Music saves my Day

Today was not a good day! I lost the land again - more later.

It started well enough with a half hour chat with Dave Wald. Dave came out to Kigali in July last year, having qualified in a masters in music and psychology at Leeds University. Roger also qualified at Leeds, so was interested to know if he knew anyone - unfortunately Rog qualified 40 years earlier - so not much chance!

Dave has been doing some really interesting and practical work helping genocide victims through using music to help them express their emotions. He is finding that through this people are being helped to cope, and coping helps them to live.

He has a variety of projects going for individuals and groups, is working with establishing a music curriculum, and we had a pretty broad and interesting discussion on developing arts and musical festivals.

He tells a rather unusual story of David McAdam suffering some form of hallucinations when he was out last year - we are suspicious that he might have been eating the same kind of bananas as we had, though Dave thought it was some form of heat stroke.

He informs me that the Solace Gospel Choir are doing a Christmas Album, which is really good news since I very much enjoyed their last album which I downloaded from itunes.

Then some bad news came, that Christian Aid did not include Technical Training Colleges and their work supporting the poor, as part of their strategy in Rwanda. Apparently they are much more involved in the Aids programme. This was a bit of a blow because we had hoped to develop a joint project with them. However we did get a lead to the Ministry of Education out of it, and so another paper is being prepared, and perhaps this lead might go somewhere.

Straight from the Christian Aid discussion, Paul phoned and we were met by this man, Safari Fred. (no need for another nickname here then!)

Fred is the main driver for us these three weeks. In fact tomorrow he is actually taking us on safari to one of Rwanda's national parks - so lots of photos on the blog tomorrow night. There will be headings about Roger and the water buffalo - might even manage to find an appropriate nickname for Roger from the trip.

Anyway Fred took us to lunch. The main reason was because the local legal department were refusing the deed plan. They were strenuously opposing the area, because they wanted to ensure that their main road, and the side road required quite a lot of our land. We argued hard and long but it looks like we have lost 20% of it. Apparently the district can stipulate a distance of 15 yards from the centre of a main road, and also demand that we create a wider road for the local community. All this without any apparent payment to us.

It does not seem right to me - I move into very cynical grumpy GP mode during these sessions. Miracle Mutesa gets quite alarmed and must have asked me 6 times whether I am ok. It looks like he has not experienced a grumpy GP before.

Well if you had lost 20% of land that had cost you £67,000 you would be pretty non plussed! Thanks to Vic McLaughlin, (well done) we do have someone working on the eastings and northings - hopefully he will reassure me that the land is actually in Kigali, and not in Congo where it was the last time I worked it out. If its in Congo, then I am definitely coming home early.

The district surveyor is going to meet us on site on Friday, to see whether this is correct. This will be our 5th time looking at the site, and still no bulldozer.

Fortunately we know that we can still get the buildings on the site, with a bit of adjustment, but we have now lost a month of building time, despite best endeavours.

So when I returned from the meeting, it was straight on with the music therapy and a fair bit of banging on the key board - I think I know a psychologist I need to see!!

Tonight thankfully, we had a very good meeting of the planning group. Good delegation of responsibilities, and more insights into how Rwandans do their business.

However, I really must do a session on diet with them - it was chips, lamb kebab, more chips, tomato sauce and coke for tea. Not healthy - designed for instant indigestion and an early exit, but then maybe it was comfort food, to treat Grumpy Garlics mean mood.