Taxi Moto Guidelines to Ginger

Dear Ginger,

Now that I am a fully qualified taxi moto passenger, I felt I should provide you with guidance, since you are such a novice. These guidelines are from my extensive experience.

1. Make sure your driver has enough diesel in his bike or else he will have to stop at side of the road, and lean it in all sorts of directions to splash every last drop into the engine, and when that works he will mutter under his breath that the journey is too far, and what he means is that he is fearful that he will not get back to the petrol station.

2.  Always haggle. As a general rule of thumb use the German severe facial technique, which always beats the British weaker mentality (like mine) and reduces the fare by 25%. Though I do remember that your willingness to haggle was non existent - so you may have to add another 30% for Irish awkwardness.

3. However, when you offer the taximoto 1200RwF for a journey, and he does not understand, and says 100, and you agree to 100 (which is clearly robbing the poor guy), take the opportunity to do some language tuition at the end of the ride, and give him 1000 RwF (which is what he meant) –you have made 200 profit, which is still more expensive than the German would have paid. Also make a mental note that you could have had the same journey for 800 - 1000 RwF. you will still give in and pay 1200, but I want you to know how weak you (and I) are.

3. Keep your knees in. You can lose them in the tight fit between cars at rush hour. In fact, thigh squeezing is recommended for the whole trip. It is part of the technique, and stops you shooting up in the air when he goes over a bump or 5 too fast

4. Note the taximotos often do not have speed counters that work. These are the fast ones who have clearly turned them off so that they can argue better with the police about why they were doing 70 in a 40 km/hr limit. They also regularly go through red lights, drive up the wrong side of dual carriageway into oncoming traffic, and take risks with your life. They are also the most fun!

5. Try not to overload the taximoto. You will see many strange sights, even Macfarlane carrying a slow cooker, someone with welding equipment, and others with TVs. These are all ok. A surf board might also be ok, but nothing bigger, and please do not go on a taximoto with your kayak, as you previously suggested - it really is asking for trouble! The paddle might fall out.

6. Remember you call a taximoto by going sssssssssssssss. Its accepted practice – they can hear you at 150 yards. Always check the helmet for any ability to tighten up the helmet strap. One in 10 helmets will not fall off in an accident, and it would be a shame for your skull to dent the bitmac, when the strap might just be able to hold the helmet on – rare I know, but worth checking

7. Closing your eyes means that you miss all the fun. Take your own advice and watch the scenery go by, even if you cannot quite focus because of the tears, and pain. Try letting go. Instead of holding onto the handles behind you, take both hands off and just relax! Excellent for the soul. It allows you to see the interesting sights and to ask yourself why a beauty of parlour is named after your Saviour. And no - do not go inside. There is nothing they can do to improve your attractiveness.

I hope that these pieces of advice will help you when you come out to Rwanda with me in January with you friend and mine, Bad Boy Bennie. Please pass on the advice secretly to him, and avoid the wives Rena and Mary. They must not know of our intended Taximoto race.

Planning Nightmare 3

The vibes. The vibes!

I spent this morning doing a 5 page paper for the planning department, and good stuff it was too. I looked at Norbert and he just looked as if we had no chance of persuading the planners to allow a one storey College.

Anyway off I went to get Pastor Paul to sign the document. When I arrived he had a letter from the REMA office - the certificate - yes! NO, NO NO. A letter to say that we needed a full environmental report. But I knew that, we knew that a month ago - did the consultant we paid not do a report?Apparently not, just a letter asking REMA to advise us if we needed a full report.

Macfarlane self combusts at this point. Another 2 weeks delay, and off to the local printing company to change the document I had spent all morning on.

We went round to the one stop centre and dropped in the paper and chatted with the planner. He was nice enough, but the facial expression and vibes were not good!

This afternoon, we went to see a REMA consultant who is going to the report and will have it with me on Tuesday - pretty good considering the amount of work. 

Tonight I had a meeting with Denis Overton and Stephen Bell, and others. Denis does a lot of work on helping entrepreneurs in Rwanda. You could tell he thought the planning application would fail, and his friend, who seemed to know quite a lot of important people, looked pretty glum too.

I am starting to think glum too. I do have a couple of possible helpers  - including Winnie 'who wraps planners round her finger' - going to phone her first thing - more of her tomorrow.

So the next instalment is Friday - cannot wait

Planning Nightmare 2

Those of you who have been reading the blog the last couple of days, will be wondering what the planners are saying. Well at lunch time today we were given the letter.

It was in Rwandan, so I had not a clue what it said. So Emmanual Rubagumya (sorry about the poor photo Emmanuel) came to translate it. Unfortunately some of it was pretty unclear, despite two people trying.

There was nothing else for it but to take another taxi moto to the one stop centre in Kigali City centre.

The last time we went there it was quiet ad we just walked in. This time it was empty apart that is from a full planning meeting with the Kigali Mayor and Vice Mayor.

I thought about joining them (aye right!) but decided I should just sit outside until the meeting finished. After an hour Vincent who has been helping assess our planning application, came out and explained the letter.

This was about 4pm. I immediately phoned Roger in Kirkie, to decide a plan including some redrawings, phoned Callum in Kilsyth, and Paul in Niboye, to agree the way forward. Nothing like having a planning meeting on the hoof!

In 20 minutes all was agreed, so I went and had lunch (well it was 4,30pm), did my emails and blog, and then headed for home.

Must say I was pretty puggled after a long day and just could not resist a beer at the Leica Hotel, and there I updated our basecamp website with all the curriculum and business planning information I had received from my earlier visit.

Then it was on to a local Chinese for tea, and by that time Roger had completed the pdf file, and had written the architect speel for the planners. Fantastic job!

All I have to do now is to write my letter on behalf of the church pulling it all together, and by late tomorrow morning it will be back on the planners desk – with me sitting outside looking for answers yet again.

The key question I must ask myself is what will the planners respond to, if anything? It would be nice to have  a conversation where we had a bit of negotiation, but it does not work that way, or does it in Rwanda?

Patience folks - you will just have to wait for the next instalment of Planning Nightmare 3!

The BAD Proposal

Part of my work here this time is to develop the Ihumure College business plan. This involves getting fairly accurate figures on income  - what we can charge as fees, how many students can afford them etc, and what the main expenditure costs are – teachers and principles salaries, material costs, and control mechanisms.

For this I have arranged two visits. Today was the first to the SOS Kinderdorf technical school, and to visit John Gaga. John was excellent, and gave me an hour and a half. I now have most of the details that I need to make substantive financial plans for the actual running of the College.

These will need to be checked against the results of my second interrogation (oops sorry, should not mention that medical term) – I mean visit, on Friday to the Kicukiro Technical College.

John showed me round the school he runs. It is a German establishment, one of many that their charity runs. Its quite some operation and I was very impressed.

While I was with John, I raised the subject of apprenticeships in Kigali but learned that they are very informal and do not seem to have been developed much.

So its time for Bad Boy Bennie to stop writing his blog and get down to the hard work of developing the Bennie Apprenticeship Document. To be known from now on as the BAD proposal!

Anyway, by coincidence, (as if)  - you must really be getting fed up with the frequency of these coincidences – anyway, by coincidence when I talked to John about apprenticeships, he said that he was just about to go down to a morning conference on work placements. Would I like to come and meet all the people from local colleges, business and the workforce development agency. Not an opportunity to be missed.

So I spent the morning helping to design the new Rwandan work placement system – even gave them some of my indepth knowledge and experience of Scottish work placements and apprenticeships – oh no, what experience I hear you cry – well thanks for that vote of confidence.

While I remember, while I was there Denis from WDA said he would arrange a meeting for me with Albert the director – must get that email off now.

Anyway the Rwandan plan now has a wee Scottish bit about Institute Learner Agreements  and student learning plans in it!  What have I done!

Fiona - Do Not Read

The Taxi Moto

The last time Ginger and I were here it took us three weeks to get the courage up to try this mode of transport. This time I have been using it frequently - its quick, to the door, and immediate. I know that if I walk out of the coffeee shop where I am I can get a ride home within 20 seconds, and will be home 5 miles away within 10 minutes.

The only thing is that I will have ridden at high speed through very busy traffic, squeezing between spaces that do not seem to exist, and even taking red lights when necessary.

I suspect that Fiona would not approve, but it works well, and interestingly on watching the ability of these bike drivers, they are pretty careful, though Ginger should know that one did 70km/hour - so be warned Rog I have the number of my driver for the January race!

Taxi! I am off for a chinese and a beer, after very busy day. More in next blog.

Camp Kalka

For the last 3 days I have been living with the Ndahigwa family. They have provided me with their usual excellent hospitality. However, I am a stubborn and fixed nature and I like my independence and freedom. I like to be able to go and come when I want, to make arrangements and meetings when I need them, and that is just not possible with them in Niboye, Kigali.

So as happened last time I have escaped, and this time to Norbert's place - Camp Kalka. Norbert is an German architect here in Kigali, and he is going to help us by checking the construction on set intervals.

What construction I hear you say after the last blog. Well I am an optimist, and have yet to bin the idea of establish a Vocational College for the poor.

This will be my base, and tomorrow at 8am, I am meeting John Gaga, Chair of the Association of Colleges. I wonder what he will think about all colleges having to be several storeys from now on. I am also hoping to meet the Director of Kicukiro Technical College at 12 midday.

These two people should be able to advise me of the key issues in college development, and matters regarding employing teachers, apprenticeship issues, and new contacts that I should make in trying to establish our college.

Today has been a busy one, and apart from visiting the planning department, I met Jeff and Kayitare our builders to go over issues regarding construction and cost. Which reminds me must stop blogging and write up my to do list. They were in good form, but once again I had to remind Jeff that he had forgaotten to bring me a CD of some of his great music - he promised that I would have it before I leave - I plan to hold him to that  - or no building contract!

I also met Florence Mukakabano, who came to meet me in the UTC. She had driven the 2 hours from Butare, because I had brought some presents from her friend Billy Smith. These were very much appreciated and were worth the effort of transport  - a laptop for her son, and a slow cooker, and some other gifts. The took up quite a lot of space but fortunately 2 bags are allowed to come to Rwanda. Great to be of assistance.

I see its 7.50pm in Glasgow - all the best Stuart, Mark, and Pistol Pete - expect you will win the Invershiel game at Brahead without me.

Regards to all

Planning Authorities - Garlic Grumbles

I make no apology for my dislike of planning authorities. I have had to deal with several, and I always get the feeling that they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to the point where they agree to your planning proposals.

So I should not have been surprised, indeed I was not, when Paul announced that he had just heard that the planners were recommending that the College plans were refused! Having had  a nice peace Sunday this news came out of the blue.

We were both seated on deck chairs looking at the moon at the time. The lights had been out in the whole district, and so the place with the most illumination was the front verandah. I nearly went up like a rocket!

So Paul, what is the reason they are recommending refusal. Oh they want the building to be 2 storeys, and not one. Why is that? Because the City plan says that all buildings in that area should be 2 storeys. But all the other schools and houses along there are one storey, and all the schools and colleges we have seen in the city are one storey. Yes - but the City Plan says that in the future - and that is now - that 2 storeys is it!.

But Paul, when we discussed this with the planners in July, they said one storey would be ok. Yes but they have changed this. So 4 months of plans appeared to be up the proverbial!! And we do not have the money for 2 storeys.

In true Macfarlane style, I ranted internally for a while, and then sent a text off to McAdam and Ginger - requesting an squadron of prayers. Txts came back that these had been actioned and the response was expected imminently.

Off I went to my room, preparing the powerpoint, and formulating a true Macfarlane robust response. I remember my last action with a planning authority, when they recommended refusal of our medical practice. As you can see I do not refusal well - and the centre was built against planning advice since the politicians saw common sense!

So off we went today and had a good chat with the planning team. Well at least we got to see them quickly. They were a nice enough bunch, and gave us a good ear. The problem is that they have set out a plan for the city which has very strict lines of demarcation and are inflexible. The only way you get anywhere is by giving them hard evidence well worked out and which their boss can use when his/or her hide is on the line.

So the problem is that they expect land to be a premium in the future, because they think they are going to have a city of skyscrapers, and therefore all future buildings should have a low footprint, and be tall.

I heard that one local embassy is still in dispute with them because they only built 2 storeys instead of 7! Does not give me grounds for optimism. But the prayer squadron are fast arriving so we shall see what happens when a higher power gets to work.

So tomorrow I have to form a very strong arguement to counter - will make for an interesting couple of hours, and then a long wait.

If the answer is no, then it could be an early flight back in the Lysander. More likely we will have to head upwards in the chain of command - President Kagame here we come?

Now where was the Rwandan High Commissioners email address that he gave me last month?