Stuff only: Field/road visit

I went on a three day field visit to watch some roads.

I left Monday with a colleague and somebody from the Canadian CIDA who co-finances the programme, and of course the driver. We drove to Butare, further to Nyungwe forest and near the end of the forest we stopped to meet our developing partner Helpage who build the roads, and our escort consisting of a police man and a military Colonel (high up). We drove an interesting road south to stop next to the border where the district office is. An district official (forgot who he is) did the official speech of things we all already knew. We had a quick look at the small bridge dividing the two countries. Because the roads in Rwanda are in a worse state than the Burundian ones, people from that vilage drive via Burundi to Cyangugu, the districts main town bordering Congos Bukavu.

Over the three days we ended op mainly driving various kinds of roads, ranging from bumpy and stony to muddy to flat gravel and asphalt with holes in. The reason for all this is to show us why roads are bad, what is being done at the moment and what the finished roads look like. Why we exactly had to drive the full length of these roads to see this is a bit beyond me. It was tiring, but I did enjoy it.

We stayed in Cyangugu with a view towards the river and Bukavu. The town differs in many ways from Kigali. It seems more african, or should I say Congolese. There are more people on the street, a mix between congolese and rwandans. Some houses are made of wood, as a forest gives wood and there is relatively less clay to build bricks.

Four of us stayed at the hotels, so we ordered a 'breakfast fool'. The full breakfast was bread, omelette and coffee or tea. The coffee was a bit weak. I ordered a spanish omelette instead of a normal one and my Rwandan colleague from CIDA order an onion omelette. The onion omelette looked rather full of vegies, and when my omelette arrived it turned out I got the onion omelette and my friend got mine, as it was already half eaten, we left it as it was. So day two a second change. We ordered four breakfast, noting special. 'Do you want a spanish omelette?' 'No thanks just plain.' '?' 'plain, simple' '?' 'blank, nothing on it' intervention from Kinyarwanda speaking partner 'butros butros gali!' 'Oh'.
So out came three normal omlettes and .... a spanish omlette for the guy who aet mine the day before, we just laughed and continued.

The trip gave us some food for thought. The road we built less then two years ago was in need of repairs, the district claims lack of money. It did not seem relevant we made clear appointments about this a few years ago. He did (want to) understand our question how the financing of road via taxes works in Rwanda. He saw a solution, he will make a plan of all that is needed and then ask different donors for money. The first part we like, the second part not. I seriously doubt if we need to finance roads which are not being maintained.

We did see progress in an other part of the project. They planted lots of trees, beside the road and on the border of the forest. The first to protect the ground from erosion and the other to protect the forest like a buffers zone. There are another 990.000 plants in the nursery to be planted in a few weeks time.

The roads are build in a so called HIMO fashion, intensive manual hand work. A few hundred people are working on different bits of the road and bridges at any given time. 60% are women. Most are jobless, so any job is welcome, they get 1 dollar a day, not much but more then nothing and more than a farmer makes.

Day two we had five minutes of rain, it rains a lot more in this region. The rain happened to fall at the moment we were on a muddy road, resulting in a sliding car, see photo. The mud is sticky (around the wheels) and slippery an ideal combination for disasters.