"I think in America there are many girls like you of the face. But in the heart, I'm not sure." -M

First week of school is down! Classes didn't actually start until the 2nd because the 1st is Heroes' Day, which is the Rwandan equivalent of Veterans' Day in the US.

The first few days of school here (at least where I work) are kind of like the last few days of school in the States. A lot of the students don’t actually come, and teachers are basically just expected to fill time for the students that do. I didn’t want to teach lessons that I would have to repeat verbatim once things got rolling, so I spent the evenings planning 2-hour ‘filler’ lessons. It was actually a lot harder than it may seem, but it was a good opportunity to see how the students would respond to me and what kinds of classroom expectations they have and can handle. For example, I discovered that they really like tongue twisters and word searches (which they had never seen before), but that getting them to have mock conversations in English with the person next to them is like pulling teeth!

It’s pretty commonly known in Rwanda that most secondary students who have had English classes can read and write really well, but they struggle when it comes to conversational skills. Unfortunately right now the majority of my students don’t understand what I’m saying the majority of the time. This is not because they don’t know English, though. It’s because they’re taught British English by people with Rwandan accents; therefore, my American pronunciation is like a whole new language to them! Many of them also struggle with pronouncing ‘l’s and 'r's differently; to them, they sound basically the same. (Think ‘pray’ and ‘play’.) We did some listening exercises where I would say a sentence and they had to write what they heard, and I got a little teary-eyed for a second when one student got the entire sentence ‘Birds that fly can build their nests with grass’ correct!

It was a good learning week for me, but I’m happy to get some solid routines going from this point on.

I’ve told some of you that almost my entire neighborhood (and a significant portion of Mukamira at large) are Seventh-Day Adventists. I’ve gone to church with a colleague a few times because it makes my neighbors happy, and I went again this morning. The services are four hours long, though, so I decided today to tell my colleague that since I’m not actually Adventist I only want to go to church once a month from now on.

When we got to church, though, one of the leaders told my colleague (through the microphone, during the actual service) that since Rwanda is transitioning to teaching in English in schools and since I'm coming to church now, the church should try to start having the morning classes in English! I'm sure you can imagine how I felt. Then, after we had separated into our Sabbath school classes, that same leader came to my class and asked the speaker to stop the lesson so he could present me with some gifts from the church. I came to the front of the class, and he gave me an English Bible, an English storybook of Jesus’ parables, and the church’s songbook so I could sing with them during the services! It was so completely sweet and thoughtful of them to do that and just reminded me of why I already love some of these people here so much. Needless to say, I’ll probably continue to try to go more than once a month.

Love and miss you all.

Happy 1^st Birthday Braley Kayd (Feb 13^th)!!

My gifts from the church. That psychedelic background is the sweet duvet I had made in Nyanza so I could have a bright bed-cover.