Back in Rwanda

Well, back after a few lovely days with Sarah. Also a very productive meeting with the safari tent suppliers on designs, timeframes etc. I got back to Musanze, unpacked and set off straight to the site to see the day watchmen (the guys from next door on day shift). All well at the site and good to be back again. Needless to say the guys were quite surprised to suddenly see me turn up when they thought I was still away.

Tomorrow is Gacaca trials again so no work but I have to go to Kigali to sort out some business there and then in the afternoon I'll go and see the night shift guys too. I'll also put up a temporary rain shelter as its started raining quite regularly - just until we have the hut finished.

Surprise for the Work Crew

Today the first of the big/tall trees went down and got it on video. It was classic how the guys asked me 2-3 times if I was sure that the tree had to be chopped down. I also had to give a bit of advice on how to chop the tree so that it falls in a certain direction - for the safety of the guys and also not destroying the iron sheeting fence or the car, but all went well and the tree thundered down safely. This had been at the area designated for the workshop and was followed by another tall tree in the main entrance & parking area. Admittedly the second tree was much taller than the first and was in excess of 20m tall and took nearly everyone (20) to carry it to where we keep the cut trees.

As lunchtime arrived, I announced that Andy and I would be paying their wages and we would meet them at Hotel Ituze (small local restaurant with rooms) up the road for drinks. There was a moment of surprised silence before everyone burst out in big smiles and excited talk. Andy & I had decided to do this to reward the guys for work really well done over the last two weeks with increasing productivity.

The number of beer drinkers and non-alcohol drinkers was about 50/50 and we all had a great chat and some good laughs. They also asked that when we start again next week (when I'm back from Nairobi) that we setup their wages so they get paid daily, weekly or monthly as per individual choice. The English/Kinyarwanda lesson hour on Sundays will also begin then. It was obviously also necessary to tell them that the drinks is not something that will happen every week. These guys will now make up our core group in showing new starters the ropes etc as they know what we want and how we want it done.

I set off to Kigali today and am leaving tomorrow for Nairobi where I'll meet Sarah. Whilst in Nairobi we'll also be meeting the safari tent designers & manufacturers to finalise the way forward in that regard.

Tomorrow Andy will also get some guys together to go around the site and clear up some of the cut trees and stumps and move them to the central "collection" point at the southern part of the site. On Monday Andy then sets off for a well deserved 2 week holiday. SO back to blog next week when I get back to Rwanda.

(photos to be uploaded)

Two Sections Cleared

Yes, two sections have been cleared and are ready for levelling. The northern overland truck parking sites are finished and in the southern truck parkings, there's only one small tree left. The clearing of the north/south road between the two sites is also in progress albeit a bit slower due to massive amounts of rock having to be removed to get the trees and stumps out.

Also in the Reception area there's big work in progress with a tree growing on what seems to be solid rock or very large rocks anyway. This is literally where the reception counter will be, so something all of us will remember when we stand there next year with arriving clients.

Tomorrow is Gacaca trials again so no work at the site but I will be off to Kigali to go an sort out some tickets for my flight to Nairobi over the weekend to meet Sarah.

Border Fence & Interesting Finds

Today the iron sheeting for the southern perimeter fence was delivered while the guys finished the framework. We also started work on the frame for a shelter for the security during the construction. Speaking of which, I discovered today that every community has their own little group of people who look after the security of the community - a bit like a neighbourhood watch. This security is run by ex-soldiers and is quite well organised.

Seeing as we need security on site, especially with materials being on site and loads of wood (the latter very sought after due to ban on chopping trees without official authorisation), we decided to employ the local community security, the leader of which is also presently working on the site. They would make available two people for the night shift and for late afternoon and full day shifts, the boys next door will be on site.

Back to the fence, the guys started putting up the iron sheeting in the afternoon and will continue with that tomorrow. Its something that goes reasonably fast especially with a couple of the guys being masons/builders and do these things as if its second nature.

Whilst offloading the stumps at the house this afternoon, something caught my eye in the one tree stump - a bullet casing was stuck inside the wood. It seemed to be from a FN rifle and probably from somewhere during or just after the war in 1994. I have taken photos of it and will upload one soon.

Great Start for New Week

Our new week started a bit earlier when we had a meeting yesterday afternoon with the local co-operative that conducts waste disposal in Musanze. They were previously just a small community association but with the change to new provinces and districts etc, they are now a province-wide co-operative. In Musanze alone they employ in excess of 50 people ranging from the actual disposal at the landfill to the guys who go around with their hand-drawn carts to collect waste from the town. Our discussion was about the seperation of different kinds of waste eg; glass, paper etc which they already do and also encourage in the town.

Today at the site was a hive of activity as all the guys just seemed to jump into the work in high gear. The southern perimeter (on roadside) fence frame was also finished. Most of the clearing today was in the two overland truck parkings, bar delivery road, reception and some work in the entrance parking area. The work is hammering on with some teams getting stuck into tree stumps that seemed to have "absorbed" massive rocks, also realising that it may be more than one or two days on that particular tree stump.

(photos to be uploaded)

Stumps & More Stumps

Zoom of rock inside stump
These two pics show how some of the roots have grown around the rocks to the point where the rock is completely enclosed within the roots and becomes part of the tree stump. Getting a stump like this out becomes an even harder job as the difference between rock and root is not always clear. This of course also adds to the weight of the stump



Stump with rock inside
This pic shows the whole stump with the rock inside. Although the rock seems small, it becomes apprent on closer inspection that the roots are relatively thin around the rock and conceals the largest part of the rock.
Pile of stumps from 2 days
Today I started moving the tree stumps from the site to the house. Large part of the reason is to remove the temptation for people to go onto the site when we're not there to remove this all as firewood, the lack of which is a large problem in Rwanda as cutting of trees is against the law (to minimise soil erosion). There are still a few stumps on the site but they have proved impossible to move by even 4-5 guys except if we chop them up. Don't really want to chop them up yet as we may use them around the site in the final stages.

No work was done yesterday due to the Gacaca trials (community based Genocide trials).
Today: we intended to only have 20 people again for today but we started off with some bad news that 2 guys had been arrested for inconsistant evidence during the Gacaca trials (the community based Genocide trials) which is a 3month prison term.

There were, as expected, a lot of people we didn't employ on Wednesday so there wasn't a shortage on the labour front. We had decided that for this 2nd day of employment for the new labour, we would be reasonably lenient on people arriving late. Andy explained to the ones who were very late that unfortunately they would have to come back again on Monday. At the end of the day, Andy explained that as of Monday we would only employ the people who are there on time. During this little talk I discovered that there was actually a Rwandan saying that refers to "keeping time like a mzungu" i.e. being precise with timekeeping like a white man.

The guys worked superbly and large areas were "un-stumped" with some minor trees also starting to get the chop, nothing over 10cm diameter yet though. I sustained a bit of a back injury whilst carrying a tree stump and stepping in a hole and trying to keep my balance. Hopefully I can get it sorted by Monday with some rest over the weekend. A ittle bit of stretch/exercise may help so I'll try and get some pics of the areas done today.

The wood for the fence of iron sheeting was also delivered today, so the fence should be up with iron sheeting by Tuesday morning and the site will officially look like a construction site.

Clearing - Day 2

Digging out stump in lounge/restaurant area
Today we got working with 20 guys in 10 teams of two and just concentrating on getting tree stumps out. In the Reception area where we had started yesterday, the guys made a huge dent in the work to be done there. Some gus started around the lounge and restaurant areas and the seemingly mediocre stumps there ended up in being some of the biggest diggings of the day. The first photo, and old man digging, ended up in a hole nearly a meter deep. The good thing was that the old man in this area was clearly experienced in this and gave the young lads a lot of good advice and guidance over and above the fact that he himself worked like a demon.

Very large rock removed to get tree stump out (Back of Hse)
Once again this involved getting the rocks out before the stump would even budge. This was also only in respect of tree stumps with very young regenerated growth on - so no tree chopping as such yet. The rock in the second photo was so large and heavy that it took 3 of us to move it with a 4th person levering it.

Clearing - Day 1

We started the day early with 2 guys from next to the site and 2 from Ruhondo. The initial task was to get the holes done for the corrugated iron sheeting fence at the road side (southern) border. Taking off at a run we had this done in just an hour and a half.

Having all the tools on the vehicle we decided to start on taking out stumps in the reception area. This little "exercise" confirmed my thinking that it would be hard work although the reality was even harder. The Eucalyptus in many places seems to grow just on top of the rocks but in actual fact finds a crack between the rocks and grows through there with a root that's 1cm thick. When the root is eventually out you can see the flat thin root that has just folded itself around the rocks to get down into the soil.

We had a full day and it was great to get some physical labour in although the guys were hugely surprised to see me physically working as well. Initially they would come up and take the tools from me and carry on what I was doing and then eventually realised there's no point as I will just find another tool and carry on.

At one stage we also had a snake come out from around the diggings, pencil thin and about 20cm long and slate grey with some black spots on the back near the head. Getting closer to try and catch it, I got grabbed from behind by one of the guys shouting that its a snake - even the snake stopped moving at this commotion, luckily. It took about a half hour to explain that I knew about snakes and would attempt to catch them if I was sure of what I was doing. The guys had thought I had never seen a snake and was still not happy with the idea that I would think of catching them. Anyway, that was the first one I had seen at the site and is definitely not the last I'm sure.

Tomorrow I'll be taking some photos of the clearing as we'll have 20 people tomorrow working at the site. It was hugely encouraging to see what we had achieved with only 4 people today though.

Almost all Systems Go!

After a reasonably quiet weekend the new week started at a smashing pace and didn't seem to have any intention of slowing down.

At the District Director of Land's office we handed in the final document for the letter confirming building approval. The guy there said that it should be ready by Wednesday and jokingly further said it would be way before we got permission to cut the Eucalyptus trees (anticipated to take a week).

Setting off from here we had an hour and a half before meeting the Agricultural Officer from the Cyuve Sector about the tree cutting permission. Quickly into the bank and then conveniently some of the guys from the Ruhondo (at the lake) community were around so we started the planning for the wood we would need to make the frames for the corrugated iron sheeting "fence" on the roadside border. They can manage to get it cheaper and have the planks cut up cheaper than we can so - the job's theirs. This should be ready in about 5 days.

Off to the Cyuve Sector office, pick-up the Agricultural Officer and the ex-Agricultural Officer from the previous Ruhengeri Council and back to the site. After throwing the plans out on the ground and discussing them for about 20minutes, we were told that it was fine and we could continue with cutting the trees - permission granted. The amount of approximately £16 had to be deposited at the National Bank as the Sector Council fee for this permission. I'm sure my jaw was haning on the ground as everyone looked at me very strangely - I couldn't believe how quick that was. So off again and deposited our £16!

Then Andy phoned the District Director of Land's office and jokingly asked if our letter was ready as we had the permission to cut the trees. The guy there was apparently a bit bowled over and promised it would be asap.

We had time for a lunch with the Chief Park Warden, Justin and caught up on what was going on and also sharing the good news with him.

Andy and I then got into the hardware shops for sme basic tools and requirements to start working tomorrow morning. Very interesting twist again (funny that) - get a price for a pick-axe and you think "Mmmm, not bad at all." then.... it doesn't include the handle which can be bought at the market and there aren't any till Wednesday. I couldn't believe it, our great starting moment was going to be delayed by absentee pick handles!!

Reminding Andy that nothing in Musanze was ever completely "finished" or "sold out", we hunted around the town and found loads, well actually only 6, handles. YES - it was all really up and go now.

So probably about a 7am start and then rock 'n roll. Also the start of my exercise "routine" as I will be putting in a substantial amount of physical labour and looking forward it.

2 Kigali Days

I spent all day in Kigali on Thursday with our lawyer going through all outstanding matters and in particular discussing the EIA. This also culminated in a meeting with the EIA consultant and the environmental agency, the latter whom we had a meeting with this afternoon.

The 2nd meeting with the environmental agency was only this afternoon so in the morning Andy and I went and paid our building approval fees. The latter will hopefully be confirmed by letter during the 1st three days of next week during which we will also be working on getting the authorisation to cut the Eucalyptus trees during clearing.

We should be able to commence clearing in the next 10 days, so in the meanwhile everything is picking up speed (I hope) and Andy and I are getting on with the preparations to commence at the word go. Quite an exciting time now as we seem to be getting within spitting distance of the start of clearing and construction.

Back in Rwanda

Got back from the UK today on a flight over a very cloudy East Africa via Bujumbura (capital of Burundi). At the stopover in Bujumbura our plane was met by a military guard of honour and about six vehicles collecting somebody - unfortunately never got to see who it was.

Then this afternoon in Kigali I dropped off some documents at the office of the environmental agency for the EIA and in return got a letter with some new queries on. Not exactly the homecoming I anticipated but I'll be back in Kigali tomorrow to see what we can sort out on the EIA queries.

In the meanwhile Andy had been quite busy at the site preparing some new plants we want to supplement the existing hedges with - well, rather make them as impenetrable as possible without using fencing. He had gone to Kisoro (Uganda) to get some seeds of the Mfata-ingwe plants which is also used in Rwanda but we couldn't get seeds here. The name of the plant that grows into a hedge roughly translates into a plant that keeps leopard out. Apparently, if you/anything gets stuck in this bush, you'll not be able to get out unless someone arrives to hack the plant off you.

Andy had planted the seeds on the inside of the mid-western border where they established a little area for the seedlings with a rough roof cover to protect them. As they mature, we'll plant them out to the border hedge areas. Hopefully I'll get to the site and get some photos of this over the weekend.