Tuesday, my first workday at SNV Rwanda. The traffic is really bad and I have enough time to get a little bit nervous about what I am going to do. We have passed the office the day before, I recognise the big blue letters. Beatrice parks the car in front of the entrance. It is a tall building with several storeys. The SNV office is at the second and third floor. Beatrice brings me to Antoinette, the advisor I am going to work for. After we have introduced ourselves, she shows me the room, where I can set up my workplace. Usually, it is occupied by another colleague and the interns’ room is one storey below, but at the moment, that colleague is on leave and the room is free. Antoinette guides me through both storeys and introduces me to all present SNV colleagues. I can’t remember all the names, but most doors have a sign indicating who is working here. Everybody knows that Germany lost against Italy in that soccer match the week before. It usually is the second thing mentioned after the names. They are more informed than I am myself although it is a competition between European countries only. I didn’t expect them to be so interested in that. Yes, Germany lost, but well, it happens.
The rooms are spacious and bright. Papers are piled on the tables, each room is equipped with one or two small shelves or cupboards. There is a tearoom with a big table and drinking water on the corridor. After the tour, Antoinette gives me background material to read on the project I am going to work on.
The project is called JADF, Joint Action Development Forum, a platform for representatives from the private sector, public sector and civil society to exchange ideas and develop plans on improving service delivery and development strategies. It is part of the government’s decentralisation plan being implemented since 2000. The more I read about it, the more I understand and the more I like the general idea behind it, but I also learn about the challenges still hampering good implementation of the mechanisms. However, it will need some time, until it becomes clear to me, how exactly all these things are managed in practice and moreover, what I can do in that process.
The atmosphere in the office is one of concentration and work. There is a one hour break for lunch that we take all together in the tea room. On a side table, bowls full of rice, sweet potato, sauce, cooked banana and meat wait to be emptied and two plates of pineapple are shared around the table. The conversation is mainly held in Kinyarwanda. One other woman, however, the country director, does not speak the language as she is from Zimbabwe and so the rest switches to English now and then which is also good for me. The conversation is lively and rather merry. Antoinette explains to the Zimbabwean lady the difference between July 1st and July 4th. The former is the celebration of the independence of the colonialists, the latter is related to the more recent history. I am still surprised on how almost nonchalant people here mention the genocide. It is not a taboo at all. I remember how, on the way from the airport, I was asked what I know about Rwanda and I was careful not to mention that most recent cruel piece of Rwanda’s history, although I felt that the question was aiming at exactly that. It would not have been necessary.
Beatrice is on a field trip today so I wait until she is back in the office. They went to the Northern province with a professional photographer from Ethiopia to take pictures of project sites in the sector Musanze. At about 5pm, most of the colleagues leave the office. The sun sets with a orange glow behind the hill opposite my window.
