Return to Site

Due to some extenuating circumstances I was out of my site for the first week of school. I was told it wouldn’t be a problem because all of the students don’t arrive on time anyways, so teachers generally sped the first week doing review, or ice breakers, or simply don’t show up at all. Just like with meetings, school starts on Africa time. When I returned to school on Saturday morning none of the other teachrs could be found. They had all left for the weekend and no one could tell me what the teaching hours they’d decided on were. Still not knowing what levels I was teaching or my hours I was left with the difficult task of designing a lesson that could work for any level. And assuming the week of bullshit icereakers was over I wanted to make it a somewhat valuable lesson. What I finally settled on was some introductions and then a basic overview of why it is important to learn English, where in the world English is spoken, etc. Sadly, the first day will probably be a lot of open mouthed staring at the Muzungu and trying to get used to my accent so anything too ambitious woud be a waste. I woke up bright and early Monday morning exercised to get the gitters out, and headed to the teacher’s room at 6:45 assuming assembly was at 7am. I was surprised to find, when I got there, the same schedule from last year still on board and only one other teacher – the English teacher – in the room. When I asked about the schedule he politely informed me that they had yet to make one, and no one had taught last week. He left out the implied undertone of, “because you were no here and we were not sure that you were coming back.” I felt bad for a minute and could feel the tailspin of guilt coming on that I had held up a whole school for a week with my departure when I realized that this was just an excuse. Any reason is used in this country to stall, or shirk work. Heck even at a boarding school – where everyone lives on campus  - no one comes to school when it is raining . There were other ways to handle the schedule without me here.

-Let the other English teachers have all the hours for a week.

-Make my slots free periods.

-Use last years time table temporarily.

A lack of creative thinking is a  countrywide epidemic here and I am not to blame for that. I decided to have a seat and work on my lesson plans until 8am so I could pick the brains of any teachers who emerged. I started by asking my counterpart a few questions, all of which he answered in a mumbled French that was very difficult to understand. I realized I may have misremembered which subject he taught. When I asked, in French, he confirmed he was the other English teacher. After going back and forth in French a few times we decided to go over lesson plans – his whole notebook was in French.

“That’s very impressive,” I said, “That you can translate as you teach.”

“I teach in French, “ He answered, “but write on the board in English.”

MY first reaction was anger, this was the man theyd deemed more qualified than me and he had only a paper understanding of the language he taught. But my second, and lasting, reaction was pity. Two years ago the Rwandan government decided all teaching would be done in English instead of the original French. (Teaching is only done in the local Kinyarwanda until 3^rd grade). This naturally left a whole nation of teachers, who had learned and taught in French their whole careers scrambling to switch to English. (Universities have always taught in English and people would have had some experience studying it but still). The strain and confusion of this is still being sorted out but the prosperity of a significant portion of the country – students and teachers alike – who were caught tat the wrong time by this change is sad. The decision to teach in English makes a lot of sense. It will help Rwanda, but also It is just another sign of globalization and the people who got left behind in its wake. My anger at the schedule and the teacher dissipates, I sip my chai and remember that this is why I came here.

“I need a French tutor,” I say, “Could you help me with that and I’ll help you with English?”

“It is my pleasurably” he says.

Its going to be a long year.

** This teacher ended up becoming the French teacher and a woman who speaks very good English has become my counterpart instead. **

Site Day 1

I live in Rwanda. I live in Africa. Alone. I realize that I have lived in Rwanda for 3 months now but something didn’t feel real about it until I arrived at my site this week. Now I  LIVE in Africa. I cook my own food, over a petrol stove, I have my own house, I have to decorate and find places to buy silver wear and plates and mugs and there are no other Muzungus for miles. It’s a weird thought and an even weirder feeling. I woke up this morning overwhelmed at the thought of it, I had to venture to the market and bargain for food for the week and because the market closer to my site isn’t until Monday I had to take a 30min moto to a place where there was a market. Needless to say there was a lot of procrastination in my bed before I decided to get up and get moving. Hell I hadn’t slept past 6am in months, and just because I couldn’t sleep didn’t mean I couldn’t lay there and pretend.

            I first went to the center of my village hoping to find some of the items I needed a little closer to home. There is a small hill leading down into the city center and thus as I walked I could see the shops unfolding before me and slowly but surely I could see the town see me. Have you ever walked up to a place and had literally everyone stop? Fifty plus people just stop their conversations, stop whatever they are doing and watch you? Well that’s what happened. Naturally I was a bit overwhelmed.  By the time I made it down the hill into the center of the road all activity had ceased and everyone had gravitated in on me. The school I work at is a little off-set from the village so I wasn’t sure if these people had already heard there was a white woman coming, or what their expectation of me in that moment was. I froze. I was panicking. I mean really what do you do in that situation? Let me tell you that the natural response in to run, but that clearly wasn’t what I should do here. So I caught my breath, slowed my heartbeat and gave my speech.

            “Ndi umwarimu icongereza, ndi umunyamerikakazi. Ndi umukorerabushake wa Peace Corps. Ntuye hano, na Ecole Secondaire Ngara. Nzatuye hano umutwe babiri. Nitwa Michele. Sinitwa Umuzungu, Michele Kyangwa Teacher gousa. Ndishimye Kubamenya.”

            For those of you  who don’t speak Kinyarwanda it says, “ I am an English teacher, I am an American woman. I am a Peace Corps volunteer. I live here at Ecole Secondaire Nagara. I will live here for two years. My name is Michele. It is not Muzungu. Call me Michele or Teacher only. It is nice to meet you.”

            And then all hell broke loose. Every old mama hugged me and kissed my cheeks. Every old man shook my hand and every small child hugged my legs. All symphony of names were screamed at me that I will never manage to remember all of and I was welcomed as a member of the community. I don’t know if they had heard I was coming, but clearly my declaration that I had to come to teach their children English was enough to ingratiate me into their community.

            Quickly afterwards  I was asked what I was looking for and a younger woman who went to University and spoke good English became my guide to helping me find cups and plates and the like. Children were sent running through the streets to ask every shop owner if he had these items and amaceruzi (shopkeepers) were brought from their houses to open stores which were not open. Ultimately, however, the quest fell short when we could not locate forks or knives or spoons. After the town apologized profusely I hopped on a moto to the closest big city to acquire these items because clearly eating without these things would be difficult to say the least.            

            While in town I also found an internet café, and although the internet wasn’t working today, I was able to use the electricity to charge my computer, which is nice because the electricity in my home will not be turned on until the children are back in school. Because the electricity runs on a generator we use it only when there are students who need it to study in the dorms at night, meaning that I’ve still got another 3 weeks of living without electricity. Disappointing, yes, but hardly something that I’m not used to. There are, anyways, many solutions to this problem. I can charge my phone by dropping it off with a boutique owner and paying 100 RWF to charge it there, or by taking it to a man in the village who uses a car battery to charge electronics. However, since I didn’t buy the car charger with my phone that sometimes becomes more problematic. Where the computer is concerned it gets a little harder because naturally it is a more expensive commodity. No one would steal my phone because its not even as nice as the ones that most Rwandans use, and they wouldn’t want to break my trust over something so small. A computer, however, is a big ticket item and thus to charge it somewhere I also have to stay with it, which is a long process. In Kamonyi I knew a few tea shop owners who were happy to charge me a little extra for Icayi (tea) with a side of electricity but I have yet to find that in my village. So for now I have to go into the big city where this kind of thing is more normal. But eventually, buhoro buhoro (step by step) I will integrate into my new community and know where the hot spots are. 

No Teaching Hours

After three months of teacher training and two weeks of waiting to hold our start of the year staff meeting I was informed that I will not actually be teaching anything at my school, until February, maybe. Wihangane (be patient). The whole thing is a complicated web of beauracracies and half truths and hierarchy all complicated by the fact that I was born with male reproductive organs thus command less respect in this society.

            First, my school is switching from teaching S1, 2, 3 to S2, 3, 4. The system is different here but S4-6 are basically high school and high schools here are all vocational schools were you are assigned based on your national exam scores from S3. For example the to “options” as they are called that my school will offer are MEG (Math Economics and Geography) and CEM (Computer science, Economics, and Math). S4 starts later than the other grade levels in February because it takes time to get the tests graded and the students to new schools. So if the school gets S4 (that decision needs to be made my the ministry and hasn’t been yet) I will get to teach S4, but we will not know until February.

            Also, for reasons that are unclear my school already had one too many teachers and thus not enough hours to go around. To receive their full benefits from the government teachers must have 30hours a week, but they are all getting only 24-27 and in danger of losing out on money. My best understanding of how this happened is that the headmasters nephew was hired over the winter break for obvious reasons. Since I don’t get benefits from the government it didn’t make sense for me to take hours away from paid teachers who do and further compromise their position with the ministry. So on the face of it, it makes sense that I would have no hours, but really what should have happened was for the HM to make the logical decision in advance not to hire the extra teacher – but logic never prevails in Rwanda. And thus I have to wait until February to see if I get teaching hours and until then I will just be integrating in my community and sitting in on classes. If I don’t get teaching hours at that time I will be moved to a new school that does need me. 

**The Schedule was adjusted after this and I do in fact have teaching hours now

Nonsense

So today I was informed by my headmaster that I would not be teaching English. The school, as it turns out, requested a science or math teacher from Peace Corps which Peace Corps no longer provides – no one in my training class is here to teach anything other than English and they know that. So, naturally, I am frustrated but I persist. “What will I be teaching then?” The response was even more annoying, “Computer Science, and running the English club.” Aka I will have almost no hours of work per week and will be teaching computer science in a school where there are 26 computers but these cannot be used because the district didn’t get electricity this term. Meaning I will be drawing computer screens and keyboards on the blackboard to teach my lessons. Also, my headmaster informed me that it was good I didn’t have my full 15 hours a week of teaching so I could have more time for community integration. 15 hours is nothing, there is still plenty of time for integration, I literally don’t have enough things to fill my days at this point. Needless to say I was annoyed and I demanded to know who would be teaching English, because clearly I am the most qualified English teaching at this school. I was promptly introduced to the other English teachers and my anger heightened to an irrational level. The highest level English teacher – the level I was told I would be teaching – and realized the man couldn’t differentiate between L’s and R’s. He said my name Michere, and asked that I “Prease not be angly. ” All the other English teachers then proceeded to tell me that I would be doing the most teaching the English club which is not mandatory. No one could really tell why I was protesting so hard that these English teachers are all qualified to teach other subjects, whereas I am not, and my English is perfect. Finally when I couldn’t get anyone to listen to me I stopped speaking in my slow English teacher voice and unleashed on them in the kind of English two native speakers would use with each other. Naturally, I was confronted with blank stares until someone finally said, “You must speak slowerly we cannot understand.” To which I replied, “THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT! I AM THE ONLY NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER AND ITS SLOWER!” Clearly I had lost my patience at this point and declared that this was not the last time we would have this conversation because I WOULD be teaching English come 2012, and stormed off to my house. Luckily it started raining shortly after and Rwandans are afraid of the rain so no one came to bother me. UGHH this is utter nonsense. There is my rant. I just thought I’d fill you in on the types of illogical decision making I deal with on a daily basis. I have no way of knowing this for a fact but something along the lines of the man who will be teaching high level English is related to someone  important, had some other kind of clout, or is simply a man and I am a woman and thus despite the fact that I am here so that these children can learn English from an English speaker, I will not be doing so. To calm my rage I have begun drawing a mural on my walls in crayon, I can’t wait to see how the other teachers react when they  see that. Weird life.

**As of time of posting this the schedule was readjusted and I am teaching 15 hours of English 

New Years

Several volunteers and I decided to ring in the New Year by going into Kigali and clubbing for a night. This decision was made to prevent us from having to take 7 -8 hour bus rides up north meaning that we could go for one night and get home, but because this is Rwanda that is not at all what happened. We got into Kigali during the afternoon on New Years Eve and immediately tracked down burgers at Mr. Chips, easily my favorite spot in Kigali. It’s an American style restaurant run by a Canadian ex-pat who is constantly present at his establishment and loves PCVs, and their burgers taste like real American burgers!!! Most other places here put curry in the meat (no idea why) and thus they don’t taste quite like home. After our burgers we headed to the hotel where we immediately hopped in the pool, despite the fact that it had just started to rain.

            For the actual celebration we headed to a swanky bar named Heaven that was doing a cocktail countdown where a different cocktail was on sale every hour and came with a complimentary appetizer, aka it was the perfect situation. After we rang in the New Year, a little after midnight, we headed back to our hotel where there was another nightclub so that we could keep dancing. Some highlights:

-       Being, by far, the loudest table of people at Heaven even though most of those present were Americans and there were only 6 of us.

-       The group of other PCVs that were present commenting that we were “ an interesting group”

-       Being the only people dancing

-       When our Rwandan friend who was with us decided to get on stage and sing with the band.

-       The free cheeseburgers that came with the last drink! And us eating them extra fast and claiming we didn’t get them!

-       The large group of Christian missionaries who were there who didn’t drink, and were thus offended most of the night. Also, they all were women with buzzcuts.

-       Kim and I getting drinks with the owner of the second club until he delved into some 1994 related topics that we decided we were too drunk to discuss and then had to hide from him all night.

The next day we were, understandably, hungover and thus slept until the last possible moment. Instead of heading straight to the bus stop we went to Bourbon coffee because we had met one of the baristas the night before and knew we could get free caffeine (Bourbon is very expensive so it was a big win). Once we did head to the bus station we were alarmed by how empty it was, Nyabagogo is never empty, at least half of Africa is there milling around at any given time. This was a bad sign. We soon discovered that all buses going anywhere outside Kigali had stopped for the day. Luckily one girl we were with lives 20 minutes outside the city, and thus we headed there and the adventure continued.

      We were so exhausted we spent most of that night watching silly movies and lying on the floor. In the morning, one we felt better, we decided to head out to another PCVs site on Lake Kivu and have a nice afternoon  enjoying the view. The lake was gorgeous and definitely worth the adventure to sit and enjoy it all afternoon. That night we made pizza in a Peace Corps oven at Saaras house, it was a huge success and we stuffed our faces! I finally got home late last night exhausted and happy. It was a great weekend and a great start to the new year.

Now I have my first Rwandan Staff meeting in a few hours to decide what I will be teaching this year. There has been some contention on this point so wish me luck, because I will not last 2 years if I really have only 4 hours of teaching a week.

            Happy New years to everyone! Good luck with your resolutions! And I hope it brings you everything you’re looking for. 

Blogs

** This ones a little out of order - I had forgotten about it **

The medium of the internet is a new and slightly disconcerting way for PCV’s to communicate across international borders. It appears that over the course of training I have had one of the more active blogs as far as updates are concerned and several other trainees have informed that various members of their families follow me. This didn’t strike me as odd until today, when I was told (through the grapevine)  that another trainees father had been reading my blog and called me  a “tough lady,” causing me to review all my posts looking for evidence of that trait. Toughness. In my gut reaction to the word I told a few other trainees that I didn’t think it described me and got a result I wasn’t expecting. It seemed the only one shocked, was me. Over the course of the time that we’ve been here many trainees have become privy to the fact that my family suffered several deaths in the time frame  immediately leading up to my departure for Africa, and that I was actually at a funeral a few days before staging in Philadelphia. It seems that reality has earned me a reputation for being “tough” or at the very least people weren’t surprised when the word was applied to me. I suppose I chose to take it as a compliment. However,  I have had more than my fair share of mental breakdowns in just these 3 months. The whole thing got me thinking about the word “tough” because I’m not sure anyone whose ever met me would use it to describe my personality. So maybe tough isn’t the attribute in question, maybe its trust or stoicism or stupidity. Maybe we all came here to run away, or prove a point, or work for what we believed in and most likely all of us stay and survive and succeed due to the inherent stubbornness or perseverance or stupidity inherent in our personalities. Maybe you have to be crazy to fly off to Africa while your family is dealing with so much loss, but maybe you have to be “tough” to stay. There have certainly been moments in this whole thing where I have felt anything but tough. There were moments when I cried because I couldn’t eat dinner before 9, or go to sleep at a reasonable hour or wash when I wanted, or because the boy I liked was no longer interested in me. These low moments would have been reprehensible in America, but maybe in context they were just a side effect of life in Rwanda. There were also times when I cried because a lot of people I care about died this year and I’m not there, or because this whole country suffered a similar tragedy and no one talks about. I’ve cried because life isn’t fair, and nowhere reminds you of that quite like Africa or a year like my family has had, and lastly I’ve cried because I’m tired and overworked and overstressed. Like a small child I’ve cried simply because in that moment there is nothing I need more than a nap and a juice box. Today, however, on our last day of training – an emotionally charged and trying day by any standards -  I got a gift I didn’t expect. Through the magic of the internet I learned that a man I’ve never met, and probably never will meet, thinks that I am tough simply from the words I release to the world wide web. This misplaced adjective did more for my reflections on the world today than I can truly convey. So maybe, its true, after all we are our own worst critics. Maybe I am a tough lady. And Maybe I am not.  Either way, tomorrow I leave this place ready to face Rwanda on my own. Truthfully, I am sure there will be more tears in my future, but maybe that doesn’t change the status of my “toughness” as much as I think. 

Noheri Nziza (Merry Christmas)

After my night in Kigali for my medical reasons, myself and a few other trainees headed out to a friend’s site further North to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We left Kigali early because we knew that public transport on the day before Christmas, in any catholic country, was bound to be a nightmare. Nybogogo (the main bus station) was a lot like what I imagine hell to be like. Luckily, however, Rwandan transport is known for being much better organized than its surrounding neighbors – which isn’t saying much – and our reservations were held and respected. We grabbed our tickets and hopped on our bus moments before it was set to depart.

We spent the two days of our visit cooking good American food, drinking beer and generally being merry. Some of the highlights:

-The two Santa hats I bought in Kigali which were present throughout and passed around between everyone,  until one got stolen by one of the Rwandan guests.

-Cooking Tacos and Spanish rice because we could even though they are not the most Christmas-y of foods

-The constant blue skies, 80 degree weather and banana trees

-When one of the nice female neighbors and about 20 children came into the compound to help us cook and laughed at how we peeled potatoes

-Giving the kids glow sticks after it got dark one night – they went absolutely nuts but were very sad when they stopped glowing in the morning.

-The 2 adorable children who we let stay and eat our tacos with us

-Some rousing games of Trivial pursuit

-Everyone sleeping on the hard concrete floor and thus being very overtired

-The constant chorus of “eat this you need the calories” leveled at me after I revealed that I was malnourished.

In general it was just incredibly nice to all be together, doing things in the most American way we could to celebrate the holiday. And it was nice to hear that everyone has been struggling at site in their own way, despite their personalities, language abilities, living situations etc. Every site is hard. Every site has challenges and realistically we will all get through them together. And every now and then we  will congregate in our own little  Muzungu world and eat Tacos and pretend we are not in Rwanda.

The volunteer we were visiting lives in a much more urban area than myself and upon arriving I was pretty shocked by the surroundings. I would not have been able to live there. Props to this volunteer because after two days there our official diagnosis was that he lived in a village full of assholes. People stared far more openly and in much closer proximity to us than anyone in my village, I was asked for money more, and I just felt downright unwelcome. Children banged at his gate and peered in his windows almost the entire time we were there (and apparently they do this even when just one muzungu is present) and his neighbors let themselves in constantly and invited themselves to stay for food. Luckily this volunteer is one of the more laid-back and kindhearted of our group and thus handles the situation beautifully, but I personally don’t think I could do it. It was a bit of a relief to see someone else’s site and realize that the particular challenges of my site are well within my limits as a person because clearly there are some things which would not be.

So despite missing family, friends and tradition it was a wonderful holiday. A big thank you to everyone who came and made it special and to our host for allowing so many of us to crash at his house despite having no furniture and very few days to prepare. You probably won’t read this but you’re a champ. I hope everyone back home’s Christmas’s were equally enjoyable. Noheri Nziza. Merry Christmas. And a happy new year.