Well I’m going to type this quickly because I want to have enough power left in my laptop battery to watch another episode of gossip girl. I know that gossip girl is really stupid but I’m hopelessly addicted to it. You get drawn into their vacuous world like a kind of escapism. As you’ve guessed the power is off and its been off all day. My diet today consisted of a marmite and fake laughing cow sandwich with stale bread for lunch followed by cold 24 hour old pasta with fake laughing cow cheese triangle mashed in. Oh how I wish I could just get into my car and drive to a pub! Fortunately I have a whole bag of Haribo which I bought in Kigali with me, its all thats keeping me going.
It gets lonely here too, sat all alone in the dark. I tried to write out some words from my Kinyarwanda lesson yesterday but I couldn’t see. So I rang lots of friends but now I have no airtime left. I would have a candlelight disco bucket shower but it would have to be a cold one.
I did have an interesting day though, trying to teach the students to play snakes and ladders and other games. While it took a lot of explaining and demonstration ‘this is a dice and this is how your throw it’ etc I can honestly say I’ve never heard whoops of joy while people play snakes and ladders before! We worked in the TRC classroom for the first time. We had to sit on the floor due to the lack of furniture but it was kind of nice in a way.
Right onwards and upwards. No power is required to drink waragi and passion fruit squash!
Very interesting blog! Especially because my wife and I just returned from Rwanda. I read in your earlier posts that you were losing your nerves when someone would call you umuzungu. I don't know if you got over it in the meantime, but we learned a useful phrase that can be used as a response: "umuzungu ni nyoko" (umuzungu is your mother). Give it a try! Hope it helps... :)
ReplyDeleteI used to survive evenings like that with supplies of mango-flavoured waragi - the little Indian supermarket just up the hill from Blues Cafe sold it and it was cheaper than regular waragi (I know, don't think about what that implies). There is a pineapple version also but I found that a bit sweet (but a chacun son gout as they say).
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