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Rwanda > Advice if you are coming here!
If you are coming to work in Rwanda ...
1. Bring a 4- or 6-gang surge protector. If you can get one in France or Germany or anywhere they use a two-pin continental plug, even better (though if your equipment is three-pin, don't - bring a British or Irish one and then you only need one converter). Also, one with universal sockets is great as appliances here use a bewildering range of plugs (flat 2-pin, round 2-pin, three pin)
2. While bearing security in mind, cash is better than travellers' cheques as the latter are hard to change and there is a whopping commission. Euros are just as easy to change as dollars so don't waste your money changing euros into dollars. Bank transfers seem to be almost impossible but Western Union is available in almost every bank. There is one bank in central Kigali where you can withdraw money on your credit card (upstairs in the UTC Centre).
3. If you are bringing dollar bills - BE WARNED! Rwandan banks and FOREX (FOReign EXchange bureaus) will not accept dollar bills printed before a certain date. Make sure all your bills are 2004 or later. Bills between 2001 and 2004 will be changed but at an inferior rate of exchange. Before 2001, you can keep them!!
4. A good laptop and some good external speakers for either the laptop or your iPod. But if you are buying something for coming to Rwanda, you are probably going to be travelling around a lot, so try and get a nice LIGHT laptop or even just a notebook and go for as long a battery life as possible.
5. Antimalarials: many parts of the country have a very low incidence of malaria, so a lot of VSO volunteers don't bother taking their antimalarials. One who did keep taking them (even though she was in a low-risk area) caught cerebral malaria this year and probably would have died if it were not for the medication. You need to have a REALLY good reason not to take them!
6. Bring photocopies of your passport and spare passport photos. Also, either scan or photograph your passport, visa and anything else (doctor's prescriptions etc) and then email them to yourself so they can always be access through the Internet.
7. If bringing a laptop, make sure you have a good antivirus program and that you can update it - Rwanda is full of viruses!
8. Torches!! There are constant and unexpected powercuts and no streetlighting to speak of. Always have a torch in your pocket. A wind-up torch plus a headtorch are a good combination.
9. So far, my best investment has been a Palm Pilot with a 2GB memory card. Before I left I loaded lots of books onto the card as text files from the Gutenberg website (including some French texts to help with my French). I am now using it to carry around my Kinyarwandan vocabulary sheets for practice and for emergencies! I put the card into my laptop, type up what I need and then I can carry it around on my Palm Pilot. It does take quite a lot of getting used to, though, and some people find it impossible to read from an electronic screen for a long time.
10. Photograph stuff to save weight! I used my digital camera to photograph loads of things (textbooks, manuals, sheet music) that would otherwise have put me way over my weight allowance. Plus, if you meet anyone who has any interesting resource material, you just borrow it for a few minutes, photograph what you need and stick it on your laptop. Trust me, it works! (Oh, yes, that means you will need a digital camera but what are the odds on anyone coming to Rwanda without one?!)
11. Batteries are either cheap and useless or Duracell and expensive. If you have lots of battery-operated stuff, bring rechargeable batteries and a recharger (I didn't and am regretting it!).
12. For purifying water I brought a SteriPen - it emits ultraviolet radiation to sterilise the water, after which you can filter it. It lasts for 8,000 litres of water but the batteries (2xCR123A) only last for 50 or so - so bring the rechargeable batteries and a recharger. It is an awful lot easier than boiling large quantities of drinking water all the time but the unit does cost about €120. (UPDATE: get the recharger on eBay from Hong Kong - much cheaper, only about $20 for the recharger and four batteries).
13. Mobile phone: If you are buying a phone to come out here, a couple of thoughts. First, get it unlocked before you come. Second, a great stroke of luck for me was that the Nokia I bought more-or-less at random in Dublin turned out to have French predictive text on it - well-advised for Rwanda! But it didn't have a torch - as you always carry your phone on you, having the torch is a good idea.