Evaluation

Written Sunday afternoon, 7 March

In line with most of the arrangements for this visit, the evaluation was a straightforward process. David, Antoine and I met in David's living room earlier this afternoon, immediately before my departure. Neither of the appropriate people from Friends Peace House was available. David was the organiser for my programme with the church groups and Antoine for the schools. FPH is the locus for HROC so will be involved in my October programme, where I shall be working with groups of Batwa after they have done an introductory HROC workshop,

I suggested that we do the evaluation in French, with pauses for translation or clarification if needed. That gave me the opening to repeat to David what I'd said a couple of days ago to Antoine after several minor frustrations – that I like to be told what's going on, and not have it assumed that I don't want or need to know. 'Perhaps it's a fault in me', I said. 'No, no', said Antoine.

David spoke first. I made notes but they're inaccessible in my checked baggage. (I'm writing in the departure lounge at Kigali. Last time there was free internet access here but this time I'm getting nothing beyond a statement that I'm connected.) Basically he thought communication had gone well, my workshops were well received everywhere, more churches – even other denominations! - are asking for me, he hopes I'll do more on diet and nutrition and try to open people's minds to other than traditional Rwandan cooking methods and recipes.

Antoine started by complimenting me on my youthful vigour! He had translated for me with the CGFK workers and sat in on the sessions with the teachers in Kidaho and Butaro so he'd experienced my work directly. Caption: A was also the driver for the week in Ruhengeri. This view of Muhabura across Lake Burera was taken on the drive from Butaro back to Kidaho.

He was well pleased too. He noted that there had been some problems with translators.

My turn. I don't enjoy holding forth in French without the feedback of conversation, but I did what had to be done. Overall I too had been well satisfied with this visit. There had been some problems with translation – especially in the north where there is said to be a better standard of English but I had to work all the time in French with translators who'd obviously been recruited at the last minute. There had probably been rather too much travelling round and I was quite tired.

I had thought through how the timings might work out in October, with or without the grant from Britain Yearly Meeting. (I shall hear early in April.) I propose spending nearly a fortnight in either Ruhengeri or Cyangugu, to give time for Batwa, schools and women's groups, including seeing how work started this time has developed. If the grant materialises I shall need to spend six working days with Batwa in each of the two regions, leaving me with not much time in Kigali. If it doesn't, I can meet some new local church groups, and perhaps build interest in supplying leaves for the moringa project – they need to be transported (by bicycle) to the processing site by 10am on the day they're picked.

So there's plenty to do. David is encouraging me to work on finding a successor. Antoine would like new topics for conversation classes with the teachers – thank you Anne for the very successful sheet on childhood diarrhoea. I plan to prepare material on nutrition, including the complementarity of vegetable proteins, probably in the form of worksheets to be filled in with words in Kinyarwanda supplied by my translator. (The possibility was raised of my having one translator for the whole visit next time.) I'm hoping one or two groups will invite me and a Rwandan woman – it's too soon to identify her - to go to market with them and prepare some different foods together. People who've contributed money need to be told how I'm using it and invited to give again.

For now, though, I need to pack up the computer and be ready to board the flight to Nairobi. Take-off should be in 10 minutes and obviously won't be, but there's a 3-hour wait scheduled so I expect we'll make the connection for the midnight flight to Heathrow. There's a fiery sunset.

PS: the journey home went fine. It's gloriously sunny here after a frosty start. Plenty to do here, too.