Commonwealth Games Badminton Prospects

Sunday was a pretty quiet day. I found myself back at Paul's house for the afternoon and evening. Initially I did some computer work, but latterly I got out the badminton rackets and table tennis bats. These 3 are Paul's - he has 9 children in all! Esther in the middle is not very well co-ordinated and struggled with hitting anything!

She does not smile well when getting her photo taken  - this was the best of 5, but she has a great smile when having fun, and we played table tennis for about an hour at least.

Her brothers are very much better at sports and within minutes were hitting the shuttle well. They may be a  bit too young for the Rwandan Commonwealth team, but a few years after you never know!

Simple Dilemmas and Mighty Mouse

Today brought a number of dilemmas that caused me to struggle with the answer.

Ask yourself what you would do with each of these.

1. I am lying on my bed, blogging away, and I think I just saw a mouse/rat scurry at high speed from the window in the corner of the room, right under my bed.

Now I am not sure, it was just a very slight and fast movement. I can hear nothing, no evidence and no certainty. Do I look under the bed or not? If I look, what will I do if there is one sitting there, and if I do not, will I get to sleep wondering?

2. Walking through Kigali today, and being one of the few white people tends to attract attention. Newspaper sellers, and taxi drivers constantly tout for business believing I have money to give. I tend to just keep my head down and avoid eye contact. But that makes me feel rotten and not true to myself. Then a beggar asks for money and I struggle to look them in the face too. I do not like it. How should I react, is there a way of being friendly without encouraging them.

3. A youngster walks past, smiles and holds out his hand to shake mine, I ignore him, first reaction was he probably wanted money (and I am probably right) but he might just have wanted to shake my hand and say hello. Double rotter! The next few youngsters get a brief nod and hello - but still pretty restrained

As I reflected on these things later, it occurred to me that they tell me much about my own inadequacies, fears and inability to communicate.

My curling team would probably tell you that its taken me far too long to realise this!

Anyway I have decided that tomorrow I will definitely feel much less self conscious, and will absolutely shed my fears and embarrassment - that is until I get to the church service and the dancing starts. Oh no - another dilemma just round the corner.

I wonder how Mighty Mouse is doing - suspect he is hiding under the bed having the same thoughts about whether he had seen a giant lying on top of the bed above - and whether he should risk a look and what he would do if there was a giant there!

Sleep well Mighty - I am not going to have a look - and I suggest you do the same.

3 Weddings, no Funeral

A Day of Missed Weddings

Day 1 Kigali, 30 degrees - very pleasant.


Today was a day when I missed no less than 3 weddings! 


If I had been in Glasgow this weekend we would have been celebrating our friends’ Paula and David’s wedding. It was not to be.

When I arrived in Kigali, Pastor Paul informed me that he was taking a wedding at the church. I thought this might be an opportunity to see at first hand a Rwandan wedding, which can be quite an occasion apparently, but Paul thought I should spend the time resting.

Rest not being a natural skill I have, instead I went into the city, bought my Tigo modem that allows me to blog, dropped in to see Pete Andrews before he left the country for a week, and changed my cash into Rwandan dollars.

On the way home I decided to avoid the £5 taxi, and got a bus for 20p – I was astonished, because the journey took at least 20 minutes. They dropped me off in Kicukiro, and I decided to walk back to Paul’s house, which was a delightful 2 mile walk on a warm beautiful day, in very pretty surroundings.

I passed a large Catholic church and was tempted to go in and listen to the singing – it was a wedding. But embarrassment caused me to miss my 3^rd wedding of the day.

When I got back we got out the badminton rackets and table tennis bats that I had brought, and Esther, Paul’s 3 year old daughter and I played for an hour – she is definitely better at ping pong than badminton.


The calender is starting fill, and time is short. Tomorrow and Monday I need to get my diary out and get  meetings organised - and loads of them.

Lysander Lands

Garlic reporting in.

3.45am Friday (1 hour after I got to bed!).

Ginger turned up on time and eventually got the Lysander prop to start the engine. He used a rather unusual method with a large elastic band attached to his car. He murmured something about his boyhood and model planes.

Any way the engine started, I taxied down Broom Gardens, eventually realising that the road was too short for take off. Actually this was discovered when I pinned Roger – sorry Ginger, to a tree as he desperately tried to get me to turn the corner into Boghead Road. Hope he is ok. I think he was, because he gave me a wave – or was it a fist (?), as I dipped the wing, just missing the N and S garage forecourt.

Then it was up, up, and away, as I headed south towards Paris. I do not really know what happened next, but I seemed to miss my target. It was a nice clear morning but I ended up in Amsterdam, - probably just a slight cross wind. I had circled it 5 times looking for the Eiffel tower, and eventually decided I need to put her down to refuel.

For some reason the authorities appeared to get slightly upset when I parked the Lysander on their runway. It is really quite wee and should not have caused much problem where I parked it. They have several runways they could have used!

I had to make a rather rapid escape from several police men, and as a result of impounding of the Lysander, I reckoned that I was better off in a large Blue plane with the letters KLM on it, which presumably is back to front code for Macfarlane Loves Kigali. (certainly more than Curly Cowan and Horny)

My companion on the plane was working for an environmental charity in Glasgow. He gave me a detailed breakdown of the various methods of producing compost, and how to rip generators out of Glasgow tenement blocks. Facinating stuff! He like me has been working with Linda McTavish of Anniesland College. She seems to be into everything - wonder if she will be out here shortly!

We arrived at Entebbe in Uganda at 8.15pm, and at Kigali at 9.20pm. A really pleasant flight – I think I have had 5 meals – completely lost count.

I was coming though customs at Kigali when this tall guy comes up to me  - Hi Gary!  I could only recognize him vaguely, and certainly could not name him. Steven Bell, he said, you were my SU camp leader 30 years ago! For goodness sake. Is there no end to the people I am going to bump into out here. So we are arranging to meet for coffee in the Bourbon Café, to catch up.

Odette greeted me with another meal, and we chatted for a while about what my offspring are up to. I decided to avoid trying to explain their curling adventures – really too hard for people to understand when you are on the equator.

So hear I am blogging in Kigali, when Thursday I was playing the rink championship at Braehead - quite odd!

Hope Ginger is not still stuck to the tree - let him know I am in the UTC, and avoiding the spaghetti. He will be delighted to know I have his 'ensuite' room. Kabuga's rule!

Grumpy Garlic Packs his Bags

Thats it!!

I can take no more.

For years I have quietly put up with 'Curly' Cowan's awful photos of me, but now he is accusing me of being old.  This is the last straw. The Camel's back is broken.

Too many defeats in semis and finals - the strain is too much. Robin Aitken was right to be worried about me. I have cracked and I am packing my bags. Grumpy Garlic is leaving.

Even the luggage is having a go at me. The slow cooker someone has asked me to deliver to a friend in Rwanda says 'Crock pot'. I have booked my Easyjet Lysander and I am off on Friday to the land of sun, song and happiness.

Mind you its 'Horney' thats put Curly up to it. I have had my suspicions about him for a long time! Secret messages have been suspected from the Braehead curling office. I think I will need to get Bad Boy Bennie involved in some phone tapping, to find out what they have been saying about me. I shall have to get my revenge on the two of them  - perhaps tonight at the Mixed Doubles!

Anyway, only 2 more nights of curling and then I will get Ginger to turn the prop. Will need to refuel the plane in Paris, and Cairo on the way down. Hope I get across the desert in one piece, and then  a right turn at Nairobi, out with the flares in Kigali, and by 9.30pm I should be greeted by Safari Fred and John Mutesa like a long lost friend.

Shame Ginger is not going to be with me, but he is on a separate special mission - more later.

John M, Safari F, and Ginger Rogers

Speaking of special missions. I wonder how Lt. Yummy Yates is getting on. I think it was an exceptionally good plan to feign his departure with a cover plot that he was leaving Cadder Curling Club, because he was moving down south - what a ploy - worked a  treat. Must get Ginger to make sure the plan is working.

Yummy

Trust he has managed to find a second hand curling plant for the College. Hope the secret does not get out about what type of College it is. Cannot let the cat out of the bag that I am planning to try and play for Rwanda in the World Seniors. If I cannot defeat Prentice, Steele et al in the Scottish then perhaps I can get the Rwandans to allow me to represent them - worth a try!

Good Bye Curly, Horny and all - Round two of the Blog off and running!

GRUMPY GARLIC

Warning, Dangerous Blog appearing

Word has reached me that a new and potentially dangerous blog is being produced.

Some character who lives in a wheelie bin, who for the present shall remain nameless, is planning to release a full volume of stories.

If I receive news of the Blog site I will post the warning here shortly.

I have seen the first few chapters of the epistle and according to my wife she thinks it is absolutely brilliant. She has not laughed so much for ages.

Watch this space you will not want to miss it.

Postscript

Roger and I hope you have enjoyed our tales of Rwanda, and all the adventures we have had.

Both of us were thrilled by the time we spent in Kigali, particularly the people we met, and of course the challenges of trying to get the building project off the ground.

We are very hopeful that we have managed to get all the planning and other details in place, and fully expect the building to start construction in late October - more later.

Gary is going back in November to check on the building progress and rumour has it that Roger, Bad Boy Bennie, and a few others are trying to charter a Lancaster Bomber to get them back into Rwanda in early January - something about chasing some spy McAdam.

However, I know from my sources that the Rwandan authorities will be better prepared this time and fully expect to divert them to even deeper Africa!

We plan to resurrect the blog occasionally over the next few weeks, (probably weekly updates) just to keep you in touch with building developments and our attempts to escape the clutches of ordinary life.

We remind you that the young people of Rwanda need our College and hope that you will financially support the Build - please click here. Remember that all monies go to the College.

Blog Credits go to the following stars of the last 3 weeks - Pastor Paul, Manic Mosquito, Safari Fred, Denise Delicious, Cuddly Cuthbertson, Miracle Mutesa and of course Bad Boy Bennie.

From Garlic and Fleming - remember that you too could star in the next episodes of this farce - so keep your head down, because we are on the look out for more targets!

I suspect some of the rising stars in this continuing comedy will be Handy Annie, Pistol Pete, Feisty Fi, Bendy Barr, Wicked William and perhaps Naught McNaught, but be assured - none are out of our clutches, now that we have so much more time to develop our story line.

Thanks for your support and for the 2400 hits we have had in the last 5 weeks - we do not know who you are, but we are very grateful for your interest and the sharing in our fun.

If you want more information on the work that we are doing then email me at garymacfarlane1@me.com. Perhaps you know about running a college and would like to offer your expertise! - or just to keep me company!

God Bless

Manic - **** how did you get there??? **** Outch!