There is a resource room – this consists of using empty rice sacks with picture which have been drawn on with permanent marker.

We haven’t actually been in any classrooms yet – apart from once when i got caught in a shower when i was on the back of a moto and we had to stop and dive in for shelter as it was raining too fast to carry on. It was a bizarre half hour sitting with all these Rwandans on the school benches until the rain stopped and no one saying a word. There was nothing in the room apart from the benches and the blackboard. Nothing on the walls at all and just a concrete floor. Its going to be a bit of a change from using the interactive whiteboard.

Thursday 2nd October
Beginning to get a bit fed up with lack of interest from VSO in our situation.

We are still in the hotel and have been here over a week now not doing any work. Even if they find us a house in Butare – and so far the district office haven’t come up with anything – there are still huge problems with transport. There is no bus service and the motos are expensive – that can’t come out of our pockets as we simply cannot afford it.

Sent the message at 9 am and we had a phone call back at 2 minutes past. Later I actually told Charlotte straight out that if this placement had been thought through properly and had been well prepared we would have been in a house and working by now and someone should have done their homework and realised that it is a placement which essentially needs the volunteers to have their own motorbikes as there is no real convenient form of transport. She should also have known that there were no suitable houses in the village of Gisagara. She simply apologised which at least acknowledged my point.
So that kind of brings me up to where i am right now. Today is really hot and sunny and it would have been a good day for a swim. I have found out that there is a swimming pool at the hotel credo but not been to check it out yet.

So bye for now

If you want to see photos Ruairi has posted some on his blog
The address iss www.roheithir@blogspot.com
Friday 4th October
An interesting day in the scheme of things. We set out in the rain to catch the bus at 6.30 am only to find that it is always full of workers and we were not allowed on. Unable to face a moto in the rain we jumped in a taxi. We were due to attend a meeting of headteachers at 9.30. True Rwandan style it actually started at 10.30. I had to make a short presentation in French and then Ruairi and then we had to sit through four hours of Kinyarwande without a break.
Later at the internet cafe I e mailed mike the country director for VSO and asked him for an urgent meeting to discuss our placement.

Saturday 4th October

Its raining very hard!! We have walked to see a house and it would be okay once it had a good clean. Its has several bedrooms and three bathrooms and a lovely view. Just not sure whether everything will work out so that we can eventually live there........



Because I didn’t manage to get this blog set up until I arrived in Butare I haven’t mentioned how much we are actually getting paid for this work that we are supposed to be doing. VSO pay us 15000RWF a month which works out at £150 approximately. That means we are living on around £5.00 a day. This kind of puts it into perspective when you consider a moto ride up to Gisagara is 4000 RWF (£4.00) round trip. To visit Rwanda is very cheap for British people and there is a tempatation when you are here to think that you are well off. For example i went for a swim at the Novotel in Kigali one day and it was 3500 RWF ie £3.50 but in relation to what I am earning that swim realistically cost me around £70.

I haven’t even started trying to live on my salary yet. I feel a fraud as we haven’t started work – so am having to be very careful what I spend. But once I do start living on it I am going to have to be very careful. A large beer is 900cents ie 90p but put that into the context of what I am actually earning and it is much more – more like £30 so if you have two beers a night you have spent £60 in relation to your earnings – won’t be doing that for sure once i am living on VSO salary.

This is nothing really when you consider that the majority of the Rwandan population actually live on 10pence a day. Primary school teachers earn £30 a month. 90% of the whole population live on what they can grow. All rather scary statistics.

But yet they are lovely people always smiling and joking and really friendly and the country is very beautiful with spectacular scenery around every corner.

So today is Saturday and I have at least found the swimming pool but its not very warm weather and certainly not hot enough to swim and then laze around the pool. It seems quite amazing that I am in the centre of Africa and the weather is so mild – just like a nice summer’s day at home. And also often cloudy by early tea time before the heavens open!!

We actually had a small earthquake the other night. It was enough to make the bed shake and in my half dream like sleep i thought it was just some big fat bloke turning over in bed in the next room at the motel as the walls are quite thin!!!!!

Another funny story concerns Ruairi – he had stood up to greet a Rwandan woman and had not realised that in Rwandan fashion she had a baby strapped to her back with a cloth – he leaned forward to kiss three times on the cheek as you do and put his hand round the woman’s back and promptly poked her baby right in the eye and made it scream! But there are no pushchairs here- mothers simply wrap them on their backs until they are old enough to walk. We worked out the other day that people walk about all the time because they can’t afford to catch a bus or a moto and also because its probably dark and cold inside their houses!!!!

Sunday 5th October

I have had enough of hanging around. Another volunteer named Soraya has some teacher training workshops which she has to do on her own Monday and Tuesday so I have decided to go up and give her a hand. I catch the bus with Bearte an Australian volunteer of German descent and get off at Giterama. Its better to catch the larger express buses on long journies if you can afford it and not the other buses which I have now nicknamed sardine buses on account of the number of people they cram on. But they still drive far too fast especially round bends and overtake in the craziest places. The driving is utterly reckless and its always a relief to get off.

Soraya met me from the bus and took me to her house where I had completely forgotten that Hayley was living too. Its big and has some electricity including solar power but they still only have a charcoal cooker which they cook on in an outbuilding while sitting on the floor.

I am invited to MUzungu dinner. On Sunday all the foreigners living in Giterama meet up to have a meal together in a local restaurant. Well I will call it restaurant but on the menu are chips, omelette and chips or brochette and chips and thats about it. Quite normal for here. Great to meet up with other volunteers and share stories. Apparently Ruairi and I are quite famous with the things that have happened to us since we arrived.