Kayitesi Anne Marie Ngarambe, wife of Rwanda's Ambassador to China F. Xavier Ngarambe. Feng Yongbin / China Daily

The beautiful lady in front of me, with perfect hair and a brilliantly hued silk dress, doesn't look like part of a building crew for the Great Khan. But Kayitesi Anne Marie Ngarambe, the new president of the Group of African Ambassadors' Spouses, is bright-eyed and eager as she talks about her club's next project.

"We will be going to the Great Wall in March - some of us haven't been there yet," she says. "We will go to one of the unrestored areas to help with the wall repairs. It will be a day of some work, but it will be very exciting for us."

When F. Xavier Ngarambe was posted as Rwanda's ambassador to China in 2010, an exotic journey also began for his wife and children, three of whom are university students in Beijing.

"The beginning is hard because a lot of things are new," she says.

"While you are trying to learn the language, the culture and to get familiar with useful places you also have to be a real partner of the ambassador and be with him in almost all functions - without forgetting to help your children who also have to adjust with the new environment.

"After some time you get more organized and you start enjoying life in Beijing.

"I am fascinated to see so many smiling and friendly faces. I am very impressed by how multicultural the place is and by the extraordinary economic progress, with such a modern, well-developed infrastructure," she adds.

Official duties don't always keep her in Beijing. "I have had a chance to visit places like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Yunnan and Guangzhou," she says. "I also enjoyed Hainan province, especially Dongshan mountain in Haikou, and Yuntai mountain in Henan (province)."

GAAS was organized 30 years ago as a social club, she notes. "Spouses can be lonely in a new posting, especially where the language and culture are very different. So the group is a way to bring people together," she says.

The spouses all share common backgrounds and an eagerness to adapt to their new surroundings, to explore the country and culture, and to represent their own countries effectively.

Several members will soon begin meeting weekly with a tutor to practice Chinese language and painting.

"We are all women, spouses of African ambassadors," she says. "The only African male spouse of a female ambassador is not an active member of our group."

There are more than 50 African countries with widely varying traditions and languages - she herself speaks several tongues from her home continent as well as fluent French and English.

Her colleagues are excited to be going to Hainan later in February, after the Spring Festival break, where they will visit one of the charities they made a contribution to last year.

"We are not a charity organization, we are a social club," she says. "But we like to organize at least one big event per year, some kind of cultural exchange." These events involve selling tickets and perhaps food or crafts, she says, and the proceeds are donated to charities.

"Our special target groups are women and children in need," she says. "The only limitation is our own capability."

Such events are good opportunities to showcase African culture and to promote Sino-Africa cultural exchanges, she adds.

Past charity activities included a food festival two years ago, at which the several dozen spouses cooked for the crowd at a hotel reception. This year, GAAS will sponsor an art festival, with exhibitions by African and Chinese artists over three days in May.

Ambassadors and their families are typically posted for about four years, although Sudan's just-departed Ambassador to China Mirghani Mohamed Salih was in Beijing for almost a decade, making his wife Nadia Ahmed Salih the dean of the spouses group.

Who is the longest-serving member now?

"It's not me, I'm sure," she says with a smile. "But we'll have to figure that out at our next meeting."

michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/17/2013 page5)