February-Now!

MURAHO! So, anyone who visits my page often has probably noticed that I have fallen off the face of the blogging earth… but I’m back, with many stories of a busy first term, a fun vacation, and the start of a new term!

My very first trimester as a real-life teacher was definitely a learning experience.  In general, it went very well.  I got much more comfortable with my eight classes and had a lot of fun with them.  We has some memorable lessons, including teaching my fifth-year students “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton during our fact and opinion unit, which happened to fall around Valentine’s Day.  The girls absolutely loved it and continue to request it any time we have a few extra minutes in class.  Also, in my sixth year classes we spent a couple weeks reading news articles about the upcoming Olympics, so I divided them into teams and they had to choose a country to represent for “Class Olympics”.  Every reading exercise and activity then became a competition, either to be the quickest team finished or the team with the highest marks.  At the end of the unit, we had a ceremony to award the gold, silver and bronze medals, which I made out of paper, as well as some candy and extra credit for the exam.  I think the girls really enjoyed it, especially considering that I still spot a student wearing her medal from time to time around the school campus.

There were of course, a few challenges to my first trimester as well.  For example, I found that procrastination can be a bit more of an issue when it comes to grading three hundred papers rather than writing just one.  Hopefully I learned my lesson and will do a better job this term!  Another thing I realized is that in Rwanda you can’t expect the authorities to just tell you everything that your job entails, or much of anything for that matter.  I am referring to the fact that with about five days left before the end of the term, the head teacher asked me where all my homework was, and when I told her that I had returned it to the students after recording the marks, she informed me that I was supposed to have re-collected all of it, organized it and brought it to her.  So, I had to scramble around to all my classes, interrupt the students who were studying hard for exams, and ask them to dig through all their notebooks to find every piece of homework I had handed back to them throughout the term.  Needless to say, I was not able to recover all of it, but I did my best.  Then, two days before vacation, when I had all my grades totaled and ready to hand in, I was asked if I had collected all of the students’ discipline cards and subtracted points from their English grades for every instance when they had gotten in trouble for speaking Kinyarwanda instead of English at school.  So again, I rushed around to all my classes to take their discipline cards and then set to work changing all three hundred of the final grades.    All of this on top of the exam-grading made my last week a bit rough.

Apart from teaching, life in Shangi during the first term was great too.  After our teachers vs. community leaders volleyball game, the executive secretary decided that he wanted to make sector volleyball and basketball teams to travel around and play against teams from other sectors.  So I was recruited to the SHANGI ONE TEAM basketball squad.  It has been a great way to get to know some people from the community, because it consists of teachers from several schools, sector leaders, priests, and other sports enthusiasts.  Any time I see any of them around the village, they greet me by shouting “ONE TEAM”.  We had two official games last term and it sounds like we have another coming up sometime this month (although you never can tell how set in stone things are in Rwanda), so I’m looking forward to that. 

I have also gotten a lot of enjoyment out of hiking around beautiful Shangi.  When I first told some of the teachers that I was interested in walking down to the lake, six of them volunteered to accompany me, so we had a wonderful afternoon hiking to Kivu, a little over an hour-long journey.  At the lake, we met an awesome old German man who has lived for years and years on what used to be a German base camp.  He hires Rwandan kids to help him care for the land and to give tours when visitors come, and he seems to just love his lakeside life in Rwanda. 

Aside from that afternoon excursion, my relationship with the other teachers at my school has continued to grow and has been an awesome support for me here.  Many of them will drop in for tea or just to chat at my house.  Also, the English conversation group has really picked up.  Over half of the teachers have come at least once, and there are six who have come just about every single week.  Tuesday nights are often the highlight of my week because the conversations are so great.  We listen to a news story and then discuss it, and I learn so much from just sitting back and listening to them debate on different topics, because they are all so intelligent and well-informed.  And they truly value my opinions too, which is a nice feeling!

I began to do English lessons for the nuns who were interested as well.  They are at a more beginner level, which is what I was more accustomed to teaching before coming to Rwanda, so it feels good to be back in my comfort zone, with basic grammar and vocabulary contexts, even just for one hour a week.  I love having the nuns as a sort of family for me in Shangi.  They are so happy any time I show up to share a meal with them or just come by to say hello.  They are also good resources to have to continue practicing and learning more Kinyarwanda.

After the first term, there were three weeks of vacation.  I spent the first couple weeks hanging around Shangi and going into Kamembe, the nearest city, a couple times to visit friends and other Peace Corps volunteers there.  It was a relaxing couple of weeks.  I spent a lot of time with a couple of families from the community, did a lot of hiking and got some lesson planning done.  Two other volunteers, Tim and Meredith, also came to visit my site, which was fun!  After Meredith’s visit, we went together to visit our host families in Kamonyi.  It was really good to see my family!  The girls were all home from school so I got to catch up with them and we had fun remembering all of our fun times together during training.

After the trip to Kamonyi, I spent a wonderful day eating burgers and pizza in Kigali before heading to Kibuye for Peace Corps In-Service Training for one week.  It was the first time I saw most of the people from my training group since Pre-Service training, so it was great to hear how things were going for all of them.  Also, Kibuye is a gorgeous place and our hotel was right on the lake, which could only have been better if the water of Kivu was not shisto-infected, causing Peace Corps to ban us from swimming.  I got a lot of good information to take back to site with me at the training, but being stuck in morning to evening meetings again was a bit torturous.  I also found myself really missing Shangi since I had been gone for almost two weeks. 

Getting back to Shangi felt so good—it really felt like I was coming home.  All of the teachers had returned from the vacation and it was wonderful to see them again.  I returned right before the official genocide memorial day for Shangi, so I spent my first couple days back in mass and meetings to commemorate all those who were killed in our area.  It was a difficult time, but it was very moving to see how much Rwandans have come together and how strong they are, and I felt very privileged to be a part of their memorial.

For my first week back in classes, I decided to ease back into things and to have some fun with my students so I taught them the song “Lean on Me” which was another hit!  My students love talking about their friends so I knew they would like to learn some terminology we use for friendship in the US, and they certainly did.  I explained all the lyrics to them and by the end of the class they were all singing loudly and having a blast.  It was awesome!

We also have big things happening for the GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Club.  A couple of the other Peace Corps volunteers in our region and I are organizing an official camp for them to attend during the break after the second trimester.  This will be a great way to motivate the clubs to get more involved in their communities and to motivate the girls to take on leadership opportunities.  I announced the news to my girls and they are super excited.  We are also starting to write a skit about HIV/AIDS prevention to present at the school and hopefully to the community as well.   

I think my last story to share is about the events of last weekend.  There is a hugely popular singing competition in Rwanda called Primus Guma Guma Superstar, which consists of all of the biggest singers and musical groups of the country.  People vote for their favorites until it is narrowed down to the top ten, who then tour the country together until the winner is chosen and gets to perform and record a song with Jason Derulo.  Well, I was determined to stay at my site for a while since I was away for so long, but all that went out the window when one of my friends in Kamembe called to tell me that Primus Guma Guma Superstar was in town!  Now I have been keeping very up-to-date with the competition so that I have a go-to conversation topic with young Rwandans, plus I really enjoy Kinyarwanda music, so there was no way I could pass up seeing it live!  So I dropped everything and headed in to Kamembe on Saturday and had a ton of fun singing (the like one line I actually understand of each song) and dancing with the huge crowd of Rwandans at the bus station, where the concert was held. Afterward everyone headed to one of the hotels in town where the dancing continued well into the night.  It was a blast!

So in conclusion, life is good!  I never imagined that I could be this happy in my Peace Corps service, but I have truly been blessed with amazing people supporting me, both in Rwanda and from afar!

some pictures of life in rwanda:

all my host sisters-- baramuna banjye, outside our house

host mama and papa

all my fav neighborhood kids during training

my training group after we swore in as volunteers-- abakorerabushake!

my headmistress, sister edita

the view from my backyard @ site

January 4- February 10: Settling In!

This is a long one—you might want to read in a few different sittings:)

So it is time to give the low-down on my official, settled-in Rwandan life.  In the last month I have gotten into a routine and I have gained a much better idea of what the next twenty-two months are going to be like.  And I am super happy—woo!!

I only teach sixteen hours a week, because Peace Corps has put a limit on our hours since we are also supposed to take on secondary projects in the school and the community.  I teach English to four classes in the fifth level and to four classes in the sixth level—the equivalents to juniors and seniors in high school.  I was nervous to start, but it has been great so far. 

Rwanda has a very vague curriculum for these levels, so I have been enjoying developing my own.  For this first term with my S5 classes I have been focusing on event description: key elements, time order, fact and opinion, etc, which will culminate in them putting together a school newspaper at the end of the term.  With S6 I have been taking a current event approach; we read or listen to an article each week, learn about a certain skill for better comprehension (such as making an outline), and then have class discussion.  Obviously as a new teacher some days are better than others, but I am happy to say that no lessons have totally crashed and burned so far!  My school is one of the top in the country, so all of the students are very motivated which is great, and a few of the classes are especially a blast to teach because they are so energetic and interested.  Last week my level five classes were giving presentations based on biographies of famous scientists, and when the 5 PCM girls (students whose studies focus on physics, chemistry and mathematics) heard that Marie Curie also studied physics, chemistry and mathematics, they literally stood up and cheered.  This is the same class in which one of the girls told me she had an “apparatus for photo-taking” and asked if we could have a photo shoot after class one day.  Having students who are so into the class information and who are so excited to have a native English speaker as their teacher definitely makes teaching more enjoyable.

My methods are definitely different from typical Rwandan teachers’, who generally give notes and lecture every class, which makes it difficult get the students to be original in their work.  So this week when I had my S6 classes give presentations on different holidays and celebrations and told them that twenty percent of their grade would be for creativity, I got a lot of blank stares.  I said that they must find a way to make their presentation special and interesting and gave them some examples of how they could do this, but still did not expect much.  So I considered it a huge victory when it came time to present and students sang and danced, brought in elaborate pictures or props, or performed skits.  It was a lot of fun.

Aside from teaching, I have also started working with the English and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) clubs.  The membership in the two consists of basically the same students, so the presidents and I decided to have them meet at the same time and alternate the focus each week.  The presidents, Louise and Angel, are both excellent students and great to work with.  We began last week with a GLOW focus and discussed HIV/AIDS prevention.  This week we had an English focus and the girls began to organize a debate that they will present to the school.  They have many great ideas for us to deal with this year and I am very excited to be a part.

I am also the official basketball “coach”, which I put in quotations because I don’t do a whole lot of coaching.  A university boy from the community, Israel, came to be my “assistant”, but because the girls have difficulty understanding my English sports vocabulary, and because I have no clue about sports terminology in Kinyarwanda, he has effectively taken over leading the practices.  I generally just point out problems from time to time and participate in scrimmages as a player.  I should also mention that the girls’ active wear consists of collared shirts or graphic tee shirts (like one that says “Hello, my name is not Alcoholic, I’m just Drunk”), khakis or swim trunks, and ballet flats or strappy sandals.  It is an interesting sight.  Anyway, the girls only have one hour for sports before they have to go to their evening study sessions, so when they leave the teachers have free reign of the volleyball and basketball courts, so we spend the rest of the evening playing pick-up games.  One night I was joking with some of the teachers about going for a run after a couple of hours of playing, but they didn’t pick up on my sarcasm, and they don’t like the idea of a girl being more athletic than them, so now we take group jogs almost every night.  I have to say I think I am going to be in pretty good shape by the end of these two years!

Playing sports together has led to a really good relationship between me and the other teachers.  The staff is predominately male, and girl-guy relationships in Rwanda are a little tricky because generally if you are friends with someone of the opposite gender, it means you are a candidate for marriage.  But through sports I have managed to kind of become “one of the guys” so this hasn’t been too much of an issue for me.  I have also been blessed with a very friendly, accepting teacher staff.  They have all been so nice to me, although it might have something to do with the fact that I bake them cookies sometimes.  One day, I took seventy cookies to the staffroom.  There were about ten teachers in there at the time and the cookies were gone in literally three minutes.

The teachers at my school are all also highly motivated, which seems to be a bit rare in Rwanda.  Because teachers are paid very poorly here, many do not put much of an effort into their work, but that is not the case at my school.  As English has become the official language of education here, teachers are required to teach in English, but at many schools teaching continues in Kinyarwanda and French.  However, all the teachers at my school are doing their best to teach in English, and are determined to improve their speech.  I offered to host a conversation group at my house once a week, and not only did about half of the teachers express interest, but they also asked that we meet multiple times a week.  We started last week and it has gone very well.  I download news stories for us to listen to, which we discuss.  Then I put together dialogues that include informal speech and idioms so that they can learn to speak in a more “native” way, something that is very important to the more advanced English speakers.

With all this English work, I find it very difficult to find time to work on Kinyarwanda aside from going to the shops or the market, so I hired one of the other teachers to tutor me once a week.  It is important to me to keep up with the language so that I can interact with people in the community and to be able to keep in touch with my host family.

So far, my focus has been on integration into the school, but I am already seeing possibilities to get more involved in the community.  This week we had a really fun event—a volleyball game between the sector leaders and the teachers at our school, with all eight hundred students as well as some people from the community as spectators.  I was chosen for the team, not because of my awesome skills, but because they wanted more diversity and I provided both a female and a white component—never been on this side of the diversity coin before!  After the match, (The teachers won all three sets!) we had a party with the school staff and the community leaders.  A party in Shangi means beer for the men, soda for the women, bread, hard-boiled eggs, and lots of speeches.  Even I had to give a speech and I am proud to say I was able to semi-effectively get my points across in Kinyarwanda.  “Turi kumwe muri isporo!” = “We are together in sports!”  So the whole point of this story is that I have now established a relationship with the executive secretary and social affairs chairman of the sector and I told them that soon I want to get more involved in community activities, and they are excited to work with me, so it will be easier to get the ball rolling with community projects.

The nuns are doing well too!  I don’t see them as often because I am so busy now and they are also very busy with their school duties, but I have continued to go to mass with them on Sundays and eat with them afterward.  And the Mother Superior, who is the sweetest seventy-five year old woman, asked me to teach her English, so once a week on a day I don’t have many classes I go to visit her and teach her a few phrases.

That is about the extent of my news—sorry that it was so lengthy, but a lot has happened in the last month or so!  Thanks again for the prayers, I have truly been blessed with an incredible site and amazing people to work with, so it looks like you all got God’s attention!:)

November 28- January 3: Officially a Volunteer!!

A lot has changed since my last update!  For one thing, I am no longer a Peace Corps trainee but an official volunteer!  For another, I now live in my own house, far away from my training group and my host family.  Finally, I am less than a week from being an actual teacher with my very own classes.

Training ended on a very positive note.  I passed all my exams and had a great closing interview with the staff.  It was very hard to leave my family and all the neighborhood kids who came over almost every night to watch Harry Potter on my computer.  Kim’s sisters and my sisters walked us all the way to the training hub to see us off as we left for Kigali for swear-in.

The swear-in ceremony took place on December 15, at the ambassador’s residence.  It was a very nice event.  It was attended by all Peace Corps staff, some current volunteers, other American and Rwandan government workers, and some members of the host families, including my father.  Mary, our country director spoke, then the ambassador, and then a representative from the ministry of education.  Speeches of thanks were given by my training class in English, French, and Kinyarwanda.  After, we had some delicious food and time to talk with the guests and take pictures.

Site installations began the following day, but since my site is far from Kigali, I had an additional three days to hang out at the Peace Corps headquarters.  This gave me plenty of time to buy everything I needed for my house, eat burgers and pizza, and explore the city.  The day came for Tim, Nick, and I to get installed, so we crammed a Peace Corps vehicle full of all our stuff and headed out.  When we arrived at my site, my house had just been painted so I spent a night in the convent.  The sisters were so welcoming and told me that even after I moved into my house I could come eat with them whenever I want. 

The next day I settled into my house, which is way nicer than anything I could afford in the States.  I am very spoiled for a Peace Corps volunteer.  I have a big main room, two bedrooms, and a shower space inside, then an outside kitchen and toilet.  The nuns also provided me with all the furniture I could need, and Christa, the volunteer I replaced, left me a ton of great stuff.  I am really happy with my house, not to mention the gorgeous view of the lake and mountains from my backyard.  I even have running water behind the house some days, so I got a big barrel from the nuns that I fill up on days when it is running so that I have it stored for days when it is not.

Transitioning has been difficult so far because I no longer have the support group of my training class in the same village.  It is a challenge to get out in the community when you are the only person being stared at, but if you don’t make yourself present in the community you will never get over that obstacle, so I make sure I get out every day, greeting people on a run, going to the market or shops, or just taking a walk.  It probably didn’t help that I hardcore wiped out on a run on market day last week, and literally went flying in front of a ton of people headed to the market, but I guess that did force me to laugh at myself which is important for being ok with it when other people are laughing at you. 

The sisters have been an amazing support too.  I have lunch with them almost every day, I’ll stay to help wash dishes and then a couple of them will walk me back to my house.  Many of them have pretty good English.  This has worked out well because they are so impressed whenever I understand Kinyarwanda, which is a nice confidence boost, but if I don’t understand something they can explain it to me in English.  They are fun and intelligent women and I really enjoy hanging out with them.

I went in to the Peace Corps regional house a couple days before Christmas to meet up with some other volunteers and get a little bit of the American Christmas spirit.  I came back to site the day before Christmas so that I could go to mass with the nuns the next morning.  The service was nice, and there was even a rendition of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” (in Kinyarwanda so I could only sing along at the chorus), but I did get pooped on by a bird during church.  Out of the 1,500ish people that were there, I could not believe that I was the one that this happened to.  After mass, I went home to clean up and bake brownies for the big Christmas meal at the convent.  We had a great feast and the sisters loved the brownies.  I had a good day, despite being a little sad about being away from home for Christmas. 

Last Friday two of the sisters were celebrating one year as nuns, and I was very honored to be invited to their private mass and then to a dinner party with all of the sisters and priests.  It was such a fun night and ended with some traditional Rwandan dance, and they made me get up to try to imitate them, which everyone thought was very hilarious.  I love that the nuns are always celebrating something.

On Saturday I went to Kamembe again for New Year’s Eve.  Some of the volunteers who have been here for a while took me to a birthday party for a couple of their Rwandan colleagues.  I was very excited for my first Rwandan house party, but as we predicted, because Rwandans really love their speeches, that is what most of the night consisted of.  It was still really good to make connections with cool people in Kamembe, and we had a lot of fun dancing between the speeches.

Now I am back at site and preparing to start teaching next week!  I still don’t really have any idea what’s going on-- I don’t know what days or what hours I will be teaching, but other teachers have started showing up at school, so that is a good sign that we will probably have a meeting sometime soon.  I am pretty nervous about getting started, but I know I am going to be really happy when we get into the swing of things!