The money is Gone Callum!

Callum the director of Comfort Rwanda gave me £4000 in cash to start the project, and yesterday I became  a millionaire for a day - except that it was a Rwandan Franc millionaire.

Today started with going through spreadsheets of action points and financial issues, just making sure that we had not missed much.

After that we did some scouting for a few hours around Kigali city centre, for a wee report the Inkuru Nziza church has asked to do.

At 3pm we met with the builders and Norbert the supervising architect and pretty well completed most of our business.

At the end of the meeting there was the little matter of shaking hands on our agreement and passing over to Sabine the £4000 I had brought. She is going to manage the financial monitoring of the project for us, and the first stage was giving around £3200 to the builders for the site preparation and excavation.

We meet on site at 9am Monday to see the the bulldozer roar into action - should be great fun.

So millionaire no more, but  great anticipation to see the site transformed into a platform for the College. I must admit I remain pretty nervous, but so far everything is going well.

Thanks for continued prayers and support

Money, Money, Money!

When you start construction you need money.

When you are building a College you need about £105,000.

When the money is in the UK bank, then you need to get it transferred physically and into cash that Rwandan's use - the Rwandan Franc RwF.

Millionaires

Today I have been in discussion with Norbert Kalka the supervising architect, about establishing an escrew account - the things I have had to learn for this project.

Norbert has a helpful German bank who can set up this account in a day! Makes me question further what is happening to UK banks.

Now that brought me to the subject of exchange rates, and this is perhaps a plea to some of you money movers out there to give me financial advice to help us get best use of our limited resources. If we are transferring largish(for us) amounts of cash from UK how do we get the best rate.

I asked this question of Norbert and he contacted his nice German bank and they gave me a rate of exchange of 939 RwF to £1. Was this a good deal - the internet aid 942 today.

So to check this out further I went down to the local Access bank. They offer 933.5 and absolutely no negotiation. I asked them if I got a better rate is it worth me coming back - sorry - no!! This was on the assumption I was seeking to exchange £4000 UK into RwF, so there was some incentive for them - well a bit!

There are some money exchange shops behind the Bank of Kigali where we have changed money before. By the way I do not use the Bank of Kigali since they offer at least 30 RwF below these shops. So I tried a couple of these money 'shops' and initially was offered 913 - ridiculous I pronounced - off he went to speak to his boss.

I decided to leave and went up the road. Now there is a very nice young Indian man in a Western Union who started negotiation at 930 and we finally agreed 936.5. Whether that was a good deal I do not know - perhaps David McAdam who is our local expert will let me know.

So I opened my bag, got out the money and the deal was done. You see I need the cash for the builder tomorrow for stage one of construction - excavation and site preparation!

What I did not expect was for it to come in the equivalent of £2 notes - and certainly could not count it  in the shop. So the ton of notes was packed into my bag, and I scarpered up the road to a taximoto and fled to a secure location for counting the money.

Gleeful Garlic!

Roger and I are now millionaires for the night. We are off to meet Kirsty Mcarthur, Norbert and Sabina, and Denise  - for an Italian - what a life - should be a good evening  - do not worry Callum,  Comfort Rwanda is not paying the bill!

Fleming Foot in First!

We are such softies here, and at home for that matter.

You will of course already know that because of my previous descriptions of plumbing or lack of it here in Rwanda. However, our softiness is getting worse.

When we arrived at Solace that heavenly guest house here in Kigali, we were allocated to two rooms in the office building rather than our very favourite rooms with the superb view of Kigali.

We were both disappointed, and when Roger found out that his plumbing was sadly deficient (that is his room plumbing - not his personal plumbing - sorry Rog!) it was a perfect excuse for me to ask if there was room in the main building.

Callum would be mortified we thought - but we still asked and last night I was informed that there were two rooms available both with verandas.

In my room!

So first thing this morning Roger got the keys, reccied the rooms and gave me my key. The rest of the day has been spent having a go at him  - the scoundrel got the better room, in fact the room I had in August!

Here he is showing me the fabulous view. As if I needed to know about the view - it even has a golf course.

Rule number one, always, always , always get your foot in the door first!

Other happenings today:

• Roger got lost on his taximoto to Garlics great glee!
• Met Kirsty McArthur, found out she likes Kigali Beer, and arranged to take her out for meal on Friday, with friends and perhaps Denise also.
• Safari and Emmanuel chased us around Kigali, and finally found us at the site - that what happens if you are late for appointments with F and G!
• Spoke to Callum back home about the costs of the Project - they have risen quite a bit - suspect we are going to have to make a strong appeal to all those interested in the College - watch this space!
• tried to Skype Fiona for first time, with no success.

Tomorrow we gather our thoughts about all things construction  - summarise costs, prepare construction agreement, meet Paul, and plan the key actions we need to take in the next few days.

Inkuru Nziza

When Roger and I first came to Rwanda in August you may remember that we met up with Rwandan Pete (Peter Andrews) who works for Inkuru Nziza - the Good News church.

Recently Pete got in touch and asked me to spend a bit of time chatting over their church developments, to see if there was any advice that we could give their church leaders.

We met at 9am this morning and discovered what a superb range of community based works they do. We were both very impressed by the clarity of their thinking, their commitment to God, and their determination to make the most of their city centre position

Apart from their church services which have several hundreds of people at most services, they run:

• an Aids and orphans programme for 350 children.
• a disability project
• a Vocational training facility
• a bookshop and community 
• support to 170 churches throughout Rwanda
• Emmaeus courses and a translation facility

Translation of Good News!

Oh, and they have a very good table tennis team! Time to get my bat out!

Yet, despite all this work and more, they are looking to the future and seeking to improve their support to their community, hence our discussions today.

Chrissie takes Rog back to class

After the meeting we escaped to chat at the Bourbon UTC, and Roger and I share how impressed we were with their team. We both wonder where these discussions are going to take us.

More Coffee than Sense

Part of Saturday has been set aside to consider our thoughts and recommendations to them. Sunday we meet Chrissie and her husband for supper, and then we meet their team on Tuesday to share our ideas - exciting times

Termite Armageddon

You will remember from last nights blog that I fell asleep content with having delegated the termite prevention to Norbert. It was he that had suggested that we might have to make plans for keeping termites away from the College. I, of course, did not think that this was a problem, that is until we arrived on site today.

Time for Armageddon

There must have been at least 10 - 12 of these termite mounds scattered around the site, and these 2 were 4 feet high.

Now being a man believing in delegation, I turned to Norbert to see how he was planning to get rid of these insects, and caught this rather studious photo which I very much like. I wonder what form of armageddon Norbert has planned for our not so friendly termites

Studious German

We had come to the site to lay out the platform for the beginning of construction which starts on Saturday, and had arranged for Kayitare and his son Jeff to meet us there. They are confident that the bulldozer should take about 4 days to remove the soil and to level the area. We are not quite so confident because there is a lot of earth to move - watch this space!

Roger and the team set about the measurements - first the 9 metres across the Nonko Road, then 51 metres up from the middle of the main Tanzania highway - Norbert took that measurement rather speedily! Then directly west for 20 metres then the College length, then ten metres up to get the width and finally the last measurement back to the Nonko Road.

Best view of Rog!

Now with stakes marking each corner, the only matter was the level, and for that a thodelite and ruler - just a wee ruler. You may well wonder why Roger is measuring the sky, but this is a real attempt to measure the fall of the ground - 5 metres to be exact - hence my observation that there is a lot of earth to move!

So after 3 hours work in 30 degree heat we finished the laying out of the site ready for Monday.

Observant readers of this blog will note that I have given you nothing but good news. Well I know that is rather unusual, but then I am pretty upbeat. But for consistency I had better mention the wee matter that the construction certificate says we are building a GUTURAMO (residential house) and not a College - signed by the Mayor of Kigali and the Mayor of Kicukiro.

Well we do have signed drawings for a College, so we strongly suspect that this is a typo, but you can imagine what Garlic thought when he read this!!

On Saturday we are hoping that the local Mayor, Paul the pastor and the head of the local neighbourhood will come and dig the first sod, which will be very exciting. I think we may just be seeking a  bit of reassurance about the typo, prior to the bulldozer arriving.

Nothing in Rwanda is simple, but then we did not expect it to be so!

Termities - just what I need

Termites

I spend 3 and a half hours listening to 2 architects disagreeing about things they do not know anything about. Then I spend  another 3 and a half hours trying to get some sense out of two architects and 2 builders.

Considering that I had only a small amount of sleep on the plan last night, I was thinking to myself that I was doing very well not screaming and banging on the table.

Then we are almost finished, nearly home for tea when Norbert pipes up - how do we protect the College from Terminites? You are joking? Not a bit of it - termites are a big problem, he says - you do not want them! We need to design the College so that it can defend against the nasty termites.

Time for a bit of delegation, - right Norbert - you asked the question - now please find me a sensible answer. I am off for tea and then bed

So, I am just lying in bed desperately trying to stay awake and block, but find myself scratching thinking about them.

Bet I dream of a line of them coming trudging over the end of the bed!

Actually nothing will rouse me - I need sleep!!

Cutting it Fine

Roger and I were just going through the gate to join our flight to Kigali when Callum phoned to say that the Rwandan team at last had in their hands the construction certificate.

Rog at Schiphol

We knew a few days ago that the planning application had been accepted, but the piece of paper that allows us to actually build had been a bit elusive. Our trip this time is focussed on starting construction, and without the certificate the journey would have been a damp squib.

So by the time we were leaving Nairobi we were pretty positive, and so it has continued all day. We arrived at Kigali at 8am having flown overnight - slept not a lot! Filled with 2 continental breakfasts care of Kenya Airways we caught a taxi to Solace Guest house, and dropped off our bags.

Our first meeting was at 11.30am, so we lost no time in getting to Remera by taximoto - no racing this time! A quick walk down the dirt track and we were at Norbert's who is our architect for monitoring the project.

This was no quiet introduction to construction management - we had 3.5 hours going over everything about the College building and particularly prices. After that time I was sure that an additional £15,000 had been added to the cost of the building.

Then the builders arrived, and brought much clarity to the subject and now its only £10,000 over!

I do not think I will get any marks from Callum for keeping the costs down, but then we seem to be getting a pretty good deal - value wise.

So, tomorrow we mark out the platform for the College and on Monday the bulldozer is arriving. It should take 4 days to move the earth - and Rog and I are determined to get  a go at some earth moving - expect lots of photos

Regards to all our supporters

Gary and Roger.