Bernard the driver is listening to a bi weekly health show, which is more popular here, than Big Brother at home.  A stare out of the window blurrily massaging my eyes with the hundred colours of green. Normally Bernard drives like he’s in the Grand Prix, I sleep in the back or work or my laptop, but today we are stuck behind a Rav4 who has an interesting approach to driving, in the middle, on the left while going round a left hand bend and on the right when going round a right hand bend.  There is no way to overtake. We take a detour near the border, so Bernard can show me a big rock.  He’s taken me to various big rocks around Rwanda before.  This one, at least, has a sign, ‘big rock this way’. ‘People come from Kigali just to see it,’ he says, and others, passing,  with bundles on their heads stop in awe and wonder as to how it got there. It’s about 5m high and 24m circumference, and looks like a large pebble to me!

At the border I am sent back by the police, as the lady, in customs has written the wrong departure date in my passport, she scribbles it out and biros in the right date.

Two hours later and we’re in Gitega, Bernard goes off to fix a problem with the bonnet of the car, while I go for lunch.  I go to the same restaurant I always go to, I order the same meal, and talk to the same waiter, Vincent.  He’s getting paid 10,000 Fbu (10USD) per month, and that’s because he’s a good waiter (the others get 8,000Fbu) he works 7 days a week from 6am to 10pm and gets his food thrown in free.  He never gets a day off, but he likes it here, because he can practice his French on the muzungos and watch MTV.  I ponder for a moment and realise that I am carrying the equivalent of 4 years of his salary in my bag, and suddenly things don’t seem to make sense any more and I’m not very hungry.  I leave, tipping him half a day’s salary and take a push bike taxi to the office.  This is definitely the best way to travel here, on the letter rack at the back, side saddle, wind in your hair, chatting and waving to other bikers, and causing much amusement to the locals, who usually see muzungos travelling at the speed of sound in huge white Toyotas. 

My job today is to check the finances of ODAG, a local NGO which we, PROTOS support.  We pre finance their work and my job is to check that the receipts are properly organised, legitimate and acceptable to our donor the Belgium Government.  It’s a tedious task, but thankfully ODAG are relatively good at it.  I check, dates, amounts, descriptions (must be in French or translated), whether they have receipts and invoices, I look at expenses for trainings and ask for lists of participants with signatures (more often than not thumb prints as many local volunteers can’t write), I ask for the letters of invitation (rarely there, as often information is communicated by word of mouth, but still a requirement by our donor) and training reports, usually in local language which must be translated into French for our purposes.  The donor doesn’t pay ‘frais de mission’ or ‘visit de sejour’, only ‘per diem’, so these must be changed, and absolutely no taxi’s.  All receipts over a certain value must be accompanied by a price comparison from 3 retailers with invoice, and receipt.  It’s a lesson in good paper management.  Then I check the numbering and order of the receipts, and the totals. Luckily in this case, ODAG have done their work on excel, but it is not always this case, I have received lists in Word and had to get the calculator out, as well as piles of receipts badly ordered or with many mistakes of amounts, or of various parties that seem to have gone on, that have included beer (also a no, no, whatever the culture). I leave him with a list to deal with and a date for the final receipts, and go off to find Bernard.

Bernard appears with a receipt for 12,000Fbu, which I don’t accept as we’ve been over charged, so I send him back and ask him to ask for a reduction, a new receipt and a reimbursement.  A couple of hours later he is back with a long story, a new receipt and some change.  This is the I know you’re cheating me game, and also the, if I confront you about it, you’ll deny it and we won’t get anywhere game, so we pretend that it’s someone else’s mistake and it gets somehow sorted out.  It’s not so different with the partners, many people in East Africa skim a little, to pay for school fees, medical fees, weddings or funerals  and all I can do is reduce by how much, because lets face, it if I go into a shop with my muzungo face, it will cost twice as much.   I can only reduce what they skim, and make sure their accounts are correct, but I can’t irradicate corruption all together.