Destination: Kigali

After two weeks in Muyenzi, it was certainly time for a little change of scenery.  Enough nights by the kerosene lantern, brushing our teeth outside spitting down the hole that leads out of our courtyard, eating rice and vegetables, having limited cell phone service, enduring heavy rains, and sharing our life stories with no one but each other…So where’s our destination of choice? Kigali, Rwanda! We left school an hour early, and had my piki piki driver take us to Rulenge so we could catch a taxi to Ngara that afternoon. We stayed with Alex and Sue, eagerly anticipating our adventure for the weekend! We all woke up early and left for the taxi stand by 7am. By 7:45, a taxi pulled up next to us, asked where we were going and we hopped in and headed off to Rusumo, the small town on the border of Rwanda. It only took about an hour to get to Rusumo, with a few stops along the way to fill up the car. In Rusumo, we had to pass immigration in Tanzania before walking over the bridge into Rwanda. The bridge passes over Rusumo Falls, some pretty intense waterfalls. As we continue walking to immigration, we pass through the long lines of semi trucks waiting to enter and exit the country. We made it through immigration with no hassles, and were immediately summoned aboard a bus to Kigali. The bus ride took about 4 and a half hours, with several stops along the way. But the road was nicely paved, people were friendly, and everyone had a seat (unlike Tanzanian transport where as many people as possible are squeezed in). Like Tanzania, Rwanda is a beautiful country, with rolling hills of banana trees and very green countryside. Along the main road, many of the shops were built of nice concrete fronts, the homes seemed well maintained, and the sides of the roads were so clean. It was very impressive, and unlike other parts of Africa that I’ve seen. I wasn’t sure what to expect, considering the recent history, but Rwanda is doing very well for itself.

            When we made it to downtown Kigali, we took a taxi to our hotel and made our way to the nearest restaurant. Hamburgers, French fries, and a mango smoothie? YES please! After a delicious meal, we spent time soaking up the internet for the afternoon, enjoying each other’s company and the presence of wi-fi. We also ventured into an actual grocery store and you would have thought we’d never seen one before! A bakery, pasta in different shapes, cereal, olives, cheese, candy bars, and on and on and on. We walked around in shock for most of the time, and then picked out a few life essentials, like pasta, olives, cheese, toothpaste, and baby wipes for our ever-so-dirty feet. It was epic. And much more expensive than market day in Rulenge; so much for $10 groceries this week…

When it came time for dinner, the real adventure of Saturday began.  Alex had found a place in the Lonely Planet guidebook that sounded worthwhile, so we figured we would try it out. According to his map, it was just down the road, up a hill and to the left…but after walking in circles, we stopped to ask for directions. Now, the question is what language do we ask in? French? English? Swahili? Kishubi? We actually aren’t sure what language anyone spoke ever, but I tried my little bit of French and it didn’t get us far. A little Swahili and we were able to determine that we should go ask someone else. So we ask someone else, in multiple languages, and they finally say that they know the restaurant! But it’s too far to walk, so we’ll have to take piki pikis. Ok, if you insist... However, all of the piki piki drivers in Kigali had two helmets, one for themselves and one for the passenger, a bright vest with their telephone number, and only took one person at a time. (The Muyenzi in us wanted to fit on one bike, but we had to split lol). So Alex, Marisa and I hopped on three bikes and took off.  I actually enjoy a good motorcycle ride, believe it or not!

The real excitement begins though, when our drivers don’t actually know where they are going, and have to stop to consult with each other, with us, and with passerby’s on the street. Too many languages, and too many wrong turns for my liking, and after circling the city at least three times, we told them to take us back to our hotel. After trying to overcharge us, we paid them for the ride and sadly walked into the hotel and asked the guy at the desk if he knew the restaurant. He said yes, and that he would get a taxi for us to take us there. We thanked him, headed to the taxi and took off…to the exact street we went down multiple times on the piki pikis! The restaurant was no where to be found, but Marisa was bound and determine to have a delicious dinner, so we stopped at another hotel on the road and she went in to ask about the mysterious restaurant. Come to find out, it had moved to another location nine months earlier, but had previously been on that road. Ah, no wonder there was such confusion! But it took us asking at least 25 people and at least an hour before we figured this out. Good news, however, is that there was a couple from New York City at the hotel who quickly befriended Marisa, Alex and I, and sent us to a great Indian place around the corner. They had founded a non-profit to train teachers and doctors in English in Rwanda and previously in Niger. The woman was a third grade teacher in Brooklyn, before turning to her passion of education and health in Africa. She has written four children’s books (published by Scholastic?!) and comes to Rwanda three times a year to train doctors and teachers for their missions in the country. She was awesome! And told us we were crazy for living in the bush and teaching for the year. She asked if our mother’s knew what we had gotten ourselves into, and said that next time she’s in Kigali, we must come visit so she can take us out to a nice dinner. How sweet! Come February 2 when she’s back in Rwanda, I guarantee you that we will be in Kigali. It’s crazy and wonderful the people we meet here!

At this point, we’re all starving, so we finally exchange information and head to the Indian restaurant. Oh it was so great! SO so great! There were other wazungus, tourists on holiday, people working for non-profits, etc, so we didn’t feel so out of place (minus our Muyenzi outfits that actually aren’t good for anywhere but the village). We ordered so much delicious food and were actually able to be out after dark, which was a nice change of pace. Dinner was lovely, and I definitely went to bed happy, and quite full, that night.

Waking up to a hot shower Sunday morning was also a wonderful surprise. My twice a week bucket bath with cold water in my courtyard just can’t compare to hot water in an actual tub. It’s the little things in life that count. We left the hotel early and went for breakfast at Urban Coffee, a very western place with more wi-fi and more wazungus. Mostly, just the presence of other foreigners all weekend was refreshing, rather than being the 1% of diversity in Muyenzi. I was able to order a cup of coffee and veggie omelet, breakfast of champions! After a relaxing breakfast, we each got on a piki piki to take us to the bus stand so we could head back to Tanzania. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay any longer, but the journey back for us was long and we needed to make it home before dark. We boarded the bus, and made it back to Rusumo in a decent amount of time. After walking back across the border and passing through immigration again, we hopped into a taxi to take us to Ngara. Since Marisa and I missed the Saturday market in Rulenge, we stopped along the way to the next taxi stand to pick up our week’s worth of groceries (namely, tomatoes, eggplant, onions, cabbage and peanut butter…) We walked to the taxi’s with all of our things, and of course it started to rain. And of course I had left my raincoat on the bus in Kigali. Oops. But we climbed into another taxi to take us to Rulenge, where we hopped on a piki piki (this time, both of us with a full backpack of clothes, computers, chords, and food plus a large bag of vegetables each, on the same motorcycle…we are the Muyenzi road show.) And oh, I must mention that by now we had been travelling for at least seven hours, so of course Mother Nature would pick this to be the time for a downpour! AHHHH. Take us back to Kigali! Never ride a motorcycle in the rain…it’s the worst! Thankfully we made it home in one piece, although just a little bit wet. It was quite the adventure of a weekend, but I can’t wait to go back! We are planning on taking our Muyenzi road show all around East Africa, so I’m sure Kigali will see us again one day J

A Glimpse into My Classroom

As we came to the end of the unit in my Form 1 and Form 3 classes, it came time for an exam. In Form 3, we were studying relations, including domain/range, graphing and inverse relations. They struggled throughout the unit, so my expectations going into the exam weren’t high. It’s been difficult teaching this class, because their math skills range from very basic to very advanced, the level of English is generally low or lower, and the attendance varies from 55 to 75 students on any given day. Even so, I spent a day reviewing the topics on the exam, and then gave them the exam the next class period. Keep in mind that I gave the exam last week Wednesday, to the 61 students who happened to be there. It didn’t matter if they missed the review, or the past two weeks, or if they had been in every class but missed the exam day. You simply give the test to the students who are present, and that’s that. Although, in reality the exam doesn’t actually count for anything, other than a measure of where the students are at. It’s still interesting to me that even though the exam doesn’t count for anything, the students take it very seriously and are so concerned with correct marks. Their mindset is completely different from American students. That being said, I had 61 students take the exam and if we say that 50% is passing, then 12 students passed (one boy scored 100% and one girl scored 95%!). However, I also had 6 students score 0, when they wrote answers for each problem and actively tried the entire period. Talk about discrepancy.

           

During the exam, the students were really well behaved, which is such a blessing compared to some of the classes I’ve had to give tests in before. Not having the behavioral issues is such a nice change of pace, although I did have one student who thought he could look in his notebook without me noticing. That didn’t work out so well for him, as I quietly took his notebook and asked him to continue. After class, I asked him why he was looking in his math notebook, and he said he had forgotten a calculation. I told him that cheating on an exam is not allowed, and that he must write me a formal letter in English about cheating on exams. He asked for forgiveness, but I figured a little practice in writing in English wouldn’t hurt. He came to my office a half hour later, letter in hand, apologizing for his mistake and ensuring me that it wouldn’t happen again. Mostly his use of the phrase “forgive me for destroying the rules of the examination room” makes me think my point was clear. The letter is priceless though; it’s definitely being saved for future reference.

On a lighter note, most students used two sheets of paper. Without a stapler, I just told them to write their names on both sheets before they handed it in. Well, students here certainly are creative, because all of a sudden I notice a boy pull a string from his sweater sleeve, bite it off with his teeth, and proceed to tie the corners of his exam papers together. What! The trend continued, and I was so enamored by this that I just let it happen. I might have been more concerned if their sweaters weren’t falling apart with wholes and frayed sleeves, but the damage of losing one more string had no apparent effect. So, I had cute little bows holding together all of the tests. I still am unsure as to how they were able to thread the string through the paper, but perhaps it’s an acquired skill. 

             

            I gave my Form 1 class an exam the very next day on the geometry unit we had just finished. I wasn’t in the best of moods going into the period, and I’ve come to realize that Thursday afternoons this class goes crazy. Bad combination for an exam, especially when other students were literally running around outside the windows disrupting everything. We were able to get through the exam all right, but I definitely had students looking in their notes and whispering about answers with their neighbor. With 59 students however, it’s nearly impossible to control this, especially when so many don’t speak enough English to even understand my instructions. By the time I finally collected all the tests, we were all ready to be finished. This class did much better than Form 3, with 35 students passing and a class average of 54%. Even taking into consideration the amount of cheating that was happening, I was pleased with the scores.

            As for their punishment, I gave the class another exam on Monday without telling them about it. We first reviewed the rules of taking an exam, while I was very clear that I knew they were all sharing answers and looking in their notes on the previous exam. For this exam, I wrote 20 questions on board on all of the topics they had supposedly covered this year, most of which was basic math facts. Results of this test were drastically lower however, with a class average of 18%. This tells me two things: first, their basic math skills are very low; and second, they definitely studied for the geometry exam. Pluses and minuses (literally...get it? because we were reviewing adding and subtracting with negative numbers...lol. Maybe that was too much?) But it definitely helped show me what topics we need to review before their terminal exams in December.

           

            Overall, my first examinations have been a learning experience for all of us. I struggle with the fact that there is no accountability for students who are absent, and have no idea what to do with the 49 Form 3 students who failed the exam. The challenge of teaching here has certainly presented itself these past few weeks, but at least we enjoy our class time together and perhaps by the end of the year we’ll see some improvement. 

National Examination Week

The excitement these past few weeks in school has been the Form 4 national exams. The students take a test in 8 or 9 different subjects, and some take more depending on which classes they’ve taken. Every school had security guards stationed 24/7 for the exam papers, which were locked in the headmaster’s office. Teachers from each school were also transferred to other schools in the district to proctor the exam. These are certainly not taken lightly! The students took two tests per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I haven’t actually seen the exams from this year, but I’m sure they were quite difficult. I’m not sure exactly what it takes to pass the examinations, but I know that they do not need to pass all subjects to move on. If a student does pass, they are able to continue to the Advanced level, forms five and six, before eventually attending a university. Unfortunately for many of my students, A-level will never be a reality, as last year only one student passed the exams. There are a handful of very bright students in the class this year though, so perhaps Bukiriro will send a few more students onto Form 5 next year. It’s hard when education isn’t a priority in the community and when these students have so many other responsibilities at school and outside of school. Combine this with lack of teachers and resources and a curriculum that hardly relates to their lives, it’s a wonder that students show up day after day! They are so eager to learn! Case in point: One day, I was going to let my Form 1 class have a break from doing exercises/practice problems, since I had given them exams both class periods before. And what do they ask me? For more exercises! I certainly didn’t say no, and gave them a few problems to work on, which they all completed in their notebooks and delivered to my office for marking. A teacher’s dream! I didn’t even mind the fact that I had to correct 65 notebooks for Form 1, and then another 60 for Form 3 that day. In America, it was nearly impossible to get students to turn in work most of the time, while here, they ask for more. An interesting perspective. 

"This is my mental breakdown"

It’s bound to happen sooner or later, right?

Well, it hasn’t actually happened yet, but this is a common household phrase used by Marisa and me daily. Literally there are so many things that could cause a breakdown at any moment, so it’s best to make a joke of it, claim it’s our breakdown, and have a good laugh about it. Here’s a brief list of possible reasons to use this phrase:

-  **It’s raining, you have no clean underwear, and now you can’t do the wash…

-  **You decide to lay down and take a brief afternoon nap in shorts and a tank top, and 15 minutes later you are summoned from a deep sleep by a neighbor and now must scramble to put on a tshirt and wrap yourself in a kanga while waking up to answer the door…

-  **You wake up to find dead grasshoppers on the floor in your room…

-  **You’ve lost 14 games of solitaire in a row…

-  **You’re hungry, so you decide to make guacamole, but apparently the avocados are bad. And the very few other vegetables that have made it to Thursday are also bad. So the dilemma is what to have for dinner when all you have is rice…

-  **Your ankles and back are consistently covered in bug bites (from what bugs, who knows, where I’m encountering such bugs, who knows, and why they haven’t gone away in a month, also no one knows) and they itch so bad!...

-  ** Flies…

-  **Your feet are never clean, and sometimes two wet wipes per foot isn’t enough for the amount of dirt…

-  **You realize that you left your house keys at school while on the piki piki home, but you actually can’t communicate with your driver to ask him to go back...(although by the end of my 15 minute ride, I was able to figure out what to say: “Simama, nimesahau ufunguo yangu shuleni”…or something like that anyways. Granted, it was too late by the time we were already home, so I just prayed that Marisa’s keys would open my locked bedroom door. My prayers were answered, although that says something about the security of our belongings.)

-  **You are stuck at school in the afternoon because of the rain, and the teachers tell you the rain might not stop for hours…(luckily it was only one hour)

-  **You can’t sleep because the bats in your ceiling combined with the frogs in the makeshift pond outside your house are so freaking loud…

-  **You sweep an aggressively large pile of bat poop out of your house every day, most of the problem being the ceiling tiles over our dining table…

-  **Your phone dies, but obviously can’t charge it at your house, and the next day it rains so the solar charger at school doesn’t work either…

-  **You’re riding on a piki piki home with all of your things after a wonderful weekend in Kigali (although you left your raincoat on the bus, so that’s gone forever) and Mother Nature decides it’s the perfect time for a downpour…

-  **Here’s the most recent use of this phrase, October 26 7:07AM: It’s Friday morning, and you wake up early to get ready for school. You look out the window and notice that the students normally running up the hill to make it to school on time are nowhere to be found. Then, you receive a text from volunteers in Ngara who say they don’t have school today. So you call your neighbor and fellow teacher to find out if this is true, and sure enough, he laughs and says “Of course there’s no school today!” like it was common knowledge. [insert stomps and frustrations loudly echoed throughout our house]. Somehow we missed this memo, but apparently everyone knows because even my driver didn’t come to pick me up this morning!!!….Seriously, how did he know??? This is one of those times that I just wonder, since I told all the teachers at school yesterday “see you tomorrow,” but apparently something was lost in translation.  This is actually the worst news possible though. Mostly because going to school gives us something to do during the day, and a long weekend in Muyenzi would be cause for a breakdown.  If we would have known however, we could have planned our getaway to Kigali this weekend instead and spent more time there! AH! We’re in the midst of planning a little weekend getaway now, so I’m sure we’ll come up with something exciting…but really…

On the brighter side, if we didn’t enjoy laughing so much, we’d be having a hard time of it I think. Finding joy in the little things has taken on a whole new meaning. I look forward to my twice a week bucket bath, the waves and “Good morning teacher!” from the little school children I pass on my ride to school every day, the daily delivery of fresh milk (which literally just came to our door as I’m writing this! J ), the view of cattle from our window as they are herded by our house come rain or shine, our Thursday night blogging routine, and of course class time with my students. We’ve made it through our first seven weeks in Muyenzi, and we have seven more before winter break. Although I’m sure we’ll continue to joke about our mental breakdowns, I’m confident that between the two of us we’ll keep each other strong. Just imagine how boring these stories would be if our life wasn’t so crazy…if I ever write a book, the most exciting parts will be when we’re on the verge of a breakdown, so might as well just laugh about it now. 

Market Day in Rulenge!

We’ve really begun to settle in to life in Muyenzi these past few weeks. Meaning, little access to internet, and hence the lack of posts recently…but stay tuned for more regular updates this week!! The newness of our home has faded and the reality of our life here has begun to set in. A few weekends ago, we decided to stay in Muyenzi for the weekend rather than travel to Ngara so that Sue (one of the Ngara volunteers, from England) could visit us at our home instaed! So we walked to the market in Rulenge for our weekly shopping.  We met up with Sue and walked back to our house together. And let me tell you, I have a whole new appreciation for the students who walk from Rulenge to school in Muyenzi everyday. It takes over an hour both ways on the only gravel road in the area, and we were carrying our weeks worth of groceries, it was hot, and there were mountains to climb…I was so excited to be home after that morning! In case you’re interested in our weekly shopping list, our purchases that weekend totaled $10USD and included:

7lbs of tomatoes

10 carrots

4 green peppers

1 cabbage

5 eggplant

6 cucumbers

5 onions

4 avocado

2 rolls of toilet paper

2 boxes of matches

3 packages of biscuits (perfect snack with peanut butter! and 3 packages lasts us two weeks)

2 small packages of laundry detergent

We had enough rice, flour, sugar, pasta, potatoes, sunflower oil, peanut butter and kerosene left over from the week before. While we aren’t up on American prices recently, we figure this would be at least 4 times as expensive if shopping in the US…

As you might have noticed, our diet is quite limited.  We do make some good varieties on our trusty charcoal jiko with what we can find though! Here’s our weekly meal schedule with the occasional variation: (Sunday) Eggplant stewed with carrots, tomatoes, onions, garlic and ginger served with chapatti; (Monday) rice with stewed carrots, green peppers, and onions; (Tuesday) pasta with fresh tomato sauce; (Wednesday) rice with boiled cabbage; (Thursday) leftover rice with guacamole; (Friday) mashed potatoes; one week we were lucky enough to have enough eggs to make omelets…literally the best day ever. Sometimes we make cream of chicken soup from a packet, which is a nice little change of pace. Occasionally, we can get a freshly picked pineapple from the Muyenzi town center, and we usually manage to find a few eggs each week. Bananas, even though we live amid thousands of banana trees, are hard to come by. The bananas grown here are cooking bananas, usually stewed with tomatoes or served fried. I’m not a huge fan of them, so if I can avoid them, I do…although a giant bunch of these bananas costs about 10,000Tsh for 50 or so bananas ($6.50USD). We much prefer eating the sweet bananas (which are 4 for 100Tsh…literally pennies each), but we can only find them when we go to Ngara town. We take what we can get.

Every morning at school, I have chai break with one other teacher, which is a nice morning meal. Usually we have chai, made hot from fresh milk, with mandazi (fried dough). Some days we switch it up and have rice, bananas, potatoes or groundnuts.  At home, we also have fresh milk delivered daily that we boil in the evenings for chai. I’ve tried to explain the concept of drinking cold milk in America, but that’s just craziness. Although some days I miss a cold glass of milk, I do love the chai! Perhaps when I get back, I will have my own cow so I can have fresh milk everyday for my hot chai! But really…

Check back this week for more updates!! I promise to be more in touch in the coming weeks, including tales of our weekend adventure in Kigali, Rwanda, and our use of the phrase "This is my mental breakdown"...:)