So I have been back a couple of weeks now and it has been an eventful! And it started with the journey. My flight back was using Kenya Airways to Nairobi and then an hour between landing and a Rwandair Express flight into Kigali. So I get to Heathrow and am wondering whether they can check me all the way through which they can – great me thinks. And I then ask as to whether my bags will also go straight through too – yes says the airport lady without hesitating or indeed really looking at my ticket. Now you know when your whole body just screams ‘Really???’ Indeed what I heard her say was ‘if you think I can be arsed to check, get a life and by the time all this rubbish takes place you will be thousands of miles away and I will be tucked up in my bed so give me one reason why I should bother!’ Or words to that effect. Now you may be thinking that it is indeed a short time between flights and it is Africa so may be I should just lighten up (geez how Septic was that!!) But the reason I was concerned was not because it was going to mean I had to go commando (is that worse for girls than boys??) but because of the cream.
The cream huh? Now you may be wondering why I had chosen to doubtless break some international laws as well as why on earth I wanted to smuggle cream. Now lest you be thinking I am crazy, rest assured I smuggled loads of other stuff too – which makes me way less random albeit more interesting to anyone from Customs and Immigration that may be reading! Oh yep – I smuggled fahita packs, Cadburys caramel, digestive biscuits and crisps and stuff. So why on earth did I do that?
Well two reasons really. One because although our house lady does a fabulous job in preparing meals for us, it would be fair to say that there is a lack of variety. And as the lovely Tim had now been here for 6 weeks or so, I was racking my brains as to what I could bring back for him that would provide a tad more umph into the diet. And also we have to fend for ourselves on Sunday evenings so I thought it might be nice to have a house meal together to celebrate the New Year. Now I knew that Tim was now well sorted as far as the purveying of chickens were concerned and I figured that a banoffee pie would be lovely and relatively easy to make in our ‘kitchen’. That’s why I was concerned about the cream – obviously!
So Kenyan Airways – the seat I had, had controls that could not be read and neither did the On/Off button or the Go Back button work! So once I got into a choice of genre of movies I was stuck and when I decided to attempt to get some shuteye, I couldn’t turn the thing off. And the headsets that usually rest snug around your head kept falling back as did my head. Luckily or unluckily the flight landed into Nairobi at 3am so it was not like I wanted to sleep much – except for when we arrived!
So getting the connection in Nairobi was easy and I allowed my head to loll loads on the hour flight into Kigali and then waited with trepidation for my luggage. Given it was a small plane with only about 20 people on it, there was not much luggage and no, of course, mine wasn’t there. Stupid! Luckily however the cream somehow survived and we had chicken fahitas and banoffee pie – scrummy!
So being back felt a little weird as it felt like an age since I had been gone and lots had happened and been done whilst I had been away. Chief among some of the activity was the rumblings of the appearance of some misdemeanours here. It is always so difficult to assume positive intent around what people do when things appear to be corrupt. There were some issues in how things were dealt with that greatly affected the house. And it is equally difficult not to judge the people for doing this. But if you had 8 kids all of whom were hungry and you saw the opportunity to make a little money in order to help feed them, wouldn’t you? Of course it doesn’t excuse the behaviour, it means that conversations were had and procedures put in place to mitigate the likelihood of unfairness or stealing being possible. But it is a challenge energetically and emotionally to put so much in and sometimes feel like you are being taken advantage of – it is also understandable.
But as is often seems the case here – it is one step backward and then one forward. The lovely Christy (AKA the Vegetarian Chicken Tsar) had made a lot of progress in my absence in lots of ways – one of which was in relation to some peeps in need of prosthetic limbs as well as wheelchairs. One of these peeps was a lady called Margaret. Margaret is a 15 year old orphan. So for those of you with children around that age, think about their current lives. As well as being an orphan, Margaret had an infection when she was young which resulted in the bottom of her left leg being amputated. I know – deeply upsetting. However it gets worse – recently she was raped and as a result now has a beautiful 1 month old son called Eric. She currently lives with an Aunt who abuses her but she has nowhere else to go – albeit she gets to the market early every day to beg – it is all she can do.
So Christy and I were with the GBV ladies picking up school uniforms that had been made when we happened to bump into Margaret as we were doing a little shopping. It seemed like a fantastic God given opportunity to introduce the ladies to Margaret as Christy had mentioned her to them the day before and said she was desperately in need of their support. So the GBV ladies trek to the other side of the market with us and meet Margaret. Firstly Fortuna picks up Eric and starts cuddling him and then Janet takes over and tries to fix his ‘nappy’ which is put on more haphazardly than I think even I would have done! Then again – think of your 15 year olds and what they might do at this point. I have never seen such a smile from Margaret – to be included and taken care of even just a little reduced her to tears as well as all of the rest of us. It was heartbreaking to think that she has never had any community nor people to take care of her at any level. And it is even more heartwarming that now she does. As a result of the fabulous work that Christy is doing, it seems that we are also likely to be able to get her a prosthetic leg so hopefully that will improve her mobility too. It was a truly humbling and inspiring morning and what makes all this so totally worthwhile.
