Goodbye to our colleague

Tuesday was the last working day of my colleague, the second man. He has fulfilled many roles in our embassy, amongst with replacing the ambassador on many occasions. He will be going to the Netherlands for a few months just before retirement. He has been working for the ministry as long as written history. Most of this time in Africa.

There was a reception for people to say goodbye to him, unfortunately it is election time so many rwandans could not come. As staff we found that we had to do something, so the secretary arranged that a chauffeur would pick him up from the hotel to bring him to the reception. He was staying in the hotel, because his successor already moved in to his house. Because the hotel is only 200 meters away it might have sounded a bit weird to him. That night he found out why. We arranged all to meet up at the embassy and pick him up with ALL our cars, the ambassadors Mercedes in front.


For those interested in the route:
We drove to Novotel, to the american embassy, round the roundabout, back past the embassy, to the huge (1 km round) roundabout, two rounds, back to the 'wedding roundabout' two rounds disturbing the traffic considerably and pressing our horns. We felt like doing something back for the times we have stood there waiting on a wedding to pass by.

He was very impressed, so the plan had worked.

We enjoyed the reception with a.o. locally made bitterballen and samosas and went home at a reasonable time; the day after I had a briefing about the elections, see next blog.