Made in China

This is one of the new sewing machines for the vocational course CM runs. Came into the office on Saturday morning to try to catch the drop-in; the weekend open-house in which current, former and potential beneficiaries come to the Centre for various reasons. Unfortunately, it was a very, very quiet day in that regard, so I wandered about and snapped this before moving on to a quiet and relaxing day.

China's influence is pretty obvious and pretty pervasive in Kigali - roads, building projects, trucks, companies, shops and, indeed, sewing machines. So in my mind this picture tells a much larger story. A lot of people in the West deride China's non-conditional aid programme - particularly in the UK, which has recently cut its foreign assistance to Rwanda - but the country would likely be far worse off without it in terms of infrastructure and investment. So in my mind this picture tells a larger story.