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!:)
