It wasn’t easy and on one particular evening I spent almost an hour crying to my mom about how I wanted to come home. Earlier in the week I had another negative interaction with my headmistress, somehow managed to yet again transfer flees from my latrine to my bed, and my students were unruly and disruptive enough that I couldn’t imagine teaching for another six months. Luckily for me I have a wonderful mother who sat and listened to me complain and beg to come home and reassured me that my time in Rwanda was not yet finished. She encouraged me to make a list of everything I wanted to do before I left Rwanda. I made the list and it is extraordinarily long and I am not sure if I can complete it all in six months, which makes the time seem shorter. She also told me that I need to start doing things every day that make me happy, and even when I really want to stay in my house, that is the time when I need to find fun activities to keep my mind occupied. So that has been my big goal this week and it has been a wonderful few days. I don’t expect the rest of my service to be a walk in the park, but I do plan on making the most of every day I live in Rwanda. When I sat down to think about it I realized how incredibly blessed I am to have this opportunity and even on the worst of days I am lucky to be here.

I changed my lesson plans for the week to make them really fun instead of the normal grammar and conjugating exercises. One day we played charades to practice learning new verbs and even though it took forever to explain when they finally understood they loved it! I also had a reading hour and brought in books for the kids to read. Through kind donations from a college professor and my mother I have enough books for every child to have one, which greatly diminishes my stress level since they fight less, and they really enjoyed the class. I started each lesson by asking the class why they think that books are important. I called on students to write their answers on the board and to add to the experience I let them write in colored chalk, it was quite the thrill! The answers were all really great except the one that says, “going to the market it provide money.” No idea how that relates to reading but she was proud of her answer and I didn’t want to squash her confidence by erasing her contribution. Also keep in mind that the kids frequently substitute the letters “l” and “r” for each other and that is why one of the answers reads, “it helps to stole information” instead of “helps to store information.”

It was a really fun day and the kids especially loved the books about animals (sharks and wolves were the most popular) and the Olivia books caused riots of laughter. I guess the idea of a pig dressed as a little girl and going to school was just too much for them. One girl cried because she was laughing so hard. It was awesome. Here are some shots of the kids enjoying the books:

I have spent a lot of time visiting with Mama JoJo and cuddling with her youngest, Tom. I love his little feet in this picture! As my mom reminded me in my time of darkness, I am happiest when I spend time with babies and children so I have been trying to fill my days with kiddos!

The preschool class at the orphanage:

Spending quality time with Delphine:

It is sad that the orphanage lost a lot of kids but it has enabled me to spend more one-on-one time with the kids that are there. I recently took Delphine with me to the nearest village to buy phone credit. We held hands the entire way and she told me all about her school, her favorite subjects, and what she hopes to study in secondary school. When we arrived at the boutique I bought my phone minutes and gave her a small coin to buy some candy or crackers. She chose crackers and happily enjoyed them on the walk back to the orphanage. When we got closer I told her we could walk slowly so she could finish and in response she put a stack of the crackers in her jacket pocket. I asked her if she wanted to save them for later and she replied, “No, they are for Gemy and Zach.” It was so sweet that she was willing to share her treat with the other kids. It continues to humble me how caring and selfless people here can be, even a child living in an orphanage.

Some cute primary school boys I met on my walk home:

My goal for now is just to take it one day at a time and focus on being grateful for my experience, the good and the bad. Buhoro, Buhoro! 

Sometimes it is something small. My school has started rationing chalk to save money so the head teacher keeps it locked up and you have to request it- super annoying. I went to a supermarket in Kigali and bought a box of white chalk and a box of colored to store in my cubby in the teacher’s room. The idea of having to beg an authority figure for chalk to write my notes every day just really bothered me. So on Thursday I was talking with the chemistry teacher before class and she was complaining that she needed more chalk. Since she was my friend I decided to share my personal chalk with her and handed over a couple of white pieces and even a few colored pieces- a hot commodity at my school. Instead of offering any type of appreciation she held the chalk in the air to examine it, compared it to a small piece in her box, and declared mine to be of inferior quality. She made a face like I had filled her chalk box with dirt and I really wanted to reach over and snap her new chalk into a thousand little pieces and drop them into her box. Of course I didn’t, I just smiled and told her it was fine, she shrugged her shoulders and we parted ways.

Sometimes it is a bigger event. My school wanted to help me with building a basketball court at the school. I love all sports so I was on board right away and offered to write a grant for the money. My headmistress informed me that she already had an estimate from a company in Kigali and I was shocked when I converted the money from Rwandan Francs to dollars and realized that they wanted almost $8,000 dollars to build a basketball court! I explained to my headmistress that the highest grant I could apply for would be $5,000 and even then it requires a 25% contribution from the community. I went on the meet with the grant coordinator from Peace Corps and started the grant writing process but I knew I lost their support when they realized that I wasn’t simply an ATM and the area we once designated for a court is now full of crops. People expect me to magically produce money and materials and when I fail them they make no effort to hide their disappointment. After 21 months of constantly failing to meet the unrealistic standards imposed on me it is really starting to alter my attitude and sense of optimism and joy that made this experience a joyful one.

When I give a teacher a picture of their baby everyone else in the room demands to know why I don’t have a picture for them. If I visit one family another will stop me on the road to ask why I hate them since they know I visited their neighbors and not them. If I refuse to stay for a meal or pay for their child’s medical bills then I am suddenly less of a friend. If I teach one English class for the community and it doesn’t work for all the participants they demand I teach multiple classes on different days despite the fact that I have conflicts. When I reward my students for great test scores with a piece of candy from Kigali they want to know why they can’t have two, or three, or the whole bag. It is never enough. On the darker days these interactions can propel me to ponder thoughts of what it would be like to just go home. Pack up my house, call Peace Corps, and they would have me on a plane in 36 hours. I imagine what it would be like to see my family at the airport and to sleep in my own bed. To live in a country where I could have a car and not walk 30 minutes from my house to wait (sometimes for hours) for a cramped and smelly bus to pick me up so I can go somewhere else. To live in a country where men don’t continuously stare at me and make my skin crawl with their blatant invitations to return to their house for sex and attempts to hold and stroke my hand despite the fake wedding ring on my finger. On the bad days America seems like a shinning light and the end of miserable tunnel, a light calling me home, and I will admit there have been days when it has really sounded great.

There are thousands of wonderful aspects about this country and their culture. I have amazing friends here and people I truly love. I don’t especially love teaching but I do love my students. I was talking with another volunteer who was expressing her desires to maybe go home as well and we discussed the idea of how do you know when you have had enough. When do you decide to actually make the call and get on that plane? I guess that is different for every person but through a lot of reflection I have decided I am not at that point in my service. I have enough good days to trump the bad ones. Enough people I love and respect to counteract the ones who try my patience and break my confidence. And of course there is my baby boy Remy, a shinning light in my life who never fails to make me smile. I was nervous to see him after returning from America in case he forgot me but he came straight to me with his arms in the air and a big smile on his face. We spent the day playing outside and I was able to feed him his dinner, give him a bath, and rock him to sleep under a pitch-black African sky. Here are some cute pictures of the Remster from our most recent day together:

I do believe he is one of the cutest babies in the entire world. Hands down. I brought him some new winter hats (since rainy season is their version of winter) and he looked so cute with his new puppy hat on!

So I think that is all for now. I apologize if this entry isn’t a super positive one (I tried to offset the negative tone with pictures of Remy) but I want this blog to accurately depict my service and the truth is that some days I really do just want to come home. I am working on keeping a positive attitude and hopefully I can have a productive and positive finish to my service during the last six months! Thanks for all of the love and support from back home- it really means a lot to me!

• I was down at the orphanage this week and gave the girls dresses that had been donated to another volunteer who passed them down to me. I was a little apprehensive since I didn’t have anything for the boys but the missionary family reassured me that it was fine to just give the girls something. So naturally the boys threw a fit when I told the girls we were going to their dormitory to try on new clothes and despite a lovely discussion with the missionary Mama about how sometimes children in a family get blessed at different times, and not always together, the boys were still pretty annoyed with me. Contrary to the boys pouty glares the girls were in heaven and loved their new dresses, or tunic tops depending on which size they chose.

Clarifying note: The orphanage originally had 53 kids but they released 35 to relatives over the last holiday. There are now 18 kids who are truly orphans, with no known family, living there. Not sure how the orphanage filled up with kids who already had relatives but things happen like that here all the time, someone hears of a free education and recommends an “orphan” who might actually have relatives. Or maybe the parents died and a relative didn’t want to take them in but now the government is forcing them to take the kid back. Anyways, here are some cute shots of the girls in their new dresses/tops:

• Little Cody is continuing to improve after his last bout of seizures over the holiday. He is one resilient little boy. He is no longer potty trained but was able to go back to the inclusive preschool in my area, a move which I think will be great for his development. I love carrying him on my back when he is sleepy because it makes me feel like a true Rwandan Mama. Even when I feel his pee trickling down my back, that just adds to the authenticity. Here is a shot of Cody and Bibi, the mama who cares for him:

• I was able to sit and talk with the assistant director of the orphanage, Mama JoJo, for almost three hours the other day. I went to visit the new baby, and while I did get to spend time snuggling with Tom I spent most of the visit sitting on mattresses in a bedroom with Mama JoJo, just talking about family, our futures, and life in general. There was a moment when she reached out to hold my hand when we were talking about something and I realized that this is why I am here, because of the amazing people I have grown to love.

JoJo with her younger brothers, Tom and David

JoJo, Papa JoJo, David, Mama JoJo, Tom, Sonia, Ines

Adorable baby Tom, growing bigger and stronger every day!

• When I came home from the orphanage the electricity was out so I was using my flashlight to get ready for bed and happened to catch a glimpse of this guy hanging out in my bedroom:

There ended up being two giant spiders, the photo is actually of the smaller one who met his untimely demise after a few solid whacks from my local broom. The larger one managed to evade my attacks and remains at large, camped out somewhere in my room, providing me with enough fitful nights of sleep to make me sufficiently cranky in the morning. I have also developed a new phobia about spiders crawling in my ears while I sleep so I have to sleep with earplugs or I can’t fall asleep now. It has been a regular spider palooza in my room lately and I don’t care for it at all.

• One of my colleagues has a youtube video of Miley Cyrus’ song Hoedown Throwdown on a flash drive and we listened to it, on repeat, for an entire hour yesterday in the teacher’s room. It was painful and my brain felt numb when I finally left the room.

 • I often visit my colleague Alice, the biology teacher, who lives across the street from me. This week her husband Philbert was asking me if I like sport so I of course replied, “Yes, I love sport!” He asked me if I knew “gym tonic” and I thought he was referring to an actual gym but it turns out he has a collection of old Tae Bo films that I was then forced to watch for the rest of the evening. This is the same house where I was subjected to hours of High School Musical torture so you think I would be used to it but it was still difficult to sit through. Luckily I had the baby to entertain me although I was occasionally reprimanded for not properly observing the film and the subsequent live demonstrations of the best moves.

• I have started a new activity with my kids that I call “Sentence Creation” and I implemented it in hopes of fostering some type of creative instinct in the students. I give them two or three words and they work in groups to see who can write the most detailed and creative sentences. It has been a painful process because it is not something that comes naturally to them but I am hoping that they will slowly pick up on it. Here is how it works:

- I give them a few words, for example: a name, Divine, and a verb, visited. They must include these two words in their sentence.

- I walk around the class and see most of the groups have the following sentence: Divine visited. I want to take one of their notebooks to hit myself with. After a myriad of detailed examples on the board I really thought that they understood. A deep sense of frustration is brewing.

- I try to encourage them- where did Divine visit? Why did she go there? What did she do? I am answered with blank stares. The frustration is now apparent to the kids and finally a girl offers the market as a destination and I want to jump with joy and take a victory lap around the room.

- After 15 minutes of prompting most of the groups still have boring sentences using as few words as possible, but one group writes a sentence about Divine visiting a zebra named Claude in Uganda and I am overwhelmed with an urge to hug them all. They get it. They understand how to be creative. It is a slow process but I think there is hope for them yet!

I searched for the cutest zebra on google images and settled on this one. I imagine Claude looks something like this.

I think that is all for now! As a kind reminder I really love getting mail so the next time you are bored and have 10 minutes to spare sit down and tell me what you are up to! Remember to write “par avion” on the envelope, we don’t want it coming over by boat and getting here next May!

Suzanne Enoch

BP # 5462

Kigali, Rwanda

I am safely back in Rwanda and have been without internet for a week. I apologize for the lack of updates.

I went home for my grandmother’s funeral and it was truly wonderful to be able to celebrate her life and to be with family and friends for a few weeks. I have been back in the village for about a week now and I must admit that it has been a slow transition back into life here. I slept for two days when I arrived which led my landlord to have small breakdown since he assumed that I must be dead if I wasn’t answering the door for visitors. Of course I was just sleeping with headphones or earplugs and the few times I did hear voices I must admit I just rolled over and continued sleeping. I woke up from one nap and had 12 missed calls from him. I found this to be a tad excessive but cute to know he worries about me. One colleague came to visit me, and when I didn’t immediately answer the door, proceeded to knock for an entire hour. I finally answered when I heard her conspiring with my landlord to find my extra set of keys. Can you imagine if someone in America knocked on your door for an hour straight? I forgot I wasn’t in America anymore and ignoring people doesn’t get rid of them.

For the first few days I wasn’t very social (as in I never left my room) because I was much too busy throwing myself an epic pity party. Last time I went home it was really easy coming back so I assumed this time would be the same. Unfortunately it was a tad rougher. The spiders in the latrine seemed bigger than before and I somehow forgot that cooking anything takes hours and the electricity is often out at night. Last night I killed a giant spider that was camped out on my pillow and was overcome with a sudden urge to crawl into my sleeping bag and weep. Bugs and spiders in my bed, my safe haven, really gets to me.  One of the lowest points came when I finally ventured out to my little shower room to take a bucket bath. Yes, it took me three days to bathe after my arrival- judge away. I usually check the walls to check for big spiders or wasp nests but lizards never really bother me, unless, as I discovered that fateful afternoon, they fall onto my head. When I shut the door it must have startled the lizard perched above it, which apparently caused him to loose his grip and he came plunging down into my not so luscious locks. By this point in time my hair was nice and greasy and he became momentarily entangled in my web of disheveled tangles and I experienced a few moments of sheer panic as I scrambled around the tiny room trying to shake him onto the floor. After what seemed like an eternity (realistically a few seconds) he was free from my hair and running for cover. I later saw him on the wall by my little cinderblock windows and he seemed traumatized- I saw it in his beady little eyes.

So the transition back into village life has come with a few bumps along the way but I am starting to feel more at home and my social life has picked up once again. I went down to the orphanage to visit Mama JoJo’s new baby. They sent 35 kids home to relatives over break (since the government is closing all orphanages this year) and the compound is way too quiet now. I was able to spend the afternoon cuddling the new baby, Tom, and visiting with Mama JoJo and the missionary family who lives there. They had made pizza for lunch and when they shared some with me I once again wanted to weep since I had been living off of granola bars, raisons, and boiled rain water for four days. I have also been to visit two teachers from my school and have another visit planned for tonight. During one visit I played with the baby while the dad and uncle watched a Chinese drama that had an obnoxious voice-over in Kinyarwanda. It was truly painful, except for the baby, of course.

So life goes on and teaching starts again so stay tuned for more adventures! I will end with a cute shot of IRADUKUNDA MUGISHA Tom. That is how you write a name here, last name first in all capitals and then the first name. Iradukunda means “God loves us” and Mugisha means “blessing”- a pretty solid name in my book!

On a side note all of my exams are graded and my marks typed into the school computer. A few students took my exam seriously, actually studied, and received an impressive 50/50. I would say most got at least 30 marks, so 60%, which is a pretty good grade here. Sadly enough a decent amount got below 20 and one got a whopping five marks. I timed myself and on average it took me about four minutes to grade an exam so that is about 10 hours of marking papers. But fear not, I put this time to good use and watched all of the Star Wars movies. I was continually calling my brother and demanding to know why certain things were happening and when I called and asked him if he knew that Anakin Skywalker turned into Darth Vader he and his girlfriend laughed hysterically for a few minutes before they responded- apparently this is pretty much common knowledge. I was also screaming at the screen when Princess Leia kissed Luke, yelling out dramatic warnings that she was about to kiss her twin brother that went unheard by everyone but my landlord, who probably thinks I am crazy.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from grading exams:

- In one section they had to organize ten random words into a chart with the five parts of speech and there were two words for each part of speech. I tried to teach them how to do this using the process of elimination and I could see in Christine’s exam that she had clearly used this method. She put all the words she knew (or thought she knew) into the chart and was left with the word “pencil” and an open slot under the adverb section. Baffled by this turn of events, but apparently convinced that her other words were in their correct homes, she turned the noun “pencil”’ into its rarely seen adverb form: pencily. I laughed so hard when I read this and proceeded to give her marks for it because I think she is rather clever.

- In another section they had to turn adjectives into comparatives and superlatives. For example taking hot and writing “hotter than” and “the hottest” in the correct location. I included one irregular word, far, to see who actually studied their notes. One boy copied the word “far” as “farm” and proceeded to translate that into “farmerer” and “farmerest.” I also enjoyed that unique adaptation of the English language.

- As with every exam I love reading the little notes that kids write at the end of the exam. Sometimes they will thank me for the exam, tell me that I am a lovely teacher, or one even wrote a short prayer that God would bless me over holiday. This year I have really cute students, not all excellent students, but great people.

* The white top and blue pants/shirt is the required uniform at my school but the first year students are still allowed to wear other outfits until they get the uniform situation figured out (it is a huge expense for most of the families)

Embracing the wise words of Pooh has been my goal this week. I have found it to be increasingly difficult to live in the present because my mind is camped out in the future. I am so excited to be home that I find my patience with daily annoyances has diminished severely and I know I am not enjoying every day as much as I should be. The other day I was waiting in a taxi and some man was trying to talk to me but I was day dreaming and didn’t hear him. When he finally got my attention he made a comment in Kinyarwanda about how my body was in the same car as him but my mind was very far away. It was at that point that I knew I needed to evaluate things. A random man on public transport, clutching a live chicken in one hand and a beer with a straw in the other, was able to tell I wasn’t living in the present- doesn’t really say great things about my attitude.

So my new goal has been just to live in the present and enjoy each day. Of course this sounds easier than it actually is. I have experienced wonderful moments of gratitude this week inspired by my resolution but I have also lapsed into prolonged bouts of grumpiness. School has been chaotic. I have been experiencing drama with my heamistress and it is frustrating because when she gets mad at me for little things I want to scream at her, “I am a volunteer!!!” It is common practice for teachers to borrow hours from each other. So last Thursday a math teacher took one of my hours with Senior 1C because she needed to finish explaining notes. I didn’t really want to give her the hour because I had things to do with the kids but I know math is a hard course for them so I gave her my hour. I knew that the ICT teacher had finished his course for the term so I asked for 10 minutes of his first hour with Senior 1C the next day to finish up with my kids. He of course agreed and proceeded to play billiards on the new computer in the teacher’r room. While I was with the kids my headmistress came and lectured me about my bad behavior and how it is an obligation to have her permission to switch hours. It really would not have cared except for the fact that she gave me this whole speech in front of my students. I doubt they could understand all the words but they could certainly understand that I was in trouble. Not a very professional way to resolve conflict in my opinion. Apparently the ICT teacher did not respond so well to his lecture and yelled at the headmistress and she had no response to his rant. Other teachers have recommended I adopt a more forceful approach to dealing with her but I just can’t bring myself to talk back to an authority figure and I think it would do way more harm in the long run.

Several volunteers have noted that it is often more difficult to interact with women in power as opposed to men. I think it is because they feel the constant need to assert themselves as an authority figure since their gender is a disadvantage when it comes to gaining power and respect in this country. I sympathize with their plight but it would be nice if they could find a path to obtaining the respect they desire by treating others with respect. Of course this is not applicable to all women leaders in Rwanda, just the small sample I know about through other volunteers.

Another annoying school thing this week was my exam. It was 2 pages, front and back, but the school decided it would be too expensive to print. I know some volunteers who write 7 page exams each term- just saying- 4 pages won’t kill them. Well they wanted to go into my exam and modify it but I had converted it to a PDF so they couldn’t. So the school secretary retyped the exam, which is fine, but she messed it all up. The biggest error was a 10-point section (1/5 of the exam’s points) that asked the students to identify the part of speech for the underlined word in each sentence. She retyped all ten sentences and didn’t underline a single word! Luckily I was at school the day of the exam so when the students discovered the error they sent someone to find me in the teacher’s room. They were already about an hour into the exam so I had to work fast to choose which words to underline. I was so flustered I ended up choosing four adverbs when my original exam only had one. The other English teacher, who is amazing, went with me from class to class to explain to the students which words to underline. I was so embarrassed. I doubt the kids judged me too harshly but it is frustrating to work really hard on preparing something only to have someone tamper with it, without your permission, and then replicate it full of errors. I later called my mom to vent and tell her the story and her response was, “Why didn’t they just call you?” Good question. I live five minutes from the school and could have easily come and changed it myself and saved them the trouble of trying to hack into my PDF and then retype the document.

Throughout the drama and frustration I have been enjoying my time here and there have been some really amazing moments. Last night I spent the night at the other English teacher’s house. I saw Louis on the road at about 3pm and he said that he would be home later but that his house is my house so I should just go on up. So I climbed up the hill and arrived just before a massive thunder storm- perfect timing. I spent the afternoon playing with Remy and marking quizzes. In the evening Louis and his wife Diane came home and we sat together marking exams and watching Diane’s favorite French soap opera. At one point the lights went out and Diane was holding the flashlight to help Louis so he could continue to mark. Remy was offering his assistance as he battled Diane for control of the massive flashlight and attempted to blind us all once he gained control through a sneaky hair-pulling attack disguised as a kiss on the cheek. 10 minutes later the lights came on and Remy starting laughing and clapping, exhibiting such joy that the light had finally returned to the room that we all had to laugh with him. It was so incredibly adorable. Later that night he managed to pee on me twice in a twenty minute period of time which was less adorable but he is still my #1 guy.

So life goes on and I am doing my very best to not be grumpy all the time and to keep my mind in the present lest I be subjected to another lecture from the chicken and beer man!

Here are some cute photos of Mr. Remy from last night:

Last weekend I visited the hospital in Kibogora. It is about a 5 or 6 hour bus ride and the road goes down south, past where I live, continues on a twisting path through Nyungwe forest, and eventually spits you out into a land of endless tea fields and the beautiful shores of Lake Kivu with gorgeous views of the rolling hills of both Rwanda and the Congo. It was a nice trip down and since I was the first person on the bus I was able to snag the very front seat with enough legroom to sit without my knees jammed into the seat in front of me and that seat offers a decent amount of personal space. It was totally worth showing up at the bus station at 4:45am to have a nice and comfortable ride. I got off the bus in a tiny town called Buhinga and took a 45- minute ride on a motorcycle to the hospital.

Once I arrived I spent the afternoon at the guesthouse, taking long hot showers and had a marvelous nap during an afternoon thunderstorm. It was a truly wonderful afternoon. In the evening I ate dinner (chicken pot pie and vegetables) with an American nurse who lives in Kibogora. We played board games and listened to music while her cat Peter napped on the couch. It was a bit like being transported back to America for a night. The next morning I went down to visit the NICU. They were the painting the little room they use as a NICU so they had moved the isolettes and cribs into another room but luckily one of the kind nurses showed me where to find them. Since the other foreigners who visit the hospital don’t speak Kinyarwanda they love to chat with me and spent a majority of my visit quizzing me about my job, my family, and most importantly my love life. One of the nurses applauded my decision to wait to find a husband but many of the mamas warned me that if I wait too long none of the men would want to marry an old woman. Always comforting to hear. The babies were adorable I had a wonderful time visiting with the mamas and nurses. In the afternoon I returned to my room for lunch and since another big storm rolled through I really had no choice but to take a nap. Pretty rough life.

On Sunday morning I survived a dicey moto ride on a muddy dirt road and arrived safely at the bus stop. I managed to get a good seat right at the front but it ended up not being an ideal location. The road through Nyungwe has a lot of sharp turns and curves and the drivers don’t really slow down much and when they do it usually results in jerky movements that throw all the passengers on top of each other. As it turns out Rwandans get carsick frequently on this journey. The woman next to me spent the entire drive through the forest vomiting into a small plastic bag. I put my headphones in to drown out the retched sound that is so wonderfully unique to a person throwing up and although people almost never approve of open windows this seemed to be an exception to the rule and the fresh air felt amazing. Part way through the trip I felt her using her fabric wrap to wipe vomit off my leg. Fantastic. Nothing like pants soaked in vomit to make a 6-hour bus ride fun. In front of this woman there was a little girl sitting on her dad’s lap. I would estimate that she was maybe 7 years old. An hour into the trip she too succumbed to the twisty turns and began vomiting all over her father. He promptly freaked out and turned her so she was throwing up into the little stair well of the bus where you climb on. I would have been fine with his solution except in resulted in her puking on my shoes. We eventually had to pull over so people could empty their vomit bags and the poor dad was forced to clean up the areas where his daughter had been sick. Of course the mamas stepped in to help him out since he seemed pretty overwhelmed. I spent the break trying to rub the vomit off my new pants and cleaning my shoes with leaves I collected from the side of the road. Overall it was a pretty disgusting trip and I was thrilled when I finally saw the stop for my village approaching.

This week was review week since the kids have exams next week. We have been studying how to write comparatives and superlatives and after two weeks of meticulously detailed notes and endless exercises I felt like there was NO way that they could fail the quiz I gave them. Well it turns out there was a way and many of them found it. I felt so defeated grading their papers, like maybe they don’t understand a single word that comes out of my mouth. But there are a handful of students in each class that did really well and I guess that gives me hope. Sometimes it can be really frustrating to teach and not feel like I am making a difference, but I suppose this is a problem that every teacher has to deal with at some point in time. On a positive note my kids this year are really cute and energetic, so even if they don’t learn a ton of English from me we find a way to have fun!

My lessons were pretty boring but I did go to watch a soccer match that was really fun. The football (soccer) coach informed me that the match would start Tuesday at 2pm. So after class I went home to cook lunch and then it started raining. By the time I made it back up to the field at a neighboring school it was 3:30pm and the match had yet to begin. It was a moment straight out of a movie. I showed up at the field, the only white person, and hundreds of kids from other schools just staring at me. At first I couldn’t find any of my friends or students and felt like a complete loser. To make matters worse I decided to sit down and sat down in mud and stained my pants. So when I stood up to move the hoards of children were laughing hysterically and I wanted to teleport myself anywhere else but where I was. Luckily I had a jacket so I took it off and wrapped it around my waist. Once I moved the girl’s match started and some of my students from last year came to sit with me. At 5pm the primary school got out so lots of my little friends came and found me and I was starting to feel less like a loser. It ended up being really fun and I am so glad that I decided to stay even though I was so uncomfortable at first.

It is through situations like this that I can clearly see growth from last year. Last year I would have left after five minutes of sitting by myself like a loser. But now I am learning to be patient and to be more confident in uncomfortable and new situations. One of my favorite memories from the afternoon was when some girls from another school were asking me if I was married. I said no and of course they felt the need to lecture me about finding a man and how I was getting old. So I pulled some big strands of grass and tied one together to make a ring, slipped it onto my finger, and declared that I was now married. All the girls wanted rings so we spent 20 minutes making grass rings, listening to the song Dancing Queen on my phone (Rwandan radio stations LOVE playing Abba songs) and discussing our future husbands. It was an afternoon of laughter and joy- one of the times when I really feel like I am here for a reason. Here is a picture of some of the kids running to watch the shoot out at the end of the girl’s match.

Every Wednesday I go with my landlord, Alexis, to pray at a small Catholic church near the school. We usually leave at about 6am and the views from the road are extraordinary. I love watching the sunrise over the hills and lately there has been an insane amount of fog in the mornings. I stopped this week to snap this picture. You can see the top of a hill but the entire valley below is filled with a sea of fog. Eventually it rises up and snakes its way through the village until it finally dissipates and gives way to a beautiful day.

I spent Wednesday afternoon down at the orphanage. It is a time of great change for all of the workers and kids since the government is in the process of shutting down all the orphanages. I just found out that 37 of the kids are being sent out to families or relatives in April so they will be gone when I return from America. It is so heartbreaking for me. I don’t want to get into the politics of the government’s decision but I pray that these kids are returning to homes where they will be loved and appreciated. I pray that they will be safe and healthy and continue to go to school. It is a time of great uncertainty and uncertainty can be really scary. The remaining 15 children will stay at the orphanage until they can find foster/adoptive homes for them. Big changes are coming soon but for now I am just enjoying my time with the kids. We spent the afternoon reading books coloring paper hats that they wore for five minutes and then ripped apart to transform into paper airplanes or oddly shaped pistols used to ward off ninjas lurking in the field of banana trees.

Well I feel like that is a sufficiently long update. Life is great. Not always (or really almost ever) perfect but I am trying to remember to always be grateful for this experience and that helps me get through the bad days. I will leave you with a shot of two cuties from the orphanage who are loving life as well!

Eventually I caught him peering through a back window, trying to take notes through a haze of dust and spider webs that coats all the windows, and I figured that was a desperate enough gesture to allow him to return. That day I assigned them an exercise to write five sentences about themselves. At the end of the period he turned in his paper, his gaze downcast, and his paper completely filled with writing. He wrote about his family, what he likes to eat, his friends, and his life at school. Most other students chose to copy random sentences about Mary and Joseph going to the market that I gave them in their notes.

It turns out I had kicked out my best student. Of course I didn’t know he was my best student and I still feel justified in kicking him out, but I did feel a little guilty when I read his sentences about how much he loves English class. My favorite line read, “I have English five times a week and it is so nice, that teacher of English I love her so.” I can confidently say he regained all his brownie points that  he lost in the great note-taking debacle earlier that day.

As I mentioned in my last blog they did orphan roll call at my school last week. The headmistress came into every class and when she called out each name the child had to say if they had both parents, and if not, which parent was still living. I was horrified for many reasons. Horrified that this was such a normal activity for everyone and horrified by how many kids had only one parent or none at all. It was a nice dose of reality. These kids come from hard situations and even though they drive me crazy I need to be patient with them. I try to remind myself of this fact every hour I teach because I tend to forget it when they are acting like brats, because middle school is middle school no matter what the country and the children have a predisposition to be a bit bratty.

Next week is review week, followed by exam week and marking week, and then I am on a plane home to America. I have decided to come home for my grandmother’s funeral and I am looking forward to spending time with my family and celebrating a wonderful woman’s life. I am home the 2nd-19th so if you feel like penciling me into your schedule for a coffee or dinner date just let me know- I would love to see people! Not a lot of photos for today but here are a couple or flower shots. Rwanda is home to a diverse and beautiful flower collection and they never fail to brighten even the gloomiest of days!

- Robert Frost

True to Frost’s words, life does indeed go on. Even in the depths of your sorrow the sun rises and sets and days pass in the usual fashion. After a certain amount of time you have to accept that the world doesn’t stop for you to camp out in your house grieving the death of a loved one, singing along to Glee episodes, and living off of easy mac packets and boiled rain water that tastes suspiciously like murky river water. Of course those are just randomly selected activities and not at all indicative of what my past week has looked like.

This week was rough. Every day was filled with a series of choices. A choice to get out of bed. A choice to not cry hysterically in public when colleagues offered their heartfelt condolences, beautifully delivered in fragments of every language they know and so incredibly genuine that my love for this country and my friends here swelled past a level I knew was capable of achieving. A choice to greet the children on the street with kindness and patience and teach 15 lessons on comparatives and superlatives when I really wanted to be in bed crying with Glee blasting in the background. I sometimes struggle to make the right choice, but I know that I need to continue on with my life. I have tried to keep busy because when my mind is occupied I am less likely to lapse into sporadic moments of spontaneous sobbing. This is nice because it makes me feel less like a crazy person and I have certainly been very productive this week. Grieving the death of a loved one when you live so far away, and living alone, is a bizarre experience for sure.

So life is moving on and I have lots to write about, but not today. For today I will simply share some pictures from my recent trip to the nursery school (I teach there four hours every Monday) and other random shots from Remy’s first birthday party and life in the village. More to come soon. The next post will include highlights such as describing orphan roll call at my school and my student’s first (and probably last) interaction with Bubblicious bubble gum.

I woke up Friday morning to the usual sounds of birds partying on my tin roof and the school children rushing up the dirt road above my room and saw that I had 12 missed calls from home over the course of the night. I prepared myself, knowing the news wouldn’t be great, but never imagined it would be my mother telling me that my Grammie had died the night before. She wasn’t even sick, I suppose it was just her time. Or maybe she just made the decision herself to go, she always claimed to have the power to die whenever she chose. In my heart I know she went just the way she would have wanted to die, fully dressed with makeup on and without pain or prolonged illness. I find comfort in the fact that it was a dignified and peaceful way to die, but I have yet to make peace with her death. For her it is a time of joy and celebration, reunited with my grandfather and living in the Kingdom of God where I imagine she is consuming endless amounts of properly thick mocha milkshakes, watching a CNN broadcast with Grandad close by so they can judge the democrats together, and a newly acquired Sheltie nestled in her lap. Hopefully with this dog she doesn’t feel compelled to name it after me like her last one.

I know that she is happy, that she is at peace. But even though I can accept her departure as a joyful occasion for her, I have yet to make peace with the fact that she will never again be a part of my life on this earth. I know it is selfish, but even with my happiness for her it doesn’t quite cancel out the overwhelming sadness that I feel for myself. My heart is broken and the process of putting it back together and accepting the harsh reality of death is proving to be the biggest challenge I have yet to face in my 24 years.  The morning I learned of her death I spent hours in bed with the teddy bear my family had made for me that has voice recordings from everyone inside. I listened to her message over and over again as if hearing her voice talking to me meant she wasn’t really gone. Then, in a moment of sheer panic, I realized the more I played her message the faster it would die. And once that little white box inside my teddy bear dies I will never again hear her voice. On the day when that happens I am not sure how I will cope, but for now I can cuddle up in bed and listen to her tell me how much she loves me, encouraging me to be proud of myself and follow my dreams, and maybe her voice can help me start to heal.

The other teachers at my school have been wonderful. I left my headmistress a note telling her why I was in Kigali and she apparently posted the note in the teacher’s room because I started getting texts from the teachers about an hour after I left the village. Here is an assorted sampling of some of those messages:

- I’m so sorry to hear the sad information that you miss your grandmother. May she rest in the peace of God. (Alice- the biology teacher)

- Suzi, I pray that you can be strong in this moment of losing your lovely grandmother. As you are my good friend I am very very sad. My whole family and close friends told me that they’re together with you in this bad moment of sadness! WE ALL LOVE YOU AND BE STRONG, BE STRONG FOREVER. Yours, Gogo. (Goreth- math teacher and best friend)

- My family and I are with you in your sadness of missing your grandmother, God with you. (Louis- English teacher and father of Remy)

My mother has been encouraging me to write down my memories of Grammie, and I have found that once I start writing it is hard to stop. In some ways I find the process therapeutic and in some ways I am overwhelmed by a sense of desperation that I have to continue to write everything down, right then, or I will forget important details or stories. Here are some of the top ones so far:

* One of the first memories I have of our outings together was sitting in her Volvo in the drive-thru lane to Arby’s listening to her interrogate the attendant about the thickness of their milkshakes in a manner that would border on verbal assault. After a few minutes of invasive questions regarding the density of their blended milk products I heard the man sigh and out of the speaker box crackling with excess static energy came his exasperated reply, inviting us to pull forward and sample the consistency of the shakes. Pull forward we did and Grammie proceeded to teach me a valuable lesson: it is ok to ask for what you want, just be nice about it. Or in this case you can be annoying and persistent until the person just gives in to get rid of you. We drove away with our milkshakes so thick you needed a spoon, or a straw with a vacuum attached, and we looked over and smiled at each other. That day our delicious milky treats tasted like sweet victory.

* My senior year of high school I went through a bit of a naughty phase when I didn’t attend class quite as frequently as prescribed by my class schedule. I maintained a 4.0 GPA so it was pretty easy to fly under the radar and after a while I had it down to an exact science. Once mom, the hard working nurse, would leave for work, I would call Grammie to inform her of whatever mysterious aliment was plaguing me that particular morning. Some days I would go back to bed or maybe just spend some time putzing around the house before finally heading into school. Towards the end of the year she had the attendance desk number memorized. Last year I finally asked her if she knew that I was never really sick all those days she called me in. She smiled and replied, “I may not have a lot of money to spoil you with gifts but I sure knew how to get you out of school.” She was my faithful partner in crime and always willing to alter the North on her moral compass when it came to making me happy.

* One of my favorite childhood pastimes was watching Grammie paint and create art of any kind. I loved watching her elegant fingers as she laid out all of her water pastels, and the confidence she exuded as she swept the fancy crayons across the canvas in broad, seemingly careless strokes, that magically transformed into beautiful landscapes or portraits as all the meticulous strokes blended together. I have never been a great artist. It is one of my greatest woes in life that I feel like I have an artist’s soul and vision but lack the ability to bring those visions to life. Sadly my portraits never evolved past stick figures and my art went through a phase where all my animals looked like dead squirrels. In saying that I am not artistic I am not being humble, I assure you, the absence my artistic ability is a fact. But sweet Grammie encouraged me to paint and mold and draw and praised me like my heinous road kill mammals belonged next to the Mona Lisa. She always found a way to be true to her compliment, finding beauty in whatever eyesore of a creation I had produced that day. And that was really important to me, because children eventually learn how to recognize genuine praise and differentiate it from an adult lavishing you in praise for a stick drawing of you mother that you forget to draw a neck on- a constant problem in my earliest creations.  She had true passion for art, and even though her lessons never quite turned me into the artist I dreamed of being, she taught me to love and appreciate all the arts and to respect what I create, even when your best efforts turn out like an epileptic monkey seized your pen in the midst of your most inspired drawing session. She always valued what I created as an extension of me, and her love and encouragement always meant the world to me.

So my sweet Grammie, I pray that you are at peace and enjoying your reunion with Grandad and the rest of your family. I pray that you are happy and filled with eternal joy, and that you are immensely proud of the life you lived. You had a wonderful life with your husband of 62 years, raised four extraordinarily caring and competent children, and lavished your grandchildren (and dogs) with a constant stream of praise and love that came from a place so deep in your heart that it was always genuine and pure. You are the love of my life. My broken heart will slowly heal with time, but the place you occupied in my heart will be forever reserved for you. I pray that you will continue to watch over me and help guide me through my life as I adjust to a world without you here, and that you send your love down from the Heavens so that I may draw from your strength and encouragement as I continue on without you by my side.

You are forever the love of my life and I miss you to a degree that could never be articulated by mere words. Sending you all my love and prayers,

Suzi