Thinking

There is a true lack of creative or critical thinking in this country that makes me both sad and annoyed on a daily basis. I can never decide if this tendency is routed in a fear of making a mistake, a system that discourages it, or instead a simple lack of ability. This problem crops up in many different - and equally annoying - ways in my daily life. 

1. Food - I understand that there are a lack of ingredients cheaply and easily available in Rwanda, especially in the villages, but that does not mean that you must combine them in the same 10 ways only for your entire lives. Alternative uses for foods, such as guacamole, tacos, mashed potatoes, cheese, scrambled eggs, potato salad, sandwiches of any kind, pasta with tomato sauce...the list goes on, all of which are possible here in Rwanda not only are not made but Rwandans generally will not even try when they are presented with them.

2. Classroom - When I teach my students a new grammar concept and ask them to come up with their own examples It is almost impossible to get my students to produce original sentences. Usually instead they reproduce my example sentences or copy the sentences of the few students who did understand, meaning that I get all the same sentences and no clear idea of who understands. This is both frustrating and sad. I have been told that Rwandan teachers are usually quite brutal when criticizing students for being wrong, so that could have something to do with the problem. 

3. New Ideas - Presenting new idea to anyone I've spoken to here over a certain age has proven generally impossible. Any piece of information a person receives is clung to with such intensity that should another fact come along to dispute it there can be no room for argument. See previous post concerning where exactly Barack Obama is president of. 

4. Scheduling - We bump heads with our Rwandan counterparts almost daily on the need to make and keep logical schedules. These are always interrupted, however, by some higher-ups need to commandeer a car to fit his own schedule, or  desire to change the schedule simply to assert authority. My patience is continually tested as we reinvent the wheel literally every morning by scrapping the schedule that works to create a new one that may or may not. As you can imagine this drives Americans crazy. 

I know these attributes are caused by a complicated web of culture, education, hierarchy, and fear of being wrong but on a bad day, or even a good one sometimes, that doesn't stop them from driving an American absolutely insane.