Daily Life In Kibungo

I am going to try to upload a photo or two with this post, but our Internet connection here is pretty slow, so I am not sure if it will work.  I do promise to put up all of our photos when we get back though.

We have been in Rwanda for one week, and we are starting to learn many things about life here.  I think Drew and I are both starting to settle in to our routine while we are here, and life is definitely more laid back than it is at home.  We have a lot more free time on our hands, and so we have been reading a lot of books, and watching a lot of movies on our computer (the Peace Corps volunteers we are living with have quite a collection).  Don’t worry, that is not ALL we are doing. ;-)

Each morning, Drew and I are up around 7:00 to get ready for the day.  We generally alternate shower days, since the water isn’t always on, and can be scarce.  Between less washings, and a lot higher humidity, my hair has been doing lovely things since we have been here.  We then have a quick breakfast, usually a banana with some bread, and a cup of tea or coffee (though not everyday…my caffeine addiction may be broken before I get home!).  I head to school around 7:30-7:40ish, and Drew leaves around 8:15 for the hospital.  I walk about 20 minutes through town to get to the primary school where I am teaching an English class in the mornings.  (Even though we are living in the “flat region” of Rwanda, my hike to work is up a pretty steep hill.  The mountains here are massive and Kibungo is situated right on the side of one…I should have some good leg muscles by the time we leave here.  Apparently, the mountains on the other side of the country are even taller…thus making this the flat part.  It has definitely earned its nickname of “land of a thousand hills.”)

View on my way to work

The kids I am working with are so thirsty for knowledge - it is amazing!  My class has about 45-50 students in it ranging in age from 7 years to 12 years.  They have a huge range of abilities in speaking, reading, writing, and understanding English.  They each have a composition book of paper and a pen.  There are about 15-20 desks with bench seats, and a long chalkboard that runs the length of the classroom.  I have the teacher manual for 3 levels of English classes that was issued by the government of Rwanda when they made the switch from French to English a couple years ago, but there don’t seem to be any copies of the books for the children.  So, generally, I use the book as a loose guide, and let the children direct me in what they want to learn. 

Yesterday, we spent about half an hour talking about the different parts of the body and clothes and accessories that you can wear.  I started drawing a person on the chalkboard, and many of the children copied it exactly into their notebooks.  We do some verb conjugations and such but this is what they have been learning from their English teachers here, so I try to stick with conversational tools.  It is definitely not easy to manage that many children, but I think we all have a good time along the way. 

The way of teaching over here is much more traditional than my style generally is in the US, and it is has been an adjustment getting used to it.  The children are well disciplined and know the routine each day.  Each morning when I arrive, the class stands up together and says, “Good morning teacher.  How are you today, teacher?” and at the end before I leave, they say, “Thank you, teacher.”  It definitely caught me off guard at first, but I definitely see the way the children respect their teachers and the education process.  Some things, I am not sure I could adapt too, but seem to work for the children.  Many of the teachers have a stick that they use to point at things on the chalkboard, but they also come in handy, just in case a child gets out of line.  I have heard they don’t actually hit the children in class, but as soon as that stick comes out, the kids shape up and remember their manners.

I usually stay at the school until about 10 or 10:30 depending on how restless the kids are getting, and then I walk back home through town.  Drew is generally done at the hospital around 11 or 11:30, and then we have lunch together and a siesta…we really should adopt this practice in the US!! J  Around 2:00 I head back across town to the orphanage, which is right next door to the primary school. 

At the orphanage, they house about 45 children aged birth to 6 years old.  It is run by the Catholic Church (which owns a lot of things in town actually including a lovely restaurant and the “grocery store”).  I take the 5 & 6 year olds for a couple hours in the afternoon to teach English.  It is a group of about 14 boys (the girls are shipped off to Kigali to a larger orphanage there), who have so much love and enthusiasm to give.  They speak English fairly well, as they have been raised by nuns who come from around the world and speak English as their common language.  They are so much fun and LOVE to listen to stories.  I have a limited selection of books, and many are ones they have already heard before, since they are from their classroom, but they always ask for a story, and often times want to hear it more than once.  They laugh hysterically when I use different voices to read, and they are very good impressionists of a variety of animals and vehicles.  Their classroom has a little more than the primary classroom, but is still limited in resources.  Yesterday, I tore some blank pages from a notebook I brought with me, and took them along with a pack of colored pencils.  I gave each child one to draw with, and they treated the pencils and paper, as if they were a treasure.  These kids may not have a lot of physical materials, but they have so much spirit, it seems to make up for it.  I love being with them each afternoon, which is a good thing since I often spend longer than my allotted 2 hours cooped up in a room with them.

This seems to be a good spot in the day to mention the rain and the tradition of a rainy day here.  Rwanda has 4 seasons: January – March: Dry, April – June: Really Wet, July – September: Really Dry, October – December: Wet.  We got here at the start of the wet season.  What this means is that every day, it rains for about 3 hours.  It is a nice gentle rain with a little thunder and lightning and some brief strong winds.  It reminds me a lot of the rain in Seattle.  You never know when the rains will come through, but when they do, the village freezes.  Everyone retreats to the nearest building and nothing is done until the rain stops.  If you are at home, you get a free nap, and if you are out, you get a little extra time to be social. 

So far this week, the rains have come each afternoon about 2:30, just as I am arriving at the orphanage.  Since I am new at this I haven’t had much planned beyond the 2-hour block that I am scheduled to be there, yet the rains continue for a while after I am finished.  Luckily, the children are good at entertaining themselves. 

On Wednesday, the rain was really coming down with no sign of letting up.  I had brought my rain jacket with me and was ready to make the trek back home – I did live in Seattle for 2 years – but the nuns would not let me leave.  They insisted that I wait out the rain.  So there I was in a classroom with 14 5-year olds, no other activities for them to do.  The nun that was in the room with me to help out invited them to sing for me.  Those kids started singing every song they knew.  They would get to the end of one song, and another kid would start the next one, and they would all join in.  It was a mixture of hymns, songs they’d learned from other American volunteers, traditional kinyarwanda songs…it was incredible.  They danced for me to some of the songs, and taught me the clapping rhythm to others.  It continued for about 30 minutes straight, and they could have gone for 30 minutes more, but the priest came in to offer me a ride home in his truck since the rainstorm didn’t seem to be moving on anytime soon, and he was headed to town anyway.  I am pretty sure that this will not be my last concert from the children on a rainy afternoon.

I usually get back home from the orphanage between 5 and 5:30 depending on the rain schedule.  Then Drew and I cook dinner and settle in for the evening reading books, playing a board game with Tom and Malea (our Peace Corps hosts), or watching movies on the computer.  Sometimes, we read by candlelight since the power tends to go in and out.  Around 10 or so, we pull the mosquito netting out and climb into bed for a cozy night’s sleep.

Our small but comfortable bedroom