Awkward Moments

Life is a foreign language:  all men mispronounce it. 

~Christopher Morley

I have decided to accept the fact that my life is simply a compilation of awkward moments. I hope to offer you a glimpse into my life in Rwanda and for your amusement and entertainment I invite you to laugh and marvel at the ridiculous situations I have found myself in during the past few weeks!

• Stepping on my own skirt going down the stairs at school and trying to casually pull it back up while still walking past classrooms full of children laughing at me (yes I had shorts on underneath and yes I think the s3 students lost what little respect they had for me)

• Accidentally telling the kids that the letter “A” was a consonant after a long day of teaching and then being called out on it by a student

• Watching the other teachers engage in a heated debate concerning one teacher’s statement that I looked slimmer in “trousers” (also know as jeans)- the break was over before a decisive conclusion could be reached but do not fret, I am sure the topic will be picked up again at the next meeting

• One of my oldest boys in my class trying to feed me a candy heart on Valentine’s Day

• Buying mass quantities of the wrong kind of banana (the kind you can only cook) at the market and then trying to eat one at dinner in front of the nuns- I have never heard them laugh so hard

• Climbing onto a motorcycle for the first time surrounded by 60 primary school kids (bad timing to leave just as the morning shift of primary school finishes)

• One of the male teachers (who is married) asking me what the greatest benefit of marriage is- when I said, “You tell me” he replied, “Suzanna, one day when you are not so innocent I will tell you the hidden surprise of marriage that is so great”- dreading this awkward conversation!

• Kids begging me for “Chris Brown” music, me explaining I don’t have any Chris Brown so I put on something similar until I realize it has extreme profanity in it- shining moment as a teacher- at least it was too fast for them to understand

• One of the nuns telling me that if I don’t eat enough I will “fall over and go down on him”- I think this was an attempt at saying I will faint on the nun next to me (since there is no he/she in Kinyarwanda they use he/she as interchangeable words) but the way it came out was a bit bizarre

Awkward or funny words/phrases that students have asked me to explain this week:

• KKK

• G-unit

• Copulation

•  666

• Hang over

• Gangster

• Toys-R-Us

• Gold digger

This happened the first day but it is by far the most awkward moment of my teaching career:

• Interrogating a girl for her name, thinking she is refusing to speak like some of the other students before her, when a few minutes later another student informs me that she is deaf and doesn’t speak… thanks for the heads up guys!

Teaching is going well and today I taught my kids a song that my mom used to sing to me every night before bed (and occasionally over the phone on really bad days in college):

I see the moon and the moon sees me

The moon sees somebody I’d like to see

So God bless the moon

And God bless me

And God bless the somebody I’d like to see

They really enjoy singing (especially about God) so we practiced it over and over again (seriously- almost 30 times in a row) and then went on a small school tour preforming for the headmistress and dean of discipline. It is moments like this that make up for the moments when I have to physically restrain myself from throwing my chalk at them.

I am racing against time to get this posted since the electricity is out and I only have another 20 minutes or so before my computer dies… so I think that is all for now. Sending lots of love to everyone back home!

Friends from the primary school

Adventures at the Market and in Adult Education

I have decided to start cooking for myself. There are many reasons behind this decision but the angle I used when proposing this idea to the nuns was not a matter of time or health but marital status. Instead of delving into the actual issues (like how I would like to consume meals prepared with way less salt and oil or that I would prefer to eat earlier) I explained that as a young single girl I really should learn how to cook. Once they realized that providing me with food was not only hindering my ability to grow into a competent young woman but also decreasing my value as a potential bride they jumped right on board with me cooking for myself.

I was a little nervous to navigate the market alone so I requested assistance. The nuns informed me that they would be no help at all since Rwandans tend to assume that nuns are rich so they wouldn’t be able to help me get good prices. The head nun who runs the vocational school offered to send one of her students with me as a chaperon and I gladly accepted so off we went today at 7 am. We didn’t make it too far down the road before she asked me if I had a bag and when I showed her my small sack she shook her head disapprovingly and we turned around in search of something else. After locating a large potato sack in the kitchen we once again resumed our walk to the market while she interrogated me about my marital status and how many children I have.

The market was a little overwhelming so I was really grateful to have help. We spent the first 15 minutes attempting to negotiate the price of bananas. The farmer could not understand why I didn’t need to purchase 60 bananas at one time and a small crowd gathered around to watch the white girl explain in Kinyarwanda that she only wanted 10 bananas. He sent his son out to find a scale so he could weigh 10 bananas and the whole thing seemed a little unnecessarily complicated. The girl who was helping me, Feresia, decided we should come back later once the banana man had figured out his prices so we continued on in search of tomatoes, onions, green beans, carrots, avocados, eggs, peppers, and pineapple. Along the way I also succumbed to the temptation to buy a cucumber from a very persistent farmer even though it wasn’t on my list. And yes- I was the only person at the market with an actual list.

I also ended up with way too many bananas (you can check them out in the photo) but hopefully I will figure out what to do with them before they go bad. In case you are wondering all those bananas were 1000 RWF, so less than 2 USD. Pretty impressive negotiating on the part of my chaperone. This is my loot for the week- the bag on top of the green beans has eggs.

Over all it was a successful trip however we did make a crucial error in packing the bag. Somehow the tomatoes ended up under the bananas and pineapple and sadly did not survive the trip home. Waste of money? Yes. A good lesson to learn in strategically packing food? Yes. Feresia arranged for a boy to carry my enormous bag back to the convent for only 100 RWF (600RWF=1 USD) and while I felt a little guilty about having a child haul my bag back for me it is completely normal here. A farmer helped him hoist the bag onto his head and we returned to the convent.

For my first meal I decided to keep it simple. I sliced up some carrots and onions, mixed in the green beans, and threw it all in a pot over the fire with a little bit on sunflower oil. I am happy to report that I still have all 10 fingers even after using a very sharp knife to slice up the carrots and onions. With the green beans you just break the ends off and snap them into smaller pieces- even I can handle this type of cooking.

While the veggies were cooking I boiled water for the pasta and managed to only scald myself with steam a few times. Once the veggies were finished I mixed them in with the pasta, added some spices, and voilà- my first meal was complete.

Now for the second topic of this blog- adult education. Last week my headmistress informed me that the local teachers want to have a session once a week so that I can help them with English. I was more than willing to do this but was slightly annoyed that they selected Friday at 5 pm as a meeting time. I was also rather annoyed that when I showed up to teach the only person at the school was my headmistress and some of my students playing volleyball. While I waited for some teachers to turn up I watched the volleyball game where I was occasionally chastised for not providing sufficient verbal encouragement and was given a demo from the boys on enthusiastic clapping. It was really funny to watch them using interjections I taught them last week like “Oh la la” and “Oh wow” throughout the game and then looking over to me for approval.

At about 5:15 Espérance, my headmistress, decided we would go to a classroom to study together. She brought a book along so we could work on pronunciation and I am pretty sure she just grabbed the first book she saw in the library. It was called No More Secrets and the first line was something like “I wanted that boy from the moment I saw him.” The first paragraph was dedicated to describing the boy’s “deep blue eyes” and “tanned muscular body.” Awkward. There was also a part of the story where the girl is fighting with her mother and makes a statement about how if she has to wait for a perfect guy to date she might as well become a nun. I was trying really hard not to laugh but since an actual nun was reading this story out loud it was too hilarious not to laugh. Luckily she thought it was funny as well. 🙂

About 5:30 some other teachers started to show up and I was really surprised that out of the seven women who attended my lesson only two came from my school. The rest were teachers from the local primary school, which is impressive considering they teach from 7 am- 5 pm, Monday through Friday. That is true dedication. They all showed up eager to learn, notebooks and pens in hand. It was so fantastic to teach a classroom full of quiet students who really want to learn and actually ask questions. Tonight we covered introductions and greetings which is a pretty basic topic but a little awkward when we covered how to discuss marital status. As I was writing the statements “I am married” and “I am single” on the board it occurred to me that I should probably include something like “I am a widow” but I decided to leave it off. Then a very cute older woman raised her hand and asked how to say in English that she was married but her husband was dead. As it turns out 3 of the 7 women are widows so I probably should have included that statement the first time around.

After class we discussed what topics they would like to cover in the upcoming weeks. I passed around a sheet to have them write what they want to learn and then clarified the topics before they left. Many of them listed writing as one of the topics to focus on so I asked what them what type of writing they wanted to study. I listed some possible genres on the board like poetry, letter writing, essays, and short stories. When I asked them to clarify which genres they would like to focus on they were quiet for a moment and then replied, “all of them.” It looks like I have my work cut out for me. I think a few hours a week of dabbling in adult education will be a wonderful break from packed classrooms of unruly teenagers.

And just in case you thought life in a convent is boring….

Under My Umbrella

Dry season is finally ending and I am thrilled! I have been waiting, not very patiently, for the hot and dusty dry season to be swept away by torrential rains and that day has finally come! Here are the main reasons why I have been looking forward to rainy season:

1) It has been hot and gross without rain

2) The farmers in the area suffer without rain for their crops

3) I have a new umbrella (courtesy of the fabulous Fowler family) that I have been dying to try out!

I got caught out and about in the rain the other day without my new umbrella and it was so very upsetting to be forced to use one of the nun’s boring umbrellas when my beautiful rainbow one was sitting on my desk, just waiting to be used. I was feeling a little sulky but then I remembered that there is good news. During rainy season it rains… a lot. So I will have ample opportunities over the next few months to whip out my enormous rainbow umbrella. The thought crossed my mind that this umbrella will probably not aid in my integration process, but when there is a 6’1 blonde girl wandering around rural Rwanda she isn’t going to really blend in with the crowd regardless of her choice to carry a flamboyant umbrella.

One of the good and bad things about rainy season is that it is colder at night. This is great because I sleep much better when it is cooler out but this is also bad because it is so much harder to get out of bed. Waking up at 6 am, snuggled deep into my comfy sleeping bag, it is very difficult for me to find the motivation to climb out from under the bug net to start my day. My level of productivity suffers greatly on the days when there is heavy rainfall. Last weekend I looked out the window at 8 am and it was pouring rain and so foggy that I couldn’t see the wall that is 10 feet from my door. This is a photo of the tree near my house that was barely visible most of the day.

To me, this type of weather was a sign that God was inviting me to climb back into bed and watch movies all day. So I did. Defying the wishes of God is always a serious matter but especially horrible when you live in a convent- I had no choice but to do as the signs told me to.

Here is a photo of us celebrating the start of rainy season!

Yes- I am wearing a red polo shirt under a Cornell volleyball shirt… I am classy like that.

 You may notice that there is another girl in this photo who is not a nun. She is a student from Belgium who has been writing a paper on physical therapy for young children in rural African communities.

Rain Update

I am typing this blog in the teacher’s room while it is pouring rain outside. My class started 5 minutes ago but the teachers have informed me that I must stay here until the rain stops because you are not allowed to teach if you are wet. When they told me this I laughed, but quickly realized by their shocked faces that they were serious. Good to know.

Rule of the day: you cannot teach when you are wet. My lesson for this last period wasn’t really all that fantastic so I accepted this news without argument. I will continue typing, listening to the rain and thunder while dreaming of my vanilla tea that I was forced to hastily abandon back at the convent in order to get to school before the rain.

Orphanage Visit and Cockroach Encounter

Last week I went to visit an orphanage near my site. It is located just off the main road when you are traveling from my site to Kigali and I have passed it many times over the past five months but I have never really known what it was. I googled the name and was pleasantly surprised to see it was an orphanage and the missionaries who are the current directors are even from Colorado! It is truly a small world. I was planning to take a motorcycle (my first ride on a moto ever) but then the director ended up picking me up in his car since he was out running errands. I can tell you that I wasn’t really devastated to have the car instead of the motorcycle! We arrived at the orphanage around 10:15 am and things were pretty quiet since most of the kids were at school. The director introduced me to the few kids who were around and then we went to meet his wife. They live on the orphanage property and have many of the amenities in their house that I have been missing while living in Rwanda. The director’s wife served me freshly bake scones and there was even ice in my water- it was fantastic! They also have an adorable little boy who was happy to lend me some of his DVD’s for the weekend and show me all the cool lizards that live in their plants. The orphanage is beautiful and I am really excited to start working there. The director took me on a tour of the land- it is a really impressive set up. They have an enormous cow (the healthiest one I have seen in Rwanda), pigs, goats, and even fish ponds!

There is a dormitory for the girls and one for boys and they all eat together in one dining room. There are almost 60 children who live in the orphanage and also about 10 widows who help out with the kids. There are also a couple of classrooms, a small library, and a neat playground that some Belgium missionaries built a while back. On our tour I met Cody, the youngest orphan there, who is about three years old. He is adorable and when I saw him he ran up and gave me a great big hug and then preceded to throw his hands in the air to be picked up- a universal sign of cuteness. They are not really sure what to do with him since he has some special needs that they are not equipped to handle. He was epileptic when he was younger and now has some developmental problems. I am looking forward to seeing lots more of him over my next two years! For now I will be working with the p6 students (in their last year of primary school- so about the equivalent of our 6^th grade) once a week. They have a national exam at the end of the year that will determine what secondary school they can attend so I will hopefully be able to help them prepare to be successful and get a spot in a good school. I will be tutoring in all subjects, even math, which is a scary thought… time to brush up on 6^th grade math! 🙂

Now for the cockroach encounter. Last week at dinner the nun next to me opened the sugar bowl and then causally set it back down without scooping out the copious amounts of sugar that Rwandans are so fond of. I happened to look over and was disgusted to see a giant cockroach frolicking in the sugar bowl! Ughh, it was so incredibly gross but the nuns handled it like it was an everyday occurrence. This casual response has made me rather paranoid that cockroach infestation in our food is a common thing and I just didn’t know- sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Once the nuns realized I was really grossed out by this they took great pleasure in chasing me around the table while threatening to dump it out on me. The head nun chided me like a small child while informing me that it couldn’t hurt me. I told her that I don’t really care that they are not poisonous- they are still disgusting. Someone finally disappeared with the first bowl and returned with a different container of sugar. I don’t use that much sugar anyway (much to the distress of my nuns) but now I will really think twice about taking the lid off the sugar bowl again!

Valentine’s Day

I had a wonderful first Valentine’s Day in Rwanda. I spent the majority of the day pumping my students full of sugar and letting them watch movies on my computer (with a few educational activities thrown in of course). I think their favorite was probably Mega Mind but they also laughed a lot when I showed them clips from other animated films like Despicable Me and The Emperor’s New Groove. Many of my kids try to act like they are all grown up and way to cool for “kid stuff” so it was cute to see them all huddled together, eating lollipops, and watching cartoon movies. At one point I was sitting between two kids who both had the heads resting on my shoulders- these kids get more loveable and less annoying the more I get to know them. 🙂

I only had a few classes in the morning so I spent the afternoon making valentines for my nuns. It took a solid three hours to make them all by hand but I felt a lot of pressure to make them awesome. When you are creating a gift for a group of people whose ultimate valentine is God you are facing some pretty big competition! We had a really nice dinner together and then one of the nuns brought the drums out to the common room. She apparently misplaced the stick you usually beat the drums with but that didn’t seem to faze her; she simply marched out to the kitchen and grabbed some knives to use instead. We spent the evening singing and dancing and I was very content to just watch until one of the nuns physically pulled me out onto the dance floor. I am usually not big on dancing but since the traditional movements consist mostly of swaying your arms in the air and spinning around it wasn’t too difficult to figure out. I also learned how to dance while balancing a giant candle on my head. Why were we balancing candles on our heads? I have no idea. I would love to tell you that there is some type of grand significance but I think it was just to be silly and have fun. Next time there is a nun dance party I will be sure to take pictures!

Here are a few more pictures from Valentine’s Day. I am also hoping to load an awesome video of one of my students dancing to Justin Bieber but I am not sure my internet is fast enough.

After learning about ordinal numbers we had a race to see which group could put them in order the fastest. Team orange (this group) dominated the race. Team pink didn’t understand the directions and each student took one card and then proceeded to do nothing. Team purple started out well enough but when I pulled out my camera they lost all focus and watched me take a picture of team orange. They didn’t seem too upset by the loss.

Watching movies- not an easy task with 30-40 kids in each class

Rwandan style graffiti 🙂

I know it is a little late but-

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Teaching Fish to Swim

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

-Albert Einstein

While Rwanda is making great strides to improve their education system, one of my biggest frustrations is the fact that my classrooms are full of intelligent little fish who are being judged based on abilities that they do not possess. There is one way to learn in this system- you memorize the notes that the teacher writes on the board and then regurgitate the information on the test. Keep in mind that while the notes are in English, most of the teachers do not know enough English to explain anything beyond what is on the board, so there is no opportunity for the students to ask questions so that they really understand the material. In most schools there is no effort made to reach out to students with different learning styles and because of this many of my precious fish have been labeled as stupid because they never learned to climb a tree.

 

The saddest part of it all is that many of my students are wonderfully creative and intelligent but since someone once told them that they were stupid they stopped trying. In a society that places an enormous emphasis on obeying authority and doing as you are told it is no wonder that these students have simply accepted that they are not smart enough to succeed in school. I think Einstein’s quote is the perfect way of demonstrating how this country has restructured its education system. Rwanda is so focused on moving forward, and having all their fish perform extraordinary tasks beyond their capacity, that they forget to simply teach the young fish to swim. My students have 15 courses (math, physics, biology, chemistry, political science, ITC, English, French, Kinyarwanda, Swahili, religion, geography, history, economics, and music) and struggle to succeed with almost all of them. Instead of making sure they really understand the basics, the schools instead try to make the students master a myriad of difficult subjects all at once.

 

There are a number of high expectations placed on these students, a majority of which requires them to use skills that they have never had the opportunity to develop. But instead of working with students to develop these skills teachers and schools find ways to pass kids along even if they are not adequately prepared. For example, at my school, a child who gets a 40% or higher in their class will pass that subject. A student who knows 40% of the subject matter is allowed to move on in the system but this is just setting them up for failure when it comes time to take the national exams.

 

Students take national exams at the end of primary school (P6) and then again after their third year of secondary school (S3) and finally at the end of secondary school (S6). These exams can determine their futures. If they succeed, their education can be continued at a “school of excellence” which will prepare them for university. If they do not do well they might get a spot in a lower-level school (like mine) or failing a national exam might signify the end of their education. My school doesn’t have the greatest reputation for producing stellar students (last year we had only one S3 student score well enough to attend a school of excellence) and I truly believe that this reputation is limiting the growth of the students. Kids at my school know that they are not at a school of excellence so many of them don’t put in the effort to learn anymore.

 

Another source of frustration for me is the fact that there is far too little praise for the skills and knowledge that the students have learned. Instead it tends to be a system that isolates and emphasizes what students don’t know. This problem is exacerbated in the classroom because most schools in Rwanda support a culture of mocking students who make mistakes. If a student finally builds up the courage to answer a question and makes an error the entire classroom is filled with mocking laughter until the child finally sits down and the teacher regains control of the class. If a student is already struggling you can pretty much guarantee that their hand will not be in the air again for a long time. I have tried very hard to get rid of this horrible  mocking laughter in my classroom but the kids have all grown up immersed in this culture of laughing at each other so most of my attempts have been rather futile.  Based on my experiences and observations this system, that leaves little room for praise and no room for errors, will produce a generation of learners who are plagued by self-doubt and feelings of incompetence. Rwanda is doing a fantastic job of rebuilding their nation in the aftermath of a horrible tragedy, but with such lofty goals for the future I think they might be forgetting that the children living in the present are suffering.

 

It is my job to teach English grammar and pronunciation for the next two years, and while I  know that learning the English language will be very beneficial for my students, I have realized that there is an even bigger task ahead of me. I think  that the best thing that I could do for my school is to help build the confidence of all my little fish who believe that they are too stupid to accomplish great things. In just the first six weeks of teaching it has been amazing to see how a few simple compliments and words of encouragement can completely alter the attitude of a struggling student. Instead of trying to have my students conform to the standards that ask them to accomplish unrealistic goals, I have decided to help them learn how to focus on, and be proud of, what they do know .

 

My fish may never learn to climb trees, but by the end of two years I hope that they will be confident swimmers and realize that their fish bowl is much larger than they once thought.  Failing to climb a tree does not mean that you are incapable of achieving great things in your life for having fins enables you to go places animals with feet can only dream about.

 

“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.”

– Stacia Tauscher

Birds, Kids, the School and Cows

One of my favorite students. She is so tiny but has lots of character!

Trying to be cool and not smile 🙂

Birds on my roof- annoying to hear in the wee hours of the morning but nice to look at

This is how I take a shower. I love living in Rwanda but I really miss real showers! 🙂

The part of the convent where they keep the animals.

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.  ~Martin Buber

My favorite cow. She is really cute and I love her. I really hope that she doesn’t become dinner while I am still living here.

View from the convent

Classrooms at my school

The kid’s latrines at the school

View from the school

Cute little birds outside of my house

Waiting for the storm

Some of my kiddos who I ran into after school on my flower safari

The Fabulous Flowers of Rwanda

Yesterday after school it was finally a little cooler since it had rained the day before so I decided to go on a flower safari. There are many “garden enthusiasts” in my family so I thought that they would appreciate these photos! Enjoy!

 

Earth laughs in flowers.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
~William Wordsworth

 

Breaking into my own house and other random updates

I have to start with a story about the end of my day because it is just too fantastic not to share. Arriving home after 6 hours of teaching and a teacher’s meeting that lasted almost 4 hours I was so very excited to just get inside my room, kick off my shoes, and hide away under my bug net to watch Rent. Much to my dismay when I went to open my door part of the key broke off leaving me with a small metal stick that turned out to be a rather useless key. I was so upset with the turn of events that I tried desperately to open my door with this small metal stick despite the fact that I knew it wouldn’t work. In my state of delusional desperation I may have also tried to fashion a key out of a pen and a bobby pin that I ripped out of my tangled hair. It wasn’t pretty, or logical for that matter, but desperate times call for desperate measures. After a few moments of trying to open my door with a pen I admitted defeat and headed out to find a nun to help me. I would have called my headmistress but my phone was sadly locked inside so I walked to the common room and found another teacher, Sister Martha, who agreed to postpone her afternoon tea to come help me break into my own room. After taking a few moments to evaluate the situation Martha declared that the only solution was to go in through the window. I tried to explain to her that it might be a better idea to just find the convent’s handyman, but by the time I had finished talking Martha was already testing the structural integrity of my window frame to see if her idea was a suitable option. She seemed immensely pleased that the rotting wood didn’t appear to present a problem and promptly began to brake apart my wooden window frame. At this point my headmistress, Espérance, showed up and I was nervous that she would be upset with the fact that Martha was blatantly destroying convent property. To the contrary, Espérance jumped right in and ripped the screen off with her bare hands while also wiping away dirt and an obscene amount of spiders as if it was nothing. After the entire window frame and screen had been disassembled and scattered on the lawn Martha went to fetch a chair so that I could climb through the window. This entire ordeal was so ridiculous that we all couldn’t help laughing as I climbed through my own window, Martha holding the unstable lawn chair I was balanced on while Espérance called for the handyman to come rebuild the frame. I arrived safely inside and located my spare key and returned my worthless metal stick back to Espérance. While the men started to fix my window I sat on my bed and took a moment to reflect on just how easy it was to break into my own house- it was a little unsettling to think about! Luckily I live in the heart of the convent and I feel as though I am very safe and well protected (despite the fact that 2 nuns had just destroyed my window in under a minute) and I truly believe that I have nothing to worry about.

 

Other news- the teachers decided today that I am a philosopher and they now refer to me as “Suzanna the philosopher.” At the start of our teacher’s meeting we had bread and milk (although the milk was warm and chunky so I opted for a Fanta instead) and then proceeded to eat in complete silence. I was a little bored so I took out a notebook and was making notes about my lesson for tomorrow when I realized that the teachers were talking about me. They declared that the only people who have so many thoughts that they must eat and write at the same time are philosophers so I therefore must be one.

Here are some other highlights from the meeting:

 

• While in the midst of a heated debate (in Kinyarwanda) about how to convey objectives to students at the start of each lesson Espérance informed the other teachers that they could use me as an example since my lesson plans are perfect. She has only seen one of my lesson plans and I am sure that the other teacher’s loved having me used as a reference for perfection. Collette, a biology teacher sitting next to me, would lean over to translate things every once in a while. At this moment she informed me that while most the teachers mess this part up I am “the great exception” and everyone should look to me for help. This is pretty crazy because my lesson plans, while I spend lots of time on them, are often chaotic and disorganized. The Rwandan teachers follow a strict organizational system and it was really uncomfortable to have her use me as a shinning example for lesson planning when many of them are much better than me. To sum it up it was awkward and I just nervously laughed it off while all the teachers stared at me.

•Before the meeting started Collette asked me why I don’t try putting my hair in “many small braids” like one of the other teachers does. I said that it would not look very good on me but she informed me that small braids would actually look “quite lovely around my fat face.” I really wanted to slap her but she wasn’t being mean, it was simply a thoughtful recommendation. Resisting the urge to stab her with my pen I told her with a smile that I would consider the small braids and she was very pleased.

•Towards the end of the meeting the teachers got on the subject of our white coats. All the teachers at my school (and most teachers in Rwanda) wear white lab coats while they teach. They are actually pretty convenient because you can store chalk and pens in the pockets and it helps to keep the dust off of your clothes. As an added bonus it makes me feel more important and official. I am not sure what the original topic was pertaining to the coats but eventually the subject turned to the fact that I look like a doctor in my coat. After being told that braids would really look nice with my fat face hearing that I looked like a doctor was a very nice compliment indeed! When I mentioned to Collette that I actually planned on being a doctor when I returned to America she promptly informed the entire room. While they were initially pleased with this career choice the conversation quickly turned very serious due to their concerns that I would not have time to find a husband and be a doctor. The head teacher proposed that perhaps I should wait to find a husband before I start medical school because 23 isn’t really that young and marriage is a priority above all else. I assured him that marriage and children would happen eventually which seemed to make him feel a little better. At one point I sat back and watched with a mixture of amusement and slight annoyance as a room full of teachers (all of whom are pretty much still strangers) debated my future career plans and discussed how it really is so tragic that I am still single. I have always been pretty confident that I will eventually find the love of my life but listening to them discuss how I am hopelessly single for over 20 minutes made me a little paranoid that maybe I should start accepting some of their blind date proposals! Upon reflection I think I will wait it out a little longer and continue to pray that Mr. Right will magically find me. If you are single and looking to feel insecure and have your love life (or lack of one) scrutinized by 15 people during a formal meeting- Rwanda is the place to be! 🙂

 

As random note, my students have started a new habit of cheering and clapping when I leave or enter a room. I am not really sure what started this, and it is probably really annoying for the other teachers, but I kind of like it. As much as Peace Corps volunteers like to complain about being trapped in a fish bowl 24/7 it is also kind of fun to be a celebrity. My kids are slowly getting used to my style and today, as a reward for good behavior after a week of issues (these kids are seriously chatty and it drives me crazy) I let them listen to Justin Bieber. He is not necessarily my number one choice for music but the kids (and adults) here go crazy for him. It is really hilarious to see my older boys, who all think that they are way too cool for school, dancing around the classroom singing out, “Baby, baby, baby.” One day I will need to get a video of this because it is really the funniest thing I have seen in a while.

It also rained for the first time in a long time and it was wonderful! I forgot how nice it feels to have cooler weather- I am typing this story out in my little garden, surrounded by flowers and loving the breeze! I think that is all for now- hope everyone is doing well!

 

Teaching is hard work

Teaching is hard work. This statement will not come as a surprise to anyone who has ever taught, but before now I have never truly appreciated just how exhausting teaching is! It takes time to invent and create and the lessons and the implementation (especially here) is particularly frustrating. Despite hours of meticulous planning I am still often faced with a room full of blank stares when I am explaining activities. The hardest part of a lesson for me is that horrible moment when you have 35 students saying, “teacher, we do not understand” as I desperately try to save my precious lesson plan that I was so proud of a mere 20 minutes ago. It is like putting in the time to build a ship and then be forced to abandon it in the midst of a turbulent storm. Sometimes, with the effort of a Kinyarwanda-English dictionary and just the right attitude I can manage to save the activity and break through the “blank stare barrier.” Most of the time, however, I reluctantly jump ship and fall back on a different activity that they already understand. There is a fine line between pushing my students to learn in a new and different way and just frustrating them to the point where they shut down. Unfortunately for me, since this is my first time teaching in the Rwandan school system, this line is often discovered through trial and error. Most of the time error.

 

Looking back on my all my years of education I can finally realize how truly blessed I was to have such amazing teachers! Teachers who always put in the extra effort to help me learn, spent countless hours creating fun and interesting activities and have dedicated their lives to forming the minds of children. A mere five weeks into my debut as a teacher I cannot believe how incredibly frustrating and difficult this job can be. Yes, it can be rewarding and the children are amazing to work with, but sometimes after an especially difficult day it takes all the courage I can muster just to walk back into the classroom the next day. Luckily for me a majority of my students are fantastic and I really love spending time with them and the extra work is totally worth it. As for that handful of students that seem to exist in this world with the sole intention of driving me crazy- well- I suppose this type of student is in every classroom around the world.

 

Today we welcomed our Senior 1 students. They come a month later than the other students because the education board has to finish grading their primary exams before they can decide which students can go to what schools because they are separated by scores. This doesn’t really make sense to me because they have a break from November to January and you would think that this would be enough time to grade all the exams but this is just one of those kinks in a developing education system that will hopefully be resolved eventually.

 

I was only supposed to teach two hours today, but when I showed up for my first class that starts at 9:45 am the students were all in the field in front of the school playing the drums and singing. I left my things in the teacher’s room and headed out to watch at the same time that the inclusive pre-school across the street arrived to do a short dance performance. It was adorable and very entertaining. I think the secondary school students really enjoyed it as well, and the Senior 1 students couldn’t decide if it was more fun to watch the children or stare at the white teacher. I am a constant source of entertainment for my community- hopefully after two years the novelty of my skin color will start to dissipate. So this little celebration happened to take place during the majority of my first class so instead of teaching 50 minutes I had about 15 minutes. I am slowly starting to get used to these random interruptions. For example the other day, while I was giving my kids a quiz, one of the teachers came in to collect all of the kids sweatshirts since it is technically not allowed- they take their dress code very seriously. All the kids had to stand up to be examined to make sure their shirts were tucked in as well. It was rather annoying since I knew that some of the students needed the whole 50 minutes to work and an impromptu visit from the fashion police put us behind schedule- but when you are a teacher in Rwanda you just learn to go with it!

 

I hope that everyone back home reading this will take a moment to appreciate the amazing teachers that changed their lives and how much work they put in to help get you where you are today. Sending lots of love to everyone back home- and everyone in Colorado enjoy the snow- I miss it! 🙂