Well, there was a gap in time zones, between my draft of the project proposal going to the US, and them waking up to send me a revision, so I decided to squeeze in a day off. The rest of my time is leaving, so I rode back with them to Kigali, for a Rwandan R&R.
We left Goma at 11:00 or so, and had little problem leaving DRC, except the immiration officer informed us he had to keep our visa receipts, a "new policy" since last week, when we last went through the border. Minor delay. Oh, and a drunk man was groping women at the border, so the police chased him, beat him, and handcuffed him to a tree by the river to sober up.
Then, upon arriving at Rwanda immigration, we discovered that our Ethiopian colleague, who joined us a few days earlier to lend an expert pair of hands on IDP assessment, was not allowed to enter without a visa. So, he has a flight to catch that night, four hours away, he has to apply online for a visa, wait three days, (and it's Sunday, so make that four), and then come back. Meanwhile, he can't go back to Congo, because he doesn't have a visa receipt for there anymore, they just took it!
Rwanda doesn't take bribes (not in public), so we just had to wait and beg long enough for the officer to feel he had shown us how good he was at his job, then we were able to go. Actually, it reminded me a lot of US Immigration officers...
So we finally got to Kigali, Mesele caught his flight, and I got back to work to get the CIDA proposal done. Just finished now, so tomorrow morning I can take the second half of my day off, visit Martin Rusenga, whom many know, of Nu-Vision ministries, and see the sights of Kigali. Then, back to work in the afternoon to start on the second funding request from the US government. I may be going back to Congo on Tuesday, that is yet to be decided.
Good night all.
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