What Year Is It?

 

Wow. It's been a really long time since I did an update.

I just haven't been doing anything. Well, lots of work, but nothing fun to talk about. Been staying home, staying safe. 

As with most countries, lockdown restrictions are easing here, despite the numbers going up. Though, relative to other places, they remain low. Only five deaths.

When movement restrictions eased, I did take a trip out to Bugesera Lodge to return a piano action that I was repairing. The job was only supposed to take a week, but then lockdown happened and, three months later...

Jocelyn fed me well, as always.

 

Had a couple of socially distanced drinks with friends. Dinner at Borneo, and a couple of trips to CasaKeza. A lovely lazy afternoon there last week. But you have to be careful as there's a 9 p.m. curfew, so we all set our alarms for 8:30 so that we have time to get home. If you get caught out, you're sent to sit in Amahoro Stadium for the night to be 're-educated.' Not something anybody really wants. 

Socially-distanced work meeting.

Going out is a risky business, though. One complete idiot was so happy to see me he came and gave me a big hug, despite me stepping away. I was pretty pissed off with him as I've avoided touching people thus far, and it was clear I didn't want to. He's also one of these people who knows everybody, so goes everywhere. A very likely candidate for corona.

Another punter out and about.

Life in lockdown has been fairly manageable. Work continues as normal for me, as I'm a paper pusher, and there's always paper to push and numbers to crunch. It's been a lot harder on my colleagues who work in the field, as they haven't been able to undertake any of our programme activities.

I've also been throwing myself into creative things. I'm turning one of my books into an audiobook with a very talented group of actors, I'm narrating a second one myself, and I have a book launch in a couple of weeks. All good stuff.

I've also embraced French. My whole life I've been useless with languages, except sign languages, which I did rather well at for a while. But spoken languages have always eluded me. Until now. They've suddenly started to make sense to me in a way they never did before. I'm finally getting to grips with French grammar. I think what it might be is that I've spent the past five years working as a proofer and editor for companies and other authors, and the extreme attention to detail (not in this blog, this is out of hours so proofread it your damn self), has rewired my brain slightly. I was a really late developer for grammar at school, but now I love it. I guess it's the same with languages. I just never stopped to really look at them before, and now I'm seeing patterns and have more patience for learning them.

I've also started Korean, as I've been watching so many Korean movies lately. The alphabet is utterly amazing. It's so intuitive. Apparently Korea has one of the highest literacy rates in the world because their alphabet is phonetic and so incredibly logical. Unfortunately, Duolingo sucks at Korean. It goes from 'cat', 'dog', 'person' to 'the singer is unpopular' and 'there are no rooms in Korea' (???) in the space of one lesson. Completely incomprehensible for beginners. But there's an excellent website called Talk to me in Korean, so if I still feel interested in a couple of weeks, I might sign up. It's just a really nice language.

Spending a lot of time learning creepy Gothic music on the piano and hanging out with my cats.

 

Howl

Sen

Sophie

That second one is Sophie chowing down on a ripe avocado which fell out of the tree. True thing - many cats love a little bit of avocado. 

Sadly, we have had one incident a couple of days ago. I opened the door in the morning and Howl was nowhere to be seen, which is highly unusual as he never misses a meal. Thankfully, I found him in the cat room (a spare room they can come and go from at night). Unfortunately, he had a nasty wound on his back leg, which necessitated a trip to our lovely vet. Apparently it's a deep puncture wound, possibly made by a thin piece of metal, rather than a bite. I'm mystified, but you never know what people do to animals when you're not there to protect them. I'm just grateful he made it home. He was an extremely brave boy. He seriously impressed the vet with his willingness to stay still during the procedure, and the vet couldn't check his heartbeat because he was purring too much. He was given a mild sedative and sent home with antibiotics and painkillers after having the wound washed out with iodine - ouch!

He's got house privileges at the moment, which means he gets extra meat to take his tablets with and gets to sleep in my bed, which is something I rarely allow because sleep and cats have never been a thing at four in the morning. But he's a strong little darling. The very next day he was back to normal. He has to go for a check-up once the meds are finished, but I think he's going to be fine.

Our local vet is lovely, PETS +. They have a new vet who drove all the way here from Milawi, and a brand new receptionist...

There have been a few tough moments being at home all the time. You do start to lose track of days.

At the moment, Kigali is having a real water shortage. It's common for my water to go off at least once a week, but it's usually back on again by the afternoon. So far, I've only had water about three days in the past week, and rarely enough pressure to run a shower. In a way, it's good I'm working from home because there's nothing worse than having an important meeting to go to and no shower. 

When I start to smell too badly, I soap myself down and throw cold water over myself from the emergency bucket in the garden.

It's particularly tough when my cleaner comes. If there's no water in the taps, she somehow manages to wash all the dishes with a minuscule amount from the emergency bucket and there's still plenty left when she leaves. I have no idea how she does it.

Someone pointed out that the new golf course runs a sprinkler system during the dry season, which feels a bit insensitive to be wasting water like that when most people can't make it come out of their taps. 

For the past six days, there's been a really irritating noise at night. It starts in the evenings around seven o'clock and goes right through the night. It sounds like an industrial pump or a generator, and I suspect it's to do with the golf course, which they're expanding to an 18-hole jobbie for international competitions. Whatever it is, it's a real pain and I'm suffering extreme sleep deprivation. No idea when things might return to normal.

Again, another reason it's good no one's got any meetings to stay awake through. I can remain at home, sleep deprived and stinky, for as long as necessary.

The final grump I have is the price of food, which is always expensive in Rwanda. £1.29 jars of pesto sell for £7, £2.69 boxes of breakfast cereal go for over £5, and a £1 bar of chocolate is at least £3, or £6 for a bar of local Made in Rwanda chocolate, which is basically imported chocolate melted and remoulded. The UK prices are still on the packaging, so you can see just how badly you're getting fleeced. You can survive off fruit and veg, but every now and then you wish you could walk into a Coop or a Morrisons and brows the BOGOF section or the discount shelf. In the UK, you can fill a shopping trolley with a week's worth of food for £60-70. I spent £130 the other day, got home, emptied my two shopping bags and couldn't work out what on earth I'd bought for that. Alcohol is expensive (except beer), snacks are limited and expensive, even noodles cost a fortune.

Still, I suppose you make it back in electricity, water, rubbish collection and rental costs, which are all very cheap by comparison. And beer, which is also extremely affordable. So it evens itself out, but it's just those days when you think, 'ooh, I could demolish a bar of Cadbury's or a bowl of potato salad.' (Don't get me started on the cost of Hellmann's).

My family used to send me goodie boxes, but a couple never arrived, and the last one that did took four months to get here. Rwanda's international postal system is not something to be relied on, and the other option of DHL is eye-wateringly expensive. 

To be honest, I think I'm just this grumpy because I've overshot my holiday time. I usually pop back to the UK every couple of years to refresh my stash of mayo, pesto and clothes, but of course I haven't been able to go this year. Knowing you can't go sometimes makes you want to go more. Like peeing. When you know there won't be a toilet stop for a while, you panic pee, even when you don't really need to.

Clothes are another reason it's good we're all working from home. After two years, I have nothing left to wear. My neighbour kindly brought me a bag of clothes to sift through, but clothes shopping here is tough. 

You know all those clothes you threw away and gave to charity because you didn't want them? Then, think about the clothes you donated that the charity shops couldn't sell, so they bagged them up to send to 'less fortunate' places. That's what we end up with here. Only, the West doesn't give those clothes for free, we have to pay for them. They're usually not bad quality, but they're rarely the sort of thing you'd pick off the rack if you had free choice. Plus, Rwandans are very smart dressers, so the bag was 30% jeans (which is the one thing I do have enough of), and 70% modest, long-sleeved outfits and formal office wear. None of which you're going to don to the pub in thirty-degree heat.

You try finding a sleeveless T-shirt, a strappy top, anything V-neck or a rock shirt in there, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

The only other option is the clothing level in the Chic Building, which is all imported Chinese polyester. Figure-hugging dresses you would never wear, that dissolve the first time you wash them. There is a clothes shop in Kigali Heights, but it's Primark quality at Harrods prices. You can get clothes made locally, but if you don't want igitengi (African wax print) you're going to need a second mortgage... and I don't have a first one.

Sorry, I know that's a complete offload, but I haven't been out much lately, so I've been storing it up.

I did see something nice at the store the other day. Baskets of dried legumes. I think you can take your own containers to fill. Looks very pretty. Though, you do have to soak most of them overnight... in water... which is something I don't have a lot of. Suppose I could go stand with a bucket under the sprinklers at the golf course.

Had a nice evening last week. My friend has just moved into a new place, so we had pizza there. I mentioned above that rent's pretty cheap, and it really is. It's perfectly possible to find a three-bedroomed house with private compound and a couple of bathrooms, five minutes from the city centre, for around 320-350,000 (£260-285) a month or a little less.

View of the city centre.

Night view.

Meanwhile, at home, I've been trying to get a bit more sun by moving my office onto the porch. I realised I've been going the colour of printer paper since the lockdown. No swimming, hardly going out, getting no vitamin D. This is helping slightly.

So, things are just plodding along as close to normal as possible. Cats are mostly fine, I'm fine. Haven't been blogging much because nothing much is happening. 

I will leave you with a ladybird who was helping me write a report.