Saturday 17 May 2008

Wikwiheba Mwana

Because Wouter ran the marathon and collected 3.500 Euro by doing so, we had to go to the project and hand over the money. This sounds easier than it proved to be. We hired a car via a colleague. We left our house before 11.00. Unfortunately we left Kigali only after 13.00. This is not because Kigali is that big, at the border of Kigali the car did not seem to function anymore. Fortunately this happened just in front of a garage (maybe they have a secret device built in the road). After topping up the oil it still didn't work. Changing the fuel filter also didn't work. So after several attempts and hopeful moments we almost gave up and the car decided to work. The drive to Ngarama was beautiful, but sometimes lumpy. It was a lovely day, except for when we arrived, it poured down and only stopped just before we had to leave. There were several members of the board present, including a doctor. There were a couple that also spoke english. They received the symbolic cheque. Just before we left madam Mediatrice asked what she should do to get the money, we forgot to tell that we already put it in the bank for them. Suddenly she became even happier and gave Wouter some gifts to show her gratitude.


With the car a lot emptier we left towards Akagera, as it was past four o'clock we knew we were going to arrive in the dark, but that's not a big deal, because we were not driving ourselves. In the flat marshland area the driver didn't trust the bridge (rightly so) and drove around it. Unfortunately the rain made it a bit slippery and muddy. Luckely in Rwanda there are allways people around, so some men helped us push the car out of the mud. Of course they demanded money, so the drive changed some money into smalls and gave one man a hand full of small notes making him responsable, this worked and we could drive away.


The rest of the drive was uneventfull, but we had our fair share for the day.

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