Urogendo Ruhire! (Have a safe journey!)

Currently it’s 10.30am on Sunday morning and the rain is bucketing down outside. Hannah is asleep in her cot/tent on the floor beside me, and Will and Catherine have gone across to the kitchen at the guesthouse to sterilise and assemble our brand new water filter, so it seems like a good time to update you on Project Walkabout.

Hannah makes another new friend

We’ve had a busy few days, the highlight of which has been a trip to Kigali, the Rwandan capital, a 2 hour drive away. I spent Thursday at the hospital, attending the morning medical round and preparing paperwork for our visas and my medical registration. A hospital vehicle was assigned to us for the trip on Friday morning: departure time 7am. Catherine meanwhile visited the house where we will live to find beds made, the house tidy, and the garden being worked on. God’s people at the Diocese are looking after us! Unfortunately the hospital has not yet signed the contract with the Diocese, so we’re still in the guesthouse until they do.

We awoke 6am Friday, breakfasted early as pre-arranged, and assembled to await the driver. 3 telephone calls and 2 1/2 hours later he arrived; we made a 9.30am departure for a 2 hour trip to the Immigration Department and Medical Council, both of which were scheduled to shut at 12. It seemed unlikely we could get either task done, but we needed to shop for our house anyway, so off we went at breakneck speed, the children restrained in car seats for the first time since we arrived, and an extended Kinyarwanda lesson thrown in by the driver gratis.

The immigration office was packed, so we took a number and sat down to wait. 12 o’clock came and went, but the office stayed open. Eventually the staff took pity on our children, and, after checking with those still waiting, graciously served us ahead of our turn at 1pm. We thought we nearly had our visas … until we discovered one or two details were incorrect: we needed 4 visa application forms, not one; each visa cost $100, not $20 total; the letter of application from the hospital was insufficient as it only mentioned Tim; my notarised Police Check was unacceptable and we needed the original, currently in Australia; and we needed birth and marriage certificates to prove the relationships within our family. We had brought all eight things mentioned on the website, but as was politely explained, five were wrong or insufficient! Back to the drawing board…

The hospital driver arrived back from another errand and we forlornly decided to drop by the Medical Board, before meeting an old friend of ours, Dr Manzi from Gahini, now national advisor on new initiatives to the Ministry of Health, for lunch at “1pm”. Manzi kindly called ahead for us, and the secretary at the Medical Council kept the office open until we arrived. This time the paperwork was correct, only the payment was wrong, and this could be easily topped up at our local bank branch.

The day continued to get better. Manzi arrived with his 3 1/2 year old daughter, Ophrah, and she and Will became fast friends. Ophrah speaks English and Kinyarwanda fluently, and English is her preferred medium at home, which worked nicely for Will. Manzi took us to his lovely house, in a newly developed suburb at Kicukiro, overlooking Kigali. Two years ago this area was all bush, but Kigali is growing quickly and now the hill is mostly residential. The kids had a great time playing outdoors, and we sat down to a much appreciated late lunch. Talk revolved around the friends we had known from Gahini days, children, and what each family had been up to in the intervening 8 years. The boys talked shop for a while, with Manzi’s extensive insights into Butare Hospital, the wider Rwandan medical system  and its culture being most helpful to this newly arrived novice.

Hannah and Ophrah, at Manzi’s house

Manzi’s wife, Aimee, 8 months pregnant, was chairing a meeting for the day and did not arrive home until late. In the interim, Manzi took us into Kigali shopping for household essentials: bed and bath linen, kitchen equipment and a water filter being the priorities. Manzi kindly invited us to stay the night, so, after making a rendezvous with the hospital driver to ferry our new purchases home, we returned to his house and were reunited with Aimee, who had accompanied Catherine on our only previous soiree to Butare, in 2003. It was great for our morale to be the beneficiaries of the Manzi household’s kindness, hospitality, and cultural insights as well as to be reunited with old friends.

Manzi’s household helps illustrate the differences between Australian and Rwandan families. As well as his wife Aimee and daughter Ophrah, Aimee’s little sister Liz and Manzi’s little brother Bill also live with them, helping around the house and studying at university nearby. Two other house workers, a young man and woman, also live and work with them, receiving food and board as well as a good wage which they send home each month to assist  their parent’s families. Cooking, cleaning and washing (by hand) are all shared between these four, leaving Manzi and Aimee free to work long hours in their careers. Ophrah, at 3 1/2, attends Nursery School all day, being about to enter Nursery 3 (the school system here consists of Nursery 1-3, Primary 1-6 and Secondary 1-6, with Primary and some of Secondary being at least theoretically compulsory.) 

Will and Ophrah shared a bed for the night, with Liz kindly giving her spot to Will and sleeping on the floor beside them. Will announced his intention to marry Ophrah, after being informed that Daddy, his first choice, was not a suitable nuptial partner as he needed to chose a girl!

The next day, the kids had a ball and we relaxed, before a leisurely lunch with Alex, Manzi’s brother, who lives nearby and is financial controller for the World Bank in Rwanda, and his kids. Eventually we had to go, and after a detour to Nakumatt (a huge Western-style 24 hour supermarket) to complete our shopping, we caught the Volcano Express bus home to Butare, along windy roads through a rainstorm. The kids slept alternately on the way home, and our Rwandan neighbours in the bus took turns variously helping entertain the kids, cuddling them while they slept and generally being incredibly useful to and tolerant of us all. We arrived home at dusk to find our new purchases safely stowed, but still no word on when the hospital and diocese would reach agreement on our (temporary) new house. We all slept like logs for nine hours last night!

Hannah’s favourite pastime at the moment, when left unsupervised, is eating dirt. She makes a beeline for the door and is off into the garden bed to ingest as much good, nutritious African mud as possible. Impressive gritty diarrhoea has been the result. If perchance the door outside is shut, she heads for the bathroom, and contents herself with splashing in any water she can find. She’s walking more and more, taking up to 15 steps at a time, though still reverting to crawling for speed and stealth.

 

Hannah caught heading for the dirt

Will was found yesterday, soon after arriving home, with a gluestick in one hand, and his muddy sandals in the other. When I inquired what he was doing, and what the sticky mess on his left shoe sole was,  he explained, “I’m going to stick my shoes on the wall.” At least they needed washing anyway…

Will playing soccer with Alex’s sons

 

For those of you praying for us, thankyou! I thought I might update our prayer points now too, given things are changing fast.

Give thanks for God’s provision:

of a house;

of new friends for Will and Hannah;

and of the English language congregation at Butare Cathedral which has made us feel so welcome.

Please pray:

for the visa process, that it will go smoothly and the required documents will arrive;

for good and productive communication with the hospital administration, to enable us to move into our house soon;

for the many people in material need here, and that we might know how best to respond.

Please feel free to email us or comment on the blog – we love hearing from you all!