I wake up every morning to a banging knock on my door – Mme Beti bringing hot tea water and sometimes an omelet for breakfast. And after tangling through my mosquito net tucked in all the sides of my bed, I manage to stumble to the door. Every morning she tries to tell me that I can just get up earlier to open the door and go back to sleep and every morning I don’t even bother trying to explain (in my first French of the day) that getting up at 6:30 to unlock the door is no less annoying than getting up now, and at least now I really have to get up.
It probably sounds like luxury having someone make all your meals, do the dishes and on occasion clean the floor and the bathroom. In the sense of my not having to do all those things, it really is, but there is another side to the story. When your food is prepared for you, you lose choice in the matter – you don’t know if the vegetables are cleaned enough (soaked in vinegar or a diluted bleach solution to make sure there are no parasites), or if the water is truly boiled before it goes into the thermos, and you end up eating rice and peas for lunch and then pasta and peas for dinner, or just potatoes and rice and no peas for dinner. I could specify all these things, but it’s easier to hope that if I do get parasites they lie dormant until I’m back in the states and trust that my pervious over-proteined American habits will allow a few lapses in balanced eating (generally there are beans in almost every meal, so I’m really not worried about the long run). Because on top of all this there is an awkwardness of my sitting around, reading or writing syllabi while all these things are done for me. Please and thank you’s aren’t a big thing in Rwanda (I believe there isn’t even a word for ‘please’ in Kinyarwanda) – if you need something you ask, and if someone can’t give, they refuse – but this is another habit I’m yet to kick. I follow all of Mme Beti’s actions with a merci in hope that I don’t seem to be the useless foreigner I often think I am taken to be.
Food prep is just one example of many forms of uselessness I can’t seem to help. I can’t fix the many broken computers in our two computer room because they need new licenses for their programs, so they’d be useless either way. I can’t prepare all my teacher materials (there are about four different books and forms I have to fill out throughout the year in regards to syllabus, curriculum, etc) without asking a dozen questions. I can’t lock my house without telling Mme Beti when I’ll be back or giving her the key so she can prepare meals while I’m teaching. I can’t even go into Butare for a day or a weekend without people asking where I was and how on earth I managed to get there by myself!
(However, the one area where I'm NOT that useless and very proud of myself - the BUGS! Huge wasps - like 2 inches - biting ants, crawling, flying beetles, plus a bird and two frogs that tried to move in - I killed none, never screamed, and have in short become very zen about it all. Luckily no cockroaches have tested this out...)
Saturday, February 7, 2009
PHOTOS!!!
Me with some of the kids, when I was letting them take turns with the camera.
This is a picture of Claire, Dan and Shira doing a dance with the kids at the orphanage.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Just to catch you up to speed...
Life has more or less continued on the same path since my first week. French is getting easier, and I’m making my students do more and more in English. I’m teaching the full load now, and so far, it hasn’t killed me. I’ve also been spending time in the teacher’s room, trying to be less ‘invisible.’ My house is all moved in – three little rooms with an outdoor cooking area, a food storage room (not the kitchen if cooking is done outside) and a bathroom (with water connected to toilet and shower – luxury! – though I have to wash my hands in the shower, haha). I spent my first full weekend at school but ended up spending most of it inside watching Grey’s Anatomy (in my defense, it was pouring rain – apparently it’s already the rainy season). I did come out to watch movies with the students at night; we saw Stomp the Yard, Mission Impossible and the second half of You Got Served. They seemed to really enjoy all of them. As did I. This past weekend I went to Butare with Claire and Shira who came down south for a visit (Claire actually spent a day at my school which was so fun – we had dinner with the sisters and taught two of my classes the funky chicken dance when they asked for the “traditional dance of America” – sorry USA). When we went with our group (to Butare) we met all these guys from the university who then came up to Kigali to see our whole group off our last night, anyways all these guys just found out they have to move to Kigali so they were having a party- naturally we had to come! It was a really fun weekend, though it’s too bad that they’re all leaving. That brings my nearby friend count down to two (Arwen and Martin, the two Europeans who are living in Butare for the next few months). But now at least I’ve figured out the transport to Butare so I’m free to go whenever I feel like shoving my way onto an already crowded minibus for the sake of molasses-like internet. Haha, I complain but you get used to it all pretty quickly.
My First Week
(1/23/09) NB: This is a really long, overly detailed post only meant for those who are really bored or just that interested. I will not take offense if you skip!
I got to my school Saturday night when it was too dark to see anything. After dinner with the sisters, I went to bed– between going out the night before, getting up early to pack, traipsing around Kigali in burning sun and then torrential rain, and then of course the deluge of introductions in French and Kinyarwanda, I was exhausted.
On Sunday, I had breakfast with the nuns – meals with them would become a regular occurrence until I moved into my permanent housing (for the first few days I was in the guest quarters without cooking space). Then I went to church. Whether this will become a regular activity, I’m not sure. Mass was two hours long in Kinyarwanda, but the singing was absolutely beautiful and kept me transfixed for the duration. The rest of the day I was in a bit of a daze. I never really knew what was going on, I followed two of the nuns around as they introduced me to the other teachers, showed me the school in the light and where I was going to live for the rest of the year, but I never really knew what was going on from one minute to the next. And all the while I was so sure we would get to talking about what I was going to teach, but somehow that never came up! (And they had already been in school a week when I got there.)
Finally, after breakfast on Monday the headmistress (also, the kind of head sister) took me to see the Prefect of Studies to give me my schedule. All this time I had been told that the school really needed a Physics teacher, but I ended up with only two classes of first year physics and then seven of computers! It seems that when the headmistress saw my abilities with excel as I helped the secretary enter some names the night before she had a change of heart. So now I’m teaching computers to the first years, second years and fifth years. More or less in French. This makes my schedule pretty hectic. I teach about 5 to 7 classes in an 8 period day – but I don’t have any on Wednesday thank God – while the rest of my compatriots across the country are teaching no more than 8-16 classes total! Lucky me. I am partly saved by the fact that the first years don’t get here until the first week of February (because they are only sorting out the results of the national admissions exams right now), so for at least my first two weeks I only have about 2/3 of the classes. But trust me, that’s already an overwhelming amount. Each class for computers meets only twice a week, so I basically spend the week repeating two lessons. This makes lesson planning easy, but kills my memory as I try to sort out what specific points were covered in each session in each class. And then there’s the whole problems of learning names. I estimate that this week, in seeing only six different classes I taught about 240 students!
So the week passed from class to class, period to period. For now I have a lot of breaks in between classes so I could at least catch my breath in between. (I’ve almost finished The Poisonwood Bible which I started on Monday – send me books!) There were no grand failures, though the one time I took one of my classes to the computer room (usually we teach computers in a regular classroom with just a blackboard) none of the computers had been connected to their power sources so we spent half the period just trying to boot up. I’ve spent much of our class time simply fielding questions about me, the US and my impressions of Rwanda so far. The students are always struck by how young I am, shocked and amused that I’m not married or engaged or particularly worried about it, and almost unanimously love T.I. and Akon, Obama, and Manchester United or Arsenal.
The sisters are wonderful. There are eight of them ranging a lot in age, from what I can guess, but all so jovial and welcoming. As I said, I ate all my meals with them my first six days until I moved to my permanent housing (more on that in a minute). We always stood to pray (or rather I watched while they sang) before, and sometimes after, meals. Then they’d tell me to serve myself and if I didn’t take enough one of the sisters would take it upon herself to just add more to my plate! For breakfast we ate bread with cheese and sausage, assorted fruits (many bananas, passion fruit and Japanese plums – like passion fruit, but red and tastes kind of like a combination of blackberries and kiwi) and tea – or really, hot milk with sugar and a tea bag that is more or less decoration. Lunch and dinner were a combination of many starches (bananas baked or stewed, rice, potatoes, Rwandan sweet potatoes – white, not orange!) beans, a vegetable and some meat. First we drank warm milk with every meal (the school has some cows so it’s really fresh, but once they found out I liked beer they’d press it on me like a second serving! One night they got so excited to show me their favorite movie which they were sure I’d love – it was the sound of music, only dubbed in French! Needless to say, I was thrilled. They also made sure there was a little viewing party for Obama’s inauguration – the headmistress was out of town but she called a teacher at the school to go get me and set up the TV, and in the end about 50 students joined us as well. So really, if there is one definite indication that my year will go well, it’s the sisters.
That’s not to say that everyone else isn’t as friendly as well. Almost all of the teachers came by my guest suite to say hello in the first few days. They’re very nice and keep telling me to come and spend more time in the teachers room – I have been a little bit reclusive what with all the chaos of starting classes and frankly getting tired of speaking French all day – but I am trying to mend my ways. Now that I am not longer living right next to all the classrooms I will probably not have the time to be running back to my room between classes…
I got to my school Saturday night when it was too dark to see anything. After dinner with the sisters, I went to bed– between going out the night before, getting up early to pack, traipsing around Kigali in burning sun and then torrential rain, and then of course the deluge of introductions in French and Kinyarwanda, I was exhausted.
On Sunday, I had breakfast with the nuns – meals with them would become a regular occurrence until I moved into my permanent housing (for the first few days I was in the guest quarters without cooking space). Then I went to church. Whether this will become a regular activity, I’m not sure. Mass was two hours long in Kinyarwanda, but the singing was absolutely beautiful and kept me transfixed for the duration. The rest of the day I was in a bit of a daze. I never really knew what was going on, I followed two of the nuns around as they introduced me to the other teachers, showed me the school in the light and where I was going to live for the rest of the year, but I never really knew what was going on from one minute to the next. And all the while I was so sure we would get to talking about what I was going to teach, but somehow that never came up! (And they had already been in school a week when I got there.)
Finally, after breakfast on Monday the headmistress (also, the kind of head sister) took me to see the Prefect of Studies to give me my schedule. All this time I had been told that the school really needed a Physics teacher, but I ended up with only two classes of first year physics and then seven of computers! It seems that when the headmistress saw my abilities with excel as I helped the secretary enter some names the night before she had a change of heart. So now I’m teaching computers to the first years, second years and fifth years. More or less in French. This makes my schedule pretty hectic. I teach about 5 to 7 classes in an 8 period day – but I don’t have any on Wednesday thank God – while the rest of my compatriots across the country are teaching no more than 8-16 classes total! Lucky me. I am partly saved by the fact that the first years don’t get here until the first week of February (because they are only sorting out the results of the national admissions exams right now), so for at least my first two weeks I only have about 2/3 of the classes. But trust me, that’s already an overwhelming amount. Each class for computers meets only twice a week, so I basically spend the week repeating two lessons. This makes lesson planning easy, but kills my memory as I try to sort out what specific points were covered in each session in each class. And then there’s the whole problems of learning names. I estimate that this week, in seeing only six different classes I taught about 240 students!
So the week passed from class to class, period to period. For now I have a lot of breaks in between classes so I could at least catch my breath in between. (I’ve almost finished The Poisonwood Bible which I started on Monday – send me books!) There were no grand failures, though the one time I took one of my classes to the computer room (usually we teach computers in a regular classroom with just a blackboard) none of the computers had been connected to their power sources so we spent half the period just trying to boot up. I’ve spent much of our class time simply fielding questions about me, the US and my impressions of Rwanda so far. The students are always struck by how young I am, shocked and amused that I’m not married or engaged or particularly worried about it, and almost unanimously love T.I. and Akon, Obama, and Manchester United or Arsenal.
The sisters are wonderful. There are eight of them ranging a lot in age, from what I can guess, but all so jovial and welcoming. As I said, I ate all my meals with them my first six days until I moved to my permanent housing (more on that in a minute). We always stood to pray (or rather I watched while they sang) before, and sometimes after, meals. Then they’d tell me to serve myself and if I didn’t take enough one of the sisters would take it upon herself to just add more to my plate! For breakfast we ate bread with cheese and sausage, assorted fruits (many bananas, passion fruit and Japanese plums – like passion fruit, but red and tastes kind of like a combination of blackberries and kiwi) and tea – or really, hot milk with sugar and a tea bag that is more or less decoration. Lunch and dinner were a combination of many starches (bananas baked or stewed, rice, potatoes, Rwandan sweet potatoes – white, not orange!) beans, a vegetable and some meat. First we drank warm milk with every meal (the school has some cows so it’s really fresh, but once they found out I liked beer they’d press it on me like a second serving! One night they got so excited to show me their favorite movie which they were sure I’d love – it was the sound of music, only dubbed in French! Needless to say, I was thrilled. They also made sure there was a little viewing party for Obama’s inauguration – the headmistress was out of town but she called a teacher at the school to go get me and set up the TV, and in the end about 50 students joined us as well. So really, if there is one definite indication that my year will go well, it’s the sisters.
That’s not to say that everyone else isn’t as friendly as well. Almost all of the teachers came by my guest suite to say hello in the first few days. They’re very nice and keep telling me to come and spend more time in the teachers room – I have been a little bit reclusive what with all the chaos of starting classes and frankly getting tired of speaking French all day – but I am trying to mend my ways. Now that I am not longer living right next to all the classrooms I will probably not have the time to be running back to my room between classes…
First Impressions - Rude is Relative
When I met my headmistress I was half an hour late and soaking wet. Late because it took an unexpected hour and a half for our lunch of fries and salad. Soaking because on the walk back there was a mini-monsoon (dry season = only the occasional torrential downpour). Then again, she also arrived four hours behind schedule to meet me. And none of these circumstances were rude; it’s just life. I apologized (yet to break my American conception of manners) but she waved it off and warmly told me to go change so I would be more comfortable.
One of the first questions every new class asks me is “Are you married?” And when I say no, they laugh and insist that I must have a fiancé or at least a boyfriend. (After a few classes I begin to feel like Bridget Jones…) In Rwanda, teachers are some of the most respected figures in society, so aren’t these questions prying and too personal? No. My students are just honestly curious. I’m practically the same age as some of them, but because I am standing in front of them as an “adult” they find it hard to believe I lack the normal signs of adult-like stability.
After all our discussions of “cultural adjustment” it’s these tiny shifts in perception that are the hardest to gauge. At least when people yell “muzungu!” at me I know why – I’m the only white person in Save, so it’s more of an amused “what the hell are you doing here?” than an insult or accusation. And by now I’m used to responding with a smile and “muraho!” (hello!) to diffuse any awkwardness. But everything else is so amorphous it falls under a general I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on sense that I can’t attach to just one experience. For example, do I call into question my own authority if I erase the chalkboard myself instead of asking a student to do it? When people come “just to greet” me in my house, do they want to sit down and talk or just walk in, say hello and leave? We'll see.
One of the first questions every new class asks me is “Are you married?” And when I say no, they laugh and insist that I must have a fiancé or at least a boyfriend. (After a few classes I begin to feel like Bridget Jones…) In Rwanda, teachers are some of the most respected figures in society, so aren’t these questions prying and too personal? No. My students are just honestly curious. I’m practically the same age as some of them, but because I am standing in front of them as an “adult” they find it hard to believe I lack the normal signs of adult-like stability.
After all our discussions of “cultural adjustment” it’s these tiny shifts in perception that are the hardest to gauge. At least when people yell “muzungu!” at me I know why – I’m the only white person in Save, so it’s more of an amused “what the hell are you doing here?” than an insult or accusation. And by now I’m used to responding with a smile and “muraho!” (hello!) to diffuse any awkwardness. But everything else is so amorphous it falls under a general I-have-no-idea-what’s-going-on sense that I can’t attach to just one experience. For example, do I call into question my own authority if I erase the chalkboard myself instead of asking a student to do it? When people come “just to greet” me in my house, do they want to sit down and talk or just walk in, say hello and leave? We'll see.
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