Culmination of grump

 posted by Janine

I woke up cranky today. Apparently it was a sign on how the rest of the day was going to be. It’s now 14 hours later and I am completely exhausted from my day. Slightly frustrated, somehow annoyed, vaguely irritated but mostly… tired.

Yesterday I had the best day where we went to visit a coffee station in the middle of the most stunning lush mountain landscape I have seen in Rwanda. And this morning, I had the most wonderful breakfast with fresh strawberries from that same mountain. So far so good, you would say (except for the grumpiness, something that Mikkel can confirm)

My working day started with on the program my first real fieldtrip to a coffee cooperative south in the country. I had quite a good start: we had a car, I had company (my colleague and the driver) and we only left one hour later than planned. So what’s the big deal? Well, here comes the cocktail for my frustrations:

•  A very winding road in combination with a let’s say, a-just-as-winding driver (= me fighting nausea)
•  A three (!) hour meeting in the local language where I only got sporadic translation (= me in utter boredom)
• A smelly toilet in the coffee plantation mostly inhabited by big noisy flies (=me wishing there weren’t so many people everywhere so I at least could make it a nature visit)
•  No food or drink until 16 in the afternoon (!). Apparently people find that the most normal thing here (=me secretly sneaking out of the meeting trying to comfort my crying stomach with an old banana that was still in my bag)
• An un-smooth interview in French about fairtrade certification (=me stumbling in French and the interviewee stumbling in French…lost in translation?)
• One of the workers drying the coffeebeans giving me the desperate ‘Give Me Money or Food’ gesture and the accompanying  look of hopelessness (= me returning this with a desperate but semi-friendly smile)

And then, many hours and winding roads later, when we almost reached home and I had no more credits for accepting anything but nice things, my new colleague asked me the question: ‘what religion do you practice?’ Aaaaiii. I cannot handle this but I cannot lie either.

When I ‘confess’ to her that I don’t have any, she is giving me the most horrific looks and attitude that you can imagine. And tells me she is terrified to ever send her 6 children to my part of the world, where the rich people have lost all their sense. There goes all my good efforts of building up a good rapport with this woman, with whom I have many more field visits to do.

This was my day. I'm tired ok? I just want work to be fun and comfortable ok? Can someone up there promise that? Sincerely thanks for listening, I needed to get it out somewhere, and you became my victims!  

Have a lovely weekend (I surely need it more than ever and the good thing is: it’s there in front of me, jeeeeee)

janine

Genocide Commemoration

Posted by Mikkel

Last week was Genocide Memorial Week. 17 years ago on the 6^th of April the Rwandan Genocide started. The following 100 days somewhere close to one million people – mostly tutsis - were killed often in the most gruesome ways. Around ¾ of the tutsis in Rwanda at the time are believed to have been killed. The killers were mainly armed with machetes and homemade weapons. They were organized and managed by local leaders and government officials. And they were backed-up by the national army.

In a way it is unimaginable what happened here during those 100 days. Most of the killing actually happened within the first 3-4 weeks. A friend of ours here was 11 years old and living in Kigali when the genocide started. He told me that it was just as unimaginable when it happened. And that that was probably one of the main reasons of the killers’ “success” in those first 3-4 weeks. Those that were hunted thought they would be safe if they gathered in schools, churches, etc. They thought no-one would kill 40.000 civilians who take shelter inside a big boarding school compound… But they did. It took three days and only 8 people survived by hiding under dead bodies.

God bless sms

Posted by Janine

I started the job at the school book company and it’s fascinating. I have 5 colleagues, who I am supposed to ‘manage’. Almost all of them are in the end of their twenties and single. In fact, one of the guys instantly fell in love with my sister when I showed him her picture on internet (yes Lon, I didn’t tell you this yet!)  Partly this is because he likes to marry a ‘white woman’ as this will bring him beautiful babies… But when I told him she is not religious I saw that this brought some doubts to his face.

He and some of the other colleagues are pretty serious about Jesus. They talk a lot about him (in fact, it’s one of their favorite topics), read the bible during working hours and listen to gospel songs and very melodramatic slow religious songs (until I ask them to please stop it!)  Yesterday when my stomach was protesting a little bit, I sent an sms message to my colleague that I would work from home and she wrote back to me: