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