"But I think in America they have machines for all of this." - J

As my Peace Corps service draws to a close, I find myself frequently wondering how this experience has really affected and changed me. What kind of person will I be when I return home from an African village to all the luxuries I knew in all of my 22 years before Peace Corps? How will my experiences throughout the two years I spent in Rwanda be evident in my daily American life? Will they be evident at all?

Though I certainly have ideas for answers to these questions, for the most part, I really don’t know. I’ve never moved back to the United States after living in Africa for two years before, so I really have absolutely no evidence or past experience on which to base my speculations.

I’m happy to report that one of the benefits of my two years of hard-earned street-cred is not completely up in the air, though. There is one aspect of life here that I am confident I want to bring back with me, and it can be succinctly labeled as food. I know, shocker! As much as I’ve whined about missing all my favorite American (or American-modified international) foods, you’d think the last thing I would include on a list of things I like about this place is food. But hear me out.

It’s not the food itself I want to take back. Don’t get me wrong, I love the unsweet corn and will certainly be sad to leave behind my new favorite fruit that I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen in Texas. But it’s no secret that even the blandest of eaters will choose to just go without supper every once in a while to spare themselves another consecutive night of beans and potatoes. So, no, it’s not the food itself. But the way food works here is something I’ve really grown to appreciate.

For example, I love knowing that my kilo of muddy, small potatoes was grown right here in my community. I love that when I’m offered roasted corn at a neighbor’s house, I know it was plucked off a rope hanging from their roof with all the other corn from their most recent harvest. I love that when my favorite grandmother next door offers me a big bag of beans, I can bet they’re the same beans I watched her plant a few months before. And I love that the milk I drink and cook with comes from a cow I actually see every day (even if she did charge at me and Rafiki).

To be fair, agriculture here is not perfect. A lot of people do use potentially harmful pesticides and there’s a good chance they’re not cultivating the most appropriate crop for their soil type. But they did grow it themselves, and in many cases, I actually watched it grow. And when I buy food from my neighbors and my community, I’m directly contributing to the economic growth of my neighbors and my community. My food wasn’t grown and harvested thousands of miles away by a person I don’t know and then shipped here by a gas-guzzling truck, causing the price to sky-rocket and putting my neighbors out of business.

Basically, this system of food just makes so much more sense to me now. Of course farmers’ markets, CSAs, community vegetable gardens, and the like existed long before I came to the Peace Corps, and there are ample opportunities available in the States for people to get local, fresh produce. And that’s just it: we have these options! We have the luxury of the variety and the personal benefits of buying locally. But I personally didn’t take these opportunities seriously enough or appreciate them enough before I left. Living in Rwanda has made me want to become a much more conscious and intentional consumer when it comes to my food. When I’m back, I want to make healthier food decisions that boost both my health and my immediate economy.

Of course, produce isn’t the only thing we eat. Many of us also eat meat, and my perspective on meat has changed during my time here as well. While my ideas about fruits and vegetables have changed as a result of positive observations, my ideas about meat have unfortunately come about in a more negative way.

Especially since Ryan and I adopted Rafiki, I have struggled immensely with the way people here treat animals. While some animals, like cows, are greatly appreciated for what they produce, in general animals are treated with very little integrity. Many are beaten and kicked, if not outright then in an effort to keep them in line while traveling. Most are not washed or brushed, leaving them dirty, cold and infested with fleas and ticks. Even cows are often tied up in the same place for a while, which means they stand in their own waste for days. Understandably, many are malnourished. Cows, goats, sheep, and chickens are piled by the dozens into the backs of trucks with no regard whatsoever for the dangers and discomforts of being crammed so tightly and made to stay that way for hours of travel.

The saddest thing about this is that this happens all over the world, including in the United States. Meat in the States is often mass-produced from animals that are treated without any compassion and with no respect for the fact that they are living, thinking, fearing, feeling creatures. They grow in crowded quarters, sometimes never even seeing daylight. I love my steak and chicken just as much as the next person, but there’s no reason an animal should have to live such a miserable life so I can satisfy a craving.

All that being said, though, there are better options for meat available at home as well. Many local farmers aren’t only growing produce; they’re also raising animals in a compassionate way and working to ensure they have as painless a death as possible. I know it’s often more expensive to buy these types of meats, and maybe they don’t taste like what we’re used to. But most of us don’t need as much meat as we’re getting anyway, and I’m willing to adjust to a slightly different taste if it means supporting a farmer who shares my beliefs about the rights of living creatures.

So back to the subject at hand: how my Peace Corps experience has changed me. I realize all of this food talk isn’t exactly “development” oriented, and probably isn’t what a reader expects from a PCV. And regardless of how it may sound, I didn’t write this as a roundabout way of criticizing Americans’ food choices. For me, Peace Corps has basically been a huge mirror – one of those with all the lights and magnifying options that shows you every single imperfection you never wanted to see. The mirror is forced in front of me daily, and I constantly see my own country and the way I lived my life before I came here. Sometimes I love and am proud of what I see, sometimes I’m ashamed, and a lot of the time I don’t even recognize what I’m seeing.

The food system here has been among the few glimpses in that mirror I actually can recognize, and for now the way it’s changing my mind and heart is one of the most exciting improvements I’m seeing in myself. In this respect, living here has made me want to be a more informed and more purposeful citizen of my own country. And I have to say, I do believe that is worth documenting.

Corn hanging from a neighbor's roof. I know, I need a better picture of this.
Another neighbor's potatoes.

“A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic, inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist on that critter, will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling-type mentality.”

- Polyface Farms Owner Joel Salatin in an interview in Food, Inc.

"It's raining with no tea!" -D

I know I've been delinquent in posting, and to those of you who try to keep up with my blog, I do sincerely apologize. Rather than lament over the last few undocumented months, though, I thought I'd give you a brief recap so I can start posting about the present soon.

In late April, Ryan and I adopted the new love of our lives: our puppy Rafiki. It was actually an impulse decision based almost solely on the cuteness of another adopted puppy we saw, but 5 months later we could not be happier with our decision.

Having a dog in Rwanda is no easy task, though. Rwandans, understandably, don't typically have household pets; why worry about another mouth to feed? Unfortunately, though, many people treat these animals with outright hostility even if they have owners. It's been a struggle just to teach people to see Rafiki as a thinking, feeling creature, much less to actually warm up to her and like her. Ryan and I have both had small successes with this element of cross-cultural exchange, though, and I personally have come to consider those successes among my proudest accomplishments here.

Rafiki on the day we got her, at about one month old. Her name means friend in Swahili.

Rafiki at about 5 months old. I chose this picture not only because it shows how much she's grown, but also because it shows one of her quirky idiosyncrasies: awkward sleeping positions.

In May, Ryan and I happily celebrated our one-year anniversary. Our gift to ourselves was to finally visit one of Rwanda's most infamous tourist attractions: the mountain gorillas. We were able to get within a few feet of most of them during our hour-long visit to their home. It was an incredible experience!

Ryan and I with the Agashya group of gorillas just a few feet behind us.

In June, a group of volunteers from my class finished the pilot program for teaching English to Rwandan judges and court staff. Although we only taught the classes for four months, I think I can speak on behalf of all of us when I say what an exciting experience it was to be able to work with a group of adult professionals who were committed to improving their English skills. The pilot program was a major success and will continue next year even after my class is gone.

The judges and court staff with their certificates for successfully completing the pilot program.

July marked the last month of the painfully long second term, as well as one of my favorite holidays: American Independence Day! I try very hard to be open-minded and avoid ethnocentricity, but know this: living in Rwanda makes me very proud to be American. So Ryan, Sally, myself, and our dogs got dressed up in our most American gear and had ourselves a party.

Ryan, Sally, and I posing for the self-timer to show off our American pride on the 4th of July.

And finally, August. Peace Corps policy is to have a close-of-service (COS) conference roughly 90 days before COS. So last month our group officially came together for the last time to celebrate and commiserate. Although we all came from different places in the States, dispersed to different places after a few weeks in Rwanda, and have certainly had our highs and (very) lows throughout the last 23 months, this is a group that I am very proud to be a part of.

ED 1 celebrating the light at the end of the tunnel!

Now it's September and I'm down to one last school term and a few months at site. More to come on how that feels.

"So many Americans! But if they are like you it's okay." -H

Over the weekend I went with two of my colleagues and four of my former students to a conference in Kibuye, a nice little lake town in the west of Rwanda. A lot of the conference was information – HIV/AIDS, Sexual and Gender Based Violence – that most Peace Corps Volunteers could recite in our sleep, but it was undoubtedly an exciting and informative experience for most of the Rwandans there.

Health volunteers have trainings and conferences like this somewhat frequently, but this was my first time to go to an event with people from my community. For most of the people with me it was their first time to Kibuye so part of the excitement for them was just getting to see another part of their own country. We stayed in a nice centre right on the lake and spent a couple afternoons teaching students to swim and sending them off on their first boat rides. The food was delicious and frequent, and one colleague joked that he finally understands now why I’m always so hungry.

In addition to all of this luxury, though, I’m confident that my colleagues and students left the conference armed with information that just a few days before was almost foreign to them. We discussed HIV/AIDS in numerous contexts, and it was incredibly eye-opening to see how our community members have interpreted information and come to conclusions about such a prominent issue. Some attendees, for example, understood for the first time that a person can be born HIV positive. This small and seemingly simple realization could ultimately lead to a new outlook and reduced stigma about people living with HIV/AIDS because it means that they may not have willingly engaged in any behavior that so many people associate with contracting the virus.

We also discussed Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. Unfortunately SGBV is very common in Rwanda and often goes unreported and/or overlooked. One woman at the conference was extremely persistent in getting an answer from the presenter and the attendees about why any woman should report her husband for sexually abusing their children when she knows that he is the breadwinner and all of their lives will become more difficult if he isn’t able to work and bring money home.

On one hand I think if I were a Rwandan student leaving that conference, I would be more afraid than before of what might happen to me if I chose to indulge in any of the activities that are associated with curious, hormonal teenagers all over the world. Throughout numerous discussions, declarations ranged from school leaders insisting they would expel students if they publicly announced that they were in a committed relationship, to girls saying they felt would be at least partly blamed if they were raped after consuming alcohol, to an attendee insisting that infidelity is a result of men not being legally allowed to take multiple wives.

On the other hand, though, I’d like to think that if I were a Rwandan student leaving that conference, I would see that while my community may not yet be a collective organism I could turn to, Peace Corps Volunteers are. I know my students made connections with other volunteers at the conference, and I would like to think that they left it knowing they have our support. I would also like to think they left it feeling motivated, responsible, and most of all informed and able to make a difference within their communities.

Peace Corps above all is a development organization with the aim of sustainability. Essentially anything a volunteer does – from individual tutoring to building community wells – is done with the intent that in a relatively short amount of time that same project could be maintained whether a volunteer was around or not. And that, in itself, is what the conference was for me. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders and a liberating reminder that I am only a tiny fraction of a small part of the changes that will happen in this community. It was an opportunity to watch my colleagues and students take on the social responsibility of improving people’s lives that I have unnecessarily been carrying alone. I’m back at site now feeling, probably for the first time, like maybe I’m finally starting to have the relationship with my community that Peace Corps wants me to have. Not bad for a 17 months into service, right?

All of us at the conference!

"Those poor passengers don't know whether to stare at us or the baboons." -P

They told us this in training, but I’m really starting to understand how important it is to relish in small victories. Though few and far between in the unrelenting deluge of losses, those small victories are the only things keeping me here. Yes, it’s been an incredible learning experience and I’ve met people I hope to know for the rest of my life, but I could leave now and still have those things. I could be on the next flight to the land of the free and I wouldn’t be giving up those memories or those relationships. But I won’t be on the next flight out. I’ll be here for another cycle of my nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays and spend another Thanksgiving away from my family. I’ll stay here for another nine months, hoping for just few more small victories like these:

I started this year’s English clubs earlier this month, and as I was going around to classrooms to make the announcement it was very clear that the students I taught last year understood and could respond to every word I said, whereas the students I didn’t teach got next to nothing out of the announcement. I’m sure there are numerous reasons for this, many of which have nothing to do with me. And of course I hope and will work for the best for all of the students at my school, but I have to admit it’s incredibly encouraging to be able to see and hear the tiny difference that I made for my students last year.

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Two weeks ago, as part of a new secondary project between volunteers and another organization, I taught an English class to a group of Rwandan judges and court staff. This program is brand new and, as with most pilot programs, it has kinks and will be developed through a lot of trial and error. Nonetheless, spending my Saturday morning with that group of people was a joy. Watching high-ranking, professional men and women struggle courageously through group presentations and exercises, making mistakes and welcoming both positive and negative feedback from their peers and from me, reminded me of the importance of my commitment to this country and to people like them in particular.

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Last week I wrapped up the first term of my new role at school: full time teacher-trainer and advisor to teachers. Since each term ends with exams, I decided to make the last session a methodology training about writing assessments. I was very impressed with all of the thoughtful questions teachers asked at the end of the session and felt like the term ended on a high note. While I was walking home, one teacher came and thanked me for all the sessions we’ve done. He told me that when he saw there would be some methodology training, he couldn’t imagine what there could possibly be to learn about teaching. “But now I am seeing there are many things to learn about being a good teacher,” he said, “and it is very interesting to me.”

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Maybe how ‘small’ these victories are is debatable, and maybe ten years from now I’ll realize I should be giving myself more credit. Or maybe I’ll realize I’m not really accomplishing anything and my time in Rwanda has little to do with development and is more about personal connections and experiencing another culture. Either way, these are the types of things that keep me going.

"This year with you, I think it will be my chance." - E

In the beginning when I was preparing for life in Rwanda, I was pretty certain that I wouldn’t come home during my service. You always hear that going home makes you not want to come back to your host country and that it’s better for you emotionally if you can just tough it out. “Two years is not that long in the grand scheme of things,” I told everybody who asked about my travel plans. And, while that statement is certainly true, as the one-year-in-Rwanda mark approached, toughing anything out for any reason pretty much went completely out the window.

So Ryan and I found good deals on tickets out of Tanzania and decided to come home together and make a real adventure out of the whole trip.

It started with an approximately 27-hour bus ride from Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Rwanda is such a tiny country that only three of those hours were actually spent driving here, whereas all the rest were in Tanzania. Ryan and I were surprised to find that people piled into this bus – sitting on armchairs (mine), standing and sleeping in the aisles – as though they were getting on for a quick trip down the road. We did manage to snag a $3 bed for a few hours at the midnight rest stop, but I’m pretty sure all that comfortable sleep was completely negated by the physical and mental toll it took on us when woke up realizing we hadn’t set our phones forward an hour and were running an hour behind.

Ryan studied abroad in Dar es Salaam in college, so we were warmly greeted by his host family at the bus station when we arrived. They were so kind to us, cramming our huge bags into their compact car and taking us back to their house for a quick meal before we had to get back to the port to catch a ferry to Zanzibar.

ZANZIBAR! I can’t decide if I want to tell people to try to go and risk it actually becoming a commercial tourist attraction, or keep it to myself so it could potentially be the exact same when I’m able to go again. Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania. It’s paradise, literally. The sand is white, the water is clear, the weather is perfect. Ryan snagged us a room in a guesthouse, and fortunately for us the guy who manages it is also a local fisherman. When we told him we wanted to go snorkeling, we paid a few bucks to tag along on a fishing boat, watching as they caught octopuses and fish with their bare hands, speared eels, and spotted obscure poisonous creatures that had me convinced my time in paradise would have a tragic end. The following day, we went swimming with dolphins in the Indian Ocean! I am still so completely in awe of that experience; nothing I could say would do it justice. They were so close we could see them perfectly even when they were scratching their backs on the ocean floor, and never seemed affected at all by our presence. It was incredible!

Being back in the States was overwhelming but amazing. My only regret is that it was such a short, whirlwind trip. We spent a little time in DC on both ends of the trip and visited Texas and Seattle in between. Everyone in both of our families went above and beyond anything Ryan and I could have hoped for in terms of making us feel welcome and comfortable. And yes, coming back was absolutely excruciating. And yes, it was worth it.

After a number of delays and a few choice words with airlines about baggage fees, we landed back in Tanzania with just a couple of hours to spare before we had to get back on a bus for another 25+ hour ride. We actually did almost get left behind at one point on this trip, but thanks to Ryan’s unparalleled ability to chase buses while simultaneously running sideways and calling my name, we barely made it.

This time, because of bus schedules, we had to go up through Kenya and back down through Uganda to get into Rwanda. Since we would’ve had to pay the visa fees either way, we made plans with two other volunteers to spend New Year’s Eve in Uganda together. The other two volunteers went white water rafting while we tried to get our heads back on straight, and then we all went bungee jumping together on New Year’s Day. Ryan and I did a tandem jump, which is absolutely the way to go if you need a little push. It was incredibly thrilling and surprisingly painful, but certainly an exciting element to add to an already amazing trip!

After another nine hours into Kigali and then three more to my site, I was back in my house and back to my Rwandan life. School started about a week later and we’re now a couple weeks into the first term. I miss home and it’s lonely at site, but things are slowly getting back to normal. Whatever that is.

The beautiful beach in Jambiani, Zanzibar.

"If I were pilot I would eat banana in atmosphere." -J

I have officially taught for an entire academic year in Rwanda! The hours and days have crawled by but somehow the year has flown.

Reflecting on the past year, I can say without a doubt that I have learned more than I have accomplished, as I’m sure will be the case for the rest of my Peace Corps experience. I feel like I know more with every day that passes, which of course means I still probably know essentially nothing. Nonetheless, it’s really incredible to think about how different next year will inevitably be with what little knowledge I do have going into it.

On one hand, I’m absolutely ecstatic about the ideas I have for improving my school next year and the possibility of seeing any of them manifest into real, effective projects. On the other hand, I have so many of these ideas that part of me reacts to it the way some of us do when our to-do list is too long to finish: retreat and do nothing. I can’t get away with that, of course, neither personally nor professionally, but I’d be lying if I said it’s not all incredibly overwhelming. It certainly makes me appreciate even more the value of being here two years as opposed to one; I didn’t know anything when I got here and I can’t imagine how defeated I would feel if this experience were ending now, right as I’m scratching the surface of how to potentially have an impact.

As much I’m pinning my hopes and dreams on next year, though, this year certainly hasn’t been without its exceptional moments. I did end up having the reading stations that I mentioned in a previous blog, and I feel like I can’t even express what a pleasure it was to watch so many of my students relaxed, with books, learning from each other and enjoying reading.

I’ve also seen a number of my students become more confident in speaking English, whether or not they know as much English as some of the other students. When we were doing reading stations, one group had a book about wild animals. They wanted to discuss what the book said about hunting, so I asked them to think about whether it would be good or bad if people started killing the gorillas here in Rwanda. One of the boys, among the lowest in the class in terms of grades, exhausted what seemed like every expression he could think of to be a part of the discussion. I am so proud of him not only for trying to speak English, but also for thinking seriously and critically about the question I asked – a task that has been more difficult than expected with these students.

Overall, I couldn’t have asked for an experience that asked more of me. I know here in Rwanda I’m not on either of the extreme ends of the Peace Corps spectrum, but I am in a place where my skills, patience, and compassion are stretched constantly. Every single day I am forced to analyze what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and, most importantly, how I could be doing it better. And, in the end, isn’t that really what it’s all about?

One group of students at a reading station. This book was a big hit with every group because it has a pair of pop-up 3D glasses to examine the insects.

"Teacher, so a gang is like a group of punks?" -G

Last weekend I got on a bus to go to a nearby town, and one of my students was sitting on the bus. She was sitting with her son, who looks to be around 6 or 7. She was dressed in the clothes that only women wear (to be a woman here is to be married, especially with children) and had her arm around the boy just like a mother would. My student. Keep in mind, I am teaching Senior 2, which is about 8^th grade. In Rwanda, because you can go back to school whenever you’re able, it’s perfectly common for the youngest student in a class to be 10 years younger than the oldest . I have students who are 12 and 13, and I have students who are older than me, married and with children. And sometimes their children go to the same school. Imagine me, 23 years old, asking a married woman with children why she doesn’t have her homework.

Age also affects credibility. In the States, while we don’t necessarily expect recent college graduates to be wise with experience, there is a certain level of respect for someone who has finished university and has a Bachelor’s degree, even if they are only 23 years old. In Rwanda, being 23 years old and having finished university is essentially unheard of, and except to the well-educated themselves it certainly doesn’t mean a person knows anything. So it’s understandable, then, that to my colleagues, I am basically a child. And I don’t mean the kind of child that just made my mom say out loud, “But you are a child.” I know I’m young. But here I am a child.

Needless to say, this is frustrating on too many levels. When my colleagues can hardly even fathom that I could possibly teach them anything besides the English language and how to physically use a computer, it makes it difficult to make any significant changes within the school system. And when they’re not required to have university degrees to teach at the level we teach, why would they appreciate the fact that I do?

As frustrating as it is to be considered a child, I must admit it comes with its advantages. For one, I absolutely love playing with children. For an adult to do that here is pretty out of the ordinary, so the fact that I’m technically still considered a kid myself means that I can get away with a lot more playtime than I could if I were an adult. And if being so obviously not Rwandese isn’t enough, being a foreign child carries me a long way through those inevitable cultural faux pas.

And, to be fair, my colleagues are in no way disrespectful or condescending to me. It’s just that they sometimes casually avoid trainings or workshops. No big deal, right?

"Please, I speakn't English." -H

We’re into our third week of the last term of the year and so far everything has been significantly better than both previous terms. A variety of things at school are finally starting to fall into place, and I’m feeling more comfortable teaching than I have since I’ve been here.

Because it’s difficult for students to find time to go to our new library (and because, let’s face it, they’re frightened) I decided I want to try having book stations in my classroom next week. In preparation for that, I’ve been taking my students to the library in small groups this week to give them some time to choose books they would like to see in the book stations.

I cannot even begin to express what an absolute joy it has been watching them look through the books. For one, books and libraries are so new to them that they have no real concept of trying to keep books in order or even of putting them on the shelves with the spines out. When I noticed this and did a mini-lesson on the importance of the books’ spines, they refused to trust the front cover as an acceptable place to find the name of a book. Again, because books are so new and their English is so basic, even my oldest students felt absolutely no shame in writing down Baby’s First Colors as a book they would like to read. Boys were writing down princess books, and girls were writing down tractor and machinery books. One student found a book with dialogues and speech bubbles and I watched as she recited the entire dialogue to herself, complete with facial expressions and everything.

I’ve also been doing exercises with my students in class to work on determining and improving their reading speed, and it’s been really exciting to see their enthusiasm and eagerness to beat the highest words-per-minute rate in the class.

Even with these gratifying improvements in the classroom, though, the system as a whole is certainly not without its frustrations.

Today, for example, I arrived at school a few minutes before 7, which is when classes are supposed to begin. I had planned a jeopardy-like game to review the verb tenses we’ve covered so far and had to wait 15 minutes to get tape from the office so I could tape the game cards onto the chalkboard. When I walked into class 15 minutes after it was supposed to have begun, only half of my students were there. Nonetheless, I began to divide them into teams so we could start the game. Shortly after they started moving to sit with their teams, I noticed that almost every student at school was actually standing outside of the classrooms. A few minutes later a teacher came into my classroom and either made an announcement or gave some orders. Since the teacher said everything in Kinyarwanda and either didn’t think or didn’t bother to tell me in English what had just been said, I had no idea why all my students were suddenly picking up their desks and taking them outside the classroom.

Several minutes of confusion later, I was able to find out from a student that they had been told to leave the classroom so a few students could clean it-which is why most of the students in the school were standing outside. Of course, not one of the students chosen to clean any of the classrooms was a boy. If you’re asking yourself whether or not this was really an appropriate time to stop all learning and clean, I’m right there with you.

Needless to say, the entire first period was lost. At that point I was down to one hour to teach this class a game they had never played before, as well as to make sure what little time they had to play actually did prepare them for the quiz at the end of the week.

Inevitably, a few minutes after teams were established and all the game cards were on the chalkboard, another teacher came to do a uniform check. Since half of my students were wearing jackets in the frigid, rainy weather, they had to leave. Perfect. We began the game with about half the amount of students each team had a few minutes before, and about halfway through the game the rest of the students, clueless about rules, points, and procedures, were allowed to join their teammates.

Later in the day when I stopped by a class to make an announcement about an after-school meeting, I walked into the classroom to find that the students were being read their rights. Which rights, I’m not completely sure. And why their rights are being read to them nine months into the school year is absolutely beyond me.

Here’s to a great third term, and almost a year in Rwanda!

"The student who sit behind me try to cheat every time."* -D

Exams. Sigh.

Students here don’t have pre-made answer sheets, scantrons, etc. They also don’t write their answers on the test, like we usually do in the States. Instead, they write their answers on regular, blank sheets of paper. In order to avoid cheating, each piece of paper has to be stamped with the official school stamp before it’s given to a student. This way we know they aren’t turning in something they wrote before the actual exam. Each student (there are about 1,000 of them at my school) is required to contribute one clean notebook to the school for us to stamp and give to students as answer sheets.

This term (and last term), nobody began stamping the books until the Monday that exams started. Each notebook has about 96 pages. This means that even if only 10 students brought notebooks, we would still have 960 pages to stamp before we could start exams. And for most exams, the students need 2 or 3 pages to record their answers.

We have three levels at my secondary school: 1^st form, 2^nd form, and 3^rd form (basically 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grade). Again, in order to avoid cheating, students are divided for exams. So room 1, for example, will have approximately 25 students from 2^nd form and approximately 45 students from 1^st form. There are more students in 1^st form than in any other form, so many classrooms have twice the amount of 1^st form students as 2^nd form students. Due to the number of students per room they are often required to sit 3 to a table, almost completely defeating the purpose of dividing them to avoid cheating.

As teachers, we are assigned a different room to supervise every day. To find out which room we are supposed to supervise, we consult a document that has a list of our names with our room numbers. Then, we have to find the one teacher that has the one document that says which students are in which classroom. Once we know which and how many students we have, we have to find the teacher whose exam the students are taking and ask them for the number we need.

This term, the director of my school decided that students who hadn’t brought notebooks couldn’t take exams until they did. Naturally, that sent more than half of the students into a frenzy, some of them choosing to try to beg their ways to forgiveness, others leaving school to go buy notebooks. Students who did bring notebooks were fighting to make sure they got their stamped papers, or at least that their names were on the list. After about 45 minutes of this, the director rescinded the new rule and announced that all students would be able to take exams. We started exams about 2 hours late.

As for the students, I really feel for them. Imagine how you would feel if you had to take at least half or your exams in a language you weren’t comfortable with, crammed between two other students on a wooden bench, with primary school students coming to your classroom window for no reason other than to distract you. I’m honestly surprised (though grateful) that I haven’t had any students storm out in a fit of rage. Not that that’s what I would do.

*The quote for this post is from a student's quiz. I asked them to write sentences with certain prepositions, and that's what one student wrote for 'behind.'

“I can see on your bag and your shirt of Texas that you love very much the head of cow.” -G

The babies are changing. I have officially been here long enough for babies who couldn’t really walk or talk when I got here to waddle over to me and call me by name. And long enough for babies who weren’t even born yet when I got here to laugh and hold their heads up. Obviously I knew that would happen, but it just hit me that it’s been long enough now.

We start exams at school next week, which marks the end of my second term of teaching here in Rwanda. Although I do feel confident enough to say that the second term was a pretty solid improvement from the first, I still have moments when I feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Of course, that’s not actually true and I am undoubtedly my harshest critic. For example, I have made a little progress on the ‘l’ and ‘r’ front. In order to drive home the concept that in English l’s and r’s cannot be interchanged without changing the meaning of a word, I decided to teach the difference between clap and crap. Now, despite my insisting that crap is not a word to be used in school or with people other than close friends, my students have permanently modified “Teacher, may I leave the room?” to “Teacher, may I go to crap?”

*Ironically enough, on my way from writing this blog entry to the Internet to post it, about 100 birds went crazy and Ryan and I got crapped on about 5 times.

On a more serious note, though, I am consistently surprised at how difficult this job can be. I’ve started giving my students more notes to copy to make it easier for them to study for quizzes and exams. But inevitably, no matter how much I try to simplify them, half of the class doesn’t even understand the notes. This makes me wonder how they ever learn anything in their other classes that are taught in English, which definitely have more complex vocabulary than mine. One difference, though, is that they are usually tested on concepts and rules rather than application. For example, many English tests would ask what an adverb is (a definition they could memorize without actually understanding) rather than require a student to identify or use one. This isn’t the case across the board, of course, but it’s been a struggle for my students to learn to think critically about the information as well as to actually use it for communication.

Nonetheless, I’m proud of my students and teachers for the progress they’ve made and am looking forward to one more term with my students!

Penny, Katy and I showing our love for the red, white, and blue. USA!

"Well I had pet ducks at the time, so it must have been freshman year." -K

A few days after my last blog post, my friend Shelby took 10 days out of her already jam-packed summer travel schedule to come all the way to Rwanda to visit me! It was so great to see and spend time with somebody from home, and very interesting to see my environment and job through completely new eyes.

Shelby spent a month in Ghana last summer helping to build and create a library, so she was an enormous help to me in the library I’m trying to start at my school. She also came to class with me that week and helped me do a couple of projects I’ve been wanting to do with my students but have been afraid to try alone. (Did I tell you that my student-to-teacher ratio is about 50 to 1?)

One of the projects we did yielded some very interesting and entertaining results. Shelby and I took about 100 pages from the magazines I have (thanks Colleen, Mom, and Mandy! And anybody else who sent me magazines that I haven’t gotten yet) and passed them out among the students. I told them to look at several of the pages and write 5 things they saw in the United States that they like and 5 things they don’t like. Naturally, there were a lot of students who liked kitchen appliances, good-looking movie stars and musicians they know, and the few foods they recognized. Dislikes included people with too little clothing, ugly shoes, and foods they didn’t recognize, among others.

One thing that was interesting about this project was how hung up the students got on knowing the names of the people they were writing about! They were constantly asking Shelby and I for the names of every single person they saw, so I paused the project to do an impromptu mini-lesson on reading captions. After that a few of the students got brave enough to write their sentences without our help. One student in particular had a paper full of gems-both in terms of caption reading and general thought processes. Enjoy a few!

I like Trident White because she has a long hair.

I do not like Victoria Beckham because she is hungry.

I do not like BL Golden Wheat because I do not know what is it?

Shelby and I did get to go to Nyungwe National Park, and although exactly nothing went according to schedule and we didn’t get to see any chimpanzees, it was still a beautiful hike and I’m glad she got to see the Rwanda that lies beyond my classroom.

The following week was our IST, or In-Service Training, in Gisenyi. I’m only about 40 kilometers from Gisenyi but somehow this was my first time there. It certainly won’t be the last, though; it’s absolutely gorgeous there! It was so good to see my group again, and a huge relief to hear that I’m not alone in the things I’m struggling with at school and site. We had a number of really great sessions, one of which was by two representatives from the Project Wet Foundation, a great non-profit that specializes in water education. They gave us a handful of excellent materials and activities to bring back to our schools to help encourage healthy water practices and they gave us candy!

It’s been a whirlwind few weeks but things are starting to settle down and I’m slowly getting back into my routine. I do find it almost unfathomable, though, that it’s June already.

Love and miss you all.

Shelby and I in Nyungwe National Park.

A few volunteers swimming at IST in Gisenyi.

"I like so much the work of the Americans. When you interfere, it is very interesting to me." -V

In early March all of the volunteers in my education group received an email from a USAID representative regarding books for primary school students. She said that USAID had decided to fund an entire shipment of books from Books for Africa and wanted us to have the opportunity to put our schools’ names on the list to receive some of them. Of course I responded immediately, as I work for a poor school with absolutely no library or books to speak of.

A few weeks later I was told that my supervisor was working with USAID to choose a school for the official “Handing Over Ceremony” and that my school was on the short list. About a week after that I was informed that because my school is a 9-year basic education school, has no library system, and is severely lacking in teaching resources in general, we were chosen to host the ceremony! All of our students were absolutely thrilled to receive the United States Ambassador to Rwanda on our campus, along with other guests from USAID and the local media. We received over 600 books, and students and teachers alike are showing an incredible eagerness to visit our new library.

I spend most of my time now between and after classes working to create an entire library system from scratch. I’ve stamped all the books with our official school seal and am trying to establish a catalogue system, timetables and rules, and most importantly, training programs that establish a reading culture and show teachers and students how to use library books most effectively. It’s a daunting task but one that I am ecstatic to take on.

I have to acknowledge, though, that my school and me were extremely fortunate to have been given these books at absolutely no cost. Books for Africa is an amazing organization that sends books from the United States to Africa after you raise 25% of the shipping costs in your African community and the other 75% from donors in the States. However, for this particular shipment, USAID and the U.S. Embassy covered 100% of the costs!

This won’t happen again, though, which is why we need your help! I’m working with a group of volunteers to get another shipment of books here to Rwanda so that our libraries can continue to grow. This time, though, we’ll have to raise the money ourselves. If you’re interested in donating to our book project through Books for Africa, please let me know so I can get you the information. Our students are so eager to learn and read, and the more books we have in our new library for them to explore the grander their ideas about their futures become. You should see their faces when they see pictures and read about things they’ve never even heard of - dolphins, space ships, even snow!!

Here a couple of excerpts I particularly enjoyed from thank-you letters I had my students write after we received the books:

…is the first time we have library at G.S. Mukamira. When they are in those books what you sent to us I’ll know more. I’ll read the books to increase my experiances and I’ll teach my brothers and my sister those experiances.

…because those books are help me to known English. God Bress you for those books. Rwanda is in East African Community so English is very good for me. When I finish university I will go in America and know very well English.

…because every day you think to me and you send books for help me know English also English is my favorite language.

I tried for an HOUR to upload a picture of kids with books. I'll try again next time!

On a totally unrelated note, thanks so much to all of you for your sweet birthday wishes! I celebrated with friends in Kigali and couldn’t have asked for a better birthday in Rwanda.

Love and miss you all.

"You type so fast it is like music! Maybe next time I will dance." -J

I have writer’s block. I’m thinking it’s a good thing, though. I think it means that my life here feels more normal and less out of the ordinary. Nonetheless, I know I owe you for lost time!

The first round of exams was quite an experience! Since we only have one functioning computer at school and most people don’t know how to use it, one of my responsibilities was to help a colleague type all of the exams, which he then took to a shop and paid to have copies made. Typing 30-ish exams in three different languages reminded me of how impressed I am with all of our students and their abilities to float between languages in different classes. They study a few classes in English, a few in French, and a few in Kinyarwanda. Their tests obviously reflect their classes, which means they took exams in all three languages as well.

During exam week, students were scheduled to take two exams per day. They were divided into classes with students from other grades so it would be more difficult for them to cheat. Teachers were assigned certain classes to supervise and expected to walk around and monitor classrooms where their exam was being taken.

On Wednesday of exam week, we were informed that Friday was a national holiday and students would not come to school. Since the schedule had already been made to include exams that Friday, the students had to stay on Thursday and take four exams. They were troopers!

April 7 marked the first day of Genocide Commemoration Week. Although the commemoration officially lasts for 100 days-the number of days the genocide was perpetuated in 1994-the first seven days are the official days of mourning and ceremonies are held every afternoon throughout the country in remembrance of all the Rwandans who lost their lives 16 years ago.

I’m not comfortable writing about the week, but if you’re interested a couple of fellow volunteers- Julie Ann and Penny- did post some insightful thoughts and impressions . In fact, I recommend reading both of their blogs regularly!

I went back to Nyanza for a couple days to do tech sessions for the health trainees, and I do still miss that place like nobody’s business. It feels so comfortable.

School is now back in session and I’m working on starting a small library-details to come!

Love and miss you all.

"He wants me to tell you that heaven is a wonderful place because when we are there we will all speak the same language." -K

As my first term of teaching English in Rwanda comes to a close, I know that I am only scratching the surface of what the next 21 months of teaching will be like. Of course, in many ways, I have a much greater understanding of the school system and my role in it than I did in early February. But it many more ways I still have absolutely no idea how I can make myself most useful here. Many of you have asked about the differences between schools here and in the United States, so I thought I’d highlight some of those for you.

Logistically, a class day is run much differently from what I’m used to. For one, teachers rotate instead of students. The students stay in one classroom all day long, and when one class is over that teacher leaves and another teacher comes in. My school has several hundred students and there is no electronic bell system, so as far as time and chaos are concerned it makes sense for students to stay in one place rather than run all over school every hour. They understandably become very tired and restless, though, making afternoon classes extremely difficult. Also, this means that teachers don’t have offices or classrooms of our own. We bring all the materials we need with us to class and leave with them when we’re finished teaching. It also means we don’t hang maps, pictures, or students’ work in the classroom.

I work at a public school, and students are in class from 7 am to 2 pm. My school can’t afford to provide lunch, so unless the students have money and can run to a bread stand on their 20-minute noon break, they don’t eat until they’re finished with classes.

We just got textbooks last week, and there aren’t enough for every student to have one. If I want to use a textbook for class, I have to ask a couple of students to go to the teacher work-room and get enough for everyone, bring them to class, and then take them back when my class is over. We have no science labs and no library. Science teachers teach mostly theory, with the exception of a few very small and resource-limited experiments. Students don’t read for luxury, and since they can’t take textbooks home, if I want them to study something they have to copy the entire thing into their notebooks. We also have only 3 computers, none of which function properly at the moment. The ICT teachers have to teach students how to use a computer by writing instructions on the chalkboard and trying to help them imagine what it would be like to actually do it on the computer.

The classrooms are brick buildings with several huge windows for light and air. The roofs are made of tin, which makes it practically impossible to teach when it’s raining because the students can’t hear anything I’m saying over the loud rain.

Teaching in general in Rwanda is also regarded differently from how it is at home. University students often get jobs as teachers to pay their way through college. They come with no teaching experience other than what they know from being a student, and are rarely given any training. On top of that, without a bachelor’s degree they only make about $50 a month. Even teachers with a degree only make about $100 a month. Low pay and practically no teaching resources make it very difficult to motivate teachers to try to teach in a way that keeps their students interested.

I can’t say that I blame them at all or that I would feel differently in their situations. The question now, of course, is what I can possibly do to change any of this.

Love and miss you all.

"Oh, I don't mind that it's in my tea. I just feel bad for the bug." -P

One of the many things I learned at KIPP was the value of including specific time allotments in a lesson plan and sticking as closely to the numbers as possible during the actual lesson. This not only keeps the teacher on track and organized, but it also allows students to stay focused and pace themselves because they know exactly how much time they have for any given activity. I knew this was a practice I wanted to continue in Rwanda, so I brought a timer. In KIPP classrooms, timers are very commonplace and students know exactly what they are for and how to respond when one goes off. Here in Mukamira, however, teachers and students alike thought my timer was hilarious! My students laugh every time it rings, and when I’m in the teacher room my colleagues love to joke about it and ask me to show it to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. They do understand and appreciate its use, though, and with classes of 40 and 50 I’m happy to be able to help students while they’re working instead of constantly looking at my phone for the time.

Many of my students still don’t understand me a lot of the time, but we are all getting better at communicating with each other. One thing I didn’t think about before coming here, although it seems painfully obvious now, was how difficult it is to teach English in a country other than my own. When teaching English in the States, it’s actually valuable for students to learn to pronounce words the way I do. American idioms, which are really fun to teach, are also useful if you actually live there. Here, though, it’s completely different. There is really no reason for my students to try to pronounce words the way I do because I’m the only one that will understand them if they do. Nonetheless, they are forced to learn to understand a pronunciation style that only one person in Mukamira uses (me, of course).

One advantage they do have, though, is that most of them have been using or learning to use more than one language since they were very young. It’s very common in many places outside of the United States, and especially in Africa, for people to be multilingual. In fact, most people here are astonished to learn that I don’t speak French. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “You speak English only?” Sometimes I offer a little Spanish, but unfortunately that is absolutely useless here and certainly doesn’t impress anyone.

Two weeks ago, Christine, a colleague of Penny’s and a friend of both of ours, took us to visit some caves in Musanze. It was rainy and slippery and slightly reminiscent of Bisoke, but the sights were beautiful nonetheless. Christine told us that you can actually begin in one of the caves and make your way through to exit from another across the road, but since we forgot flashlights we chose to save that adventure for another time. Christine also has an adorable 3-year-old nephew named Richie and a baby niece named Bella. Penny gave Richie a harmonica when we arrived, which provided an endless amount of entertainment for all of us. Bella’s mom also taught me how to carry a baby on my back! This is how most women in Africa carry their babies, and I’ve wanted to do it since we arrived. A couple of women here in Mukamira have asked me how we carry babies in the States, but unfortunately with my limited Kinyarwanda I think my description of strollers has led them to believe we just push babies around in chairs. Yikes!

Love and miss you all.

The view from inside one of the caves in Musanze.

Me and baby Bella! In Kinyarwanda, tying a baby onto your back is called guheka.

"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.

"I think if you love God, you will give me an Engish book." -H

Since school doesn’t begin until February 1^st, I have a lot of time on my hands. Fortunately, visiting neighbors is a pretty serious cultural expectation in Rwanda, so I am able to spend a significant amount of each day just going from house to house, practicing my Kinyarwanda and getting to know my community. Although the lack of activity has made it extremely difficult to keep my mind off of all of you at home, I think in the long-run I will be very grateful for this time I’ve had to establish relationships with the people in my neighborhood.

There has been some excitement, though, and fortunately lately it hasn’t involved any accidental trips to the military camp. For one, my house was painted! When I arrived the walls inside were just the color of the concrete, which is how many houses here are. Peace Corps asked them to paint, though, and I am so thankful for that! I didn’t actually intend for my house to be yellow when I chose cream, but it’s probably not a bad idea to spend the next two years surrounded by one of the most cheerful colors there is.

After a long week of painting and cleaning, on Saturday I went with a few friends to climb a volcano (inactive, of course)! Climbing Bisoke was all together one of the most miserable and exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had. It was 12,000-plus feet up, and of course not one of us considered the fact that it might be easier if we waited to go until after the rainy season. I’ll admit it: I did consider just knocking myself unconscious with my gorilla-engraved walking stick about halfway up so I wouldn’t have to climb anymore. If it hadn’t been for David, who ended up becoming my personal guide and practically dragged me up after the first hour, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the top of Bisoke and  been able to see the Crater Lake. It was impossible to see the lake when we first reached the top because of the clouds, but after about 20 minutes a huge gust of wind just rolled right through and pushed the clouds away to revealthe water. It was breathtaking!

Contrary to the ascent, going down was a full-blown blast! It was so muddy, and because it was basically impossible not to slide, I told David I just wanted to play. As a result, the majority of the descent consisted of David bracing himself every minute or two to stop me from tumbling the whole way down like an avalanche. Naturally, my internal soundtrack for those few hours was “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles.

It’s been a good few weeks but I’m definitely ready to begin teaching. Can’t wait to start sharing those stories! Love and miss you all.

The neighborhood kids painted my Rwandan name, Kayitesi, on a ledge on my porch with some extra paint they found.

The Crater Lake! Don't I look like it was easy? :)

A rainbow over the other volcanoes. Straight out of Care Bears.