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.