Just because its a lovely image of Lake Kivu. Took this one while staying with Joe at NYamsheke.

Had to include this just to get a flavour of Kinyarwanda. Its such a fiendishly difficult language but I relished the challenge of learning any of it. I could manage very basic conversations but this was always to the sheer delight and amusement of Rwandans. If you said so much as a "mwaramutse" they thought you could speak Kinyarwanda! That means good morning by the way, although the literal translation apparently means, "I hope you slept as well as I wished you would."

This is one of the volcanoes at dusk looking at it from the nearest settlement which is Ruhengeri. Its kinda weird because the town is already at twice the height of Ben Nevis and then these volcanoes dominate the skyline. This is one of the smaller ones - about a third the size of Everest.

Was invited to a christening and typical Rwandan when we got there at 9 am on Sunday morning, having negotiated riding on a motorbike in a skirt, the christening had already happened. So we stayed for the church service little realising that it was going to be five hours long! I took this shot when I was bored and wandering around the back of the church with a numb backside.

Hi I am home now for anyone still reading this but there are some great photos that I wanted to just add. It has been an amazing experience and I am so glad that I did it. I have had my ups and downs with VSO but at the end of the day I came home feeling that I had achieved some of the things I had set out to do and feeling positive about it all.

So signing out with a smile and a few last photos ............

I just think this a beautiful simple image of two men in their dug out canoe. The one standing is using a tree branch as his pole and they will stay until they have caught enough fish for their dinner.

Sometimes I wonder who needs progress?

This wooden boat is at the posh end of the boat scale in Rwanda. It is made of pieces of wood tightly fastened together and sealed. These guys were rowing against a fast flowing current upstream, but they still managed to ask us for "amafaranga" ie money. The best one I have heard is someone who swam up to Hayley while she was swimming in the lake and asked her for some money!

Many of the ordinary fishing boats that you see are simply a large tree trunk which has been hollowed out and they are really unstable. That is the Congo on the bank at the other side!

This is me at Chyangugu - the land atthe other side of the lake that you can see in the distance is the Congo. This is the southernmost town in Rwanda where there is a border crossing into Congo. We went right up to the border which is a narrow one way bridge, with a small customs post and an armed guard. It was all quite casual really, but obviously wealthy across the other side in Bakuva. We didn't bother going across but sat and had a beer by the narrow fast flowing river, knowing that the bank at the other side was in a different country which was quite weird!

There was a large earthquake here only about a year ago and there is still a lot of methane in the lake. There were many fishermen out in their dug out canoes while we were there though, hauling the tiny fish that they make into simbasa, which is like dried whitebait.

Talking of earthquakes I have actually experienced three while I have been here,. There was a small one last night which I could actually feel moving along in a line under the ground. A month or so ago there was one at 7 am. The floor was moving one way backwards and forwards for a long time and the walls seemed to be going in the opposite direction. The first one was in Butare when I was in the motel and I was a bit too asleep to notice. I thought it was just a big fat bloke turning over in bed in the room next door!!!!

This is passion fruit growing in our garden. There are dozens of fruits on the plant along the fence. Its not ripe yet but I hope I can pick one before I come home. We also have bananas trees. These two fruits plus pineapple are our three choices of pudding, although oranges seem to be in season too at the moment.

To us it may seem that there are no growing seasons as each day we usually have some sunshine and some rain, which combined with fertile soils makes this country a perfect place to grow things. Everywhere you look, no matter how small the plot, Rwandans will have planted something, and they will know the best time to plant them and things do grow very quickly. A field will be planted with some small bean plants and in a couple of weeks they are two metres tall. And no matter where you are, out of the major town centres, there will be someone nearby labouring in the fields, usually with only a simple hoe which is used in a smiliar way to a pick. I can never work out how they seem to know whose plot of land is whose, but they do. Any excess is then taken to market to be sold.

It has to be done! It is the only way we can get to some schools and it can be as much as an hour up the dirt road clinging on for dear life. I could now enter for the pillion passenger motor bike scrambling championship especially after the rain when the roads are no more than muddy puddles held together by a few small solid patches. Basically you just have to pretend that you are a sack of potatoes and hope that he wants chips for dinner. The only trouble is that potatoes don't hurt when they fall off. These guys know what they are doing though and can get up inch wide gaps between the puddles and the potholes and I just presume they do not fall off any more than I do. It always seems easier after a couple of Mutzigs but this was at 12 noon so a bit early for that!

Everywhere you walk you get a crowd - its a bit like being the Pied Piper, or at least I get an idea how the queen must feel now, because everyone stares at you and waves like you are royalty. We had just gone for a long walk around the other side of the valley one day and this was one of the first crowds we picked up so they got their photo taken. They had not started to ask us for "amafaranga" ie money at this stage, because they were not used to seeing musungus in their area. But they probably did. It seems to be becoming the greeting when they see us to ask for money without even bothering to say hello sometimes. You can understand it if you think about it. But it is hard to be constantly bombarded with it.

I am absolutely hooked on these wonderul african fabrics. Decided to go the whole hog here and add the african headdress too. This was taken at the st patricks day ball at the serena which was an extravagent affair and cost me about one third of my month's wages!! But it was fun.

My house in Shyogwe is isolated in a funny sort of way in that it is an hour's walk from the main road. We can get on the back of a push bike for 20p to get down to the road and usually we get a moto up the road. The other day it had been raining and the poor push bike guy was dripping sweat and absoutley breathless when we got to the top of the small incline at the beginning of the road. I had two samosas in my bag and I realised that he needed some fuel in my tank so i got them out and gave him one and i had the other. So we had a nice chummy little mini picnic before carrying on our way.
The motos also struggle with the dirt road because it is just one long stretch of muddy puddles. last night we came home and went past several cows - rwandans are not allowed to graze them they cut the grass and take it to the cows - and four soldiers with guns (perhaps looking out for cows?) and the drivers just wanted the dosh they weren't bothered whether they got us there dead or alive - they just went at full speed over all the bumps and puddles and my helmet and his crash bang walloped all the way home.
The previous week michael had managed to get himself a very dud moto which the guy was driving with both hands on one side to stop the brakes falling off. Then when he came off the main road onto the dirt track the lights failed so the driver went straight down the middle of the track - which unfortunately for michael is also the bumpiest bit. I could see him ahead bouncing up and down and shouting in his lovely posh accent "Stop stop stop," to which the oblivious driver just replied "sorry sorry sorry" . Later it became clear why he had not heeded Michael's urgent appeals - his brakes were not working. So when we rounded the corner into Shyogwe and the driver saw it was a down hill, he took urgent remedial action to bring his bike to a stop. First he tried walking backwards - not very effective action on a ton weight motor bike with two passengers and then as a last resort he swerved to the left - to take the bike uphill presumably hoping to stop - and finally came to rest right outside pasteur emmanuel's front door.
One bike ride not to be forgotten!

After the rain there is a fantastic view of the volcanoes from the back of paula's house. Byumba is already at 2,500 metres above sea level which is twice as high as Ben Nevis and then suddenly when the rain clears you see the tops of 6 volcanoes towering above that height in the far distance, one of which is in the Congo. its an amazing sight. paula calls them her friends and i kind of know why. The leaves in the foreground are the banana trees in her garden.

Trying to get away from the camp at lunchtime on the second day. The road has turned into a muddy river and we are cold and wet - but we can go home to paula's to get the kettle on and get out our hot water bottles to get warm........

This is the school. The young man at the front is called Claude. he really made me laugh when he was speaking english because he managed to do it in a yorkshire accent just like mine. It was wonderful. A corner of one of these buildings just crumbled away on the wednesday when we had the worst storm. This is on the monday when the weather was reasonable and you can see that people are still well wrapped up against the weather.

This gives an idea of how crowded together the houses are - this is on the first day when it was sunny!

We left through rivers of sludge and returned home soaked through to the skin - but at least we had paula's tiny concrete house to go to and we could get our electric kettle to make our hot water bottles and thaw out. I wondered what it was like for those poor people to return to their mud shelters with puddles on the mud floor where the rain came in and no way of getting warm and dry until maybe the sun came out the next day. A very humbling experience and one I feel very priviliged to have been part of.

The training we were doing was based on something which Michael and Ihave developed and it is designed specifically to encourage non english speaking teachers to practise how to ask questions in maths in English and to develop their basic maths vocabulary. We are really proud of it!!! And we know that it works well - and also that other volunteers like our training and are starting to use it too. BY the end of the week we could hear the difference and could hear the teachers using english with each other and singing the songs we had taught them. It is very satisfying to know that it will help them.

It was quite a challenging week in many ways, not least because of their lack of basic english language. The rooms we were working in were the classrooms of the school which has 4000 children. Each room was tiny possibly a half at the most of the size of an english classroom. There are only four small gaps in the mud walls for the light to come in and of course no electricity.
When the clouds and the storm came on the second day we had to huddle the woooden benches together in a corner so that they could even hear myself and Celestin (congolese trainer i was working with.) We couldnt see because we had to shut the door as it was so cold and then the clouds actually starting drifting in through the space which was the window.
It was miserable and cold and dark and wet and one young man only had on a short sleeved shirt. I asked him if he was cold and he answered "Yes but I don't have a sweater". At which point I took off my pink pashmina and wrapped it round him and he wore it for the rest of the morning looking like a strange male madonna in pink.

I have just spent an unforgettable week working in a congolese refugee camp. It holds 19000 people and has been there for 15 years - but it looks anything but temporary. The houses are tiny shelters made from bamboo and mud, crammed together on the very top of the most inhospitable and unwelcoming hill in BYumba. The camp is sited on the land which is of least use to rwandans and it is a desolate place, yet beautiful too as it looks down on tops of green mountains from all sides..
We were trying to train teachers in how to teach maths in english, but as the teachers are congolese refugees they speak excellent french and little english.

This week has been genocide memorial week, which is mainly why we went out to Lake Kivu to avoid the memorial services which have been taking place. Its quite weird as the whole country becomes subdued. There is no loud pop music only religious singing and always before in Rwanda there have been many many people around walking up and down the roads and dirt tracks. Shyogwe was like a ghost town when I got back. There was a huge meeting in the big hall where people were singing religious songs and sharing their experiences. Its all quite strange, but Rwanda is an extremely religious country. It is an interesting topic of conversation as it is almost as though people do not expect to do anything else. It is not questioned that you go to church for four hours on sunday and listen to people evangelicising. And it is the same with genocide memorial week. It is impossible to get your head round the national phsyche of a country like this.

This is the crowd of children saying goodbye to us when we visited a very remote school. We were actually in the diocesan car with 2 american ladies and pasteur emmanual. They went in the church and we went into the classrooms and helped with lessons. It took us over an hour in the four by four to get up the tracks to the school, many of which looked no better than footpaths. The children are so excited to see you - its more than possible that they have never ever seen a white person in their lives which is quite an extraordinary thought. But considering how long it took us in a car to get to their village its unlikely that they have ever been anywhere near civilisation. It kind of makes you think you must know how the Queen feels to be the object of such cheering and excitement. It also makes you remember how lucky you are that you can just travel anywhere whenever and however you want to

This was part of the training we have been doing for the teachers. We were in a very remote school which took 1 hour to reach on a moto up the dirt tracks. The teachers were absolutely lovely and they joined in with everything we asked them to do from "What time is it Mr Wolf" to being angleometers ie making different sorts of angles with their arms. Apart from making rice sacks with them which we wrote on in marker pens to give all the vocabulary you need to teach maths in english, we did all sorts of things which gave them ideas for different ways of teaching their lessons. Everything has to be free because there are no resources. So we cut up old mattresses and made dice and we collected bottle tops so that the children had something to count with. In this picture the teachers are arranging themselves from the smallest to the tallest. The lady at the back is called Yvette and she was a great sport - she got really competitive when we were playing addition and subtraction bingo. But they were all lovely people and so grateful to us for going and doing the training. The more remote the schools the less help they get, so although Michael and I had very sore backsides from riding up the dirt tracks on the back of motor bikes for an hour it was more than worth it. We were really sad to say goodbye to them and I hope that they manage to use some of the ideas we gave them.

no explanation needed!

This is sunset at lake kivu - what can you say it is just so beautiful and not at all what you would imagine africa to be like. Rwanda is such a stunning country you cannot believe really that it is so untouristy. The lake was lovely to swim in too - we swam right to the other side and back.

wow i finally got a photo in and its just one of myself and ivana on our safari. What a day that was . Akagera used to be twice the size it is but it half of the land has now been taken for people to live on. Still they are doing a lot in the park to maintain it and it really is very unspoilt - not like the big game parks in other areas. So glad i did this.

i am still trying to upload photos with no luck. But i have just had a lovely visit to lake Kivu. This time i was at the northern end at Gisenye and it was worth it just for the bus journey. We had to go through the volcanoes national park and it was just spectacular. The highest volcano is Mount Karisimibi at 4,500 metres above sea level which is about half the height of everest. It is just stunning and the whole areas is amazing.

Have also been on safari and had the most exciting day - saw my first big cat in the wild - well it was a little big cat actually - a leopard cub. I was so excited i had tears in my eyes. Akagera is not overflowing with wildlife but that made it all the more fun finding all the animals - everything from giraffes to hippos basically. The park ranger was really thrilled to see the leopard cub too because he has only seen three lions in 8 years - the big cats are very good at hiding. He was very knowledgeable about all the animals and birds in the park and it was a fantastic day - even if we did have to get up at 4 am to get there in time to see the animals. Ivana had organised a jeep from kigali and it was great driving around with our heads out of the top. Also Akagera is quite quiet as game parks go so there were only two other vehicles there as well as us on the day so we really did feel like we were out in the wild. A super day - I will try to put some photos on but may have to wait until late at night

try again!! I have written this three times now and each time my internet lost it.....
So have been doing some interesting and rewarding work at last. Michael and I have developed some trThe aining which helps Rwandan teachers with the vocabulary of Maths in English right through from Reception to Y6. The teachers have been great participants, joining in with all sorts of daft things , jumping around, playing games and making angles with their arms,. But they have also been very appreciative of what we have shared with them. It may only have gone into a few schools and touched a few people but its been enough to be appreciated by them in the way that we have.

I have been trying all day to put some photos on here but the internet modem is just too slow so here is a little update instead. I will keep trying.

sorry this is a bit dark - i should have lightened it up first - this is the school dinner in the school we went to. Basically there are two washing up bowls - the blue one and the green one ok - if you have got that - in the blue one is a big pile of yellow goo. In the green one behind is a big swishy swashy mixture of red slop. I shouted to Michael and said come and look at this i think it is school dinner. It was - but worse was to come.

A teacher from the school invited us to come and share dinner with them and guess what we got - of course - yellow goo and dark red slop - its what they eat every day for dinner from food aid. Phew how we should see how lucky we are...............

This is not a great shot of me but .... It shows the inside of all the shops in Rwanda. There are 3 or 4 supermarkets that I know of and the rest of the shops look like this. This one is in Kigali just down the road opposite the president's offices. It does have a fridge but I can't make out much else of what it is selling. There again if it does not have what you want the shop owner will send someone running off down the road to bring it back for you - the only trouble is that he will probably try to charge you twice the price he just paid for it in the shop down the road if you are not careful. This shop actually has a telly ontop of the fridge and also some pictures of jesus!

Hi this is me at Lake Kivu. I was really lucky because I was invited to go there with Piet the belgian eye doctor, Michael and some belgian friend s of Piet's. He drove us there and it was quite a drive - right round the mountain bends the whole way - I swear there was only 100 yards of straight road in 1and a half hours driving. But once there it wa absolutely stunning. Just so peaceful and beautiful. our hotel was on top of a hill, but we walked down the steep path and just sat by the lake. Piet swam and swam but the water was too dark for me. It was just bliss sitting there and watching the occasional boat - ie a hollowed out tree trunk with one paddle, swishing by. The boat driver (?right word) always paddled close to the shore to talk - in Kinyarwanda of course - and to look too. Just a world away from any care or worries - what a fantastic weekend. Piet is such a lovely generous bloke. He works so hard at the eye clinic too, often doing up to 20 operations a day

Well it seems like a long long time since i updated this but the good news is that i am finally working and I am enjoying it.

I have been back since February 7th - it has been reaaly hot since I got back and I have to take sun cream out everywhere I go. But I also have to take waterproofs as it still rains every single day almost. Then at night when the sun goes in it is cold - three blankets on the bed cold and a hot water bottle that I brought from home just in case!!!!

So what about the work I am finally doing. Well I have been into quite a few schools with Michael since I got back and basically the problem is the same for all primary teachers in Rwanda - they have to teach in English but they can't speak English. It makes no sense and they are really struggling.


So I have realised that one of the best and most helpful things I can do , and also one of the best use of my skills and experience is to go into the schools and into the classrooms and help them. This is not what VSO envisaged me doing but I know that it is helping the teachers and the children in schools. I may only touch a few lives in a small way but if it helps them in the smallest way I will be happy.

I realised though the other day that I am probably one of the most experienced primary school teachers they have in Rwanda - I was chatting with another lovely volunteer called Paula and giving her ideas for a maths workshop - but VSO have actually no idea what I am doing and certainly my skills and experience are not being used in the best and most organised way that they can be.

However I am not letting this bother me - the first few months of my placement were not very positive to say the least so I am going to go into schools which i love and make sure that the last few are enjoyable so that when i do come home I feel it has been a positive experience.

The journies to the schools are mammoth - one hour on the back of a motorbike up the dirt road one day. The children were so excited to see us because not many white people or perhaps no white people bother to venture that far.

On Monday I set off and found myself travelling through an enormous thunderstorm - the wipers on the bus could not even clear the windscreen and it rained like that for 2 hours non stop - so I had to shelter in a shop doorway with about 20 other rwandans until it slowed. Then I still had a hairy ride up a narrow track to the school.

I did a lesson on rectangles and then one in Y1 on counting to ten which involved me and the kids in lots of jumping about and silly walks. Think the teachers were pretty gobsmacked as the children are just used to repeating parrot fashion to try to learn everything. It was great fun and I know they enjoyed it.

Today I went into a school with no idea what I was doing and did a lesson on place value and another on writing numbers - all from the top of my head and just trying to make it a little more interesting than chalk and talk. Though white chalk and a blackboard was actually what i had to use as that is the only resource in the classroom. It makes your throat tickle with the chalk dust.

I am going back in there tomorrow and have other stuff lined up so at least i am doing some work and feeling it is useful. It is not something that needs doing long term however.

Also today went to fetch an african outfit from the tailors. I have had a skirt and top made with a very typical rwandan neckline of pleats and wide sleeves. I am really pleased with it and its all lined and fits really well - made from a picture and measuring me with a tape measure - for £6.00. Ihave bought some fabulous really african material for ross to have an open necked shirt made

Finally a hello from my little house in Rwanda. It took me over 2 days to get back with a delay and overnight stop in Paris on Friday and then a delay and overnight stop in Nairobi on Saturday. I finally arrived on Sunday afternoon having left Chapeltown on Friday morning - only to find that both the water and electricity were off. Ho hum!!!!

There is a water tank outside my tiny little house but it has a hole in it and it just leaks water for the whole of the day. This is just such a criminal waste especially as so many people then have to walk miles for water. And there are so many people living in Rwanda who don't have accesss to clean water. We keep telling the people who run the Diocese but nothing happens. All it needs is a bit of welding and then we could have a flushing toilet and live the lap of luxury - well that is stretching it a bit far considering the state of my house and furniture but more luxury than most shall we say.

My house has been like bug city lately. I had a preying mantis walk in the door - strange visitor I know but he was beautiful He was about 4 inches long and the most beautiful green and he was preening himself like he knew it! Also had a huge black thing fell out of the roof onto Michael - it was like a big fat black beetle the size of your thumb. We were both staring at it when to our enormous surprise it spread out its wings and flew up at us. I just screamed and slammed the door in Michael's face leaving him to his fate - but he was legging it faster than his short legs could carry him. It was disgusting!!!!!!!

I have had bees dropping in through the ceiling and moths the size of a small saucer. Its been the ugly bug ball round here. You do just kind of get used to it though.

I also saw an amazing eagle the other day but I don't know what type it was. It swooped low into the tree by my house and I dashed for the binoculors. I could see it was eating something it had caught. It had grey feathers and was about 3 feet long and a very yellow head, so anyone reading this who knows about birds might be able to tell me what it is.

Also have some amazing birds in the garden - some bright green ones and some orange and black ones but no idea what they are.

So life has resumed its usual Rwandan patterns and I shall try to put some photographs on of the latest things.