Yes Minister
Do you think announcements by British Government Ministers make any difference at all to people in Rwanda? If I told the woman in the red cap who walks everyday along the road past my front gate here in Kigali what Douglas …
Healthy Babies in Rwanda
The nurse gently turned the over the little baby in the incubator, checking his condition; she indicated that he was doing well. In the Intensive Care Unit in Kibagabaga District Hospital, Dr Blaize showed us the equipment they have for …
Swallows & survival: Paying for healthcare
OK, let's back to the Swallows - I've got to write about them first, as several people reading this blog have asked me how they are getting on. Four weeks ago, the three baby swallows in the nest on my …
Lighting up time
Have you heard that water flows one way down the drain in the southern hemisphere and the other way in the northern hemisphere? Is it true? I live 1 degree south of the equator, and when I experimented pouring water in my …
Livelihoods on the edge
Over the Labour Day break I took a trip to Akagera National Park on the Eastern border of Rwanda, next to Tanzania. It is a large open expanse of savanna and woodland dotted with beautiful lakes. The wildlife is limited and rather hard …
Books and desks
I was lucky enough to get back home to Sussex for a few days over Easter to see my family - it was great to see my children for real rather than over a blurry Skype connection. Two of them go …
The colour purple
Hundreds of people trudged up the long hill to Nyanza, many of them wearing something purple, a neckscarf, a wrap, even a purple wristband. The colour purple is the colour of mourning in Rwanda and yesterday, 7th April, was the 15th Anniversary …
What could I say?
Jeanne fiddled with the edge of her gitenge, tracing the pattern in the brown cloth with her finger again and again, telling me her experiences in the Rwandan genocide, and of the years after 1994. I sat in her small …
Wire tailed swallows
It was an exciting moment as the green truck with ‘The Big Green Moving Machine' painted on the front pulled up my driveway here in Kigali and delivered the boxes that Terry the packer had so carefully wrapped for me four …
Dear Olly
Do you know where swallows go to in the Winter? At least two of them come and sit on the ledge outside my bedroom window here in Kigali. When I saw them this morning I was immediately reminded of the children's …
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