This morning we were scheduled to meet the Recteur, which is like the president, of UNATEK. We went to his office and he wasn’t in yet, so we went to the computer lab to do internet until he arrived and his secretary would call us. Regina came to pick me up, because she was going to take me to a technician she knew to have my microphone (the one that fell apart) fixed. She had her own motorcycle and gave me a ride, and I LOVED it. I haven’t actually been on a moto in a really long time, and I wasn’t wearing a helmet because she only had one, but I liked it so much better because I could feel the wind and experience the sensation of travel more. Even though I acknowledge it everyday, I was exceptionally struck by the beauty of Rwanda during this particular ride, and had the most profound sensation of missing Rwanda even though I am still here. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how sad I will be to leave it, even though I’m not close to leaving yet. It was a little bizarre, and a certainly uncalled for emotion.
Regina’s friend took my mic apart, and seriously had me convinced he knew exactly what he was doing. I had looked up online how to build an XLR microphone, and which wires were what, and everything seemed right to me so I found his abilities credible. He was also an artist with his soldering iron, and I wish I could move something so hot and sticky so swift and smooth. He controlled the solder like Magneto controls metal, Soldeto is what I’ll call him. Unfortunately I forgot my camera to actually test the microphone, so we had to take it with us and leave and test it. Unfortunately, the mic wasn’t fixed. There is a nasty, continuous hissing sound and the actual microphone part (of recording sound) doesn’t work. HOPEFULLY all that happened is that the positive and negative wires are mixed up. It did take an awful fall to the bricks on the street when it fell apart….
Regina had other things to do, and couldn’t immediately take me back to the repair shop, so I returned to UNATEK, and I had already missed the meeting with the Recteur but Lama and Kara said it went really well. We went back home for lunch, and I had slept so little the night before that I was tired and needed a nap. Lama was easy to convince of nap time, and Kara was fine with it but wasn’t tired herself. So the males napped and I think Kara watched a movie. I woke up just in time for Regina to show up and take me back to the electronics repair shop. She no longer had her own motorcycle, but she flagged down two and we went back. We ended up just dropping off the microphone because the power was out and Soldeto couldn’t work without it.
That night the three of us had dinner, and wanted to watch Born Into Brothels, that we’ve been planning to watch for around a week now for inspiration toward our own projects here. It’s one of the DVD’s I stole from the Emily Carr library, which I am happy to report has stopped emailing me incessantly about late fees. While we were cleaning up, we decided we wanted snacks and drinks and we remembered a shop we had seen when we went for our walk the other day. I offered so selflessly (all I was thinking about was moto-taxis) to go to the store and pick up everything we wanted. I also did want to go out at night on my own, try to navigate getting around, shopping and getting home without the shining protection of Lama. I learned how to say “How much?”, “Take me here” and “Take me home” in Kinyarwanda to equip myself for the journey.
The night moto-taxi was awesome, as predicted, and shopping was hilarious. The one guy spoke a bit of English, and we were both laughing a lot trying to get my order complete. I bought a box of Drostdy-Hof wine, a Fanta Citron for Alysse, and a box of cookies. I also had a bag of free popcorn from Videomatica in my camera bag left over from LAST SUMMER when Cam came to visit me in Vancouver, so we brought that out and I popped popcorn over a charcoal fire. It surprisingly turned out perfect, I do a worse job with microwave popcorn normally.
So we finally all settled in on Kara’s bed to watch Born Into Brothels, got our snacks and our wine ready, downed the lights and upped our blankets, and the DVD wouldn’t work!! We were choooookked. But luckily Kara has a ton of movies burned to DVD, and since we were trying to pick something fun even if you only speak Kinyarwanda, we chose Stardust. I was having a really good time during it actually, although the laptop is a little too quiet for my viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, Lama and Alysse got too tired, so we decided to just stop the movie and go to bed. We only got half way. Oh well. Half-a-movie night in Kibungo was pretty awesome.
