A sorrow and a joy: small, domestic

At home I am a devoted listener to BBC Radio 4: 'intelligent speech radio' I think they call it, and it is. On my first Growing Together stay, in February 09, I discovered Deutsche Welle, broadcasting from Kigali, often in English, with much more than African or world news. The first feature that surprised and delighted me was about the opening up of the solicitors' closed shop in England and Wales. Since then I have heard about childhood obesity in Latvia, a Bulgarian school with chess on the curriculum to teach thinking skills, problems in Sicily with implementing plans to protect Roman mosaics from the feet of tourists... Then on Saturday morning at the end of 'Inside Europe' the news that the programme has come to an end. As at the BBC, increasing TV and internet availability has led to cuts in funding for radio. The little logement we use in Musanze/Ruhengeri now has a bulky TV on the one small table in each room but reception is unreliable, and of course very many Rwandese and other Africans have no TV – nor the electricity to power it – and have never seen a computer.

The joy was on Saturday morning. For the family where I am staying, Saturday is the morning for relaxation, between the working week and obligatory church attendance on Sundays. Easy chairs from the living room are set on the verandah. On the last Saturday of the month, everything is compulsorily closed for umuganda, community work: no buses, no shops, no market, even no walking along the roads. Each household is supposed to supply at least one worker, but it's possible occasionally to miss the 7am start through 'oversleeping' without getting into trouble. There is a sabbath feel.

Soon after my arrival I bought a bag of Rwandan coffee – some of the best in the world. Up till now, I had failed to make coffee as I like it, boiling the water but not the coffee grounds, serving a choice of hot or cold milk and sugar or honey, to suit all tastes. This Saturday I achieved my goal. Bethany, a US Mennonite on a year-long homestay program, doesn't like coffee but used the remaining hot water for her packet of hot chocolate powder. She posed for my picture. Vestine on the verandah rail, and Gaudence and Augustin in the easy chairs (where Augustin has a power cable for his laptop) declined, but let me go ahead.