Week of Treats

 

Now that my strength has returned, I've gone back to tuning pianos. Had a couple of call outs. One to perform an overpull on this very cute Dutch Rippen, which I first saw back in 2017. It's built to look like a grand piano on its side.

 

 

 

Also went back to tune this Korean Samick, which I helped a couple purchase at the end of February. Nice instrument and holding its tuning well.

Piano tuning is extremely physical work, so I haven't been able to do it for a while. It was nice to get back to it, but I feel like I really want to train other people to do it. It takes around three hours start to finish, and sometimes longer if the piano is very out of tune. Takes a lot of patience. I'm more interested in fixing things that have broken, so it would be nice to have someone else who can go and deal with tunings. If my visa renews, I plan to turn this from a hobby into a company and maybe do take on a trainee. 

On a random note, check out this historic piano my cousin found in Tajikistan.

In other news, been spending a lot of time at Fat Mamas, which is a guesthouse and Indian restaurant where my friend Harris is staying. It's just behind the conventions centre and really quiet. Nice pool and view of the city lights. Some dramatic skies the other day.

 

I've just started a contract with two large survivors organisations in town. When I went to their office to sign the contract, I noticed this on their wall.

(panoramic, click to enlarge)

It's a panoramic of Kigali taken around fifteen years ago, circa 2004. Ten years after the genocide. The hill in the picture above is Kigali city centre and central business district. Loads of trees and not a single high rise building in sight. Hardly recognised it. This is what it looks like today.

[UPDATE: Actually, it's KIST hill, not the CBD, which is far off to the right and out of shot, but it still illustrates the development that's taken place].

Source

Pretty amazing.

I've dubbed this the 'week of treats' because I feel I deserve it for having survived the past month.

Treats began last night at the new Kigali map launch party. I have a talented friend who does tourist street maps for Kigali, Kampala and Nairobi. She's been here for a couple of months updating the Kigali map and last night held a launch party at Inzora Rooftop Café. I bought a couple of copies of her artwork to hang up. Katie, the owner of Inzora, also served up a spiced rum cocktail called the Cartographer, along with a cheese selection board.

The Cartographer

As with any event in Kigali, I bumped into at least five friends, and made a couple of new ones. One of these friends being a lady called Becky, who I went to Kigali Heights with afterwards for beer and a bit more food. Had a really good chat about psychology, social work and the state of the world.

Treats continued this morning when I headed over to Via Via, a place I hadn't been to before. It's run by Astrid, who I also met at cocktail night. She was launching a full English breakfast. People have been searching for one in Kigali and coming up short, so she hired an English guy to train her chefs, and this morning it went life. I was the first customer to taste it and it was spot on. Also, a really nice place to sit and relax - quiet area of town, big garden, absolutely gorgeous dog who walked in a couple of weeks ago and called the place home.

 

 

Another treat was finally receiving a parcel from dad. The postal service is pretty much non-existent anymore. This parcel was dated 10th September and I only got an arrival notification on 14th November. Last year I received a Christmas parcel in March. I ordered some piano parts from the US in July and still no sign of them yet. It's a bit of a disaster. Also, because there's no door-to-door postal service here, everybody has to go and collect anything that arrives. I ended up waiting over half an hour to get my dad's parcel, but it was worth it. Full of chocolate and nice things. Thanks dad!

Post Office Queue

Treats will continue this week, although interspersed with crazy amounts of work as my contracts start on Monday. Will explain a bit more about those at some point in the future. Sameer also gets back from India in one week. I'm hoping there might be treats then too, if I get two seconds to see him before he has to go back to Gisenyi.