und der Garten :-)

Home - first month, not much furniture

Amboselli

Rwanda is nice, but Kenya is GREAT! Was at Amboselli National Park and found what I was looking for. Endless view, harsh and breath-taking ...
Can not wait to see much more of Africas vastness. Will upload some pictures soon. But today the internet connection is somehow not very strong...

Reconsidering my jogging partners

I do have to admit, that my jogging partners are two quite unreliable little fellows! ;-)

Trying to figure out, if their mum was maybe angry with them as they came home after dusk or if they just don't like the Counting Crows so much....

Anyhow. ALL GOOD IN RWANDA. Despite some logistic challenges (house, car etc.) I feel truely great! Somehow at terms with myself and happy that I finally follow my dreams, which I did not do for such a long time....

Sawa!

Found a huge round-about near my (current) house today. About 1 km away on the top of the hill. Completely empty in the evening (besides some lonely joggers) as there are only ministries around. Each full circle about 1 km, I estimate.
Off course not an ideal spot, but for my hill in Kigali - quite a great spot!!!

Anyways- jogged up the hill, then 3 rounds and wanted to run back as suddenly these 2 boys turned up. One about 12 years, the other maybe 8. No street kids, for sure, but from a simple local family, I guess. They started to run next to me. Just like that. Not bothering me, but right on my side. First I got a bit anoyed and started to run faster. Of course they copied and we started to play around a little changing the speed. After a while I gave up to get rid of them, but jogged along and did not care... actually enjoying their company more and more every minute.
After a little while I decided to share my IPod music with the older one, who was next to me. Heard Mr. Jones from the Counting Crows which is since a few days my favorite jogging song...
So we jogged along. Without words. Just listening to the music. Happily. Only making sure once in a while that the other is ok. "Sawa?" "Sawa!" (That's one of the very few word in Kinyarwanda I know so far. Means "Are you/Is that ok?" as well as "Everything ok").
I ran downhill with them, way past my house ... and when I decided after a while that it was time for me to run back home as it got dark, I stopped, said "A demain" and ran back.
I am not sure if they understand french. But I guess I would be happy to see them again tomorrow...

And I guess I never jogged with a bigger smile on my face - ever! :-)

Verbuscht?

I walk barefoot. Quite excessively. I always did. Or in Sandales. In Sri Lanka my feet turned black. Here they turn red. Little changes. :-)

Temporary Shelter ... or actually much better

Silke's wunderschönes Haus...



mit Gemuesegarten dahinter, in dem ALLES wächst! (Korreander und alle sonstigen Kräuter, Salat, Avocados, Papaya, Bananen, Physalis) Sobald ich einen festen Wohnsitz habe, werde ich bei ihr in die Schule gehen, habe ich beschlossen. So ein Garten ist phenomenal!



Auf der Terrasse. Im Abendlicht.

Mototaxi

I do not have a car in Ruanda. I did not even think about getting one before I came here. But now it becomes obvious that I won’t manage for a long time without. Because there is no reliable bus system, hardly any taxis, only moto-taxis, hills everywhere and so on.

At the moment I do not have much of a choice and take the moto-taxis. These are motorbikes, which serve as taxis. Mostly the bikes are quite old, but that is not the worst. Drivers just do not know how to drive. Which is a shame because the traffic is – compared to Colombo – incredibly easy. But still these guys seem not to have a feeling for speed, distance or the fact that text-messaging and driving a client at the same time is not such a good idea. If one adds the fact of steep dirt tracks, motorcycle helmets, which are a real joke, and lots of other unexperienced drivers on the road, it becomes quite an adventure.

I guess the drivers feel the same. That is why every single driver I had so far, crossed himself before we took off. I already feel like joining.

Above Kigali way up in the air one can see enormous, majestic birds of prey. I wonder how they get so big.... maybe the motorcycle victims.... Oh, well, I better stop here ;-)

Lesson learnt - 1

I realize, one should never joke about diarrhea!

Where am I?

So here I am. In the middle of Africa. Which is not really Africa, as people say. Different. “Africa light”. (As Sri Lanka was referred to as “India light”… What is it with me and the “light” countries?) And it might be true. I am sitting outside, wearing jeans, a jumper and socks! And still I feel this subtle chill. Would love a scarf of someone’s arm around me. Can’t possibly be Africa, can it?

To get clarity about being in Africa or not I order salad. Green salad with a mayonnaise-ish dressing. I am being in a rebellious mood today. But - no diarrhea! So, on which continent am I? Undecided if I should continue this experiment with ice cream and tab water…

But people look African. And yesterday evening there was a power cut of several hours. At least some things happen as expected. Still, will have to make some more experiments to figure out what kind of country this is J. Will keep you posted.

What colors will Rwanda have...?

I am changing the colors of my blog from Sri Lanka-Sea colors to what I imagine more Rwandan colors. Much green I guess... Need to find an adequate picture too. The women in Saris do not quite fit anymore. Although I really like them!!!

Anyhow, after revamping the whole FLICT webpage where I did a much better job then here, I thought it would be easy as pie for me to play around with this page. But somehow I still need ages and even my basic html does not work the way I want it....

But who cares for looks. It's the inner values that count! ;-)

The travelling soul

Ok, I have to admit that I have started to misuse this blog somehow as a picture-book instead of writing little text bits. Not that anyone might really care (besides maybe Alex. Btw: Thanks for your affection regarding my oeuvres!)

New country, new chance, I say. So let's see if I will manage to keep this going a little better. I calculate - if I put all the time and energy I had to invest in common farewell & birthday presents as part of the "GTZ-Sri Lanka Bastelgruppe" into writing for my blog, it should be damn great! Unless Kigali offers a phenomenal social life that distracts me.... let's see....

The last week before my departure started and I am already absent-minded, I feel. Not yet in Rwanda of course, but not really here anymore either. Tine once told me that the soul needs much more time to travel a distance then the body, as the body can be transported from A to B using modern technology. But the soul did not catch up on modern technology (and vis-a-versa). Therefore it has to start it's journey earlier then the body and still might not be there when your body arrives.
That is why one often feels a bit lost and hollow just before departure and after arrival. The soul is not there yet.
I am happy to have friends, who give those kind of explanations. Makes perfectly sense to me!!!

Family - one of these very rare moments where we all manage to be in one spot.

Happy!

Nachtrag Sri Lanka 3 - Wasus Hochzeit

My team - all dressed up! Me half-way bending my knees, Asanga on his heels... :-)

Still need help to put a Sari on. But for some occasions it is really worth it!

Nachtrag Sri Lanka 2 - Das unvergessliche Casa Colombo

Der Pool, der eigentlich rosa war...



Disco meets hotel. Schön und bizzar!



Der goldene Speisesaal. (Von den Toiletten hab ich leider kein Foto, aber die waren fast noch eine Spur abgefahrener)




Die üblichen Verdächtigen feiern mit David Geburtstag

Nachtrag Sri Lanka 1 - Ein schönes Wochenende in Mirissa