Started the experiment at the fifth washing station last Tuesday. The manager looked after us very well, giving us beds, food and beer which was a pleasant change from the other places we'd been. It was good we didn't start there or we would have been disappointed elsewhere! We can't go to the last one for another week for some reason, probably because they are snowed under with cherries as the season was late to start but will finish about the same time as normal.
The week before my birthday Butare sprang into action as if they wanted everything to look great for the day – buildings were repainted, the road building went along twice as fast, potholes in other roads were filled, bunting was put up along the streets and banana trees were tied to the lampposts. As well as that, pretty much every tree along the road to Kigali (150 km) was painted white too in just one week. Turned out that it wasn't all for me though... Kagame (the President) was visiting the day after. I didn't manage to see him as I was sleeping most of the day but we saw plenty of his personal guards as he was staying in our neighbourhood. It was pretty incredible to see what can be done when people have a target to aim at, my fellow mzungus think that he should visit more often (or have a few doubles) to get things done really fast!
My birthday was a reasonably civilised affair. As I eluded to at the start I'd been out partying the three nights before so was already feeling a little tired by the time it got to Sunday. We got a fridge full of beer and some brochettes and had a good time. Getting the brochettes turned into a bit of a hassle – we had meant to make them ourselves the day before, but that didn't work out. Instead we went to a cheap bar and asked to buy 40 off them, they said that was fine, but when we rang an hour later to see if they were ready they had changed their mind and said all the goat was gone... fortunately our local hotels had plenty ready so we bought out their whole supplies and that was sufficient. Left to right we have our landlord (self-invited) Jean Marie's wife, Jean Marie, Yours truly, Jan, Coucou, Zeta and Mario. (I hope you like my attempt at photoshopping using Paint!)
The coffee processing continues apace. Got home last week to find another 80 kg that needed drying and there is more on the way. Found out that it would cost $150 to take an extra bag back with me which makes my exporting plans more complicated! I think I'll have to just strap coffee to the outside of my bags and then surround them in gaffer tape. It might end up looking a bit strange, but it seems worth it to save the cash! Some of the first batches should be dry enough soon for us to cup, which will be great. Been doing some hand sorting as well which is very time consuming – think we might have to employee a few workers at some stage to get it done faster. Here's our sitting room (and kitchen and dining room) last week (there's been more added since):
Had no power at our house for the last few days which is a bit annoying. Houses on the other side of our road do so it must be a local fault which might take a while to repair. The forces that be seem to want us not to drink coffee – our grinder broke a few weeks ago and we can't find a replacement anywhere (fortunately another intern is coming from the US next week and is bringing one). I resorted to using a saucepan to crush beans which took about half an hour to make three cups (still worth it)! Finally we managed to get hold of some ready ground coffee and then the electricity went so we can't make hot water! Hopefully next week things will get back to normal. (After I wrote this, some guys came round to fix it, the “hour” has already turned into five hours, but it should get fixed today).
Visited a new school last week which was built by the American supermarket that Mario's company sell coffee to. It's a secondary school for girls (over here that means ages from 17-20ish) with a strong focus on science and technology. They aim to become self-sufficient for food, having around 5 hectares of land. We went there because they are hiring a farm manager and Mario was helping to interview. It was a really impressive place and they are going to start using worms for composting, as well as terra preta on their soil. It's a beautiful location too, although being about 800 m lower than Butare was a bit hot for me.
Realised I never updated you on my Kinyarwandan. It's coming along fairly well, I still can't really talk to people who speak no French or English but maybe with a few months more work I'll be able to. I finally got round to learning to count last week; it's difficult compared to all European languages as the words are all at least three syllables and bear no resemblance to our numbers, but it helps to get things for cheaper. They use the same word for tomorrow and yesterday, which at first seems stupid, but in fact is pretty sensible since you can always tell from the tense which of the two someone is talking about.
Finally, I've been meaning to say for ages that I don't like the design of the blog, but I can't work out how to change it... oh and I'm curious as to who is following this in Singapore, care to identify yourself? Hmm, actually one more thing I've been meaning to post for ages, here are the five types of coffee, from left to right, cherry, parchment, green, roasted and ground:
Hopefully that makes the rest of what I talk about make more sense.
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