Monday 21st August 

After packing up our stuff this morning, Paul, Hannah and Isobel wandered up to the Hannah Ministry to collect and pay for the baskets we had ordered last week.  It is hard to explain how difficult such an apparently simple operation can be in Rwanda.  As we arrived there were two ladies there, neither of whom spoke English or French.  One of them took little notice of us and continued to sit outside changing her baby on her lap.  The other lady, called Verene, had been delayed by some crisis with her daughter.  With a conversation of a mixture of pidgin French and English we tried to unpick the next problem.  Damascus Trust needed a receipt for the payment to take with us to show at customs, but the receipt book was in a locked room and the person with the key was miles away!  After much deliberation, Verene suggested she would make a new receipt in her cathedral office down the road and bring it to us in a couple of minutes as we were about to leave for Kigali.  Needless to say after about half an hour, there was no sign of a receipt, so Paul went to find her office, where she hadn’t yet written the receipt! 

We finally set off about midday.  Jimmy, the guest house manager took some of the team in his car, which had a rather low slung back seat, under which the seat belts were totally buried.   As we tried to pull them out he simply told us that they wouldn't be needed today! By the look of them, thick with orange dust, they haven't been used for years! We stopped to get fuel and also to put air into a rather flat tyre.  Whilst we were having the tyre inflated in the garage, a mechanic was welding another vehicle right next to where we were parked and sparks were flying straight in through the open windows onto us!  We protested but little could be done as we could not close the windows, so we just sat there as targets while the fiery missiles rained down upon us!

On arrival back in Kigali the increase in temperature was marked as we unloaded our stuff at our new home for the next couple of nights, the Presbyterian Guest House near the centre of the city.  We then shared lunch with our drivers and Pastor Placide, who had accompanied us on the journey, before they headed back up north.  Over lunch Placide was telling us about how he may be increasing the size of his household soon, as some relatives have just lost their mother and been abandoned by their father, who has remarried.  Two of the older children have married, though they are under age and the three younger ones are being cared for by the 19 year old.  They live an hour away from him on foot, and he will visit them this week to see how they are coping.  There are 2 primary aged children and one 3 year old, so this is a considerable undertaking as Placide already has 2 small children of his own, and a small home, though it is not at all unusual in this country for caring people to absorb other children into their families.

Soon Pastor Eugene arrived to take us to the charity PHARP to collect the bags that Andy had ordered a couple of weeks ago, and then onto Pastor Eugene’s church where a group of ladies had brought their baskets for Andy to buy.  We worked as a team, trying to help sort the orders, keeping tabs on the costs on the ipad, writing paper receipts for the vendors to sign, folding and stuffing the items into our spare suitcases.  We finally returned to the guest house in the early evening where lots of large fruit bats were screeching as they swooped between the palm trees. After a simple supper of soup and fruit we are heading off to bed for an early night, ready for a crack of dawn start tomorrow.

Good-night.

Grace, Isobel, Hannah, Paul, Jonathan and Andy