The Cats

We love our 2 cats very much, but had no idea how much bureaucracy is involved in taking them briefly back to Europe en route to Burkina. They will be staying in what is known in dutch as a "cat hotel" - I refer to it as the cat prison, since no matter how nice it is, after the house and garden in which to catch lizards in - no amount of space will be enough. But sending them unaccompanied from Rwanda to Burkina isn't really an option...and is even more complex as they are then commodities not pets.

Nev inspecting proceedings below..

Musti in the famous yoga pose of a wrung out rag..


So if anyone stumbles on the blog and wants to export a pet from Rwanda to the EU (excluding UK)
you need to begin the process 4-5 months before you leave

1. animal must be microchipped
2. vaccinated against rabies
3. have rabies blood test certificate
4. have health certificate EU rules 998
5. have export paperwork from Rarda (sub-ministry of the Ministry of Agriculture)
   

http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/pets/nocomm_third_en.htm
is the place to start, they have the info in various languages


Our experience

1. The vets here in Rwanda cannot provide a microchip - but can inject it for you if you manage to find a friendly vet in europe to sell you one. They don't have readers that can read all microchips though. If you have more than one pet, make sure that you are certain which pet has which chip. Don't forget to complete the paperwork for your home country chip database.

2. The vets here can do that OK. Its better if you have a pet vaccination booklet from your vet too, or you will end up with lots of loose papers.

3. The vets here can draw the blood and get it spun for you at one of the labs. You have to send the blood to an approved lab (see EU page for list) - this can be done in person, or by DHL - we successfully couriered ours to South Africa for just under Rwf 40,000 (volcanic ash period). This blood test must be 30 days after last rabies vaccination and three months before departure.

4. The vets here can stamp the EU 998 Health Certificate form, print your own out for them. This health certificate needs to be dated not more than 7 days before flight in order to get the export paperwork from Rarda.

5. the export paperwork from Rarda is free of charge and could / should be done on the same day. You need to go to Veterinary Services Office.

Directions to RARDA office
if you are driving from centre Kigali towards the airport
After Remera / Gisimenti (Chez Lando)
go straight
turn right at the next traffic lights (lively area)
down street for about 3 km, and its on the right - if you see the big food depot you have gone too far!

World wide movers

the movers are in

they came an hour and a half late, and took a two hour lunch break.

the good news is that they show us our already broken items (tea cup from india, 15 year old coffee maker with cracked plastic) and noticed things like the breadcrumbs in the toaster.

Enormous quantities of "scotch" are being used. Scotch tape that is -






early on in the process there were some bizarre poses posed for the photographer using our move as part of a shoot for some promotional material for the company




I'm glad that I pre-packed and sorted so much, as despite them working relatively quickly they still have a way to go...

informal farewells

many more informal farewells along the way in the past few weeks

Kathleen and Kelly at the pool who I regularly swim with, and the left hand changing room I spend so many mornings in (its not as clean as it looks in the photo)


"Ladies night" at the Milles Collines


I've been very lucky here to make some good friends and many good acquaintances, so saying goodbye is tough

Formal farewell

Last night was the official embassy send off for Lon and four other expat staff (cutbacks mean that only three new bodies will replace the five)

Speeches were held (even a brief one by Lon)

It was nice that the colleagues had re-written Boney-Ms By the rivers of Babylon to tease the departing staff

Mediatrice was there from the Wikwiheba project and presented Lon with some of the famous woven hats (again beautifully wrapped!). Talking about it afterward she mentioned that three years ago she would never have dared stand up in a room full of people (2/3 white – including ambassadors) and take the microphone, so she as well as the project have certainly developed.

Cadeau

On Tuesday prior to the move, we gave our staff some gifts (hair clippers for the guys, and some girly things for Clarisse) along with their final salary, extra cash etc

We have since been the lucky recipients of some reciprocal gifts, which not all unfortunately will make it beyond the hotel room due to the accompanying woodworm- so here are the photos for posterity.

oh the sweet times we have spent with Evariste....

Parcel wrapping is an art form

Roadworks

The roadworks on the main road into the centre of Kigali continue apace - an ambitious road widening scheme which managed to bring Kigali traffic to a standstill on many occasions







Our 12-15 min drive to the embassy could take upwards of an hour in the five lane traffic, and saw us taking a 10km detour to get to the same turn off which is just 1.5km down the hill!




the seemingly sudden decision to re-do this main road at the same time has had suspicious minds pointing out that the elections are coming up - it's a more mundane reason than that - it has only rained once in the past three weeks....

Football and farewells

Saturday saw us selling off the last of our (for sale) possessions to various Rwandans and embassy personnel, and on to the football where the Orange fans were out in full regalia for the match against Japan.

Somehow, more than other nationalities the dutch manage to mobilise for football matches - shame the football wasn't as exciting as the crowd would have wished for, but a win is a win - or as a t-shirt we saw said - better 1-0 ahead than 1-0 behind...must be the wisdom of the Cruijf.



Out for a quick bite (or so we thought) to the italianest Italian restaurant in Kigali Sole Luna (Sun and Moon) - you almost expect lady and the tramp to be sharing a plate of spaghetti meatballs at the next table - but its good grub, even if the lasagna takes an hour.


Lon went to the car wash to watch Cameroon lose (one game a day is already over my limit) - and no, he's not lost the plot, but Car Wash is a carwash and bar, which has the biggest screen in Kigali for the matches outside of the stadiums (stadia??)


Sunday, more packing, sorting and then onto a farewell party complete with brochette!


Nev our able assistant helping ...

..it finally happened

at the weekend we decided to borrow the embassy's old pick up for two reasons, firstly as we wanted to drop the Suzuki off for a full service, and secondly so we could go round on our Kigali safari as we did at the beginning of our posting without my having heart failure at every pothole.

We had just finished a slightly off piste route, and were in Kanobe near the airport when we heard a strange whooshing sound - I thought it perhaps was a helicopter, but no we had a completely flat blown tyre.

Some poking round in the back of the pickup revealed a missing bit for the jack, no warning triangle (legally obliged) ditto fire extinguisher. So, we called the embassy driver to come and help us. Releasing the spare tyre from under the pickup required a complicated meccano type arrangement which was poked in a small hole above the numberplate.

It was quite a relief that several passing cars stopped to see if they could offer any help.


so this is Vincent helping us out. I took more photos which have somehow been gremlinned - oh well.

This is the outcome I expected on our many off road drives, so I was kind of relieved that it finally happened, and when it did we were on tarmac in a recognisable place.