A Building Update

Some of you observant ones, will have noticed that we have not actually done any building. So what is happening?

Well it is looking good to start in the next 3 weeks – he says with a large amount of trepidation. Just to recap.

The deed plan that was wrong in August is sorted, and has been signed by the Prime Minister.

The church is now a registered organisation, again this needed a PM signature.

The land has now been defined accurately by GPS and we have an authorised piece of paper saying so.

The neighbourhood cell are happy with the project, and they have been keeping the land neat and tidy for us. (see photo)

The planners are happy with one storey - FANTASTIC!, after a detailed paper, and 4 meetings last week. They want more toilets, so over the weekend, Roger the architect in Glasgow, has done a plan for this. Sorted.

The planners also wanted a REMA certificate, so a full Environmental Impact Assessment was done by our consultants, and will be delivered to the Rwandan Development Board this afternoon. The certificate should be at the planners within a week.

The final piece of paperwork we need is the lease contract. This required a ministerial signature, which we have, and they have produced a legal document, which we also received yesterday. This we handed to the district council, and they have sent it with our papers to the land registration, for them to produce the Lease Contract, again promised within a week.

When we have the REMA certificate and the Lease Contract then the planners will give us the construction permit, which they have already started to work on, and we will then be able to start building.

Below are Kayitare and his son Jeff. These are real Rwandan small builders. A great delight to work with.  

Kayitare

Kayitare does not speak English. He was recommended by our friend Pete Andrews as having a good track record of building Vocational Training Centres. We have put a lot of faith is this recommendation, but so far this is working out very well. 

We could have gone for a tendering process but I was absolutely convinced that we would have run into all sorts of problems with this.

Jeff

Jeff speaks good english, which is just as well, and regular readers of the blog will know that he is an excellent musician. So far, he has completely failed to provide me with a CD of his music. Tomorrow he must or the contract is off! 


Jeff is also very good with email, which helps loads when you want to work back and forth on various issues.

Apart from concluding costs, and a construction agreement which I am finalising today, we need to work out the practicalities of the construction plan, money transfer, site checking and resolution of issues.

I could really do with another week to resolve these matters, but my flight back is Thursday, and the architect, Norbert Kalka, who is going to check the site as construction develops, has escaped my attentions by being in Germany this week – unfortunately I did not know this until about 2 hours before he left!

Would really like to see them all the week before Christmas to resolve matters, and get the construction started, but the cost of flights back is considerable at that time of year. May be able to jump back for 5 days - we will see, or perhaps I can do it by email!! (he says  - not at all convinced)

So, I think there will be photos of actual building in January, and certainly by end of January when Roger, Bad Boy (if he agrees) and I return.


Your prayers and thoughts about the project are much appreciated.


This afternoon, I prepare the following:


A paper on the street children and their needs, for my meeting tomorrow with Albert the Director of the Workforce Development Agency, and the budgetary plan for the construction.


It all seems a long way from being a GP. Heaven knows what it is going to be like to jump back into Scottish GP mode after the sabbatical is over in February. We will cope with that when it comes.

Kamikaze and Emmanuel

This video - well it would have been if I could get it loaded - 12 hours trying! (will try again later) is for my church friends and particularly those who have been out to Kigali in July of the last 2 years. This morning Emmanuel Rubagumya, who is a pastor at L'Eglise Vivante, and his fiance were being introduced to the congregation

They are getting married on the 18th of December and this was like their banns being read out. Emmanuel's fiance is Kamikaze - pronounced kamkiz. When Emmanuel txt me the spelling of her name I had to double check. She is quite a shy person, and does not look like her name! However, in Rwandan her name means queen which is much more like she is.

She speaks only a little English, and mainly French, but when we chatted after the service we managed to communicate a bit, and I wished them both all the best for their wedding - from everyone at Chryston church.

The others in the video are Paul, the pastor who is reading the banns, and their friends John Mutesa who led some brilliant singing today, and Bette.

I do not know if you will recognise Bette. You will remember I was down at the Friends of Jesus on Friday and met Betty and her great kids. Well here she is with her new hairstyle - which is why I did not recognise her when I was walking through Remera on Saturday.

Rwandan women change their hairstyle all the time, and it is really a big thing here to be very smart with the latest clothes and styles.

I do not fit in well to this!

How is the Weather

Always great to hear and see news of things back home.

Firstly the weather. I hear from my sis and wife that you have snow. I tried to explain this to our cook this morning and we had a very difficult converstaion for a couple of minutes.

Here the weather is, as always  - 30 degrees and sunny. I would like to see your snow but I really quite like the warmth for now.

Although I had to walk a couple of miles in the heat this morning and could have done with it being a bit cooler. Today is community Saturday which they have once a month. So there are no taxis, and everything closes. Some people do community service – though more seem to just sit around and rest. Others play sports.

Here is the Rwandan under 15 cricket team, being coached by a young man from England. He coaches them for no salary, only expenses. They were playing on Friday at Kicukiro College when we met their Principle to get his advice on various matters. There present pitch is being redone, and so they were playing on baked earth instead. Good to see cricket is here.

Was talking to some Rwandans about the importance of sport, and that it is an essential component of youth development. Apparently the Rwandan Government is not prioritising this with significant finance. A real mistake, as Scotland found out when it dropped serious competitive sport from being central in Scottish schools in the 1980s.

Time for politicians to understand and action a change in our culture through sport. Unfortunately grass roots competitive sport is not supported by key elements of our society. What a loss!

Talking of sport, and home, I have been watching the results of the Edinburgh International, and delighted to see David Murdoch being beaten by Team Prentice. Shows that our loss to them in European semis was not too bad a result - even if we should have won!

Not sure I agree with Bob Cowan about them being old. I really think he needs to understand Macfarlanes Rule – under 65 young, 65 – 95 middle aged, over 95 old, unless you want to move the goal posts

Come on Bob, we are all young, its just that the really young ones think that we are old!

One Stop

I have visited this One Stop centre 4 times this week and will be there at least twice next week!

Herein lies the planning department who wanted our College building to be two storeys, which was a real risk to the project.

Yesterday, we went in ready for a fight, armed with my photos of one storey buildings all along the road where we are to build, and lots of arguments I had rehearsed. 

Final threat was to set Winnie on them.

The first thing Vincent murmured almost in audibly, so quickly passed over that I doubted he said it – ‘floors ok’, and then went on to say we needed more toilets – 8 for males and 10 for females.

Later in conversation I had to ask him to clarify about the one - two storey issue. Yes, we will support one storey. Fantastic!

I could not have cared less about toilets – would have given him a 100!!

So basically the planners are fine with our building, and are supportive. Major hurdle overcome.

Now we only need 2 more documents – REMA certificate, and Land lease contract – should have them within the week – perhaps by Thursday when I leave (overly hopeful!).  Would really like everything sorted by then.

If cannot get that done to my satisfaction, it leaves me with a dilemma about a short trip out in late December/early January to complete things.

NEARLY THERE – I THINK!

Betty and the Kids

This afternoon, I had made an arrangement to meet Betty Bazizani and the street children, in Gatenga which is about 4 miles from the centre of Kigali.

Betty looks after about 70+ street children, and does a great job organising them. In particular she makes sure that they are attending school, and doing well in their work. The children’s school fees are sponsored by various people in the UK.

To make sure that they are working Bette gets their school reports, which is also a double check that they are attending regularly.

My job today was to collate a few things about them, like age, how they are doing, what skills they have and for the older ones what work they want to get into.

43 of the 70 attended which was fabulous, and we saw them as a group and explained what we were doing, that we wanted to know what level of abilities we are likely to have, when they come to our college after 4^th year at school.

Now shame on you teenagers in Scotland. When I ask these guys what there skills were they included carrying water – which some enjoyed, cleaning, cooking, washing dishes, and then there was the 8 year old who was skilled at business. She sells sugar for her parents.

Then there was the 13 year old who wants to be a nurse, and at the moment works in a boutique.

Once we had been through the assessment, we had half an hour playing a couple of games, which seemed to go down well. I had brought a large number of tennis balls with me from Tony Yates He was clearing out his garage before he left for England and found a large bag of them. 

They are now the property of the street children of Kigali Tony.

Losing with Garlic

It is common knowledge that Garlic has developed a real brilliance at coming second. 

This mainly relates to success at getting to finals and semifinals and then letting it slip.

Some curlers have become quite worried about me, Robin Aitken of particular note.

With this in mind I thought that I had better get some therapy, and Bad Boy Bennie seemed like the natural choice - though why I cannot image.

His advice to me is contained in his book and his first letter here.

Now I have every confidence that this therapy will work, and Robin A need worry no more - except about losing his titles.

Enjoy his blog. You may find it rather odd, but then Bad Boy is rather odd!

Winning with Winnie

Its funny how things work isn't it

I am an SU camp leader 25 years ago. One of the campers there is a young lad - Stephen Bell. 

25 years later I am going through the gate at Kigali airport and Stephen says hello - came off the same plane. - first time I have seen him in 25 years. (I am going to log all the coincidences!)

He is working with a Christian entrepreneurial group headed by Denis Overton, that I had had previous contact with, and with whom I had made arrangement to meet during my time here. They are trying to helps Rwandan develop their businesses.

So we met last night for a meal - I was feeling not great - tummy upset all day.

We chatted through the planning problem, and the planning departments desire that our building should have 2 storeys. A ruling that would immediately lead to serious risk to the whole project on financial grounds

Stephen said - Gary - you must go and see Winnie - she is running a spectacularly good Christian school, and has done lots of building development. She has the planners rapped around her little finger - he says!

Indeed I had heard from Callum, that I should see her at some point, but had not got round to it yet

So tonight I had a short 5 minute phone call with Winnie, and talked through the issue.

Oh Gary, - you do not need to worry about the one storey issue. Its just an idea they have - it will be no problem. But Winnie what happens if the planner refuses the application. Oh says Winnie - you just go and find another planner who will agree!!! Phone me if there is any problem and I will help you sort it.

Funny how things work - 5 minutes, with the right person and a light blinks back on. 

Good to be looked after.

Suspect her nickname is going to be Winnie the Winner!!

Tomorrow I meet the Principle of Kicukiro College - the main college in Kigali, at 8am, then at 10am the planning department, and at 2pm a meeting with the street children - going to busy. 

I suspect I will be speaking to Winnie later in the afternoon.