For the attentive readers, it might look that we are not sure what the local word for white man is, we used mzungu, muzungu and bazungu. This is not due to fat fingers on the keyboard, nor to our lack of spelling, there is an explanation.
Mzungu is the kiswahili word for white person. Muzungu (the difference is hard to hear) is the kinyarwanda word for white person and bazungu is kinyarwanda for white people.
So now you know two words kinyarwanda.
Lon Zomer and Hazel O'Dea - their life abroad
Friday, 5 October 2007
Oeps
I finally did what I was afraid of.
Haze asked me to bring home a couple of avocados for lunch. Not a big deal as on one of the side roads are some shops, and avocados are available most places. I went down the road in the big embassy car. By the way the embassy car has a little flag up front, but this is covered by what we call a condom, so it looks like a little stick (could call it dildo, but that would be too many sex references in one sentence). So one of the first shops was a local lady with a bowl of about 20 avocados, bingo. I stopped the car got out and asked in my best French how much they were. The lady made the universal sign of a fist. Luckily I came across this sign before when something cost 2,500 RWF, the signs used then were two fingers and a fist. I know this must sound wrong to the English giving somebody first two fingers and then a fist, but I can assure you this was a friendly man and he did mean 2,500 RWF. So I assumed the lady wanted 500 RWF for a avocado. So I picked up two nice avocados, gave the lady 1.000 RWF (GBP 1, EUR 1,35, USD 2) and left. I did get some looks, but a muzungu in this kind of street always gets looks. Going home I thought, this might be a bit much but I am not sure.
At home I told this to Haze and she had to laugh, the sign apparently means a half, or instead five, but can mean half of 1.000 or, in this case, half of 100. So I paid the lady her daily salary for two avocados, where I could have gotten the lot.
I am glad my money went to a lady on the street and not to a big store, and this quality would not be available at 1.000 in The Netherlands, if available at all.
Haze asked me to bring home a couple of avocados for lunch. Not a big deal as on one of the side roads are some shops, and avocados are available most places. I went down the road in the big embassy car. By the way the embassy car has a little flag up front, but this is covered by what we call a condom, so it looks like a little stick (could call it dildo, but that would be too many sex references in one sentence). So one of the first shops was a local lady with a bowl of about 20 avocados, bingo. I stopped the car got out and asked in my best French how much they were. The lady made the universal sign of a fist. Luckily I came across this sign before when something cost 2,500 RWF, the signs used then were two fingers and a fist. I know this must sound wrong to the English giving somebody first two fingers and then a fist, but I can assure you this was a friendly man and he did mean 2,500 RWF. So I assumed the lady wanted 500 RWF for a avocado. So I picked up two nice avocados, gave the lady 1.000 RWF (GBP 1, EUR 1,35, USD 2) and left. I did get some looks, but a muzungu in this kind of street always gets looks. Going home I thought, this might be a bit much but I am not sure.
At home I told this to Haze and she had to laugh, the sign apparently means a half, or instead five, but can mean half of 1.000 or, in this case, half of 100. So I paid the lady her daily salary for two avocados, where I could have gotten the lot.
I am glad my money went to a lady on the street and not to a big store, and this quality would not be available at 1.000 in The Netherlands, if available at all.
Thursday, 4 October 2007
Technophobes united
Several viewers of our blog have been unable to post comments, or unwilling? and have been sending private emails to us (which proves that more people than my mum and friend Miranda read this.....)
anyway, the kind blogger people have encountered this before and have made a lovely help page...
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42399&topic=8921
looking forward to hearing from you!
H
anyway, the kind blogger people have encountered this before and have made a lovely help page...
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42399&topic=8921
looking forward to hearing from you!
H
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
Water Project
Yesterday I went on a dutch partners organised tour of a water project. I didn't really know where we were going, except the restaurant for coffee, but that was it.
It turned out to be a great trip. The EU has funded a project which has been widely accepted and appreciated by the local people.
Kigali is full of hills. It rains a lot here. So far so simple. What this means is that there are streams/rivers of water which make there way downhill every rainy season. Due to erosion this means that there were ravines through settlements which were up to 12 m deep, though mostly shallower and wider. Small children and drunk men died frequently. Houses also subsided into the water every year.
A lot of stones, sand, cement
and people power have been changing this over the past two years, and a slow fascinating engineering project has made a vast difference to the local residents. More interesting for me was the social project - the workers are orphans, widows, ex-military from both sides, and women whose husbands are in prison. They are allowed to participate in the project for 6 months (about 700 are employed). Each worker earns 1,600 a day (about 2.5 times usual unskilled day rate) 1,000 goes to the bank, and the 600 to a savings account which can't be touched until the end of the project - which by then is quite a sizeable sum. There is an informal self organized reconciliation process that goes on, but nothing mandatory, yet somehow the groups involved are putting aside their differences.
We were a vocal group, asking the (Belgian) project leader lots of questions. Unfortunately the project isn't supported by the government (not helping the right people!?!), waste of money etc, so unless the communities decide to continue with maintenance after the project is completed mid 2008 who knows. The government is however busy with similar slightly smaller gutter building throughout Kigali. The workers who have been on this project, are now skilled in a growth area where there is a shortage of experience, and so are able to find work upon leaving the project. Also this EU project ends where leading the water to a river, so it has somewhere to flow to...many of the gutter projects just lead toward low ground, which is of course used for small agricultural plots usually....
The local population didn't seem too bothered by a dozen bazungu strolling round their neighbourhood to look at their new drainage system, though we were of course a great fascination for small children who wanted their photos taken.
It turned out to be a great trip. The EU has funded a project which has been widely accepted and appreciated by the local people.
Kigali is full of hills. It rains a lot here. So far so simple. What this means is that there are streams/rivers of water which make there way downhill every rainy season. Due to erosion this means that there were ravines through settlements which were up to 12 m deep, though mostly shallower and wider. Small children and drunk men died frequently. Houses also subsided into the water every year.
A lot of stones, sand, cement
and people power have been changing this over the past two years, and a slow fascinating engineering project has made a vast difference to the local residents. More interesting for me was the social project - the workers are orphans, widows, ex-military from both sides, and women whose husbands are in prison. They are allowed to participate in the project for 6 months (about 700 are employed). Each worker earns 1,600 a day (about 2.5 times usual unskilled day rate) 1,000 goes to the bank, and the 600 to a savings account which can't be touched until the end of the project - which by then is quite a sizeable sum. There is an informal self organized reconciliation process that goes on, but nothing mandatory, yet somehow the groups involved are putting aside their differences.
We were a vocal group, asking the (Belgian) project leader lots of questions. Unfortunately the project isn't supported by the government (not helping the right people!?!), waste of money etc, so unless the communities decide to continue with maintenance after the project is completed mid 2008 who knows. The government is however busy with similar slightly smaller gutter building throughout Kigali. The workers who have been on this project, are now skilled in a growth area where there is a shortage of experience, and so are able to find work upon leaving the project. Also this EU project ends where leading the water to a river, so it has somewhere to flow to...many of the gutter projects just lead toward low ground, which is of course used for small agricultural plots usually....
The local population didn't seem too bothered by a dozen bazungu strolling round their neighbourhood to look at their new drainage system, though we were of course a great fascination for small children who wanted their photos taken.
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Life guard
The local staff and, if they want to, the staff of embassy personnel gets a course on HIV/AIDS.
As a result we have baskets in the toilets with condoms. To promote the use they are cheap any way 200 RWF (0.20 GBP, 0.28 EUR) for 3.
Volunteering
I received a warm welcome at Orphans of Rwanda, and helped two students to create a cv and cover letter to apply for an internship at local companies.
Four students were scheduled.
Trying to pad out a cv for a school leaver who hadn't even begun their degree (physiotherapy) and write a cover letter applying for an advertising internship at a radio station was pretty taxing, especially when the whole concept of..cv, cover letter, internship - working hard without payment were all new...
I have also been busy today writing draft student evaluations. A great number of the students will be attending ORI sponsored Language and IT courses (starting Friday) and ORI had decided that they want the students to evaluate the courses...but there are no clear goals outlined (its a good idea...) so how can we evaluate if it successful?
Anyway it was good to exercise my 3 syllable braincells, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.
Four students were scheduled.
Trying to pad out a cv for a school leaver who hadn't even begun their degree (physiotherapy) and write a cover letter applying for an advertising internship at a radio station was pretty taxing, especially when the whole concept of..cv, cover letter, internship - working hard without payment were all new...
I have also been busy today writing draft student evaluations. A great number of the students will be attending ORI sponsored Language and IT courses (starting Friday) and ORI had decided that they want the students to evaluate the courses...but there are no clear goals outlined (its a good idea...) so how can we evaluate if it successful?
Anyway it was good to exercise my 3 syllable braincells, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.
weekend in Butare
At the weekend we made it out of Kigali and to Butare (Huye) the second largest city. Against all embassy staff advice and dire warnings we took a luxury minibus (1300 Rwf pp) for the 2 and half hour journey. The bus was pleasant, and contrary to popular belief the driver wasn't a lunatic, as he also wanted to arrive home safely...the scenery was amazing, and the opportunity we had to look into peoples lives from the road was great.
We arrived just after dark, and didn't do much other than check into a motel and have a few beers and dinner. Saturday was Umuganda (community clean up) so the streets were deserted. This gave us the once in a lifetime chance to walk round and take photos of shops at will. This only took up the first hour after breakfast, and we spent a good couple of hours sitting at a cafe in the shade watching the world go by (the part of the world not taking part in Umuganda).
(Bored muzungu)
Then at 12.00 coffee was back on the menu, so we had a coffee, walked round a bit more, had lunch, and then had to get the 15.00 bus, so as not to be driving in the dark. In order to get the 15.00 bus, you buy a ticket before 14.00, then at around 14.30 go to the bus stop and sit down if the bus is there as you need to get a (good) seat. The bus then went to the getting on stop (we got on at the getting off stop - along with a few others) waited for people to get on, then drove back to the getting off stop where people then got back off, and sat down in different seats.....it was very confusing.
We'll go back again when we have our own transport and actually do something like visiting the national museum...another day
Ghost town!
Advertising
Transport
Telecoms
Market
We arrived just after dark, and didn't do much other than check into a motel and have a few beers and dinner. Saturday was Umuganda (community clean up) so the streets were deserted. This gave us the once in a lifetime chance to walk round and take photos of shops at will. This only took up the first hour after breakfast, and we spent a good couple of hours sitting at a cafe in the shade watching the world go by (the part of the world not taking part in Umuganda).
(Bored muzungu)Then at 12.00 coffee was back on the menu, so we had a coffee, walked round a bit more, had lunch, and then had to get the 15.00 bus, so as not to be driving in the dark. In order to get the 15.00 bus, you buy a ticket before 14.00, then at around 14.30 go to the bus stop and sit down if the bus is there as you need to get a (good) seat. The bus then went to the getting on stop (we got on at the getting off stop - along with a few others) waited for people to get on, then drove back to the getting off stop where people then got back off, and sat down in different seats.....it was very confusing.
We'll go back again when we have our own transport and actually do something like visiting the national museum...another day
Ghost town!
Advertising
Transport
Telecoms
Market
Comments please!
Paris Hilton coming to Rwanda
Kigali, September 26 (RNA) – Hotel heiress Paris Hilton is planning a very special trip - not to Vegas or the south of France, but to Rwanda, RNA has established.
According to CBC News, Hilton plans to visit Rwanda this November to raise awareness about child poverty. The service trip comes as part of Paris' image makeover following her brief stint in jail.
"The Simple Life" CBC News quotes her: "I'll be going in November, after I get back from filming my movie. There's so much need in that area, and I feel like if I go, it will bring more attention to what people can do to help."
Paris' Rwanda trip will be one of many service trips around the world. "I want to visit more countries where poverty and children's issues are a big concern," the 26-year-old socialite said. "I know there's a lot of good I can do just by getting involved and bringing attention to these issues."
The hotel heiress said that she wants to spread awareness about Rwanda and show people what they can do to help.
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