My first post, my first 'blog'. I've decided that this is the best way to keep in touch with friends and family. I've proved hopeless at keeping up with e-mail messages: my in-box contains a hundred or so unanswered letters. If you haven't heard from me for a while, you're not alone! The last letter I sent out to all my friends was well over a year ago. A few reasons for this: lack of time. Yes, like most people I know, I'm too busy having a life! Lack of electricity: Rwanda has been suffering severe power shortages for the past couple of years. We get lots of promises from Electrogaz but not much improvement. Actually, to be honest, the situation now is a lot better than it was at this time last year, when we might get one hour of power in 24 hours. We get more now, but it's totally unpredicatable, and often as not at night, i.e. from around 11 pm to 5 am. I'll write more about the power situation and how it affects lives in later posts. One more reason: the slow internet connection, and frequent disruptions to the phone connection. Back in March, for example, the laptop I'm using got zapped by a rogue bolt of lightning that fried the internal modem and speakers. No more internet. No more music! And yes, I was using one of those phone line surge protectors!

So I'm writing this to keep in touch with friends and family members, and for myself! I love writing, and have taken numerous writing workshops over the years. However I need more incentive to sit down and write, and I'm planning for this blog to give me that incentive. Your feedback is welcome and will encourage me (I hope!) to write more. I want to tell you something about everyday life in Rwanda (albeit, from my priviledged position as an expat worker), and will post as many photographs as I can.

That's it for the moment. Now I'm keen to see if I can get this posted and figure out how this blogging stuff actually works. Bear with me!!