The power of football continues! The post office here are renowned for being moody, uncooperative and inefficient. Each letter must be weighed separately, even if they are all going to the same country and consist of the same A4 sheet of paper. I have been told that a visit to the post office is not a 5 minute ‘nip down the road’ affair. If you have a letter to post, put aside at least half an hour. If you have 6... put it down in your diary as a full day’s work. So the day after my inaugeral kickabout with the mayor, I head up to post a letter to a friend in Tanzania, but needed to buy an envelope. I politely greeted the guy behind the counter in Kinyarwanda (asked if he passed the night in peace, asked what news he had, were his family strong...), then asked if I could buy envelopes there. He gruffly retorted ‘no’ as if I’d just asked if I eat his mother. So, I asked if he knew where I could buy envelopes. ‘Not here’ he growled. Charming. Suddenly I hear “MAAAGGGGIIIIEEE! HOW ARE YOU! MAAAAGGGGIIIIEE!”. This takes me by surprise, as I didn’t recognize the other guy working in the post office but guessed that it’s not difficult to learn the name of the new white kid in town. Then, still with a beaming smile on his face, this guy proceeds to babble away enthusiastically (asking if I passed the night in peace, what news I had and if my family were strong), then says, “football was good yesterday eh? You play good, you are coming next week, yes? What did you want, yes? An envelope? Yes, we have, I can get for you’ and walks away, gets a nice big brown envelope from the personal post office store, and just gives it to me without wanting any money for it. Beautiful. Made turning around to have the sodding letter weighed by Mr Grumpy just so much more satisfying....





So, admittedly sometimes it’s fun being a novelty. Football has meant everyone in the town now knows who i am (an american friend living in a town 40 minutes away got talking to somebody the other day, who dropped in the fact that there was a muzungu female who happened to play football in a particular small town in the country...I have no idea who he was though). It’s also fun when I reply to questions in Kinyarwanda as they don’t expect me to know any.

BUT, when I go the market, to buy one single sodding bunch of carrots, and I have 30 people crowd around me to watch the entire (unexciting) process, i just can’t help but think come on...i’m really not that interesting, am i?

And, when I walk from my house to the main road, I become a pied piper to the area’s kids, and I don’t even have a musical instrument. Again, come on kids... I’m not that interesting! And the novelty factor doesn’t seem to be wearing off. Though I did make massive progress the other day. As I left my house, taking a big breath for the onslaught of thirty tiny kids scrambling up to me shouting ‘MUZUNGU!’, I start to walk down the track, and there they are, the pounding feet, the silly grins, and the cry goes up (I’m sure they do it to warn the next bunch of kids at the next twist in the road so they too can get overly excited about me passing by, and then shout out for the benefit of the next bunch of kids and so on)...but what’s this? “MMAAAAAGGGGGGGIIIEEE!!!”. And suddenly it’s me beaming a silly grin, as I realize that finally, the kids have learned my name. Progress.

I haven’t felt that successful since I managed to wash my hair in a bucket containing only 6 cups worth of water.