Sunday, 30 July 2017

Welcome Little One


Heehee. Tracey and Francis made a baby! Meet little Gabriel. Looking forward to meeting the wee fella at some point in the future.

And that's Vladamir (according to his label) in the background. A little friend who was handmade in Kigali.

Well, life still isn't easy here. Currently looking for a new bank after mine hiked their internet banking fees. Apparently, the place they buy the (really dreadful) internet banking software from has put up its subscription price, so GT Bank feel it's only fair to pass that cost on to the customer. 

African countries are disadvantaged in every possible way when it comes to banking. You pay monthly fees for accounts, monthly fees for internet banking, you even get charged for depositing cheques into your account at some banks. I conducted a survey of friends living in the US, Europe, Australia and Asia (Laos and Bankok), and they all have free banking options. If they do pay, they get great perks. What annoys me here is that everything costs, the service is shocking, and every time the price goes north the customer simply says 'Thank you, I'll pay, no question.' People actually respond on Twitter supporting the bank putting up the prices.

It isn't entirely the fault of the banks. Firstly, banks in developed countries make their money (and lose it) through trading and investment (stocks and mortgages). That just isn't available here, the market is so small, so instead of passing profit down to the customer in the form of free services, the banks have to make money from their customers through charges. Secondly, banks in Africa seem to have to buy banking software from other places. Stuff like online banking systems, which they have to pay for. Finally, they're getting screwed by the international banking and transfer systems which (according to one friend here who used to work in banking) is heavily weighted against banks in EDCs, what with the exchange rate and international transfer costs. 

I sympathise. But, instead of competing so very hard to fit in with Western structures, maybe EDCs should take this conversation public and point out how shafted some of the world's poorest nations are by crap banking beyond their control. There's a big drive to get youth entrepreneurs running their own businesses, and rural people to open accounts, but the reality is, banking is for the privileged who can afford it. Banks keep on taking monthly charges until you have zero left in the account. For small businesses and individuals, it's throwing away your hard earned cash. I used to think the UK was special for offering free banking, but it seems free banking options do exist in most places around the world (by free, I mean free to simply have an account with internet banking). You can pay for perks if you want them, but you don't have to. Here, there's no choice.

Fees don't seem so bad for a single personal account, but when you start adding up your personal account and online banking, plus a business account and online banking... cha-ching.

At least I'm not in Kenya. My friend was telling me about banking fees there and you'd rather keep your money under a mattress. 

This race to become ever more capitalist. Surely development needs to be about more than copying systems without any modification. These systems are flailing in their countries of origin. Copy/pasting brings all those problems along too.

Revolt!


Anyway. Talking about replicating existing ideas... we should find out this week whether we've got a piano frame. Dropped in to check out T2000's Pearl River. It's been there so long, they've just put a dust sheet over it. Asking 9 million francs (£9,000) and it's as flat as a pancake. That's a lot of money to pay for disappointment.

I shouldn't mock too much. Maybe we won't be able to make one at all. But it's an incentive to try really hard.

In other good news, lovely Désiré made me some swanky kitchen shelves. As Jo said, I'm settling in. Only taken three years.



The saga of the mosquito nets took an interesting turn. I really lost my cool with the tailor lady. Over a month since I paid the deposit and they brought me nets that didn't fit, then another two weeks of nothing. We had the sort of heated text exchange that usually ends in someone burning down someone else's house. I either wanted nets that fitted - now - or the deposit back.

My lovely friend Lulu talked me down off the ceiling. We had a nice, relaxed therapy session in the garden of CasaKeza, beneath the fairy lights.

It must have worked, because the next day, when the tailor once again delivered nets that didn't fit, including one with a massive hole that I could put my hand through, I took it incredibly calmly. I phoned her and invited her to come and see what the problems were. She did. Then we had a weirdly zen moment where we both just looked at each other and apologised for the angst. She told me she was really sorry for everything, I said the same. We almost had a hug. It was genuinely touching. Turned out she'd had an even tougher few weeks than me, with family in hospital and business going bad. She managed to fix the main net in the guest bedroom, and I ended up giving her the remainder of the money and telling her to bring the other one once it was ready - no rush. She didn't sound like she needed any more stress, and I wasn't in the mood to give it.

Felt really happy after ditching that angst. It's stressful being mad at people.

Then I picked a fight with my bank.

I'm no Buddha, okay?



Comfort food - chips from a paper bag, slathered in salt and BBQ sauce.

Some days it's just necessary.

I'm also having a small go at not smoking for a while. I do this from time to time, but I feel now is probably the right time to try a little harder. Just because I enjoy it too much. Some days I sit on my patio with a beer, writing and chain smoking. Plus it's ridiculously cheap here, about £1 per pack of 20. A huge bottle of beer costs the same. Far too easy. 

I used to smoke on and off, but the past year has pretty much been on. I stopped a couple of days ago and nobody warns you about the achy. I feel like I have flu: blocked nose, sneezing, wheezing, insomnia, irritable and achy. I looked it up and apparently quitting smoking invokes the same inflammatory reaction from the immune system as chronic pain conditions. Your immune system goes - crap, no nicotine, kick the hell out of myself! 

From cigarettes to painkillers. I very rarely take painkillers, but I've popped a couple of ibuprofen just until it goes away. Still, I'm lucky in some respects because I don't get mad cravings. If I have something: chocolate, cigarettes, Pringles - I'll finish the lot. But if I don't have it, I don't sit around thinking about it. So, it's just riding out the aches and the crazy emotional crash which comes two to three weeks after (from what I remember of last time). Chewing gum is my new best friend. I tried Nicorette but, hands down, I'd rather start smoking again than chew that stuff, it's vile.

In retrospect, the week before the election probably wasn't the smartest time to choose to quit. Lot of people driving about who think ten o'clock at night and eight o'clock on a Sunday morning are acceptable times to  point their megaphone into your garden and give you a good old blast on the subwoofer. Plus, I think my neighbour is something to do with the election effort, because every Friday morning at about 4-5 a.m. they arise, turn their collective conversational voice to 'shout,' and pop the radio on. I have no idea why. This is a new-ish thing. I'm just hoping it ends with the election. Other than a little extra sound, you wouldn't know anything was happening. There are a few flags around the roundabout in town, but it's not like the outcome's in any doubt. Business as usual.

Meanwhile, I'm replacing cigarettes with food. I think this is quite common? Definitely eating more. Once again, lovely Lulu to the rescue with nommy tuna mayo and avocado. Tuna's a bit of a luxury because it's expensive.


I might be able to afford some myself once I get the money back from the cat food people. They accidentally added an extra zero and billed me £540 instead of £54. Then they couldn't reverse the transfer, so told me they'd deposit it to my personal account. I looked - no money. I enquired. Was told it had been deposited and returned. Yes. That's what happens when you try to pay it into the wrong bank. *facepalm* One day. One day I'll get the money back...

Final struggle at the moment is with my internet. Mostly, people survive on 3G because you'd have to mortgage your house for broadband (and, in my case, I'd have to buy a house first in order to mortgage it). I realised I could save about £75 a year by switching to Tigo's business 3G rates. I did, and paid up front for the year. There was a bit of faffing around with the contract, but finally got there. They delivered the SIM on Monday... doesn't work with my router or a Tigo dongle.

So, need to get that sorted out before my Airtel internet expires on Saturday. Also have to change bank before the end of next month, otherwise the new internet banking fees are going to be pretty much exactly the same amount as I just saved on internet. 

Really, it's constant.

Nta kibazo. 

There has to be an end to this. There has to come a day when my internet, my banking, my taxes and my mosquito nets all just fall into place...

Once again, Lulu to the rescue. We went for a jaunt about town on her moto on Friday night. Headed to a story telling event, which actually turned out to be 'insparational' (I use that term loosely) business speeches, so we went on a bar hop back to her patio. Starting to think I might just need a holiday.


Looks nice, but there are beer bottles at the bottom!

Sunday, 23 July 2017

Out Of Reach


Bit of a long couple of weeks.  Still feeling a bit stressed. My electricity packed up the other day, in the evening - hence ressurected my old metal kettle to make tea. Called out the electric guys, who drove down my road, saw lights were on in other houses so left again. Called them back. 'You have electricity,' I was told. 'I don't,' I replied, sitting in the dark. 

They did something to the pole outside. It came back on, then went out again the next morning. Called them back. Having sent technicians to my place two times the night before, they then couldn't recall where I lived. Eventually found me and fixed my electric box, replacing it a foot higher than it was before, and out of human reach. Left wire cuttings on the porch. Had to call them back again to lower the box so that I could actually reach it, and tidy away the rubbish.

Anyone got stilts?
All sorted now. I have electricity and can reach the meter.

Then fell out with a tailor at Lamego Hotel. I went there a month ago to get mosquito nets for my bed. 'Sure, no problem,' they said. Quoted FRW 96,000, which is a lot of money, but I assumed they'd be good quality. Sent them the measurements. They insisted on sending their own tailor to check the measurements - thorough, I thought.

A few weeks later, I collect the nets and they don't come close to fitting. One was way too small, the other was slightly less small but the flap was crooked, leaving a massive gap for all the mosquitoes to get in. 

Blood Buffet

They took the nets away again and since then the tailor has apparently been ill, they've been too busy, they hadn't been paid by someone else so couldn't order more material... every excuse. Haven't delivered new nets and haven't refunded the 60,000 deposit which I paid over a month ago. Really fed up with them but don't have any option but to wait it out. They promise they'll be done this week. 

It's just tiring because it's the second expensive tailor I've been to this year who took a deposit and proved incapable of taking basic measurements. The first one even altered a pair of jeans that fitted fine, and returned them a size too small. 

There's such a push towards Made in Rwanda and buying local, but absolutely no consumer protection when things go wrong, which they do quite often. Accurately measuring something is really the staple skill in tailoring. I've written to RDB in the past pointing out that, without a trading standards department working to protect consumers, there's not much reason for anyone to buy in Rwanda if they can buy online or on a trip to Dubai, America or Europe. Of course, without PayPal, most Rwandans can't buy online, so it's a captive market.

It's getting difficult. I haven't been out of the country in over a year and a half, and I'm running low on clothes. The government is bringing in a ban on the sale of second hand clothes, but there's no industry to replace it. There's a couple of clothes shops in Kigali Heights, but they sell Primark quality at Harrods prices. There's a big trade in Chinese imported dresses, which doesn't help if you don't wear dresses or conform to small sizing. The only other option is local tailors, but I've wasted so much money on stuff that doesn't fit or look good. Buying clothes is really hard. 

I'm planning to go back to the UK next June or July, so will have a shopping spree then. Also hoping to go to India around Christmas, so maybe there'll be options in Mumbai. I've been buying a lot online, but it takes a long time for it to arrive and it's hard to tell sizing from a chart.

Thankfully, if I stick to writing and pianos, at least I won't have to dress up for work.

Little spot of editing at the local café.

Consoling myself with coffee and cake. Delicious red velvet cake from Slices in Kigali Heights. What the city lacks in clothing, it makes up for with food.



The incident where I bought £54 of cat food and they accidentally charged my card £540 actually turned out quite well. They couldn't revers the transaction to the UK so deposited it in my Rwandan account, which was useful. Usually it costs a small fortune to transfer money internationally, but that works out as a free transfer. Even if you do have to pay £1-2 a month just for a bank account, whereas I didn't pay anything for it to sit in my UK account. You even get charged for depositing money into your account here.

Taking deep breaths and looking forward to my cousin visiting next month.

Tuesday, 11 July 2017

Slightly Better


The planetary misalignment has been extremely strong the past few weeks, but I sense that it is very slowly shifting back to normality. Finally received the piano funds from Indiegogo, over a month after the campaign ended. Wouldn't recommend for the future. They take a large cut of what you raise in exchange for extremely slow service and no assistance promoting the project. Don't see the point of them when a PayPal donate button's free.

Still, that means we're good to go. Chillington are working on the string frame, the hammers have arrived in Nairobi awaiting collection, and I'm coming to the end of an online African entrepreneurship course which teaches you to write a business plan to pitch to their investors. An interesting exercise, but it's kind of left me wondering whether we need any investment. It's a pretty self-funding product, hopefully. 

Above is our logo. Hoping to get it embossed on every frame we forge.

Definitely know pianos are the way forward. I took a quick development job that a friend put me onto. It was with one of the world's largest international development agencies, funded by one of the world's riches economies...
  • Three days having a cyclical argument about an unnecessary withholding tax (which would have cut my pay by 15%), for half a day's training delivery
  • Contract delivered for signing twenty minutes after the training began
  • Refuse to accept invoices via e-mail, have to print them out, take them to an office (no directions given), to be told it's the wrong office, to be sent to the right office, to discover everybody's gone to lunch and not a single member of staff is authorised to sign for the invoice

To say I lost my shit is putting it mildly. I may not have discharged myself with grace.

Knew there was a reason I left development, now I remember there were about 150. The older I get, the more relaxed I am about a lot of things, but getting dicked about over payment isn't one of those things. I think any international development agency that can't figure out how to accept an invoice by e-mail in the 21st century should be banned from using the word 'development' in anything they do.

The annoying thing is, there was the suggestion of further work. I've been rewatching Neil Gaiman's speech about 'closer to the mountain,' and it resonates. As he put it, the things he did only for the money didn't leave him feeling fulfilled, and half the time he didn't get the money either. 

After the tax hit I recently took, my accountant felt so sorry for me, he's offered me pity work. We had lunch the other day and ended up chatting about politics, religion and travel for almost four hours. I like my accountant. Happy to work for him.

Finally back on the right financial course, and just found out I'm owed about £450 of my own money. Thought I was burning through cash a bit fast, but turns out, when I went to buy cat food last week, the lady accidentally added an extra zero. We bulk buy pet food when it's available, because most of the year it isn't. Instead of charging me £54, she debited £540!

Glad I caught that one. Refund's on its way.

But that's why I think the run of ickyness is coming to an end. The bad luck happened, but it's undone. Things are starting to arrive where they're supposed to, projects are back on track. 

Had a slightly sad encounter. Rescued this little cutie from my kittens.

 


It's coelonia fulvinotata, a type of Hawkmoth. Tried feeding it every kind of plant I could find in my garden and CasaKeza, but couldn't work out what it ate, so I've just released it in the buses beyond the cats. I really hope it finds its favourite plant and makes it to mothood.

Been spending a lot of time at CasaKeza whilst Maia's away. Paymaster General in her absence. Cleared out her house so she can Airbnb it. The whole two-bedroom place cost around £3,000. I could easily live in something like that. Little plot of land on Lake Muhazi. Writer's cabin. Very nice idea.

Thursday, 6 July 2017

Nope, Still Grumpy



I've started playing shufflepuck with Howl. He usually wins.

And, yes, update from last post - all kittens home and happy. 



It's been a really hectic couple of weeks.

Feeling much better health-wise, except the bank account. Got to the point where my accountant has taken so much pity on me he's suggested lunch to discuss potential work. Had to hang my head in shame when one of his staff asked me what I do, and I said 'fundraising.'

On the work side, things are going fairly well. I finished teaching another fiction course, and also took some training work with a major international development organisation. We did a nice training session at a hotel with a fabulous view of Kigali. 


Although it did take three days to negotiate a half-day contract - a contract that was delivered twenty minutes after the workshop began - and they refused to accept my invoice by e-mail, so I physically have to go and deliver it. Never encountered that before. In the 21st century, perhaps it is the development organisation that needs a little developing? Still, bread on the table.

Been working hard at the piano-building project. That's not proving easy at the moment. Having to recast the string frame as the first attempt wasn't quite right. Enlisted the services of a different forge called Chillington. Nice workshop.



But we're in a bit of a bind as Indiegogo still hasn't released any of the money we raised. They're supposed to do that within 15 working days of the campaign closing, but now they're saying it has to go through a vetting process, and they haven't even started that! 

Would never use Indiegogo again. They take a hefty lump of the donations we've raised and appear to do very little for it. We'll set up our own PayPal donate page next time.

Also had fun with the Rwandan postal service. Tried sending parts to Nairobi, hoping to enlist a partner to make hammer heads, only to have the parcel returned one month later with no explanation. Had to fork out for DHL, which was four times the price, but at least it should get there tomorrow.


There's regularly stuff in the news about Rwanda wanting to increase industry, but there's so many problems in the way, as we're discovering. Stuff like the postage system, just being able to send stuff in a timely, affordable fashion (a problem in many parts of the world), then finding somewhere that can make the metal and parts you need to sufficient quality, and in many cases having to order stuff from overseas because there's nowhere on the continent that can do it. Living in Kigali, with so many green spaces and shiny buildings, you do sometimes forget the economic disparity. But, hopefully, if we can prove this is possible, it'll make other things possible too. Perhaps one day we'll be the first place in Africa with a stringing machine - who knows?

Meanwhile, I'm helping to keep an eye on my friend's restaurant whilst she's away for a couple of months. Just cleared out her house today so she can Airbnb it. Paid myself in beer.


Quiet Retreat

Had a couple of nice nights in the above cubby. My priest friend came for dinner, fresh off the plane, then promptly left for Goma the same night. Hope to see him again when he comes back through to catch his plane home. 

Had a very drunken evening with some of my writing group after the last session. Was lovely to get the chance to talk literature. Ended with group hugs.

But it has been a week of minor irritations. Mostly dealing with admin, paperwork and bureaucratic systems, such as having my Rwandan ID refused by a money transfer agent, so having to go all the way back across town to get my passport (a passport which got me the ID card in the first place). Wasted morning, but apparently some national banking regulation. Lots of queueing to be told you need to be in the other queue, turning up to places that just moved office across town, making calls to people who don't call back. The best one is ordering food on an app that promises a money-off voucher if the meal is late - having that meal be late - then not getting a voucher (for the second time). Total con, but what you gonna do?

Blah. It can be frustrating, and when frustration comes, it comes in legion. But, listening to my friend describe her nostalgia for the UK being shattered within the first week, I still think the sunshine and general pace of life here makes up for most things. Watching politics in the UK at the moment, I think the honest answer for everyone is to leave the country. Hit ctrl+alt+del and start again.

Hopefully posts will become more cheerful soon. Just feel there's been a weight of stress lately, mostly caused by too many things getting in the way of what I want to do - build a piano, write. Just getting to the top of the paperwork pile, I can almost see freedom from here.

Nom, Nom, Nom