Day 2, First morning of work: The selfiestick !

Numerien, the coordinator of Union Theicoles de Crete Congo Nil was supposed to come get me at 9:00 o'clock to go to work together. I woke up around 7 AM but as usual I decided to laze around for a bit because I still got 2 hours to go. Before I know it’s 8:15 and I start my everyday morning headless chicken routine. This is my version of a quick shower, hair and makeup. At 8:30 I am already ordering ordering a cheese omelette and by 8:45 I have completed my breakfast. Hooray I am still on time. I was wrong. Numerien had beaten me again on the clock. He was already waiting in the lobby. He is so freaking punctual I will have to step up my clock game.

Dressed with a white formal shirt, lose pants that I bought at a microStart microcredit customer and my Valentino heels, we head out to the office. The reason why I am wearing heels and decided to dress up formally is that power dressing is still very common in Africa. You have to be well dressed at the office if you want to be a well respected lady and the men always wear shirts with or without tie. I assumed it would be the same here in Gisenyi.

In order to get to work we had to cross a few hills and hop in a taxi bus. This bus was so packed that I didn’t even see an available seat. Yet we wormed ourselves in there. To make matters worse a pregnant lady jumped in…. (See photos) I don’t mind all of this as I experienced this ‘jampacked bus situation’ before  in Nigeria but Rwanda is a hilly country and those vans can barely make it over the hills. I was scared we would roll completely backwards down the hill. Oh the thoughts that were racing through my head…

After 45 minutes we finally arrived at the office. (This journey by car would be 15 minutes) In the bus I had unpacked my jivo selfiestick and decided to try it out. Numerien loved it and immediately before entering the office everyone wanted to try the selfiestick. No one had seen this before even though everyone has a smartphone here. A business opportunity immediately jumped to my mind! (See photos above)

Numerien shows me his modest office first and then we go visit the manager of the Pfunda Tea company named Niyonizeye Claude Medard. He is a very friendly man but doesn’t say much. So I decided to lead the conversation by asking many questions about the Pfunda Tea Cooperative. I found out they are labelled fair trade by Forest Alliance and are the third best tea producer in Rwanda. The manager explains to me the tea making process which gave me food for thought to work out my agenda for the next few days.
Numerien and I return to his office and I get to meet Rwicaninyoni Jean de Dieu, 27 year old who is the accountant of the tea Union. Rwicaninyoni was also impressed by the selfiestick and wanted to try it out. After a long photo session of trying out my iPhone, Apple laptop and selfiestick; we decided to go into town.