There’s even a satellite tracking shot in the second series that could have been lifted directly from Google Earth and some close up eye shots straight out of Blairwitch. Despite its blatant derivative elements its pretty engrossing. At least when you live in central Africa.

Today’s Frivolities

Then I’m lunch just now, this guy comes and sits beside me. This is fairly standard in any restaurant when its busy – someone will just plonk themselves beside you without so much as an “is this seat free” or even a casual head nod or eye contact. But its almost 2:30pm, well off peak time and the canteen is pratically empty. So why has he sat beside me. He looks vaguely familiar, in the way most staff here do, but I don’t really know him…not even his name or in which department he works. He also greets me, which is again non standard. Perhaps he’s a foreigner (ie non Rwandan) or has grown up somewhere more friendly.

But after a brief pause he gets straight to his point.

“How can I get books from America?”

I mention Amazon and he says he has tried but can’t and maybe he needs to have an account or something. I tell him all he needs is access to a credit card. And of course he asks me if I can help him, if he gives me the money. I protest mildly, doesn’t he know anyone else with a credit card he can ask? (besides an almost complete stranger!). So he drops it. I’m quite wary these days of buying anything for people, unless its cash upfront and a little extra added for exchange rate losses. I have yet to hear of anyone getting refunded if they actually bring an item without being paid in full in advance.

Only three days back from almost 3 weeks out of Rwanda and I’m already getting cultural claustrophobia…everything seems much lighter and wider when I’m not in Rwanda.

So this morning, I’m doing my usual pathetic attempt at exercise by walking 5 minutes to the moto-taxis, instead of sending my guard/gardener out to bring one to the door. I walk past the “school of little assholes” near my house, whereupon 3 youths (early teens perhaps) jump out in front of me. Despite the fact they start in front of me they manage to get themselves positioned behind me and start making foolish noises, in what might be an attempt at English.

I’m totally fucked off with this kind of treatment in Rwanda, I think I maybe developing a phobia to teenagers. So on turning the corner on the top of my hill, I speak to the traffic cop who is usually in residence there and tell him to explain to the 3 boys that their behaviour is rude. I feel like a bit of an old granny, but it gives me some satisfaction and at least they scarper quickly rather than follow me all the way to the taxi stand.

Scams in Nairobi Airport

I had a hell of a layover in Jomo Kenyatta airport the other day, 6 hours waiting for a 1 hour flight, and after a night flight too. All because Rwanda, regional capital of all things ICT, has a national airline that cannot cope with the codeshare partners etickets. Hmph!

Instead of trying to find a comfortable piece of concrete on which to get some kip, I paid the 20$ and crashed out in one of the First Class lounges for a while. Admittedly part of this decision was in order to get away from an extremely grabby Indian colleague at KIST who also happened to be transiting through NBO that day. I’ve known him for most of my two years at KIST but at some point in the recent past, he has decided that its totally acceptable to handle me like some woman who hangs out at hotel bars looking for customers. Its really infuriating.

So after a while, I emerge from the refuge of the lounge to take a poke at the duty free shops. I run into grabby Indian talking with some other passenger in one of the main waiting areas. The other is a tall attractive guy with some kind of strangulated American accent who claims to be from Botswana. Neither his look or his accent fit with this, but who I am to judge?

He claimed to be held up on route to some UN job in Juba, South Sudan. He later said he’d missed a connection the day before and had slept in the airport. I thought at the time he looked remarkably fresh given that fact. I mentioned that Kenya Airways should have given him accommodation and he claims he knows that now but didn’t think to ask. So he toddles off and I check into the final waiting area – the one just before you board the flight.

Some time later, a lady working in the airport says I have a friend who wants to talk to me outside. I can see someone waving outside the glass but can’t see clearly who it is till I get back out past the hand luggage screening area. Its none other than our lost UN guy, claiming he has no money and can I lend him 2$ to check his email. Hmm…this was definitely being to feel like a scam.

On the other hand, many young Africans going to jobs or study abroad don’t have the means to travel with much cash, so they have no margin for error…if there’s a flight delay you go hungry, its not as if they have credit cards, bank cards, travellers cheques or a reverse charge call to home to use as back up! So I decide to err on the side of niceness and hand him 200 bob (200KES about $3.50). Then he asks for my email address, so I think maybe he is genuine…until I see where he asks me to write it. He presents the front page of the book he is reading, where there are scrawled at least half a dozen other email address in a haphazard fashion. Come to think of it the book looked pretty new too!

On the plane, I ask grabby Indian what the deal with the guy his. He says the guy told him that he actually got to Sudan but the paperwork wasn’t in order so he got thrown back.

“Work for UN and paper not in order?”, says the grabby Indian, “Impossible!”

So, two different stories, definitely a scam. Perhaps his final destination was Nairobi and hanging out at the airport for a while proved a lucrative venture. Wonder what he is going to do with my email address?

The "Liittle Princes" of Southern Africa

Some Caucasians from southern Africa are just plain assholes. So I’m getting into a pretty crowded Kenya Airways flight in Yaoundé to Nairobi. I have a bit of an oversized bag as I didn’t bring any check in luggage so I walk a bit down from my seat to find space in the overhead bins. I’m a bit tired and don’t really have a plan when I see some space behind a smaller bag that’s taking up a lot of needless space. Absentmindedly, I take down the bag and as I’m looking for some where to put it, I hear someone behind me hissing at me.

“Oi, put that back!”, I turned to see a rotund white guy with a southern African accent, South Africa probably but maybe Namibia or Zimbabwe, who knows.

A little later I thought perhaps a better way for this man to have approached this situation would have been to say “Excuse me, I’d like you to keep my bag where it is”. I wish I’d said something to that effect to him, instead I just said something about needing to find space, to which he replies “Well you don’t touch my bag, put it back”. God, so bloody rude and aggressive for no reason…and he is not the first white from that region with attitude. I wonder what kind of future can be for countries which such a high level of testiness.

One day at the bank....

So I'm queueing up to take some cash out of my dollar account for my impending voyages to Kenya and Cameroon and there's 3 Rwandan's at the counter.

One is speaking intermitantly in English, as is quite common here for those who grew up in Anglophone East Africa. Rwandans who grew up in Burundi and Congo liberally mix in French, Lingala and Swahili to their conversations. This guy then proceeds to say something about Europeans being happy with small families "I'll be like a European, two is enough for them".

I was pissed off. "Europeans", like "Africans", one singular job lot, all the same! Did he mean my sister with 4 kids, or my various cousins most of whom have at least 3? Did he mean Europeans in the sense of Germans, Central Russia, Immigrant families in France or what? Couldn't he wait to make his gross generalisations untill i was out of earshot? I get so sick of people here speaking as if I wasn't in the room.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be...

...certainly not around these parts!

As I was driving (err being driven) to work the other morning I started to think about things I would and wouldn't miss about life here. One aspect I certainly won't miss is that borrowing hasn't got quite the same meaning here as it does at home. In my normal scheme of things, when you borrow something there is an intention to give it back and usually you do give the thing back. If for some reason you fail or forget, you're supposed to feel bad, apologise and/or make amends.

I can't think of anything I lent to someone here that I actually got back again (apart from my camera...thanks Sive!). People here do seem to have the intention of giving things back, or at least they say so, they just never seem to give it back. Even when you ask. Over the years I've lent cds, dvds and plain cash to people, mostly never to be seen again.

I wondered if there was some strange thinking going on, like if you could 'afford' to be without the item or the money for some period of time, then perhaps you didn't really need it...and so it wasn't such a big deal not to return it.

How would you like to be offended today FAT WHITE WOMAN?

First thing this morning I went to see one of the senior management about being a wage check from Sept and Oct 2006. This has been an ongoing issue since February of this year and frankly I’m getting hacked off with asking.

While I’m waiting to see him, I see an old colleague…both in the sense that he’s much older than me and that he has left the institution for another job elsewhere. I remember once having a conversation with him about how Rwanda wasn’t the friendliest place sometimes and how I was trying to introduce a recently arrived Russian academic around town to help out. I can’t really remember how that conversation went but he figured out that I can speak some of the local language and addresses me as Mzungukazi, literally meaning White Woman. We haven’t seen each other since he left for the new job and when he greets me with it, I let it go even though it is an objectification of me, and depending on the tone can carry the same offensive potential as NIGGER. I don’t think he meant in that way, perhaps he just forgot my name.

Later, after I have started to read the book I brought (yes, it can take long enough to see senior mgt that its worth bringing reading material) and he has had a few other conversations with people floating through the secretary’s office/waiting room, he turns to me again.

“Well Mzungukazi,” and this time there is a trace of put-down in the appellation, “Bite?”

(a normal greeting in Kinyarwanda, like ‘how are you’)

“I’m fine”, I reply in English sourly, so that he knows he’s missteped

“So, how much Kinyarwanda do you know? What have you learned?”

Fuck that, I think, I’m not willing to be your little performing bear today, not after you’ve offended me. Many times I get the impression that people, especially those who are bilingual, don’t really want to converse with me in Kinyarwanda so much as see me doing my little party trick of trotting out some phrases. Sometimes I play, sometime I don’t. This is stark contrast to many people, esp. in rural areas who don’t speak English or French and are genuinely delighted to be able to communicate with a Foreigner. Even then, most people will keep going with more and more complicated Kinyarwanda until you finally admit you don’t understand them. They seem unable to feel satisfied unless they get to you a point where you are lost.

That guy gets the message I think and leaves me to my book. A little later the accountant from my former workplace comes into the office. I haven’t seem him in almost a year and we exchange pleasantries, which end in the very typical Rwanda statement “And you have gotten very fat!”. I think to myself ‘And you still look like a Somali refugee kid on Slimfast’, but I don’t reply to the comment.

You might be forgiven for thinking me uncharitable and that in Rwanda as in many cultures, telling people they look fat is a compliment. But they know very well is not in Europe, as the following conversation I had with a colleague in my first job in Rwanda shows:

“Oh, my you have gotten so fat” (This was true by anyone standards, I put on 10kg in my first year here)

“When you go back to Europe they will reject you, because they don’t like fat women there!”

Thanks friend!

On reflection, I'm not even that sure Rwanda is fat friendly. There have been a couple of instances in my time here which made me wonder. Like the only time I tried to date a Rwandan guy, who told me I was too heavy and he would pay for my gym subscription. Or the time I went to have a tennis lesson with a friend of mine who is a member at the Nyaruturama tennis club. Some Rwandan's were looking on at the lesson, having their beers and waiting for the court presumably. After they told my friend that he should put his "girlfriend" in aerobics first.

Fuckers! Its pretty obvious to me that for the great and good of Kigali society, fat is no longer a culturally appropriate compliment.

The good, the bad and the poultry

I’ve started getting off my motos at the taxi stand near my house (about .5km) as opposed to getting them to drive me to the door. It is partly a way to get a little exercise into my daily routine, admittedly not much, and partly cause it saves me some haggling on the price. The 5-10min walk, depending on how late I am, goes past a school populated by a bunch of generally evil little fuckers. Same attention, cat-calls and brattyness every day for three and a half years.

Absentmindedly I cross over the road and straight onto the path of some school girls walking in the opposite direction. Instantly I feel there’s going to be an incident, something in the way the move, like a pack. I consciously avoid looking at them or making eye contact. But one of them, to my left, says a word in Kinyarwanda, it’s the command form of a verb I don’t recognise but I do know it’s directed at me. She repeats it a couple more times shouting louder and louder, as she passes, practically in my ear. Angry, threatening. I briefly think about turning back and coldly slapping her on the face and telling her to have manners but they’ve already passed and its over. I heard her and her friends laughing up the road. Why am I the object of so much derision and aggression, when I just want mind my own business and walk home? I have started to dread being out on the street unless I have the cover of darkness.

Then when I get to the gate of my house there’s a guy and a kid nearby. They are both staring at me, as many people do, the guy particularly so. And I’m thinking, why do people have to bloody stare at me all the fucking time? First, that odious teenager, now this? All I’m trying to do is complete the short walk to my house in peace.

I’m not feeling charitable and start giving the guy the death stare. But he keeps staring right back at me. I put my bags down, all the while eyeballing him, and rummage in my coat pocket for the gate key. Then I give him my “so what the fuck to do want?” look and he mumbles a greeting in what might have been an attempt at French. Then he says something in Kinyarwanda about a chicken and, as far as I can see, points to Steve’s car parked in the driveway. Just when I start to wonder what all of this means, I see the beast and realise his chicken has run off into my garden and all he wants to go and reclaim it. And I feel like a prize asshole for having given him aggro.

Africa wins again…

Introducing the unoffical Honourary Consule for Ireland

The Irish embassy in Kampala just called...as usual when our Ambassador is coming to town, they want me to assemble the rag tag bunch of Irish citizens in Rwanda for a bit of a knees-up. They even passed a intern chick into my care in 2005, and I introduced her to the Indians. She may have recovered by now.

Uganda has tons of Irish due to the large assistance mission there. There are around 10 Irish in Rwanda, including one dodgy character among them who spent 2004-2005 crashing all the Embassy parties with her foreign office friends. I think the 2nd secretary for Germany actually believed me when I said I was the Honourary Consule because he'd seen me at all these events.

More recently I passed up the chance to work in the foreign service of a Central American country, after a sequence of work related activities following a chance meeting with one of their diplomats after I crashed a party of the president's office.

Life here does have its interesting moments....

DEAR FRIEND, I KNOW THAT THIS MESSAGE WILL COME TO YOU AS A SURPRISE.

Today I got this email from a guy I don’t know too well, and haven’t seen in many months. Hope the Anglophones out there can follow. Love the fact that its writing style bears resemblance to a 419 scam email!

--

bonjour aoife ,

c' est [Name Deleted] comment allez vous j'espere que vous etez en forme ca fait longtemp est ce que tu es en kigali ? . pardon encore de vous adresse pour vous c'est la premiere fois . mais ca continue si tu me promets . [he means “permets” I expect]

aoife j' ai un petit probleme . je deja prendre un cour d' electronic and ict en face de soras mais pour les moment l ' ecole me demande beaucoup de minerval parce que c'est tres chers . c'est qu' on a besoin pour vous ceci . tu as travail en [Workplace deleted] charge de mettre le telecentre dans les province , [Workplace] il prend les eleve en charge pour payer les frais de scolarite si tu connais ou moin des personne travailler las bas je vous demande de mettre en contact avec leurs . pour gagner les frais parce que je besoin de continuer mes etude en ict & electronics

j'entend votre bonne reponse bonne soire

[Name] [Phone Numer]

--

For those with French problems (or maybe I should say, without the problem of French) this is a plea for help for me to introduce the guy to someone in one of my previous workplaces to pay his fees for a course, presumably a night course or adult education thing. He states that my former workplace pays school fees for people.

Ok class, lets deconstruct the letter. Here’s some notable weirdness:

1. He doesn’t seem to know the name of the school he is attending , or it doesn't have a name, and lists it as “across the road from Soras" [insurance company offices]
2. This thing about me doing work on telecentres, was
1. From when I first came here in 2004, before he knew me
2. An aspect of my first position here which is not known to many people at all, even those who know me well professionally (mostly cause it never happened)
3. Not even attached to the workplace he lists but somewhere else I worked
3. The workplace he mentions certainly does not pay school fees for random people. Occasionally, yes it does pay for training for staff who have worked there over a reasonable period.
4. Actually this one is not weird but its worth noting that its almost impossible to get anything in this town (from a handout to a job) without knowing someone on the inside. Or knowing someone who can introduce you. The idea that its not what you know but who you know, is one of the most discouraging aspects for jobseekers here. Many young people I know simply don’t bother applying for advertised jobs where they don’t have an “inroad” of some kind.

Ok, so a few people in Kigali could have given him my email address but where did he get all this telecentre stuff from? Has he been Googling me? Hmmm…..

Reading Skills Needed

A random guy just came in my office, looking for Ms X from Finance Dept. This happens on a fairly regular basis despite the fact that there is a whacking great sign on our door saying PLANNING UNIT. Do they think we're kidding? Or is it just some freak trait, like people testing Wet Paint signs?

This oversight of signs nearly drove another collegue of mine to distraction. We were working on a project and the office assisgned to the project used to be the payroll office (or some similiar office often visited by randoms). She'd get 3-4 people a day asking her finance stuff even after she put a sign in Kinyarwanda saying something like "The payroll office has moved to the 3rd floor, please address all enquires to the 3rd floor".

It been often remarked upon that there is no reading culture here, but does this also apply to reading door signs?!

I won't even start on the fact that most managers here need to seriously develop some listening skills...

Power: The Ultimate Motivator!

Electricity – Rwanda doesn’t have half enough of it!

And one of the problems in modernising the government administration is that when your work goes computer based, and there’s no electricity, your productivity goes to zero. This might be tolerable in the capital, as these days we very rarely get serious power cuts in during office hours, but there are district offices who routinely shut up shop at midday. Even when there is power, I suspect I work as fast my internet connection these days – the faster it is, the more I do. Weird that one…

Its 3pm in KIST and I’ve got about an hour of battery on my laptop. After that if the power isn’t back up I’ll go home, like many others this afternoon. Of course we have a generator, it was on this morning…but it doesn’t seem to be working now. Maybe they ran out of petrol, maybe the whole city has (its not unusual for drivers to have to do a city tour to get a refill), god help us if is broken down….the procurement process will ensure we have no backup power for at least 6 months. Our PBX for internal telephones got fried in Feb and we’re still waiting and hoping.

I’ll just have to hope there is power at home. This is quite likely since I’m on the same supply line as the Presidents Office. I may actually have to do work, as it looks like rain and the satellite TV usually doesn’t work in a rainstorm. Just when you might need it most!

POST SCRIPT

The power did come back and eventually the Internet, which seemed to be run faster cause all the staff had buggered off. YAY!

One night at the hotel...

Why is it that the best hotels in Africa labour under the delusion that mosquito nets are not needed? Do they think their high prices are as much of a deterrent to the local insects as to the local population?

Apart from the period-style, very upmarket, 4 poster bed places, I have yet to see a good hotel in malarious areas with bed nets as standard. Perhaps in hotter climates than Kigali people never open the windows, using only the air con. But the Novotel here has stuffy rooms, no air-con and no bed nets!

Result: After one night with the Bf in his room, I have many huge ugly red welts on my back making it seem like I have some disease. Makes me wonder if there was a mozzie in the room or a small sized rat!

One night at the bar...

Last night on the way home I got a call from a consultant friend of mine, he was in a bar near his office and near to my home so I said I'd call in and have a beer with him. I was also waiting to meet my landlord, who was visiting from Europe and wanted to pick up some rent in local currency.

Little by little our group expanded as various IT consultants and American embassy constructors filed in for after work drinks. It was about 9pm when myself and my boyfriend (visiting from abroad) decided to leave - as the bill would be all mixed up with the various people joining at different times, we went to the bar to pay our share. Sitting up at the bar was a old african chap with a young white woman. I had a little look to see if I had seen her before, but no I hadn't and she looked to be new to the place....relatively revealing (by Rwandan standards) tube top and sunburn. Those of us who work here don't generally get sunburn for one reason or an other.

The bf had a stack of 100 franc notes from the last time he visited and wanted to get rid of them. 100s are the smallest notes and are worth about 15c! As the bar lady made the bill I counted out, 2 thousands and ten 100s from the pile the bf had given me, and left the remainer four 100 franc bills seperate. Next thing the old guy, who I assume was Rwandese but couldn't be sure as he was speaking in French only, reaches over (not too much of a reach as the bar counter was quite full) and takes the 400 francs.

"Excuse me", says i in French "what do you think you are doing?"
"Oh, this is not my money?" he replies

I that point i feel a familiar rush of adrenaline, THIS GUY IS TRYING TO FUCK WITH ME. He clearly thinks I am drunker than him and that I wont remember if its really my money. Or maybe he thinks i'm the kind of mzungu who wont think anything of donating 400francs to a guy drinking whiskey (so not exactly poor). So I reply slowly, coldly, giving him the death stare but not knowing how exactly I'm going to react yet as its become fairly clear that he is fairly drunk
"You know well its not your money, so you'd do well to turn back to your companion....before I cause some trouble - Are you going to make me give you trouble over 400francs?"

"Ya", says he "give me trouble" (hmmm, I wasn't expecting this)
"oh you want a piece of me?", says I seriously considering decking the guy although aware that I'm sounding like some bad movie dialogue.

We go eye to eye for a few seconds while I consider my options. I decide to back down, bf is here and we dont have much time together. Plus I don't want the bf thinking i'm a complete violent psycho...I mean, in that moment, I was acting like one but I keep hoping this a stress related thing and I'll revert to acting more normally, in more normal circumstances.

I wrestle the 400francs out his claws....he was keeping a tight grip till the last....while him and his attractive sunburnt companion laugh like its the funniest thing they have seen in ages. This angers me more and I pass a remark to the bar lady on the standard of clientele she's admitting. After paying the bill, I flick the 400francs at the man and tell him to take it if he is such a desperate person. But the blood is still pumping and I wonder why such a simple thing as paying a bill can become such a nightmare. I exit the bar to more uproarous laughter from the snozzled guy and the white chick.

After we leave, the bf, who doesn't speak French, asks for an explaination. So I translate what has just taken place but it doesn't leave either of us any closer to understanding.