Week Four

All is well here in Kigali. The project is moving along well. Started block walls this week. Have been advising the contractor of my quality expectations for the last few weeks which they forgot all about when they started putting the block in place. Had to reject 50% of what was installed. I am anxious to see re-work results this next week. The contractor's engineers are struggling with design, cant keep the pace and committments they have made. Had a "CTJ" meeting with the owner of the company Friday which was quite heated, but we shook hands at the end. He thanked me for pushing them along. I thanked him for his good work so far. I am hopeful they can catch up with the design and pricing requirements. Finding my time on the jobsite well served. Many questions to answer due to the fact we have only conceptual drawings at best from US Architect. No big suprise as is same when building in US!! Find myself drawing many sketches. Difficult to explain details in the field with the language barrier. Interesting after you spend 5 minutes explaining something and you look the person in the eye and ask if they understand. You know they did not when you see a blank stare, so you start all over with a different approach. The process is the same when they are trying to explain something to me. To thier credit, the 2 or 3 folks on site that I deal with speak 2 to 3 languages, usually Kenyarwanda, french, and english.
Went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center yesterday. Quite a emotionally moving memorial, very well done. Over 250,000 people from the genocide are buried there in mass graves. Hard to imagine that approx 1 million people were murdered in the genocide which lasted 100 days. There are various memorials around the country. Reminds me how small my personel troubles are. France, Belguim, and the United Nations should be ashamed.
Went shopping at the outdoor market today. A amazing market with a vast array of vegetables, fruit, chicken, fish, beef, goat, pig, nuts, flour, rice, and on and on.
Paid $250 francs for a pineapple which is less than 50 cents. Meat is not quite as cheap as I paid about $5 for a whole chicken and $6 for a nice piece of talapia fish. They have large freezers at the market for the meet but still suspect. If in the US it would be closed down by the Health Dept. Have no bugs yet that I am aware of!
One of the pictures I am posting is of the motorcycle taxis. I use them frequently as they are much cheaper than a car taxi. Quite the exiting ride in the traffic here. A 2 mile cab ride will cost you 2000 francs whereas by moto taxi it costs 400 francs. Traffic here is pretty wild. The horn is a much used accessory. Cars rule, motorcycles are next and pedestrians are last! Look both ways 2 times before crossing a street. Vehicle emmissions are terrible. I wonder if they still use leaded fuel here. Almost all the automobiles here are used cars imported from Japan.
Sitting at my front porch sipping a Mutzig as I write this post. About 3pm. Will be watching the World Cup finals tonight. May head to Heaven Resturant to watch. Have had my fill of soccer but sad to see it end as there is nothing else to watch on TV here. Had a small world experience at Heaven Restuarnt as the manager I met is from Portland and another young lady I met there is from Friday Harbor. Arielle from FH went to school with girls whose mother was a cheerleader at FH when I played ball at Skykomish and is a old girlfriend of Dan Boffey when we were at WSU. That was worth at least 2 more Mutzigs!
Will miss the Oldtimers Picnic in Skykomish next weekend. Susie, sell lots of our cookbooks. Any Skykomish Oldtimers reading this post please say hello to Teddy Jo for me and have a few at the Whistling Post for me.
Take Care and will talk soon.

ps: Mom, I hope you enjoy the picture of my 12 new girlfriends! Can't find the spell check, may be the Mutzig!