more settling in

Nearly a week since my last post, and not too much to report. I’m still looking for an apartment. Pip Horne and I are going to live together – very exciting – but so far we keep striking out in the housing department. We thought we had found a place – a huge three bedroom, two bathroom, fully furnished with dishes and everything and 3 balconies. Turns out the toilets don’t actually work. If they fix it we may consider it, but for now we are back on the hunt. There is no real shortage of places in Kigali, it is just finding a place that meets our budget and our location needs and we need a place that is at least mostly furnished. To buy furniture for five months seems impractical and very expensive.

Aside from the accommodation woes, things are moving very slowly on the work front as well. I actually am ‘working from my hotel’ today, just as I did yesterday. I actually do have some work to do, but not a lot. And my hotel room is not so comfortable or roomy so I am at Bourbon coffee shop drinking a caramel macchiato and watching the rain. I am starting to get a little frustrated with work since nothing is really happening, but I have to keep reminding myself to relax and enjoy. I am hear to learn and experience, not to make sure the project is a success so I can take some of the pressure off myself. Also, time here works much differently than at home. Everything that needs to be done will get done eventually.

Living in Kigali is a great experience. I have a World Vision driver named Jean Malie who takes me to and from work, but aside from that I am on my own with the public transit system. It actually works quite well and is not that complicated but there have been times where I long for the transit systems of home, or better yet, my own land rover!

Sunday I took a ‘bus’ to church – a 15 seater combie van – and it was really easy. I loved church and my friend Dora translated for me so I even got to understand most of what was happening. After church I went out for lunch with Jen, Serge and a couple from Elmira who are part of an International Teams team that is here from Woodside. I took a taxi to Novotel Hotel where we had lunch since there wasn’t room in their car but on the way home I decided to save some money and take a bus back to the hotel. This should have been easy. There is a bus stop a couple of meters down the road from the hotel and many many buses were going past. They were going to Remera, to Kimirongko, to Kiciciyru and to many other places. None of them were going to Momodji (town centre) where I wanted to go. So I waited. And waited and waited. A young woman sat beside me and we started chatting in French and a young man decided that I needed help getting a bus so he started yelling at each bus that stopped that the mzungu needed to go to Momodji. Of course they were all full and already going to other locations so this didn’t really serve any purpose except to draw even more attention to me. Finally an hour and a half later a bus to momodji came by and I was able to squeeze in. I have had a couple of other adventures with the transit system here but my mom reads this blog now so I won’t go into detail :)