Tuesday 3 August 2010

Welcome to the BBOXX Office

Early activity this morning: the Rwandan Development Board (RDB) and the Rwandan Revenue Authority (RRA) are coming over to visit BBOXX's Kigali office. Their aim is to make sure the company meets the minimum requirements to be classified as a foreign investor in the country (one of which involves a necessary investment of 250 000 dollars over the next 12 months...). Hopefully, our last-minute cleaning and tidying will pay off. 

But what does our office look like? The first thing to say is that we could certainly be worse off: the "office" is in fact a two-story villa, with five bedrooms, a large living room, a dining room that we turned into a printing station, a roomy kitchen, and a long, covered patio. 


A View from the Garden


William Working in the Living Room

 The Central Office
 
The patio, which overlooks a small garden and, beyond the walls, one of Kigali's many hills (if you lean over, you can make out the golf course), is probably everyone's favorite spot. Sun-splashed in the morning, it offers cool shade in the afternoon to eat and work (it serves both as an office and an assembly line) and relax in, until the sun sets at 7 PM and the mosquitos reclaim their ground. The birds that populate the trees in the garden are remarkably colorful and vocal; besides their chirps, the only other sounds to occasionally disturb the peace and quiet of the place are the (terrific) drums and chants from the nearby art school. 

 Official Business on the Patio

We are also lucky enough to be neighbors with members of the Swiss Development Agency: not only to they pay for the guards who watch our gate night and day, but they give us access to their impressive swimming pool. 


The Neighbors' Pool

Do not ask for our address, however, for we would be incapable of giving it to you: the dirt road that leads to our office does not have a name, nor do we have a house number. If you ever want to find us, look for the Novotel. From there, it's only a ten-minute walk...

 Rolling on a Nameless Street

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