Routine and road rolling
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 18/Feb/2011 08:55, 34 days ago
Daily routine- now with the likelihood of my employment being still some months away, the days are beginning to merge one with the next. And what is daily routine? While Melissa is going up to the district office and not yet revisiting schools, getting up at 6.15 gives her plenty of time to get to her office. The first move is to weigh up the weather and the probability of rain. At the moment the skies have been grey even first thing despite the supposed onset of the dry season. In fact we have had more wet days in February so far than in December or January; it’s just that the amount of rain has been less. While I go and prepare breakfast, Melissa has a standing wash using the hot water prepared yesterday and kept in a thermos overnight. We have found it sensible to take advantage of the times when there is power to fill thermoses and have hot water inreserve for washing in view of the unpredictability of the cuts.I have a proper shower once Melissa is out (in cold water-but cold is relative- I should think it’s about 25°C but still enough for a sharp intake of breath) and then we both sit down to breakfast. For me it’s an avocado with lemon juice, for Melissa kamara masenge which is Kinyarwanda for small bananas about the length of a finger and slightly slimmer than a normal banana. We used to haveordinary bananas, imineche, but they seemed to go black very quickly even if kept in the fridge. Melissa has gone off avocados but I remain an aficionado. Avocados may seem a pretty consistent commodity in Sainsbury’s but for me the variation in form and flesh is a constant wonder. I suppose thateach avocado tree has its own characteristic fruit and as avocados are available throughout the year, I must be sampling fruit from different trees every 3 or 4 days. We follow this up with home- made bread and strawberry jam that also has the feel of a home made product. It has the merit of not having buckets of sugar in it so characteristic of many Rwandan preserves. Marmite is a refreshing addition at the moment courtesy of Lucy. At one time we were able to get hold of plain yoghurts that are as good as some of the French ones but the supply is very inconsistent, the alternatives being stuffed with sugar.Melissa leaves for the walk to work at about 6.55 usually accompanied by Melanie and I’m left to my own devices until Jackie arrives somewhere between 8.30 and 9.00. Most of this time is spent consulting the internet; emails and BBC news. I will sweep the floor for fleas or since discovering a pair of them under my shoes (mating?) I have given them special attention, only moving the shoes when I have put my glasses on in case I miss the wriggling. Once Jackie arrives I help her do the washing up and then continue my researches on the internet or writing this blog. Reading takes up much of my time now-when there was a chance of my teaching I passed a good few hours writing lectures on PowerPoint. Lunch is taken when Melissa gets back at about 12.30 and then it’s perhaps bread making and heating water on the charcoal. Jackie usually leaves about 3.30 unless it’s raining or likely to rain in which case she goes to sleep on a chair until later.I begin to prepare the evening meal about 4.30-5.00. We eat early because we have got up early and it allows washing up before dark in case the electricity goes. As soon as Melissa gets home at roughly 5.00 we have a cold beer and I begin to cook. At the moment the courgettes are cropping well so we have those fried in marge followed in the same pan by shredded cabbage with herbs from the garden added right at the end. The main dish is the stew we prepare weekly and keep in the fridge. This is heated up with some rice. The rice we use, at half the cost of Basmati, is produced locally and sold in paper packets at the market. As such it needs careful scrutiny; the harvesting and threshing process seems always to allow the inclusion of weed seeds and small stones. It’s 40 minutes spent tipping the rice onto a white plate and sorting through looking for anything that’s not white. The evenings are spent watching films saved on a large hard drive or following television series from DVD’s. We have seen the best that Rwandan television has to offer and it’snot worth the bother of getting a telly and an aerial. Bed at 9.30.The prospect of work has picked up a bit recently; I followed up a contact I made in the summer at Expo 2010 in Kigali. I had met the vice president of the Rwanda dairy association who seemed to think we might work together but he had no firm proposals and I thought no more about it as I was counting on a permanent contract at ISAE. I made contact again in January and we have had a couple of meetings to see exactly what it is that he thinks I can do. He is associated with 4 others with the object of gaining contracts from NGOs to supply training for agriculture and veterinary co-operatives. At the moment they have no contracts and no money, and we have not yet decided how best I can help them; we have yet to establish complete trust on both sides. More meetings have to be arranged and I have yet to be let in on their bidding process.They have just been along the road outside with a grader and monster road roller to attempt to level off the ruts and pits that have developed since it was last done about 18 months ago. Along the flat it has not been too bad except where the water tends to lie instead of running off into the ditch. There the soil becomes saturated and very quickly the larger wheeled vehicles push out the mud and form a pothole. Then all the traffic at least slows to work round these natural road humps. On the hill into town not far from the house, the action of the rain has been to follow the shallow ruts and markedly deepen and narrow them. In addition, through weaknesses and inconsistencies of hardness, the water succeeds in cutting a channel out of these ruts to flow into the ditch. The hill thus consists of long v-shaped valleys with occasional cross channels. These indentations the cyclists and motos do everything to avoid; though in essence they do not inconvenience the cars and lorries. What’s more, after a particularly heavy rain, the ruts and channels will change their course, necessitating a new pattern of avoidance.Now the grader has scraped off the tops of the ridges and deposited the soft soil into the valleys. As a finishing touch, a water bowser has been along and drenched the road, but not enough to wash out the soft soil. The difference between the solid but now flattened ridges and the mud in between has been diminished so much so that the two wheeled traffic now distrusts the whole surface and sticks to what passes as the footpath. It will take a good storm to wash out all the treacherous infillings and restore some sort of confidence. The only problem is that this should be the start of the dry season. If they have done a good job we have the prospect of traffic going at higher speeds and generating a lot more dust.