Day 3

On Sunday, I wanted to go for a walk and met Albert (18) and Clement (17) on my way to town. These young boys study for auto mechanic in the ETEKA (Ecole Technique de Kabgayi). They were on their way to the Stadium of Muhanga where two schoolteams were competing in a soccer game. It’s hard to believe but I did stay during the entire game. The boys knew little French and some English, which was a challenge, but we did manage to communicate somehow. One of these days, I’ll visit their school on their request.

The buzzle in the streets on Monday morning reveiled another workweek. I finally managed to go to the bank and get some RWF (Rwandese francs). The current rate is 1USD for 592RWF. Basically you count 1000RWF is 1,5USD.
Here’s an overview of what you can buy overhere at reasonable prices.

Bananas 300-400 RWF
Water (1/2 liter), soda drink 250-300 RWF
Juice (1/2 liter) 500-600 RWF
Bread 500 RWF
Tomatoes (2-4) 100-200 RWF
Fabric (for tailormade clothing) 10 000-15 000 RWF
Mango (1x) 100-200 RWF
Pineapple (1x) 200-300 RWF
Passion fruit (5x) 200 RWF
Oranges (3-4) 200 RWF
Papaya (1x) 200-300 RWF

Compared to our fruit and vegetables, this very cheap. Imagine the profit companies make when they import large quantities of tropical fruit from African countries.

Dinner plate
As you can tell from the list, there’s a large variety on fruit & veg available here. Still, the meals seem to be the same kind every day. Lots of people grab a bite in a local ‘restaurant’. For breakfast, you can have egg chapati, the pancake-like bread I described in a previous blog. They serve delicious African tea, which is called Chai tea, like the Indian version with spices such as ginger and made with whole milk. For me, this is enough for breakfast. Lunch and dinner can vary. You pick something from the buffet, which I might do later, or you take an omolette. Often they serve fries, pasta and rice with meat or vegetables such as green beans, cabbage and carrotes. It’s very tasty, but the three carb ingredients are often too much.

We were twice in a restaurant where it took them over 2 hours to cook some rice and vegetables. By the time we had our food it was gone cold already and that can only mean one thing in tropical countries; the infamous travellers disease! Add to that a serious lack of hygiene in the restrooms (which have no light, no running water, no toiletseats or paper…. ) you can imagine the horror when you feel the need to ‘go’. One golden rule; take napkins or tissues everywhere you go! Today I’ll probably pass on most of the food. Don’t want to make things worse.

Lesson two
After breakfast, Mr. S. took me to a very nice garden, next to a small hotel. We had drinks while he was working on an article and I was enjoying the sunshine. The spent the whole afternoon talking about the relation between hutu’s, tutsi’s and twa in the past and nowadays. I’ll get back to that later.

I also had a second language lesson, so here goes;

Witwa nde? What’s your name?
Nitwa I am called / My name is…
Nge ndi umubirigi I am Belgian
Wowe uri umunyarwanda You are Rwandese
Bite / bitese? Hi / What’s up?
Amakuru cyane? How are you today? What's new today?
Ni meza Not too bad, no news
Ni byiza / sawa All good (also for food) / Ça va
Ngwino, tugende! Come, let’s go!
Tugende murugo / tugende ku kazi Let’s go home / let’s go to work
Ni mwiza Pretty, beautiful (for people), in’t Vlaams: ni mis
Amazi ashushi Warm (ashushi) water (amazi)
And my favorite (cause it sounds funny and they shout it all the time): unva! listen!

African sun
I moved my seat around with the sun, to some point where my skin was starting to feel hot. Some time later we had a tropical thunderstorm and the rain was pouring down. It even got cold. I thought my skin wasn’t too bad until I got home later that evening where I appeared to have a very bad sunburn. My little necklace and bracelet are literally burned into my skin. For once, the cold shower was a relief and tomorrow I will go for sunscreen. No more tricks by the African sun.


Saturday 26FEB – Gitarama 25 degrees