Wednesday 17th-Monday 22nd

So not a great start today… It’s Monday again so yet another management meeting where I understand only the odd snippet and which goes on forever. Even when someone slips in a bit of English for my benefit, it’s not always helpful. As I got there today, we all sat patiently and waited for the executive secretary to finish his phone call (!!). Just then everyone started standing up and someone beside me whispered, ‘we are going to play’. Oh brilliant I thought, maybe some of those participatory games have reached the district, at least it would be an active start to the day. So I answered, ‘brilliant!’ Just then my helpful neighbour clasped his hands together and bowed his head. Oh, we’re going to pray…Less enthusiasm now.

Here there is little distinction between the ‘r’ sound and ‘l’ so tongue twisters such as red lorry, yellow lorry are hilarious and the phrase ‘let’s play’ should be clarified before the toys come out…Amy works in a diocese so although not that way inclined prays everyday and often gets help with the bible reading that day. On one occasion she was told that today’s story was all about when Jesus was circumcised on the cross, she just nodded respectfully. A sad day indeed.

So beware the pitfalls in communication.

Queen’s birthday bash (Wednesday)

Wednesday, I was due to help Tiga with her workshop but as we now know not everything here goes to plan. Sitting at the school, she was informed that there were exams going on today so no workshops could take place…At 7am on the day, that’s pretty annoying. So instead, we continued the paint job on her bathroom she’d started the night before. No problem, except it was enamel paint and with only nail varnish remover and baby wipes I was worried I’d turn up to the embassy looking like the green giant, definitely not ho ho ho! Luckily for us, the baby wipes were (worringly) made of pretty strong stuff so by the time we reached Kigali we were all cleaned up and ready for the celebrations.

The bash itself was good fun although there was no appearance from her majesty and not even a toast, which was fine by me, but too too much red wine. Knowing there was a time limit of sorts, you could tell the VSOers (ok me) by how much and how quickly they were guzzling the stuff.

In fact by 8pm, we were all very merry, though I can’t quite remember detail. I could add phrases like ‘I believe…’ or ‘I think…’ but quite frankly I have no idea and am just grateful that my friends didn’t let me remain sleeping in the taxi as I had apparently demanded…Cheers :0))