Beginning again

Beginning again

Arriving at Friends Peace House to discuss the programme for this, my second visit, I look for the six bag gardens filled and planted by a women's group in February. No trace remains. Ah well! I had been warned that some projects had not survived the months without rain. This was far from an ideal location, under a tin roof beside the car park of a place where nobody lives and even waste water from the kitchen is available only intermittently.

Five of us convene to plan my month's activities. We work mostly in French, but swap to English for me or Kinyarwanda for the others as necessary, to make sure we have understood each other.

At the end of an hour we have agreed six two-day workshops, various other sessions and a couple of days plus a weekend for me to follow up leads from my researches into African indigenous vegetables (AIV's), to visit a British Quaker VSO worker and the VSO office, and to see if I can do anything useful towards getting Antoine – my host this time and the clerk of Rwanda Yearly Meeting as well as head of the Friends School here – a visa to come to Britain Yearly Meeting next year after this year's refusal. (They told him at the British Embassy in Kigali that papers are sent to Uganda for decision.)

For the remainder of this week I shall be visiting and/or discussing last time's work. I am assured that at Mwana Nshuti, the teen project down the hill from Friends Peace House, the bag gardens have survived and the compost is ready for use. They are eager to add home produced vegetables to their school lunches. Perhaps I can nudge the wish into fulfilment.

My first new activity will be going to choir practice on Friday evening at Gasharu Friends Church, where there is a weekly service in English, so the singers and I can size each other up before I teach them one or more pieces later in the month when a special commitment is over. I meet the young choir master, Jean-Baptiste, who is in charge of a new library – called 'Children's Peace Library' though I spot Harry Potters and other general materials, all in English. His readers are mostly children from 3 local primary schools, including the Friends school. I suppose he is employed by the church though I don't get a chance to ask. We exchange phone numbers: fortunately my sim card and calling credit have carried over from February.

It's good to be back. Yesterday I was driven straight from the airport to a lunch meeting of the committee developing adult classes in English and computing – a project of the Friends Church drawing on some resources from the school and Peace House. The coincidence of the meeting with my need for lunch was not planned, yet I knew 8 of the 10 people present. I was able to contribute thoughts on accreditation (local, to raise the profile of the church, or linked to an international structure to enhance employment prospects?) as well as my proposal for students (including school teachers) to improve their English while engaging with topics relevant to Growing Together. A day to work with the adult school director is now on my programme.

I have walked back to Antoine's house, round the corner from where I stayed last time with Jeanette, whose husband Bosco is now studying human rights in Tanzania on a German government scholarship. Slightly apprehensive about remembering the route, I am relieved to see the charcoal seller's familiar corner. When A comes home for lunch I show him the laminated sheets on AIV's, prepared for me by Anne and Rob. One in particular interests him. He could take me to a restaurant where they serve it. It tastes bitter. The old people like it still.