Monday 21 May 2018

Pimms O'clock


 Beautiful view from Harris's balcony.

He's left for the next couple of weeks to attend a conference in Europe. 

We spent his last night watching movies on the balcony and drinking whilst waiting for the taxi. Think the takings at CasaKeza will plummet whilst he's away. Miss my drinking buddy.

It's been a party kind of month.

Since Maia left, her friend Victor has taken over the running of the restaurant. It was his birthday, so there was cake and, being from South America, a large quantity of tequila.

 


Ended up teaching my friend Christian the neck-lick, which is something I haven't done since I was twenty-one. You rub a little of the lemon on your neck to make the salt stick, then put the lemon in your mouth. The other person licks the salt off your neck, downs the tequila, then takes the lemon from your mouth. It's fun. I learnt it with the British Army in Germany. 

In return, he let me wear his cap and glasses so that I could look like a librarian (apparently). The glasses are fun - fake lenses. I need to get some to make me look smarter.



In between the parties, rain has transformed my garden. A self-seeding butternut squash and, what I presume to be, potatoes on their way. All thanks to Gizmo the garden elf.





Had a rare water and electricity outage the other day. Glad it didn't last more than a day as I don't think my bucket-for-one emergency reserve is enough for four people and five cats. Got a full house at the moment.


Also had a thoroughly enjoyable ladies' night. I've become part of a WhatsApp group filled with ladies who dine - and drink. Mostly friends from the development sector. We splashed out on a very nice French restaurant called L'Épicurien. It's pricey (£15 for the duck) but it's absolutely worth it. The food is very tasty. Afterwards, a few of us wandered over the road to Mamba. We missed the live music but the place was packed and it was a lot of fun. Few people I knew there, and was joined by my friend Sameer from Gisenyi who was down for the weekend. Afterwards, we headed to Nyamirambo to meet up with Maja, Vincent and Mac in a bar for one last round. Made it home at a respectable 2:30 in the morning.



Mamba Club - we have a bowling alley, who knew?

The next day Jo came to pick me up to go to PiliPili. Had I been in the UK, I probably wouldn't have watched the Royal Wedding, but something about being an expat can occasionally turn you more British than you normally feel. It's a chance for Pimms and strawberries, neither of which are easily found. Sat watching the screens, and listening to a table of Americans behind talking about Limeys and explaining - with confidence and many mistakes - the structure of the royal family. Still, it was a nice, boozy afternoon and everyone was united in cheering for the kiss. No sooner did I get home than there was a call from Johanna and Sameer. We convened at CasaKeza for sangria and a strange night telling ghost stories.

 
Pimms O'clock
 


Sunday 20 May 2018

Floods



In my last post I mentioned the flooding in Gisenyi. More than 200 people have lost their lives and almost 10,000 homes have been destroyed in one of the heaviest rainy seasons in a long time. After posting about it on Facebook, I started to hear more stories from friends, so I wanted to share. The first two are from my friend Jo. The second one shows the road we drove along to get to Lake Bunyonyi last October.


We’re coming to the end of the rainy season, which has been particularly heavy. Over 200 people have died in Rwanda as a result of landslides and falling buildings.
On Monday morning an old house in my garden started to collapse after 12 hours of heavy rain. Luckily no one was hurt and we spent the day emptying the house and moving out the person who was living there. We’ll knock down the rest over the next few days.
I’m very grateful that we get to sleep in a comfortable bed each night surrounded by solid walls.


My friend Meg runs the Kinamba Project down the road. She posted this.


After prolonged heavy rain for days on end this is what happened to part of our boundary wall over the weekend.

My own neighbour started building a house a few months back and one entire wall collapsed whilst I was away in Gisenyi. A live electric wire landed in our garden. REG have since made it safe, but it's still coiled up over our garden wall. 

There used to be four walls to this house.



Back in 2015, I was an honoured guest at my former guard's village after raising funds to help him rebuild his home after it had been washed away by floods. I still remember his face the night it happened, when he sat on my back porch and I thought someone had died. When he eventually told me what had happened, I realised I had to try to help. I'm extremely lucky to live in a solid, cement house that isn't likely to wash away any time soon *touch wood*.

My friend Sameer, up in Gisenyi, also sent me some pictures. The floods rerouted a river at the end of his garden, bringing down a wall and washing up two bodies. He lives on a tea estate which has lost a large area of land at significant financial cost, and made many of the mountain roads impassible.




This used to be a tea field.

There are definitely significant challenges that come with living in a land of a thousand hills - especially when it rains this hard. Thoughts go out to everyone who was affected and has lost loved ones.

Thursday 10 May 2018

Gisenyi Tea Fields


Headed up to Gisenyi for the weekend with Harris, Roberto and Myrsini. We hired a car and stopped of at Nyaringarama - Rwanda's first service station - for brochettes and potatoes (ibirayi). The stuff in the foreground is zingaro, cow intestine, which is a delicacy.

L-R: Me, Myrsini, Roberto
We checked into Kivu Peace View Hotel, which had a fantastic view of Lake Kivu, and extremely comfortable beds. Big plump pillows and sprung mattresses - I slept like a lord.




(panoramic, click to enlarge)




We had a fantastic day relaxing by the pool on Saturday. Headed to Nirvana Heights for G&T and the beautiful view. Swimming was done, sugarcane was nibbled and sunbathing was had.








Rain Cloud
Then it was down to Paradis Malahide to watch a spectacular sunset and listen to the traditional fishing boats as they headed out across the lake, singing.



Delivering fresh soil to the islands?










We spent the evening at a gorgeous bar we found called One Degree South, I think so named because Gisenyi is 1°42 south of the equator. Lashings of hummus, baba ganoush and yummy stuff. The nice thing about Lake Kivu is that it's large enough to have a tidal pull, which creates waves. Along with the sandy beaches, it's just like being by the seaside.

On Sunday, we headed over to see my friend Sameer at the Pfunda Tea Estate. Sameer is a friend from rock night, we've moshed together in the past. He's originally from Assam and is deputy manager at the estate. He welcomed us with plenty of beer, then took us on a tour of the incredible tea gardens of Northern Rwanda.

Me and Sameer
Welcome to Gisenyi





(panoramic, click to enlarge)
Guatemala Grass
We learnt so much about tea, and even got to pick a tiny bit and chew it. Anyone who likes Yorkshire Tea - this is where your tea is grown. The grass is Guatemala Grass, named after its origin. It's planted to rejuvenate the soil as it fixes nitrogen levels or something clever like that. It truly is a stunningly, stunningly beautiful part of the country. Pfunder alone employs somewhere around 4,000 people. Each tea tree can continue to be harvested for up to sixty years.

The estate are part of a rainforest initiative and help to plant native trees to preserve the natural forest. I was surprised to find plenty of clover growing near the tea fields too, which is a plant very common in England.

Red Clover
White Clover

Just as we were about to leave, the monkeys in Gishwati Forest started howling. It was like something out of Jurassic Park, with the big old native trees and the rolling hills. The haunting ancestral call of the human race. Not unlike Saturday night out in Cardiff.




We headed back to Sameer's place where he treated us to a fabulous home-cooked Indian meal, and I took the opportunity to look around his garden, which is absolutely gorgeous.






Passion Fruit













Sadly, we've had some serious rain this year. Rainy seasons used to be quite full-on, but over the past two years it's been very dry. This year saw a return to torrential rain, and an extended Long Wet Season. The combination of excessive rain and dry soil has led to over 200 people losing their lives in landslides and flooding since January. A river runs behind Sameer's garden. The flooding caused the river to alter course, bringing down his garden wall and wiping out several hectares of tea fields, causing significant financial loss to the estate. It also washed up the bodies of two people who had accidentally fallen in up river.




As we were leaving on Monday morning, we passed a group of people standing by the road and decided to get out and see what they were looking at. The waterfall, which had been nothing special on Friday when we arrived, was now tearing down the hillside like it wanted to take the town with it.



After the tea fields, we went out drinking with Sameer at Tam Tam Beach and a local nightclub. It really is like being by the sea, with people going past in pedalos...


... and some very interesting items on the menu.


Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble with the car. Something electrical - whenever we turned the key, instead of starting the ignition, it locked and unlocked the doors! My friend Emmy drove up from Kigali to drive us back. When he arrived and tried the key, it started perfectly - sod's law. 

Such a nice, relaxing weekend with friends. I didn't like Gisenyi the first time I went there in 2008, because I was working and didn't get to see the beach, but it's definitely become one of my favourite places in Rwanda.