down to business

So, my only real problem with waiting so long between blog posts is how much I have to remember to catch up on!

First off, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has commented, written, responded, or otherwise made any contact with me. Your support has been instrumental in my survival here.

Our training center is just across the street from my house, which is very helpful for us, but frustrating because everybody wants to use our bathroom. After the first time the toilet got blocked up, I was able to convince the girls in the house to put their TP in a trash bucket. Most of the other PCTs have acquiesced to using the outhouse in the backyard.
We have all our classes and meals at the training center, which means we carry our chairs back and forth between the classrooms and the main room periodically. We have a nice courtyard in the middle with the classes and director offices encircling it. Our medical director travels all over the country because she is the Rwanda PCMO. (Peace Corp Medical Officer) We’re hoping that will mean that at some point she will stop at the post office in Kigali and bring us the mail…

Our schedule is set in large blocks of time with significant breaks in between. Breakfast at 7, a two hour block from 8-10, tea time for half an hour, a 90 minute block, then lunch for two and a half hours. Classes start again at 2:30 for an hour-fifteen, followed by a 15 minute break and then a final hour session. Oh yeah – dinner at 7. We alternate classes between language, tech (pedagogy), “safety and security”, medical, and culture training.

Language:
Kinyarwanda is a very complicated language to switch to from any Indo-European base. There are 16 noun classes that affect every prefix used in the sentence. There are multiple KR phrases that translate (or not, as the case may be) into a single English phrase, so we will often hear “you can say this or that – same thing”. Some things we want to learn how to say don’t exist – like son, daughter, or beautiful. You would say “my boy child” or “my girl child” and everything is degree of good. The dress you’re wearing is a good dress; the view from on top of this hill is a good view; you said that phrase ‘good’.

Language classes as the first block in the morning is tough because that’s 2 hours straight of pounding memorization. They are trying to teach us without using translation, so there is a lot of confusion as we start each new subject. We have 13 teachers, and they rotate the classes they teach almost every session. After the first week, they also switched up the classes to adjust for learning styles and speed. My pronunciation skill has placed me in a higher class, so we’ll see how that goes.

Tech (pedagogy):
Most of our sessions have had guest speakers and discuss the concepts of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and teaching in general. Next week, the first group starts their “micro-teaching” – small lessons before they go to model school. I signed up with the third group as they only get 2 weeks of model school, and as I already have that year under my belt, I thought it might be better to let the non-teachers fill up the other groups.
Our first speakers were some volunteer teachers from World Teach International (I think?) and they have been here for about a year. It sounded like they didn’t have as much training as we are getting, but it was helpful to hear from other Americans who have been living in the area for a while. We also had some other PCVs talk to us, but they are technically health volunteers, so their experience will be different from ours as well. They each had different school experiences to share and had to balance this ‘extra’ teaching role with their health responsibilities. They came back during our cultural training session to help us be aware of standards and expectations they had come across that they felt we would be unaware of otherwise. (will discuss more in cultural topic)
We also heard form a current Rwandan university student, Jean Batiste. His education, like many others older than 10, was interrupted for a time because of the genocide. He is currently teaching secondary school and in university working towards his Bachelors. Rwanda government provided free education up through grade 6 in French until this year. The school year starting in 2010 will cover grades 1-9 as “basic education” which means there is no fee for classes, but materials, uniforms, and lunches still weigh heavily on many families. Also, all the classes will be taught in English. The government wants teachers to be proficient by 2012, and almost everyone we come across wants us to help teach them English so they can be progressive as well.

We have also focused a lot on gender equality issues. Even though 60% of the Parliament here is female, education is still vastly underrated for women. Part of the issue is that not only does a family have to pay for secondary education, but they lose an employee around the house. Within the classroom, girls are second-class citizens. They are not called on, and when they do try to speak, the boys ignore them and hold their own conversations. Ya’ll know I set the feminism movement back about 50 years, but there is something to be said for human equality. Our main plan is to inject some confidence into the girls and teach respect in the classroom.

Then we heard from Ken Franklin, a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas – UK/Netherlands/other western Euro countries version of PC) who had been here for 3 years. He was very engaging, and shared some language stories we could all relate to; like when he thought he was asking for bread (umugati) , but was in fact asking for eight (umunani), loudly, for about 10 minutes. =) He gave us a great interactive lesson on how to dig up resources when there didn’t appear to be any around – and how to share that with the teachers in our schools. Also, how to slowly integrate learner centered lessons and group activities into our classrooms. Because of minimal resources and tradition, 99% of All classes are taught where the teacher either dictates a lesson to be copied, or writes it on the blackboard to be copied. And that’s it.

Following that very refreshing presentation, we helped John Simpson, who is on the British Council for REAP (Rwandan English Action Program), as a “brain-trust” to help him create some action plans for exposing the teachers to more English. They will have seminars and conferences during their large break (November-December) but will need to practice and learn more across the year as well if they are to reach the proficiency goal of 2012. Many of us discussed including English in their staff meetings, during meals at school, during content-area meetings (to focus on content language) and how we as PCVs could contribute by going over lesson plans with the teachers, observing lessons, and facilitating English clubs during the week.

Safety and Security:

We don’t really have a lot of these sessions – I think there’s only maybe one or two more during training. The one we had was about how we could be responsible for our possessions and not flashing around our money and what we have. I have a few great photos from a skit I was dragged into about ‘the foolish PCV’ out on the town. We stayed out too late, drank too much, and I brought all my valuables with me to play with. And I went back alone when I had left my phone in the bar… I don’t think our language teachers have had that much fun so far in training. And Oh the Drama! I was pretty much awesome. =)

That’s all.

Medical:
Well here’s the fun part. It’s definitely helpful to go over policies and procedures of what to do if you get sick or injured (or pregnant apparently) and who we can contact, etc. They do like to scare us a little about eating Anything, because it could be contaminated somehow. But the great part is the 3 or 4 extra shots we get to have over the course of our work. Rabies shots, flu shots, possible boosters for other stuffs.
Our med kits are pretty comprehensive: (I will refer to thing either by their commonly known brand name or use description – please note that most of these are NOT brand name) (which is fine)
- Tylenol
- Advil
- Triple antibiotic ointment
- Throat lozenges – two kinds – Sucrets!
- Caladryl cream / anti-itch cream
- Imodium pills
- Eye drops
- Rehydration salts
- Iodine water purification tablets
- Hydrocortisone cream
- Antacid
- Antihistamines
- Sinus decongestant
- Pepto-Bismol tablets
- Anti-fungal cream
- Antiseptic fluid
- Bleach solution to help purify water
- Medical tape
- Bandaids
- Butterfly closures
- Floss
- Ace bandage
- Gauze pads
- Rubber gloves
- Insect repellent
- Chapstick
- Safety whistle
- Bandage scissors
- Sunscreen
- Splinter tweezers
- Disposable thermometers
And most importantly -

- Condoms
Many kits have “Black Ice” brand. They’re made in Malaysia.
Just in cases…


Culture Training:
Things to be aware of in Rwanda –
- you must greet Everyone (especially if you have ever met them before), but you don’t have to say please
- and this isn’t a passing hello. Rwandans really care about conversation and showing that the person they are talking to is important to them. Be prepared to share your news and be sure to ask for theirs.
- no naked feet!
- Sit properly please. No lounging or sprawling or tucking your feet underneath you (Indian style) OR sitting on the ground.
- Smoking is to be confined to designated areas
- Stand when you are addressing a group
- Don’t smell the food
- No shoes in the sitting room
- In fact, nothing really personal in the sitting room
- No emotion in public (ie. crying)
- No eating in public / while moving
- Accept / offer some kind of refreshment when visiting / hosting
- Yawning – hungry
- Walk your visitors out the gate and down the road a bit.

All reasonable things, really. Rwanda is a very conservative, reserved culture. They can be very passionate, but there is a time and a place for everything here.

Other news:
We learned to do laundry in a bucket. Almost as fun as bathing from a bucket. If your hands are raw when you’re done, you’ve done it right. =) mine hurt from wringing by the time I finished. I’m interested to see how washing towels goes… Our kitchen staff were nice enough to wash our sheets for us though.

Middle of last week we met with the local authorities from our town. There are 3 mayors for our district: a head mayor, a jr mayor of economics/finance, and another jr mayor of civics/social issues. The head mayor was in Kigali, and the money mayor had taken time off for his wedding, so the social mayor came in from maternity leave (1 month!) to meet us. The chief of police and the head of migration also came. In Rwanda, meetings have a very different structure than America. Because greetings are so important, everyone needs to introduce themselves and share about what their role is. Our director introduced us and explained what Peace Corps was and why we were there, in French; introduced all the staff; then asked us PCVs to introduce ourselves. Most of us tried to do it in Kinyarwanda, a few did in French, and a few acknowledged that they weren’t ready and spoke in English still. Then the migration head and the police chief introduced themselves and welcomed us and said if we needed anything we were to avail ourselves of their service. Kate read a speech that she had shown me drafts of and I got to help edit – we needed one of our teachers to translate it, but I think the authorities really appreciated the effort that was shown.
Many meetings in Rwanda take hours because of greetings, introductions, and strict procedure, but I like a place with a sense of propriety and order.

Finally, we all met our “resource families” this week. These are like host families, only we don’t live with them. We had a ceremony where a representative from each family came to meet us at our school and then we all walked back to our respective houses. Some people have to walk 3-5 kilometers (those are the farthest away though). I didn’t measure it, but my family is about a 10-15 minute walk, so maybe a mile away, but that also includes uphill and through yards. My resource mom, Uwamwiza, teaches at the local elementary school, and specified in Social Studies. My resource dad, Gatabazi, is (I think) a factory worker who makes office furniture. They have 4 kids, Rusi (Lucy) 8, Fille 6 (boy), Shukuru 4 (boy), and Zipora 2 (girl). They also have 3 other girl staying with them, who I believe are genocide orphans. Marina is in secondary school, and teaches at the primary school with Uwamwiza. We are supposed to spend at least 4 hours a week with them, and so far I have seen them twice (totaling maybe 6 hours). Fortunately, our directors have scheduled time for visits into our schedules, and our weekends are usually free.

AHHH!! So much going on! So next time, I will try and tell you about our visit to the historical royal site and the art museum, and our visit to Butare (Huye) and the memorial center there. Thanks for reading!