More training...

Uuum not really sure where to start here, feel like I’ve left it for ages again- …Anyway here goes.

Last day of training

Tomorrow is the final day of the trainings and they’ve all gone really well. World Vision have more or less delivered although we’re still waiting for the money we’re paying our Tots (Trainers of teachers) but it could be worse. The biggest worry was that we’d have no catering but all was fine. Whether or not I can cope with another melange is another thing…On Friday we had a working group meeting at VSO for all of us in education so I had to face yet another round of ibitoke, chips, beans, spinach etc. It was tough.

Kigali

I went up early - Friday morning (6am bus!) - in the end and as usual it was great to see everyone. After the meeting and yet another melange we ended up at ‘Stella 2’ just down from the Programme office where we enjoyed a few beers before some of us headed to St Paul’s, a guest house where most of us were staying. We were joined by another volunteer, Jenny who has just finished her placement in Eritrea. Although she finished it early all other volunteers who were sent out there this year have been returned home as the country will no longer grant us visas. From talking to her, it seems that things are much more restricted there, you need permits to travel anywhere and food is much more limited than here. Looks like some of those placed there might be coming here in September as VSO try to find other placements…

After a lovely hot shower and breakfast (this is why Kigali is great!) I headed to Bourbon café where we had planned to meet for yet another sit-in. Honestly, this place does so well from us. Pretty much any Saturday we’re in the capital this becomes the magnet for vols. It’s right next door to Nakumat (‘for your 24hour shopping needs’) so really convenient and there is wireless so laptops are on overdrive. We were various groups during the day as people popped off here and there to make their essential purchases but with the changeable weather it was a real sanctuary before the bus back home.

Sunday was pretty chilled. Spent the afternoon in Gik abusing skype then headed home to play with my new speakers, a present to myself - thanks Nakumat…:0)

This week am hoping to do some work as an enumerator for MINEDUC (ministry of education) doing some baseline surveys in secondary schools. To be honest, that’s about all I know and considering they’ve been cancelled twice, I’m not holding my breath but it would be good to do something a bit different though. Essentially it will mean two days training on Thursday and Friday this week in Kigali then 2 weeks carrying out the surveys and writing the reports. So anyway, fingers crossed it goes ahead.