Garanteed handmade in the Republic of Rwanda
I have penciled you in for your 16 cupboards...
Pay as you go... 12 done, 4 to go!
Always working with a smile
Building up the relationship with the customer
One day, I will be a carpenter, like my dad
I think I should be able to tick that box soon, but I am not 100% sure yet...
In the mind of someone living in the Eastern suburbs, on the Northern beaches or the North Shore of Sydney, the act of bringing cupboards/bookcases to each classroom of Rugerero Primary is a straightforward operation...
Please, reconsider, re frame, re-contextualise your episode representation. I’ll give you a few hints:
- Buying ready made cupboards from Butare or Kigali would have cost about three more times than having made them locally.
- - No decent road to deliver 16 cupboards.
- - Hardly any trade vehicles venture around here
- - Cost of petrol in Kigali or Butare: about 890Rwf, price of petrol (when you can find some) in Rugerero: 1300Rwf
- - No electricity means no power tools to build. Everything goes slowly
- - Raining season means that it takes longer for assembled pieces of wood glued together to hold... at least that is what the carpenters tell me when I go for my biweekly visit to check progress report
- - Lightning killed two people recently and the carpenters had to interrupt 'my' job to make two coffins... Then they went to the burial, as did everybody around the hills.
So I have learned to be patient and philosophical about the initially promised deadline of 5 weeks.. Almost three months later I am still waiting for the delivery of the last four cupboards. I went to see my friends, the ‘menuisiers’ (‘carpenters’ ) – they speak very good French but no English.
- I told them that I was leaving soon,
- They told me it would be ready,
- I told them no final payment until it is all done,
- They said OK,
- I said and that includes fixing the cupboards against the walls, as you promised,
- They said, ‘oui, oui, oui.’...
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