Day 7 - Kigali, Rwanda

another beautiful day here in Rwanda, with hardly a cloud in the sky making it very hot, but with a nice breeze so you don't actually melt, though I'm sure if you were in the sun, you might actually melt!

Sara spent yesterday afternoon with Innocent, Hilary and Celestine working on a few more grants and once again having lunch at La Plante - I think sara is a bit obsessed wtih this place, she's been at least 3 times, if not more by now.  Apparently they have a buffet with a mix of traditional & non traditional foods - rice, cooked bananas, beans, cold slaw with tomatoes, meat cooked in a sauce (sorta stew like), noodles (semi-Chinese), steamed vegetables, sauerkraut but not quite the same, and bananas for dessert.  You can pile as much of this as you want onto your plate and they only charge Rwf1700 which is about US$2.98 which is about GBP1.98 and if you want a cold drink you just add Rfw300 (about 60 cents or 30 pence) At times Sara almost feels bad as if she's ripping them off, but that is what the price is so she pays it.

I think yesterday I told you Sara took the public transport, called taxis, but more like mini vans to work, right?  Well it's official she's learned how to take the public bus to the "office" (ASSIST-RWANDA that is) from our hotel & back, as long as it's not dark, cause then she can't see the landmarks as well so one of the boys escorts me home, carrying my bags as well, she is definetly being spoiled here & I fear may never want to lift me again (lol).  The benefit to this public transport is that the local taxi driver at the hotel charges her US$8 (GBP5) minimum no matter where she goes (cause she's a muzungu - white person) and the public bus, though much slower is only $0.30 (GBP0.20) - can you believe it???  When I say much slower, you need to realise there is no schedule for these taxis, they just wait at each stop for about 5 minutes, maybe longer if it's not full and then start on their journey - again if it gets too empty they may stop at a certain stop along the way for a few mintues to load up on passengers.  This makes it a bit difficult to keep to a time schedule, but since everyone here is so laid back it seems to work well for them.  I think the muzungu's on a whole have problems with it cause they're always looking at their watches - maybe they need to learn to take a chill pill when in this country!  Course if Sara wants to go anywhere else aside from the office she needs another way to get around, but most things she needs are within walking distance UP the hill in the sun or within walking distance of the office which she can no get to on her own now (go Sara go Sara go Sara).

This morning Sara got up crazy early to have a meeting with Emmanuel at 7am before he went off to an NGO conference at the Serena Hotel, near by the Iris Guesthouse, where we stay.  Just as she was done eating breakfast & after Emmanuel had left, she approached by a man who seemed to know her, but whom she did not recognise.  After a bit of chatting Sara put two and two together to realise someone had told him about her, and the Itafari Foundation and he was hoping to partner with Itafari on a project.  Of course Sara couldn't do anything for him now, she just suggested he look at the website and contact us there.  She had to point out that being a board member did not mean she single handedly had the power to make any decision by herself.  She wished him the best of luck with his projects and then got back on the computer to send a few emails before the internet went down.  Once this happened Sara came back to the room for a half hour nap and to charge the computer before heading back out for lunch.

Sara here, a few more words I've learned today:
Amakuru yo murugo  (yo MooRooGoh) - how is your family doing?
Tunongera (TooRohnGayRah) - see you soon

I also learned that there is now a Kinyarwanda-English-French Dictionary available, which is definelty new in the past year or so, cause I looked for one before coming here in October 2008 and all I found where Kinyarwanda-French, which is okay if you know French well enough.  I'm guessing this due to the fact that as of 2010 they've made English an official language.  Mom & Nim, you'll get a kick out of this, they think I'm a grammar expert - LOL - I've got them fooled pretty well huh?!?!?!?!  Though actually it's more my lack of any phoetics training more so than grammar problems :-)


Has anyone been over to the Itafari website to check out all the projects we work on?  If not, you should go here now and have a look!  Just to clarify when the board members come to Rwanda, the foundation does not pay for any of our expenses, it is all out of our own pockets, so any money you donate goes directly to the people of Rwanda, which I think is pretty cool!!