One whole week in Rwanda

Last night was the volunteer dinner. This is a big tradition that welcomes the new volunteers to the VSO family and gives us an opportunity to relax, have a beer, watch some traditional dancing, eat huge amounts of carbs and meat and chat to others about their experience of Rwanda and their work so far. However, what it really is is an excuse to show off ones latest tailored creations from recent fabric purchases, and a high fashion shoe comparison workshop. Highly amusing for a bunch of naive and pasty volunteers who know nothing of a tired wardrobe or the confines of village fashion having only been in Rwanda for one week. Most volunteers we met, though absolutely loving their time in the country, had certain cravings after five months (or longer) in Africa. In fact I witnessed a highly entertaining and clandestine black market exchange going on between two volunteers: one girl selling her drink tickets to another girl who was desperate to get her hands on another glass of hard to come-by wine before heading back off the sticks. The negotiations were smooth and quite clearly had occurred before. Desperate times lead to desperate measures! I had good chats with the woman I’m going to be living and working with who has already been in post for the past four months. We’re both waiting with baited breath for the call that tells us that the  chickens that have just arrived have started laying. Fresh eggs are going to be amazing!!!

During the day there was an expo that gave us an insight into the kind of work the Basic Methodology Trainers have been doing. Rice sacks seem to the way forward, using them as we would flip chart paper, and as visual aids. There were some very impressive resources made from recycled goods. It’s going to be interesting work with even more limited resources than Badock’s Wood! Apparently, I’ve got myself (inadvertently) involved in a 1 million bottle top project! My Education Manager (a VSO volunteer) has grand plans to make times tables bottle top strings and distribute them to schools with a set of instructions for each (which I have to make when I arrive in placement). She has calculated that this means we will need 1 million of them. By March! This has  turned me into a scavenging and strange (and oddly competitive) muzungu who grapples around on the floor for discarded tops in bars and on the streets and asks poor confused bar tenders if they will give her the soda tops. They really don’t know what to make of it and I’m yet to learn how to say “I’m going to make maths resources by recycling bottle tops” in Kinyarwanda!