“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.