2 Days in Kigali

It’s been a busy last 2 weeks for us, culminating for me in an two trips (the second  an overnight one) to Kigali, while Catherine has been beavering away at home, getting our house and garden increasingly into good shape, while taking care of the kids. We’ve also both had several days of uncomfortable tummy bugs, so that has slowed us up a bit.

During my last trip to Kigali, I managed to:

1 Meet two of the Deputy Commissioners for Customs and establish that the car we had bought is completely unable to be registered in Rwanda, except by a diplomat. We will need to sell it, and have advertised it for sale on the web.

2 Clear all our household goods and some donated endoscopy equipment for the Hospital through Kigali Airport customs, and truck it back to Butare. Tomorrow a day of unpacking awaits Catherine and the children (while I try to catch up on my neglected hospital duties).

3 Inspect about 25 RAV4 cars for sale at 7 different locations all over Kigali, and make an offer on one, which i think will suit us. I’m still waiting to hear back from the vendor. I also got to show the CHUB Director of Administration how to assess a car prior to buying it, as he’s looking to get one too!

4 Have dinner and stay the night with Peter and Katie, our English friends and medical colleagues. I also met an American premed student and his wife who will spend some time with us at Butare soon.

5 Attend the morning meeting at CHUK, the Kigali University Teaching Hospital and meet the physician staff there. I also had a very promising meeting with Dr Benoit, the Director of Gastroenterology there, who is very keen to learn therapeutic endoscopy techniques, and wants my help in training him and his staff and setting up the service. We also discussed forming a Rwandan Gastroenterology Society, another of my longterm goals which was received very positively, and hope this will happen over coming months. We have the blessing of the Director General of CHUK , who I met briefly, on both fronts.

6 I met up by chance in the shops with Lynne Beatty, a parishioner at St Mary’s Mirboo North who hosted us at their lovely property in Mirboo North during our deputation there last year, Lynne and Neville are staying at Gahini, where we have worked previosuly, undertaking and managing a building project at the Seeds of Peace Centre by Lac Muhazi. It was lovely to have a chat over a cup of African tea and catch up on going on, both at Gahini and in Australia.

7 Do some shopping, eat, sleep and answer about 60 phone calls.

I’m exhausted so off to bed now. We’ll write more soon. In particular I want to do a “before and after” photo series looking at the progress that’s been made on our house and we also went to a “First Communion” for the son of a French Catholic missionary family who are good friends of ours on Sunday. So much to talk about, so little time….