Thursday we went to pick up Maria (Hazels mother) and Bill and drop Lon of for a short trip to Bujumbura at the same time. For some reason we were not allowed behind the customs but had to wait like normal people. Although we were slightly disappointed not having a special status, we didn't think anything of it. Unfortunately I couldn't see Maria and Bill, because unloading the plane took quite long and I had to catch the very same plane which was going on to Bujumbura.
So far so good.
Next day on my way back I gave Hazel a quick call to inform her of the one hour delay (could be worse). To my great disappointment she informed me of the changes that the authorities have made. Brace yourselves: We are not allowed to buy duty free at the airport any more. You can imagine the shock. Luckily there is a duty free as you arrive in Kigali (some smart Indian man opened this). However this man sells a lot but not the brand of cigarettes Maria smokes and no wine, the two things we wanted to buy. As logic goes here, they mentioned in the letter that they are qoute "thinking of opening a duty free shop in the centre", in stead of opening one in the centre first before closing the one in the airport. As they say in Dutch "a plaster on the wound" is that we can buy boose and claim VAT back afterwards, this however is not a guaranteed process, rules change and details are often wrong, like small spelling mistakes, weird dates, just name any excuses.
So, life just became slightly more expensive and less convenient, but still can't complain.
Lon Zomer and Hazel O'Dea - their life abroad
Monday, 28 January 2008
Monday, 21 January 2008
Madness
My brother in law is mad. Not because he married my sister, he decided to run the Kigali peace marathon.
He has a lot of training running away from his 4 children, this I do understand.
The marathon is like always just over 42 km. They have made a route of 10+ km which he will have to run 4 times. Obviously we can not run, because we have to support him. We did warn him about the altitude; it is over 1400 meters here, which does have an effect. We are slightly comforted in the knowledge that he has run several marathons, in the Netherlands; however he has just a week to acclimatise after a night flight from Brussels.
To make sure he actually makes a good effort we decided to sponsor him. We will pay for every km he runs and a bonus for completing. Please do the same, the proceeds will go to a charity here in Rwanda. You can read all about it on their blog http://rouwhorst.blogspot.com/. Unfortunately it is all in Dutch, but they do speak English, so you can leave a comment.
Payment can be done in Euros to them or in pounds in England via Hazels account, we will act as intermediary. Dollars, Rwandan francs, South African Rands or Ugandan Shilling are also welcome, but then you will have to bring them in person.
In short: PLEASE SPONSOR MY BROTHER IN LAW FOR RUNNING THE MARATHON.
PER KM, FOR FINISHING AND/OR FOR FINISHING WITHIN 4 HOURS.
We are happy to act as intermediary if needed.
Lon
He has a lot of training running away from his 4 children, this I do understand.
The marathon is like always just over 42 km. They have made a route of 10+ km which he will have to run 4 times. Obviously we can not run, because we have to support him. We did warn him about the altitude; it is over 1400 meters here, which does have an effect. We are slightly comforted in the knowledge that he has run several marathons, in the Netherlands; however he has just a week to acclimatise after a night flight from Brussels.
To make sure he actually makes a good effort we decided to sponsor him. We will pay for every km he runs and a bonus for completing. Please do the same, the proceeds will go to a charity here in Rwanda. You can read all about it on their blog http://rouwhorst.blogspot.com/. Unfortunately it is all in Dutch, but they do speak English, so you can leave a comment.
Payment can be done in Euros to them or in pounds in England via Hazels account, we will act as intermediary. Dollars, Rwandan francs, South African Rands or Ugandan Shilling are also welcome, but then you will have to bring them in person.
In short: PLEASE SPONSOR MY BROTHER IN LAW FOR RUNNING THE MARATHON.
PER KM, FOR FINISHING AND/OR FOR FINISHING WITHIN 4 HOURS.
We are happy to act as intermediary if needed.
Lon
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Thursday, 17 January 2008
Dobby and Neville
Have arrived, they are very very cute and funny.
Most of their time is split in the following way
Sleep - 2 hours
Eat (tinned sardines with rice), use the sandbox - scattering sand far and wide, but they are pretty good at doing their business there.
Play 20-30 mins.
Favourite playthings are each other, the wine rack and a local stool we have.
They appear to be very fond of electrical outlets and wires too, which we will have to keep an eye on this habit. They are a little too young to really get the concept of toys, but were both trying out their needle sharp teeth on our fingers in a game last night!
Photography is difficult, I've taken lots of blurry photos due to either having the flash off, and the speed is wrong, or that they won't / can't sit still when awake!
Most of their time is split in the following way
Sleep - 2 hours
Eat (tinned sardines with rice), use the sandbox - scattering sand far and wide, but they are pretty good at doing their business there.
Play 20-30 mins.
Favourite playthings are each other, the wine rack and a local stool we have.
They appear to be very fond of electrical outlets and wires too, which we will have to keep an eye on this habit. They are a little too young to really get the concept of toys, but were both trying out their needle sharp teeth on our fingers in a game last night!
Photography is difficult, I've taken lots of blurry photos due to either having the flash off, and the speed is wrong, or that they won't / can't sit still when awake!
Groenteman (Vegetable seller)
Every Monday and Thursday we get vegetables delivered to the door.
Augustine is the boss, and he comes with one or two bearers with fruit and veg. I leave a shopping list and Clarisse gets it and haggles about quality and price, and if I'm home I go and take a look in case he has anything interesting like red peppers or rhubarb.
On Fridays, he comes with flowers, eggs and special orders from Thursday, and its also possible to put in an order for Mondays.
Clarisse then takes all the fresh produce in, and washes it with bicarbonate of soda to kill off any nasties, spins the lettuce etc, and all gets put in the fridge in tupperware containers ready to use.
The only downside is that the veg comes in family size quantities, which means we don't need to buy that much - or we go to the supermarket to buy 6 chillies instead of a kilo!
Augustine is the boss, and he comes with one or two bearers with fruit and veg. I leave a shopping list and Clarisse gets it and haggles about quality and price, and if I'm home I go and take a look in case he has anything interesting like red peppers or rhubarb.
On Fridays, he comes with flowers, eggs and special orders from Thursday, and its also possible to put in an order for Mondays.
Clarisse then takes all the fresh produce in, and washes it with bicarbonate of soda to kill off any nasties, spins the lettuce etc, and all gets put in the fridge in tupperware containers ready to use.
The only downside is that the veg comes in family size quantities, which means we don't need to buy that much - or we go to the supermarket to buy 6 chillies instead of a kilo!
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Saturday, 12 January 2008
What's in a name
A couple of years ago Rwanda decided to change the provinces, not to mad, because there were too many. At the same time they decided to change most of the place names; less smart. It is very hard to get a decent map of Rwanda, the best ones come from Europe. These maps are reasonable resent and some details are not 100% correct. So foreigners use the old names and so do most of the locals still. The newspapers etc. use both, sometimes in the same sentence. Luckily there are at least three names unchanged: Rwanda, Kigali and Gisenyi.
This all however is completely irrelevant as the signs on the road seldom mention the place names, they mention the name of the hill/neighbourhood. I don't think I've ever seen a sign "Kigali".
Greetings from Kiyovu.
This all however is completely irrelevant as the signs on the road seldom mention the place names, they mention the name of the hill/neighbourhood. I don't think I've ever seen a sign "Kigali".
Greetings from Kiyovu.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Finally complete
YEAH !!! WE GOT THE CAR !!
After a few times 'next week' this week it became a few times 'tomorrow'. Yesterday it became today. Today it became 10.00 then it became 10.30, I will call you back in a moment, and again and again. Finally I called at 13.00 and they said, you can come now. The timing of my colleague was brilliant, as I walk out he said 'this has to be fixed today'. So after a 15 minutes delay I stopped a taxi, forget to negotiate the price upfront, so I got charged twice the price but couldn't be bothered to haggle. There it was, in it's natural environment: The street. To me it was a bright sight, but to others it was a very dusty one. So while one man was fixing the license plate, the man showed me the spare wheel, the key, the 1 paper that took weeks to create. So I happily paid the license plate man his fixing fee (even though we have a square plate on a rectangle spot). Stupid me told the man the car was dirty, so I had to take it to the car wash, even though our guard always cleans the car. So we went there I had a drink until the man was gone then told they washers that I had to go even though it wasn't finished paid the full price and drove of. FREEDOM. We went to Hazels favourite road and took it further than we have ever been, Hazels first drive since July. Only negative is that Hazel has to get up at the same time as me to drop me at the embassy. We will see how it works out, but I might be buying a small moped for commuting.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
Exploring
Today we went to explore. I wanted to say the highest accessible hill close by. We found the hill, the road wasn't brilliant, but the experience was good. Unfortunately the road became smaller and smaller and we could see a river in the distance and no sign of any other road. So we turned and went past the same people who looked at us as funny as the first time we drove by. Back home we looked at Google earth and discovered we were heading in the direction of Burundi, so distances are not vast, we kind of knew that but not really realised.
Hopefully we can explore in our own car soon. They lost our papers again! What are the chances petrol will not be available when we got our car?
A house is being built.
Hopefully we can explore in our own car soon. They lost our papers again! What are the chances petrol will not be available when we got our car?
Excitement
We get some excitement in our live, but not necessary the kind we hoped for. As you all know the Kenyans are not friendly to each other at the moment. This resulted in trucks not leaving from Mombasa harbour. All the petrol for Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi comes through Kenya. This already resulted in a fuel crisis in Uganda. In Rwanda, so far, there is still petrol, however petrol stations have been instructed not to give more than 10 litres for small cars and 20 for bigger cars and not to fill jerry cans. Thursday there were some queues due to people stockpiling, Friday there were only short queues. Colleagues had mixed experiences, some got 10.000 francs worth (15 litre) others got a full tank. We are a bit lucky in the sense that we get tax free coupons, and these are not dated, so even if there will be rations, we always get petrol, maybe we have to go to different petrol stations at the time. However, our coupons only work in Kigali. A colleague is going out of Kigali this weekend, I'm curious what her experiences are.
We don't know what the long term effect will/can be. Basic foods are grown locally, but often transported by truck. Water is local, so we're safe there. We haven't got a clue where the electricity comes from. We have 100 litre diesel for the generator. We didn't stock pile, but still have some food from The Netherlands. We hope this will blow over soon. There are negotiations going on to get supplies via Tanzania, but those roads are a bit worse, so it might take longer and cost more.
I will inform what the emergency procedures are at work, but we remain positive, so far, except for the petrol, we haven't noticed any change in people or supplies.
If you have doubts or just want to check, Skype, mail or our numbers are:
Lon +250 08642454
Hazel +250 03073024
DO dial the zero after 250.
No news is good news.
We don't know what the long term effect will/can be. Basic foods are grown locally, but often transported by truck. Water is local, so we're safe there. We haven't got a clue where the electricity comes from. We have 100 litre diesel for the generator. We didn't stock pile, but still have some food from The Netherlands. We hope this will blow over soon. There are negotiations going on to get supplies via Tanzania, but those roads are a bit worse, so it might take longer and cost more.
I will inform what the emergency procedures are at work, but we remain positive, so far, except for the petrol, we haven't noticed any change in people or supplies.
If you have doubts or just want to check, Skype, mail or our numbers are:
Lon +250 08642454
Hazel +250 03073024
DO dial the zero after 250.
No news is good news.
Useless fact
This could have been a traffic light
Some things I thought were obvious
We live at 1480 meters altitude, the top of our hill is around 1525 meters and the valley 1400. If you dig a hole through the earth, you'll end up in the middle of the pacific ocean 1000 km south of Hawai. There are four major cities/attractions all at different corners; north, east, south and west. The quickest route from and to any of these places is always via Kigali. The tops of the two nearby hills that are roughly 1800 meters high, can not be reached by car.
Some things I thought were obvious
We live at 1480 meters altitude, the top of our hill is around 1525 meters and the valley 1400. If you dig a hole through the earth, you'll end up in the middle of the pacific ocean 1000 km south of Hawai. There are four major cities/attractions all at different corners; north, east, south and west. The quickest route from and to any of these places is always via Kigali. The tops of the two nearby hills that are roughly 1800 meters high, can not be reached by car.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Timezones
First of all
HAPPY 2008 make something nice of it.
Kigali is more advanced then any other city I know.
We do not have daylight saving time (zomertijd), in stead we have a different time zone in our bedroom! One of the first days in our house the elctricity went out and the electric clocks were all 10 minutes slow. My conclusion was that the electricity was out for ten minutes. Could have known this was impossible as our guards are very quick with putting the generator on.
Anyway, recently we noticed our clocks were 15 minutes fast. So this was not posible just by a powercut. We changed them and a day later they were fast again. So now we have to check every day when we go to bed what the real time is and hope the alarm goes off roughly at the right time.
It is an exciting place!
HAPPY 2008 make something nice of it.
Kigali is more advanced then any other city I know.
We do not have daylight saving time (zomertijd), in stead we have a different time zone in our bedroom! One of the first days in our house the elctricity went out and the electric clocks were all 10 minutes slow. My conclusion was that the electricity was out for ten minutes. Could have known this was impossible as our guards are very quick with putting the generator on.
Anyway, recently we noticed our clocks were 15 minutes fast. So this was not posible just by a powercut. We changed them and a day later they were fast again. So now we have to check every day when we go to bed what the real time is and hope the alarm goes off roughly at the right time.
It is an exciting place!
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