More expo

The expo was good for Hazel to do some shopping. I liked the machines more, my dad would have loved it.

The simplest thing was a fire free cooker; basically a basket lined with duvet. You bring your pot to the boil and then put it in there and it keeps cooking.
The handmade ovens were also impressive.

look also at www.technologycentre.go.ke

Another instrument was a stone-crusher, not sure why. You give a wheel with fly-wheel a push and keep going while you put a stone in and crumbs come out the bottom.
To most useful thing was a brickmaker. In this machine you put your dirt and with a huge lever you compress it to a brick.

See also www.makiga.com

This brick is kind of Lego shaped, this means you can build a whole building without using mortar. A second one does the same, only it makes slightly round stones, specially useful for making watertanks.

Expo

We saw some signs for another east african expo in town and went to investigate
a steaming cup of tea....

Barack Obama cloth
a beekeeping outfit
part of the sexual information stand

Jerry cans

Had to make a U turn to get a photo of this! hundreds of jerry cans lined up for filling

One more visitor

Our minister of development aid visited Rwanda this week. He visited visited the north, south and Kigali. Something a normal person would cost at least a week, but with the aid of a helicopter and the organisational skills of our secretary he did it in two days.

Of course a visitor brings presents, so the minister could promise some money we actually already commited to as an embassy.

The minister was briefed on what to say, but we were not sure how he would say it and what the reaction of the Rwandan government would be. Because of the situation with the germans we hope this will not extend to other EU countries. The situation is still a little bit tense, but things seem to going back to normal.

Visitors

The visitors left again, I believe they had a good time. It was a busy programme: Butare, Kibuye, Akagera and the handicapped childrens house, all within 11 days. Luckily they did not notice anything from the protests, they were in Akagera. They even saw the elephant which was hiding in the grass. Of course they also saw the more obvious animals.


As it was the first time in Africa for my uncle and aunt, they a lot to take in. We tried to explain that Rwanda is Africa for beginners. You can read or watch a lot about Africa, but you really have to see it. Rwanda is lacking the roadside cafes, music stalls and streetvendors. We do sometimes miss those sounds and smells.

At the german embassy there is still a small hut with some protestors and a bit of road is closed of guarded by a police man.

Links to demonstration info

Well the demonstration today did make the international news ..just if you are looking!
Euronews

BBC

AFP

observers

if more is posted tomorrow I'll update

Gods firehose

its tipping it down, which will cool down any hot heads!

Demonstration - chez nous

One of the streams of demonstrators has just passed our door / gate on the way to the nearby German embassy.

I think the differences between the crowd with / without music / tv cameras was quite marked.
with camera crew


without - and this was a busy period - I forgot to video when it was quiet



I know only the dancing/singing/placard group will make the tv, and not the majority of demonstrators who were ambling down the road and chatting.

How it proceeds remains to be seen.

Photos/videos made from the upstairs terrace and the guards room

Troubled times

Rwanda has been in the global news quite a lot recently I know - since it's not usually anywhere near the media radar.

The situation with the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo - formerly Zaire) is complicated.
Luckily the BBC have provided a clear overview of the situation see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3075537.stm

in Kigali we have not noticed many differences, last weekend we saw more NGO vehicles in town, as they came down from Gisenyi (for the geographically challenged Gisenyi is just over the border from Goma in DRC where the fighting is currently centred).

How this will situation will be handled by the international community in the face of the global economic crisis remains to be seen.

Excitement

We are happy that we are still here.

Last Sunday the headline was that Rose Kabuye a close adviser of the president was arrested in Germany. Kabuye (well known as Rose) is one of the Rwandans on 'the french list'. This list is created by the french and these persons they want to try for genocide related crimes. When the list came out end 2006 all the french were sent home and never returned since.

According to Germany Rose was not on an official business and therefore according to international rights they had to arrest here to deliver to France.

Of course Rwanda has a slightly different view, they say that she was there to arrange some things for the president.

Monday there was a demonstration (the second since 1994) at the German embassy, close to our house. The protest went on towards the 'Deutsche Welle', the German world service radio station.

Hazel's comment - Here on the ground in Kigali, I got caught up in Mondays anti German demonstrations, but having worked on the Plein in the Hague for so many years it wasn't really very impressive despite looking so in the news. For those who missed the news - see the Rwandan News Agency

Tuesday some smaller demonstrations took place near the EU office, but also past the American and Dutch embassies amongst others.

During Tuesday it also became clear that the German ambassador was sent home. But just the ambassador and his family not the rest of the embassy.

All this could potentionally lead to the EU standing tall as one person and ending up all leaving the country. This happened before in Hungary.

So when we picked up my parents and uncle and aunt from the airport Tuesday night we had to warn them that there is a possibility they had to leave on the next plane. Fortunately this didn't happen. Hopefully the Rwandan government knows they need the aid from Germany, The UK, Belgium and The Netherlands specifically.

Beerfest!

Guess where we are heading this evening...well we have to support local initiatives!

Monkey

we just had a monkey in the garden!
Dobby was far braver than Nev at trying to chase him away.

Blimey! We really do live in Africa.








P.s. poor photos as on wrong setting in all the excitement.

Congo

Just an update of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), what's in a name.

I don't know what reaches the press abroad, but here we get daily updates of the situation in east DRC bordering Rwanda.

It has always been bad in eastern DRC since the war in 1994. The two provinces bordering Rwanda are south and north Kivu. South Kivu borders also Burundi and North Kivu also borders Uganda. In South Kivu there are rebels that are closely linked with Burundian rebels, this is a problem but seems to be at a stable level, and also Rwanda doesn't seem to intervene or have an problems because of it. In North Kivu the main rebel group is that of Nkunda a tutsi ex army lieutenant or general (I don't even know the difference). He says he is fighting for the tutsi's in DRC who are still suffering oppression. Rumours are that Rwanda is aiding him in all sorts of ways, but this is hard to prove.

Recently the conflict between Nkunda and the DRC army has escalated, it looks like most of the area is in control of Nkunda, except Goma the province capital. In Goma is a high presence of UN (MONUC) and are a lot of NGO's (red cross, doctors without borders...) situated. Goma is right next to the border, at the other side of the border in Rwanda is Gisenyi, both at the shores of lake Kivu.

The latest reports are that the DRC army was looting in Goma, even killing some people. Many Congolese flee over the border to spend the night in Gisenyi. A lot of NGO's decided to withdraw from DRC and move to Gisenyi. The UK and Dutch embassies have advised not to go to Gisenyi and hotels are not accepting reservations.

The international community is worried about the situation, more so because nobody seems to know an answer to the problems. However nobody seems to be worried that the problems will spread towards the rest of Rwanda. Rwanda is very cautious not to intervere, because of international pressure, and Nkunda has nothing to gain by going into Rwanda.

Nkunda offered an aid corridor, this looks kind, but this is most likely because he depends on the people for his own food supply.

In short, we are not worried, but we avoid going to the north-west of Rwanda.

Time

Time is a mysterious thing.

Most people who read this might have noticed that they had to change the clocks. We didn't.

Sunlight savingtime or whatever you call it in English (zomertijd) has ended for at least the UK and the Netherlands. As we are heading towards summer our clock should have gone the other way. However Rwanda has decided not to do strange and difficult things like that. 1. It would confuse people, the sun rises around 6 AM and sets around 6 PM, why change it. 2. It would make the time differences with other countries more confusing. A quick look on the net shows that most African countries are not bothering with 'summertime', with a few exceptions.

countries with changing time.

Anyway. We are now two hours ahead of the UK and one hour ahead of The Netherlands.
This means 6 o'clock here is 4 in the UK and 5 in The Netherlands. Just so you know.