Last Christmas

I probably spent the most unusual Christmas Eve ever today.
Though a normal working day, I sleep until after 8, have a cup of tea and am actually waiting for our housekeeper to show up to give her a Christmas present and some instructions for next week when I am not here. Turns out she took the day off. So I go to the Bourbon coffee shop for my regular tall cappuccino and zucchini bread to go, buy wine next door in Nakumatt for tomorrow's christmas dinner and pay my internet bill while waiting for the 10 waiters to coordinate and process my order. And while I still wait even after all the errands i cant help marvelling at the christmas decoration. If you look at the entry from 3 years back, my first Christmas here, I displayed a nice little choice of Kigalis Christmas decoration. Have a look for yourselves how far we have come since then. Mental note: propose christmas decoration as a development indicator for next budget support review!















9:30 I finally rock up at the office and start my work day, lot of archiving, inbox clearing, giving my staff the afternoon off to prepare their christmas festivities at home. Love the way they present their request, they don't even usually celebrate today. But hey, its Christmas and they are bored. So when I come back from my audience with the Minister of Health - some people actually really work on this day - and driving my friend Joy to the airport for her holidays I spend another good 2 hours by myself in the office, its overcast so I need to put on the lights listening to Radio Eins and still no "Last Christmas". No new incoming mails all day, no one's on skype either. When all the archiving is done and it gets too depressing to do anything else really productive i finally close the door behind me and am off to massage at my house. Since I am home alone I put the mattrass on the dinner table so I can look out into the rain, switch on the radio and get high on Zanzibarian clove oil. And as I lie there on my belly, raindrops steadily dripping from the roof: WHAM! The jingely tunes of "Last Christmas" on the radio at last. And so this is Christmas!

first time Uganda

I just got back from a little walk around my neighbourhood, a network of smaller and bigger dirt roads, in the most stunning golden afternoon sun. The beauty of these hills and the red mud and brick houses gets me every time. The bigger roads run alongside the hill, further up mostly private houses, some big villas next to rather shabby huts and further down long lines of shops, bars and make shift markets of women selling vegetables opening up a nice view over parts of the city. Kids running around with selfmade paper windmills, young men playing cards, shy couples holding hands in the protective shade of a bar, families streaming out of a church - must have been a hell of a long Sunday service. One of those days i need to do that walk with a camera. Now the sun is setting opposite my porch, i have a coke in my hand and I open up my eager eyes.

Not so long ago I went to Uganda for the first time proper - the first time 2 days to a conference in Entebbe didnt count obviously. Well, even this time it really only was 30 min over the border. Its a favourite with Kigalites for a short weekend away. Interestingly you can leave Rwanda in either direction, the contrast couldnt be bigger. It starts with the food, we had yummy crayfish from the lake, french onion soup and other lovely dishes. And the customer service, ah. We were 10 people, all orderering together and all meals came...and on time! The place we stayed at was this eco-tourist resort on an island with compost toilets, outside showers and nicely tucked away huts slash tents named after birds.
It reminded me a lot of lake Kivu when I did the trip from Goma to Bukavu last year. The scenery was very similar, with the lake winding along, little islands everywhere and terraced hills left and right.

Here is the view from our tent.
Aussicht von meinem Zelt auf einer Insel im Bunyonisee in Uganda, 30 Minuten hinter der Grenze zu Ruanda. Sehr beliebt fuer Wochenendtrips von Kigali.



And here is me sporting some really classy sunglasses. We were sitting on this floating bridge on the lake resting from a little swim - very little, Iam so out of shape!

chez moi reloaded

I always wonder if we make our environment fit our mood or the other way around. This past week in any way has brought on an end of the year mood. Although work was still very busy and every evening something else was on. A christmas market that served oysters and foie gras for example - didn't create much of a christmas feeling but was very delicious, much more so than what they were trying to serve as Glühwein. Weirdest news from home this week: its snowing! "Abwrackprämie" beat "Wachstumsbeschleunigungsgesetz" as the word of the year. And only 5 more days to Christmas !!

Another episode worth reporting from this year, at some point i felt I had to do some redecorating in the house to make it a little more homy. So I had some more banana leaf armchairs made and spent an entire Friday evening pushing shelfs and furniture around. I was very pleased with myself afterwards and that what it looks like now.






























And now that I finally discovered how to open both wings of my front door out onto the porch even on my sofa it feels like sitting outside.
At some point we also had two cats in the family - anounced before as part of advancing to proper expatriateship along with the car. Unfortunately they didnt last very long. I should probably not say anything bad about the deceased but they weren't made to last. A lot of the local cats actually suffer from the consequences of a too small gene pool.





And no, thats not the way Pike - one of our kitties - died. Just a cherishable memory.

Home alone

As of today Holiday season has officially started, I am alone in the office and at home. Music at full volume - at home that is - a cuddely cat to my feet, lights in every room, it's nice to have the house to myself.

After much talk about leisure and fun things in Kigali and beyond on this blog I thought I should also share something on work. As I scanned our server for photos - knowledge management is actually one of my tasks - I realized once more how poor our photo archive is. The vast majority consists of overexposed or blurred photos of meetings or office parties and it reminds me once more that i have been meaning to buy a better camera and do a better job at that. I managed to come up with a couple of pictures though. Part one from random meetings, conferences, from different years actually but trust me, they all follow the same pattern.

One starts off sitting at the table looking busy studying the supporting documents (here during a small meeting in Arusha this year)





















Then there are tons of presentations, if you are lucky its interactive and you get to write on coloured cards.















After hours of sitting its time to secretly stand up in the back and stand a little (here during a teambuilding workshop with my team in July)















The bigger the the meeting and the venue the better the coffee break which is when you mingle with colleagues to discuss interesting aspects of the last presentation or just ask them what it was actually about. (here at a big international conference last year on what again?? )















And since the most important discussions never take place inside the conference room anyway there is always plenty of occasions to socialise. (at the same conference)















Part two with some pics from the field.

So its officially impossible now to write everyday, but I will keep trying. Promised.
On Thursday it was straight to Yoga after work, first session at the American Embassy in weeks and then collapsing into bed exhausted. Then, yesterday was of course Friday. It was a busy day doing handovers with literally all my colleagues as in good expatriate fashion people start their christmas holidays in mid december. As I am not going home this year I will be alone in the office as of next Monday and Hurray for that! Fridays I also like to go for an afterwork drink and if it hadnt been so overcast again i could have posted Kigalis best view from Panorama Bar right here.

And now back to April 2009. I hadnt been back to my beloved Scotland in a while now and was therefore mighty happy that my very good friend Isadora (formerly known as Laura) got married in her native land and gave me a reason to visit. Of course I was equally happy she had found the man of her life in the first place. It still makes me consider going to Afghanistan for work every now and then as I know at least 4 people who went there and got married with people they met there - emergency countries, way to go, lots of eligible young men!
On my way i stopped over for my annual visit to London to do some last minute wedding outfit shopping (as a bridesmaid we had to come up with a peacock theme!) and to spend some time with my friend Ines. For this time of year the weather was exceptional and I was walking around London in a T-shirt enjoying bright blue sky and sunshine. And I took that weather with me on a lovely trainride up north. As I arrived at Edinburgh Station the castle on the left and busy Princess Street on the right for a moment I travelled back in time and was 19 again. I was going to head further towards a little B&B near Isadoras house in Fife where I would stay with Liz during the days before the wedding. But before I wandered around town a little following my memories of places I used to love and ended up in my favorite cafe at Haymarket where I sat happily for an hour with my fudge cake and the afternoon sun in my face.
In the evening I met up with Liz and the bride for a happy reunion, first time we were all together again after Liz and Isadora left Rwanda. In the days to come I had time to show Liz a little around, we went to St. Andrews and for a coastal walk. On Good Friday we headed to Dundee where Isadora and Sabour had rented a big old house for the wedding. When I first entered I was blown away as it smelled exactly like the house I used to live in near Stirling, a mix of old furniture, dust...ok, that doesnt sound very inviting but it was in fact. So our first duty was to check out the rooms and allocate them to the wedding guests, from the big lovely rooms for the parents to the small downstairs servant rooms for the male single friends of the groom - all with quite distinguished names as "Bruce" or "Lady in waiting".
It was a very lovely and relaxed atmosphere the whole time, the cooking was done by ourselves, I think the bride actually made her own wedding cake. Most of the time we sat around the big AGA stove in the kitchen refreshing old memories and forging new bonds.
The wedding was a Baha'i ceremony, an religion coming out of Zoroastrianism in Iran. It comprised elements from different religions including a poem by arabic writer Khalil Gibran that I was honoured to read. I had heard of it for the first time then but as it turned out later its quite a wedding favourite. Again the sky blessed us with bright sunshine and bearable temperatures which meant relief especially for the ladies' wardrobes as we had feared to ruin our lovely peacock coloured outfits with hideous jackets or other unattractive accessories to keep warm - although I cherish the memory of the bride's red and brown knitted legwarmers underneath the beautiful white Thai silk dress deeply!

Here is a picture of the whole wedding party and one of the lovely couple amidst daffodils - ah, Scotland in spring!







Im April war ich in Schottland zur Hochzeit meiner guten Freundin Isadora (Laura). Ich war schon so lange nicht mehr dort gewesen und hab es daher sehr genossen, zumal das Wetter einfach grossartig war. Das Paar hatte ein schoenes altes Haus gemietet und so war genuegend Platz fuer Freunde und Familie. Hier ein Bild der Hochzeitsgesellschaft und Isadora mit ihrem Mann Sabour.

What started out with a miserable Monday turns into a miserable week, a few hours sunshine at noon and the rest grey and rain. Maybe its also me still fighting off some stomach bugs.

A few weeks ago I was at a workshop in Gisenyi, regular blog readers might remember this being a very popular place for workshops at the shore of Lake Kivu in the North West of Rwanda. We were working with a small group on a health financing and health insurance policy. On the way back I got a lift with 2 colleagues from the Ministry of Health in a rented landcruiser. We had only driven for 20 minutes when we had a flat tyre, great. So we get out, crowds of children and other bystanders gathered around and watched us. Then I saw this one kid carrying a younger brother or sister on her back and I remembered how a few months earlier I had given a mini kikoy (sarong) to my friend's daughter. I showed her different ways of wrapping it including the technique for tying babies to your back. As she was expecting a little baby brother at the time I also told her that in Rwanda children her age would often carry their siblings around that way and she was amazed by that. According to my friend she walked around the flat with the kikoy wrapped around her for weeks after that. So, Lisa-Marie and Franzi, this is what it looks like.

This is brought to you live from the VIP Palace in Kiyovu, well it's the house of some friends in what we call la Rue Belge, because historically a lot of Belgian people live here which has of course nothing to do with the name they gave their house...
Anyway, its Tuesday night and I know i skipped a day. Apologies for cheating on you for one door (Tuerchen). I wanted to start by giving credit to those people, friends, who respond to my efforts in form of daily comments on my blog entries or other kinds of little electronic doors like newspaper articles and music. Thanks for that it makes up (kind of) for the lack of Glühwein and Lebkuchen.
Yesterday was a miserable monday, raining most of the day. Thankfully it was not very eventful in terms of work so I was able to start my end of the year works of doing the things I otherwise never have time for. Like working on the website of our program. You have the link further down on the right of this blog and at the end of the year it will actually be updated. In the evening I had a work dinner at my bosses place and she was treating us to a whole seafood meal with shrimps, salmon and stuff that is otherwise fairly hard to get by.
Today is already Tuesday, the 8. day of this last month. I am sitting in the aforementioned VIP palace with some people playing me Christmas songs and I actually feel a little christmassy.




inhabitants of the VIP Palace: Sam and Hez, and temporarily Maurice, behind the camera

Since I am working far away from my home computer i will not be able to work on the 2009 review as i dont have access to my pictures. But we just talked about this book I read this year which made me think of all the other books I read this year or didnt. The book we talked about was by Solzhenitsyn: "A day in the life of Ivan Denissowitsch" (I think am kind of mixing up English and German transcription of Russian), its about Ivan who is in a godforsaken Gulag somewhere in Siberia serving a sentence for supposed treason under Stalin. It tells us about one day that revolves around the worry of getting enough food, not getting sick, knowing the right people and generally keeping your head down and survive the day, which is followed by another day, and another and another...
But generally i havent been very good with reading this year, most books I still havent finished. Like this book "Shantaram", which EVERYBODY loved and recommended. A real story of a guy who escapes prison in Australia (or was it New Zealand), goes to India, lives in a slum in Bombay and becomes a Mafia gangster. He will eventually be captured in Germany and serves his prison sentence during which he writes his story. It lost its appeal about 100 pages in. I also started "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Döblin, a book I had been wanting to read for a long time and picked up a book by last year's Nobel Prize laureate J.M.G. Le Clezio, one of his pieces about Africa, but I am struggeling to get into them. Last week I bought an autobiography of Henry Morton Stanley, great and infamous adventurer of Africa, who traversed the Congo a couple of times, followed the big river to its source, found Livingstone and was most probably the model for the character Kurtz in "Heart of Darkness". I have a feeling that I might actually finish that one, although it has plenty of pages. Great pleasure however, I am taking in Robert Gernhardt's poems of which I often read one before I go to bed. And this is where I should go now.

Sunday by the pool in Kigali

No no, its not the hang over from Saturdays party that kept me from writing yesterday, we had no electricity all day and when it came back in the evening I have to admit i was a little tired. So the day was spent lazily. I went to the swimming pool and as always it was nice and sunny until 5 minutes after my arrival and then it just poured down with rain. Then back home, a hot coffee, long siesta and a movie. Perfect Sunday, apart from the fact that even my scottish friend in Kinshasa had Lebkuchen (ginger bread) for St. Niklas but not me.
Unfortunately also for some there wont be any pictures from the party on this blog, some things are best kept unpublished.

Now what will I report on today? Maybe other lazy and not so lazy Sundays spent.

For example playing Taboo at Robins house.












Here buzzing the red "time-up" button frantically with Matt, Robin and Frederic.
Viele Sonntage haven wir bei meinem Freund Robin verbracht, beim Tabu Spielen.
(c) JoAnna Pollonais





Other Sundays we would go for a little walk, like this one with Monse and Joy just outside Kigali. Again rain caught us in the middle. And we just passed this mudhouse and asked the woman if we could stay until it passed. So we stood there in this dark little mudhut with giant FC Barcelona and a Jesus picture as the only wall decoration, well it did pretty much cover all available wall space. Her kids were giggling and looking at us, we were sharing damp biscuits and it was a lovely human moment shared. Until another friend felt obliged to give her some money and the rest of us felt that moment destroyed for the next time she might ask the desperate wanderers for money straight away.

Its weekend and what has actually started like a beauiful day has now turned into a "i want a cup of tea and nice movie" kind of rainy grey day. But i had no time for any of that as tonight it's "Heroes and Villains" party. Every 5-6 months my friend Jon and his colleagues throw these costume parties at their house. Now as I was looking at all my condoms in the aforementioned AIDS DAY survival kit I thought, the condom has probably saved more lives than Superman and hence is a big Hero. So everybody step aside for Condom Woman and Glitter Man - thats Jon's super hero costume. And no, you dont need to know Glitter Man. And as the condom often follows temptation - a big villain herself - I thought i could add a little of that, too.



Temptation with a solution










During the summer when I went home i had my very first class reunion. Not 10, not 15 but 20 years! You can imagine how old I felt when I realized that but on the other hand, we were only 10 at the time and so its kind of alright. As most of you know I spent 2 years in a boarding school training to become the next Franziska van Almsick - no hang on, she wasn't famous then cause she was training next door in Berlin and already at the age of 9 she was 7 seconds faster than me in 100m free style - which in swimming is a completely different level, worlds apart!
After some initially random internet searches and later more sophisticated detective work we managed to find almost all of the 21 girls scattered all over the world. And apart from 5 or 6 they all mamnaged to come, even with 6 week old babies. Even better, the two coaches, teacher and and two of the women who looked after us in the evenings come too. So it was quite a merry get together, lots of old stories told and just nice to see where everybody was right now and of course what they looked like. And interestingly enough we all recognized each other very quickly, and I mean we were 11 when we last saw each other.














We started off with a visit of the old campus that is still a breeding place for future sports aces. Here is the place of endless hours of sweat and torture but also glorious, triumphant moments.














And this is the way to the pool, up to 4 times a day. It seemed endless sometimes, specially in the cold winters, when I had, again, forgotten my hat and ran down with wet hair to make in time for lunch or dinner. In time meaning to get some of the fresher pieces of packed cheese and not the ones with the dark yellow rims.
















Finally we looked at our old rooms and this is me with one of my old room mates Grit. Somehow everything seemed so much smaller than i remembered it, or maybe i have just grown a little.
After that we went for a walk along the river Havel, had some dinner and talked til late. I know that some school reunions can be painful, but I liked that one.

The Godmother

I said I would write a bit more on WORLD AIDS DAY. German Development Cooperation organised a day of awareness and sensibilisation for all staff not only for HIV and AIDS but sexual health in general, gender roles and gender based violence. And although we were all wearing our red ribbons in solidarity I simply refused to wear the matching condom tie provided in our AIDS-DAY-survival-kit. Why couldn't they have come up with something for the girls, too? A condom handbag perhaps? Or a condom umbrella which would have even served an honorable purpose since the event started in pouring rain.
Every program of the German Development Cooperation in Rwanda has a so-called peer educator which is someone colleagues (peers) can talk to in confidence, ask questions and someone who is supposed to be a role model. This instrument has been used for a while now to support behaviour change instead of just showing people pictures and preaching to them to use a condom. The peer educators organised some stands where they demonstrated how to put on a condom, including female ones - anyone of you tried one before?? and where people could try themselves to get the condom on a (gigantic) wooden penis, with eyes closed. At another stand people were to attribute great, minor and no risk to certain ways of transmission. Among the images to chose: someone on a toilet, people embracing or kissing and of course the anal sex.
Unfortunately many of my especially senior male colleagues still think this has nothing to with them and their "real work". But in my view they just have a weird perception of what their work here is. I really don't wanna be a disciple of Development Cooperation but if we want to initiate social transformation we need to reach the individual and touch on such intimate and private issues like sex and gender relations. The questions asked and interest shown at the stands by the staff proved this right.

But back to my "Jahresrückblick"

In 2009 I was made a double Godmother. I am not quite sure what they were thinking, maybe: she is never there, but hey, at least when she comes she will bring loads of presents. I am joking now but I was honestly very touched and honoured to be considered and trusted with that role (mwwoooaaah Denise, Adrian, Marion und Thomas!)


So my "firstborn" is a lovely little fellow piscies (Fische) girl named Moana.


Here she is taking a bucket bath.
Moana (die ältere meiner beiden Patenkinder beim Baden im Eimer.)








And here she gets a nice little full body massage.




Godbrother Joris was born a few months later and only a a couple of weeks old when I first met him. It was hard to get a sense at the time of what kind of a little man he is but according to "Mama Joris" he is taking after his older sister. Hurray, so I can actually keep him and dont have to swap him for Anouk anymore ;)



Here we are at the Fete de la Musique in Berlin.
Und hier ist das zweite Prachtstueck, Joris, unterwegs in Berlin.

Thailand, part 2

Today I am writing a little earlier though very hungry cause I didnt have lunch. But I invited a few people for dinner, hence must wait with eating. Its the third day in december, three days into my kitschy advent calendar and so far only really random things come up, like a little boy holding a boat, nothing christmassy at all. But it still is the only thing remotely reminding me of Christmas in my house, so it stays. And although I am listening to German radio on the internet I am yet to hear "Last Christmas" this year. I got into the habit over the last years of marking the date of the first time I hear it ever year. It tends to become earlier and earlier.

But lets get to the second part of my Thailand trip. I have been practicing some yoga over the last year mostly with changing yoga teachers that come to Kigali. They actually work with an American organisation but earn some money on the side by teaching us expats. So I wanted to get some proper practice and looked up places to go in Thailand. So this is what I came up with:
















It was a very relaxing place on an otherwise hideously developped party-tourist island (Koh Samui). I went with Liz and together we struggled through the daily routine of getting up at 6am and two practices. Although there was a lot of chilling time in between mostly spent on eating for which you didn't have to feel guilty cause it was all vegetarian and low fat etc. Here is the view I was enjoying while doing that and Liz munching away, probably a healthy granola bar.
Und auf Wunsch hier noch auf Deutsch, 2 Bilder von meinem paradiesischem Yoga Resort und Liz beim Granola Mampfen.
































After this one week it was back into the crazy melting pot of Bangkok. A list of things I was particularly looking forward to in no particular order: cinema, shopping, eating out, specifically a variety of seafood options, sipping coffee and watching people, crowds of street vendors and breathtaking smells. In my new found Yoga happiness i was of course very quickly overwhelmed by sizes and choices of this city. Luckily, Liz lives in this quieter, up and coming quarter, a coffee shop around the corner, a thai massage parlour and lovely little restaurants so I was quite happy to stick around the area or just sit in her appartement with 3 sides of top to bottom windows and hence a lot of light and a nice breeze. The only touristy worthy trip I undertook was taking a boat to the Grand Palace, an old kings residence which is about what I can remember of historic facts. Whatever happened to the days when I would learn the Lonely Planet by heart??
Right, i need to set the table and will finish the entry with a picture of Bangkok that might as well be from Jakarta or any other Asian mega city.
















Hier noch ein typisches Bild fuer eine asiatische Megacity.

Thailand, part one

Its quite late for my standards but i cannot possibly break my promise on the second day already, so I will write my entry for today.
I just got back from the screening of a documentary in the cultural centre slash liaison office of the Goethe Institut here in Kigali. I got lucky and my friend Jon joined me as my boss and her husband didn't want to go and gave me their invitation. The film was about a woman, half German half Rwandan who was born a 100 years ago in Rwanda, on the shores of lake Kivu who came back when she was 95 to see her father's house and to show it to her daughter and grandson. Interesting pieces of Rwandan history mixed with very personal and subjective memories of the woman who was raised by Belgian missionaries after her parents died, hidden from the rest of society for being mixed-raced. Interestingly she said that everything was great under the early German rule (her father being a German Military) and that it all went downhill with the Belgians which caused major sniggering in the audience.
Afterwards we tried out a new Chinese restaurant, wasnt very impressed by the food, although apparently all the Chinese go there, and Jon will be back for the Karaoke - gigantic screen with a majestic bad taste round table in front of it. And on a not so funny side, I think I saw my first person getting knocked over by a car in real time - he was conscious though.

And now to my own personal "Jahresrückblick", though not in chronological order. Today, the first part of my Thainland trip in October. Some of you might have seen some pictures on facebook already, so I will try and find some non published pics. For the others, as usual, check out the link "more photos" further down on the right.
So, I went on a trip to Thailand to visit my friend Liz who lives in Bangkok at the moment. I had planned strategically for a week in the mountains, one on the beach and one in Bangkok and that proved a great mix. Also, it helped that it was a "proper" holiday without any obligations, just relaxing and so for the first time i got back from leave without saying it wasn't enough of holidays.
The tip about Boklua View Lodge in the northwest of Thailand near Nan came from a colleague of mine here in Rwanda and it was beautiful, quiet, and tucked away in the mountains - indeed Thailand has its share of hills too, much to the dismay of my stomach. I also made the lovely aquaintance of Thoun and Doug who run this place as well as with the really decent coffee culture - i hve become such a coffee snob since in Rwanda. Here Iam with the two in one of the many coffeeshops in Nan.
















They gave me their most lovely bungalow with a top to bottom window and view onto a creek, I spent so much time there adjusting to holiday mode and the time change...
















...there and in the restaurant with my daily portion of fern salad, iced coffee, creme caramel and Mochito. In between Doug took me to trips in the area, the village of Thoun's family, the national park, one of the many royal family's projects and some local temples - of which the north is of course full.















More on beaches, yoga and Bangkok tomorrow. Good night.

Advent, Advent

December again. I got my first Christmas reminder a week ago, a kitschy paper advent calender. I used to love them, chocolate ones of course. Since my Mommy is far - and no one else would possibly bother getting or making an adult woman an advent calender - I thought i would create my own in the form of a daily entry to this blog. At the same time this will sum up my doings in the year 2009 which have sadly been a little under reported.

Now, should I go chronologically, backwards or forward? Let's start with recent events under the label "Zeitvertreib in Kigali". Last saturday, it was Motopolo weekend again.

You have no idea what Motopolo is? I dont blame you, i believe its a genuine Rwandan creation. Check out the link.

A bunch of adventure hungry white people and Kigalis best moto drivers gather to battle it out. What you need? Self-made wooden mallets, much like for chricket, a middle sized bouncy ball and a good amount of trust in your chosen driver. When I first heard about it I couldn't believe how anyone would get out of there unharmed, neither man nor machine. But nothing more serious than scratches and bruises has come to my attention so far. (note to remember: walking on the street seems more dangerous, I broke my toe doing that!) Lately even women were allowed to play. Next stop: Olympic Games! Of course this kind if spectacle attracts a considerable crowd, mostly kids who are hoping to get their hands on some of the water bottles, broken mallets or balls, beers or mobile phones (not necessarily in that order). So as I dutifully took care of a bunch of other people's phones and keys (though I fear no immediate danger to my life or bones, for once I feel a little more comfortable among the the illustrious Polo groupies) i neglected my own belongings and for the second time in Rwanda lost my phone. Since getting it back the first time around was relatively easy I remain hopeful in the tactical skills of the local law enforcement authorities. Of course we are still in Africa, you don't just walk into the police station, pull a number and wait. That could be a capital mistake (waiting that is, not pulling the number, there are no "number machines"). So, when I see the failure of my phone retrieval mission nearing only half an in I get someone on the phone who knows someone, who knows someone etc. Another half an hour later I am sitting in the office of a middle rank police officer on the other side of town, filling in the right form and exchanging pleasantries. Of course my new found enthusiasm gets blown shortly after trying to climb the next hurdle in the process. The person at the national telecom operating company, who helpfully provides you with a detailed communication history tracing the phone's serial number, is on leave and his replacement is working from home. Well, what can you do, this would be the right time for waiting as the story continues.

And, its WORLD AIDS DAY today. More on that on Friday!

I wrote this 2 months ago ad then somehow it never made its way up. Better late than never. And as the network or this program is giving me such a hard time to upload pictures please go to the link "more photos".

2 month of 2009 have already gone by so quickly and I have officially wished the last person a happy New Year about a week ago. Since so much time has passed since the last entry i might start with a short update.

I ended the uncertainty that reigned most of my lst year by signing another 2 year's contract with GTZ in Rwanda. This is a little hint to all of you that there is almost 2 more years of time now to pay a visit to the land of the gorillas and the 1000 hills. I didnt make that decision half heartedly, 2 1/2 years seemed a long enough time here already but taken everything into account it seemed the best thing to do and I am actually quite happy not having to move again so soon. Following that decision I also took the next step into proper expat life and bought a car. Some people like to point out the female qualities and features of the car, I just think it suits my needs perfectly including the esthetic ones.
The next step will probably be a cat or two, but more on that later as they are still spending important social time with their mother. That reminds me that I need to think of names, which again reminds me of similar recent exercises for the numerous human offspring in the extended friend-family, including a fabulous new drinking game I invented for New Years at the end of which we were very excited about the upcoming birth of Bob Baumeister (literally Bob the builder in English!!).

So, most of December I spent a well deserved long holiday in Germany after a really busy time at work at the end of last year. I am truly amazed that now we are so many more people in the office there is actually more work than before. What did I actually do before?
Among my fondest memories during that time is the encounter with my Dad's boss - rather my Dad proudly showing me off to his boss - along with his subsequent confirmation per email that my parents didn't do so bad with me after all. Deep breath and wiping tears from eyes....
The reason of meeting him in the first place is the great idea of my Dad when he retired instead of collecting money from his colleagues and family for his trip to the Caribbean or other exotic places to donate that money to a charitable cause. And I had no problem finding him one here in Rwanda. I finally delivered the greetings and money from Germany to the Youth charity rYico and their Marembo centre where oce a week young boys from the street come over to get something to eat, wash their clothes, hang out, sing together and get information and support if they want something in their life to change. (check it out on www.ryico.org)

The first weeks back in Kigali are always a bit hard, getting back into the rhythm and all. But I kept myself busy and focused by doing something useful: planning the next holidays which I just spent on the lovely island of Zanzibar. Boring you might think as I had been there already but one can never quite get enough of the lovely king prawns and tuna tartars not to mention the turquois sea and the beaches. On top of it all we witnessed the "famous" Zanzibar Music festival which was fantastic for someone deprived of live music for so long which of course doesn't take any credit away from some of the great Music acts from Kenya, South Africa and Zanzibar itself (www.busaramusic.com). And as that has worked out so well the next break is just a few more weeks away.

I think when your own blog is writing a comment to you to get your act together and feed it again (thanks Laura) the time has finally come to get some fresh and maybe not so fresh anymore news out there. (scroll down i smuggled in an entry before the last one for my birthday).

And news there are.  After I came back from Indonesia – uh yes, for those of you who dont know, i was there on mission for 6 weeks, some visual impressions under the link more pictures) – i found myself homeless as my old roomie Andrew followed his heart to Sudan. So last week I moved again into a very lovely house.

I instantly felt at home, easy cause it was furnished and quite cosy but also it has this summer holiday cottage feeling to it, lots of light and very hot as about 10 am the sun starts to peek around the corner of the veranda and then follows its course until the very end of the day when it sets right opposite my garden chair. 

I am in fact witnessing my first dry season in Rwanda, last year we skipped it. The lawn has turned greyish and the veranda and floor inside the house are constantly covered in a fine layer of dust. Some of the sandy roads in the neighbourhood have turned into something that feels like you are on water when you drive through. For Moto drivers like me this has advantages as well as disadvantages. Of course I dont have to worry about these terrestrial rainfalls that already have surprised me a couple of times in the past but then my body processes a considerable amount of red soil that enters through mouth, ears and eyes, i wash my hair almost every day and the bath tub turns red.

Speaking of bath tub, this house has a pump which means no more bucket showers, hurray! On the other hand we have been suffering more electricity cuts than usual lately. It is to be suspected that this is due to the same reason why the internet gets cut all the time, we spend more time stuck in traffic or looking for parking, fancy new places like restaurants and supermarkets open: Kigali is growing...fast. I was gone for 2 months and noticed it immediately, blocked streets and more and more white people walking around. Problem with urban growing in Kigali is mainly limited space in between these hills and it will be interesting how this will be dealt with.

Sunday after the church - view from my house

But back to my house. Its in the same neighbourhood as the last one and there is plenty of friendly people around in walking distance. It is a shared house and currently I live with two girls from Uganda and India who I kind of inherited but who will be leaving soon. So from about October the new crew will be complete with another Ugandan girl and one from the UK. At least until December I will then be enjoying stable living conditions after months of being a guest, traveling or staying in hotel rooms. That should give me the time to think what is going to happen next year.

 Maybe yoga will also help, at least something I can do with a still broken toe!

The new chez moi

The end of February saw our first and last big Barbeque at the house. The smell of the best garlic sausages from the German supermarket slash butchery and the easy laughter of our lovely guests filled the sunny Saturday afternoon air...ah, life is sweet with a brochette in one hand and a cool, ehm, tonic in the other. 

As a host you dont want to get wasted too fast and too early. Very wise decision as guests continued to pile in until Midnight. 10 hours of socialising -  that must have been the longest barbeque ever. Luckily we originally overestimated people's appetite as usual which came in handy in the end so we grilled away happily through the night. 

A week later it was bye-bye chez Liz et moi and the Kiyovu neighbourhood and hello Kimihurura and Andrew. Positive and optimistic as I am I saw the bright sight of it and forgot about our perfect old home immediately. My window runs along the whole side of the room and for the first time i know the time of day when I wake up. My old window was totally covered with plants which, you know, was nice and mysterious especially from the outside but hey, daylight flooding the room got its own charme. The living room's door opens to the veranda where in beween trees, the gate...and the car... I can spot the other side of the hill.  

Howard, our recently bewidowed and slighly misled cock, his day starts at around 3 in the morning, adds a homely and farmy touch to it. So, yes, I love my new chez moi, at least in the dry season, and when my toe isn't broken. Slightly different from our Kiyovu city centre house accessibilty in Kimihurua is much more of an issue as few roads are paved which means hard work for a little Moto like mine and no taxis outside the house. Why didnt I buy a car again? On the other hand its got a lot more of  a neighbourhoody touch, you pop out to the shops or go for a walk in the area and it also means friends around so crippled me got lifts to work in the morning for a while. All in all, I cant complain and ever since Andrew took pity on me a made him and me a nice sturdy massage table life is all good where the 1000 hills are.

my big 3.oh!

I turned 30 with my foot in a cast, half a cast and badly mad as well. But I was still smiling anyway, I was in Nairobi with people I love and about to go on my first safari to indulge in some "Kenia- Romantik".

The first day whe pampered ourselves at the Nairobi Serena Hotel with massages and all sorts of body treatments including a 7 or 8 course meal at a wonderful seafood restaurant whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. I was full before the actual main course came and we had to take several smoke or just-walking-around breaks to make it all the way to desert which was served on special plates with Kenyan (or just made up to match our names or most prominent character features) proverbs written on it with chocolate sauce.   

 

The next day we were off to the Masai Mara with the flying Matatu Service of Air Kenya. When I first heard that we would go up and down at least 3 or 4 times before we arrived at our stop I wasn't amused at all and wanted to take the road instead. 

 

See the brave smile I put on as I was just ready to throw up in that 20 passenger machine. Miraculously everything calmed down and I spend the rest of the flight resting my head on Liz' shoulder only to occasionaly lift it up and pretend to enjoy the scenery - which was actually really spectacular....if only i hadnt had to concentrate so hard on keeping my lunch inside.

We landed at a perfect time to be driven through the Mara in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon. Our friends, the big 5 also didnt disappoint us. The first one was a lonely tusker cowboy who appeared at the horizon and walked with us for a while. The other big and small kings and queens of the jungle followed during the next game drives although there weren't tons as it wasn't the busy migration season. Good enough for us as we enjoyed the lush green scenery just as well. 

Back in the camp we were lodging in king size beds in cosy and luxurious quasi-tents. The South African couple running the site and the Masai proprietor saw to our full comfort and convenience - sometimes a little too much. However, when he sat with us in his traditional gear, his gigantic ear loops folded up and started to talk with Liz about the roughest  areas of Chicago, that was a memorable moment.

As were the spectacular sky, the sound of the rain and the colours of the Masai Mara. Unfortunately due to the political crisis tourism suffered a great deal in this area which is highly dependent on the revenues to keep the fragile balance between man and animal. so people: go to Kenya!! More to feed your appetite under more photos.

Dakar in Senegal

How I could go on endlessly about traveling in Africa and how long it takes, crossing the continent from east to west in particular. But who am I to complain if I am paid to go to Senegal and even better when I get to see old friends? So I left earlier to visit my friend Wanji who I studied with in Brighton for the weekend. Well, things turned out a little different than expected but nevertheless unlike many conferences where one doesnt see a thing apart from the hotel itself I actually got a bit around. To the island of Goree for example, where sclaves used to be traded and held and which is now a major tourist attraction with tons of artists and traders.

And god, did they hassle people. As friendly and outgoing the Senegalese are, there is no such thing as wandering the streets untroubled. I did adore the taxi drivers though, chewing cola nut, gesticulating wildly in traffic, cheeky as hell when it comes to negotiating prices but always in for a good laugh when they get caught on totally overpricing.



As soon as I arrived the familiar smell of dust and heat entered my nose. A nice breeze from the sea, this special afternoon light and the omnipresent muezzin together made me like this place instantly. Traffic and pollution however, made me long for sleepy Kigali.

On the market I bought some traditional Bazin fabric, from Mali or as I was surprised to learn actually produced in Germany and couldnt resist to even visit a taylor and have something made. That didnt work so well though, as I look a little like St.Lucia with my white boubou and golden embroidery. I had insisted on writing down to make it silver but the taylor was almost offended when we suggested he might forget if he didnt. But I knew it, thanks to years of experience now.

Together with Wanji I explored the culinaric side of Dakar, but as I had some unpleasant memories of the heavy, greasy Senegalese food I stuck to the international, or rather french side of it. I couldnt get enough of the yummy fish and seafood, nice drinks in nice bars.

Tea(m) spirit

In the spirit of team spirit we set out on a weekend of bonding and socialising at our most favorite place in Rwanda, the Kivu Sun Hotel (now Serena) at lake Kivu. And really the whole team including cleaners and drivers came along. As my boss is going to leave Rwanda I guess staying in such a hotel for a Betriebsausflug was a little bit of a farewell present, they all definitly loved it.



I think I have already made and displayed plenty of pictures of this place, here is one with the smoking Nyiragongo in the back.







To give the whole thing a little educative touch we visited a tea factory near Gisenyi that produces for export. It was actually quite interesting, all these little steps and procedures, the right temperature here, the right texture there.

quality check, apparently you notice the difference not only in color but also by the different sound a spoon makes when hitting the rim. Hmm, somehow that didnt sound convincing...







An unforgettable and my favourite memory of that weekend however, was jogging along the lake and over the hills with my boss. I need to add that Andreas is known for jogging during lunchbreak, no matter what. I myself have never been much of a jogger anyway and somehow the geographical conditions of Rwanda did not make it any more attractive to me. But here I was with my pride and I volontered to go with him for once from the hotel to the Congolese border and back, easy, flat, piece of cake. But alas, change of plan. We were going to eat at a restaurant about 7km away and Andreas had the brilliant plan to simply run there instead. Sure, why not, too late to duck out. And so we started. All was fine before the first hill, actually up until the middle of the first hill. You know how roads wind along lakes and then vanishe a little inland all the way up the hills and down again...And of course it was really hot and the cheering from the Rwandans along the road wasn't entirely carrying us either. Some women with their babies strapped around their bodies and with baskets on their heads run along for a while - no kidding. I wanted to tell them save your energy unless you are also having a big ice cold coke waiting for you on the other side. I started to breath heavily and just when I wondered if I would survive this hill I was saved and we walked the rest of the hill. Down and up again it went until we had a little sprint at the end, passing the Bralirwa brewery towards the restaurant. My body ached for several days after that, but at least I had my coke.

Backpacker no more

We were headed for Zanzibar to celebrate my flatmate Liz' 30. anniversary for a real adult holiday.







I had already suspected that the good old days were over when I packed my bags and was in no mood to get that big monster backpack out. But it really hit me when I was sitting at Stone Towns fresh seafood market at dusk trying to strike up a conversation with about the only other single on the island.

I asked him what he was doing and when he replied: history, I seriously said: ah, teaching? From the weird look on his face I could tell that I was on the wrong track but just as I assumed everybody else was a student back when I was, now I just suppose everbody is working just like me. So I finished my lobster kebab hurried down the Tusker beer and vanished to join the honeymooners and families for a drink on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

I should have been warned as practically everybody else we heard talking about Zanzibar in Kigali went there with their boy/girlfriends. But as I settled for my sundowner at the Africa House Hotel, as advised, I was taken a little by surprise by the crowd of couples and all inclusive kinda tourists with their cameras pulled out and waiting for the lonely fisherman to sail right into the setting sun. I personally think the bar had a deal with the boat's owner because the timing was incredible, every day.

Although the town is actually quite run down it does not take long to succumb to its charme with the mixed african, arabic and asian influences, the maize of narrow alleys, the scent of spices everywhere and the general laid-backness of an island. The only thing that disturbed me while enjoying the view from the roof top terrace at the Emerson&Green Hotel were the familiar looking concrete blocks. As it turned out they were a present from the GDR in the 1960s, most probably related to the fact that Zanzibar (before uniting with mainland Tanzania) was the first non-socialist country acknowledging the German Democratic Republic. Another intriguing connection between Zanzibar and Germany is a sultans daughter who married a German and moved to Hamburg where she wrote down her views on and experiences in the western world. A rare account as it was usually the other way around.

Swahili style, architecture and interior, like here at the Mediterraneo Club in Dar es Salaam, has definitly fascinating elements. It tells you of lazy afternoons in the sun with a light breeze. Although, that can turn out to be a quite annoying wind that makes you hide behind the backside of the bungalow as happened to me at the Eastcoast of Zanzibar where we stayed with Uschi and Erwin at their Evergreen Bungalows.



A more urban example is the above mentioned Emerson&Green hotel which is basically a Swahili antique shop. Liz ("30 and proud of it") treated us all to a night there on her birthday and the rooms were so lovely we hardly left them. Laura had about 5 baths trying out the variety of locally made body scrubs while I enjoyed a food massage with clove oil on the cannapé, immediatly followed by a back massage, because it was so nice. In the evening we had a 6 course dinner on the floor of the hotels roof top crammed once more with loads of honeymooners, although a trio of german gay guys saved us from being the only odds out.

As my two travelmates had to get back to Kigali I went on to Dar by boat and almost regretted it, as, beautiful as it was, my stomach did not quite cope and needed to be settled with emergency drugs.

I stayed at a colleagues house in the posh area of Oysterbay and for the first time, thought with fondness of the more manageable size of Kigali. Although, this was but a preparation for what was to come in Nairobi. And traffic and distances aside I enjoyed my short visit to Dar and the people I met but especially the food. After one week of straight seafood in Zanzibar this was all about excellent Indian cuisine.


I went to Kenya for two reasons (sorry Kai, now you know I only used you for transport and shelter): big city life in Nairobi and a little bit of what I call the Kenya Romanticism derived from films and images like "out of africa" (no offence, I love the movie) and all the women who felt they needed to write down their going-native experiences with wild Maasai warriors. And although the weather at lake Naivasha didn't quite allow for romantic views on the Rift Valley and acacia trees glimmering in the heat I had my share of colonial reminiscence and adventure.
We stayed in a place with a colonial style mansion and basket-chairs on the massive lawn, Hippos pratically wandering the grounds at night and loads of retired English people.
As we walked around the crater lake marvelling at the view and the flamingos on the water we heard a noise in front of us. For a split second I was waiting for the lion to brake out of the bushes...but it was only a pair of young giraffes grazing peacefully about 10m away from us. One turned her head around, stared for a while and then backed off. The other stayed on for a while allowing us to walk around and see her in full beauty. It really makes you wonder how nature came up with a creature like that. Apparently they have really high blood pressure to pump blood all the way up to their head. At that point I felt really sorry I couldnt have been bothered to turn around and get my camera in the morning. On the other hand, if I wanted a picture, I could always buy one and the real image is in my head anyway.

More pictures of beachbums and ballrooms once I got my camera (and sunglasses!!) sent from Nairobi.