Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Nyagatare bound.


Well, Evan and I now know what we have actually gotten ourselves into. Two weeks ago this last Sunday we piled into a Toyota diesel 4x4 double cab pick-up truck with Susan, another volunteer, a teacher from her school (the Teacher Training Center in Matimba), and a driver for the trip to Eastern Province. With Rwandan music playing softly from the tape deck and wind blowing in our faces, we climbed through a succession of twisting hills and valleys leaving Kigali. Driving north and east on the road from Kigali towards Akagera National Park and the Ugandan border, the land levels slightly, the vegetation thins into mostly scrubby trees, bushes, and tall grass, and the sun beats hotter and brighter. The road winds sinuously around the glimmering Lake Muhazi not far from Kayonza, another placement site for WorldTeach volunteers.

As we drew closer to Nyagatare, stunning panoramic vistas opened up so we could see for miles, and everything became decidedly drier. My travel book for Rwanda describes Nyagatare as something of a dusty pioneer town, since this part of Rwanda was always sparsely populated before part of Akagera was degazetted to accommodate newly returned refugees from Uganda and Tanzania. The terrain could easily be a savanna in Kenya or Tanzania.

After a quick stop to drop off some kerosene for the driver’s family about twenty kilometers outside of Nyagatare, before the fork to Matimba, Kagitumba, and the Ugandan border, we continued on to Nyagatare. We drove down the main strip of stores on the primary paved road until we reached the very end of town. There we disentangled ourselves from each other and clambered out of the rear cab to meet our Head of Studies, Francis. Francis kindly greeted us…and then proceeded to climb into the rear cab with us. I should not have been surprised since the bus taxis in Kigali pack you in like sardines, but it still caught me a bit off guard.

Down a dusty, red dirt road leading out of town, past a police station, primary school, noisy carpenters workshops, homes set on acres of maize and pastureland, and finally up a long incline, the school came into view surrounded by pastures for the school’s ten cows (a big deal, in fact). Behind us the mountainous ridges of Uganda to the north rose like an enormous curtain ringing the gently rolling hills of northeast Rwanda stretching upwards to the impossibly blue sky. The view is just simply spectacular from the hillcrest where our school property is located, especially at dusk.

Inside the chain link fence surrounding the school compound sits an administrative wing with offices and a large staff room equipped with wireless internet, a library, a cavernous dining hall, a canteen for students, and several rows of classroom buildings (including two computer labs, a chemistry lab, and a physics lab), all flanked by separate dormitories for boys and girls. Behind the dining hall is a garden with cabbages, carrots, beans, and other basic veggies maintained by a school club.

Our house is located about one hundred meters past the school compound on the same dirt road. There are three pairs of houses clustered together just behind a natural fence lining the school’s presently overgrown football field and play area. Each house has an enclosed outdoor space with a tall brick wall, two outdoor sinks (one stainless steel, one a deep concrete basin), and two outdoor stalls, one each for the shower and toilet (more a ceramic-lined hole in the foundation with a tank above it to flush). Inside there is a large living space, two spacious bedrooms with an abundance of built in storage, and a small closet-like space for the kitchen. The floors throughout are cool, smooth concrete. On the backside of the house there is a nice porch, but unfortunately the views to the surrounding countryside are screened by large mounded trees with delicate green leaves and radiant yellow clusters of flowers.

Volunteers from several different organizations have worked at Nyagatare Secondary School, including WorldTeach, VSO (U.K./Commonwealth), and JACA (Japan; not sure on the spelling). Two WorldTeach volunteers and two VSO volunteers left shortly before our arrival, and Sawa, a JACA volunteer, is our next-door neighbor for the year. Like the Peace Corps, she’ll serve two years; she’s six months in and her wisdom will be much appreciated in the months to come. Her kitchen is impressively stocked, with hanging shelving, an abundance of Japanese spices and seasonings, an electric kettle (in hindsight, the number one purchase we should have made on first leaving Kigali), and a fridge – yes, a fridge. She was fortunate enough to have support staff from JICA drive her from Kigali to Nyagatare with the fridge, and we are fortunate enough to live next to her!

It’s still not one hundred percent clear which subjects we will be teaching, and at what level. Secondary schools in Rwanda cover six years, roughly our equivalent of junior high or middle school and high school. Francis and Edward, our affable and very well educated headmaster (he did his studies in Wisconsin), have been dealing with a multitude of problems to start the school year. At the time of writing this entry, I am slated to teach English and computer science in Senior 4 and 5. Right now, I’m simply anxious to start the school year, find a rhythm, and learn my students’ names!

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