Chewbacca’s Bride!

I stumbled across this abandoned blog post title in my blogs folder this week. Honestly I’m wasn’t quite sure what the blog was supposed to be about, but I’m sure that Evan and I thought the title was too hilarious to leave by the wayside. We often concoct dumb titles to entertain ourselves that remain shells of unfulfilled stories, most especially as we stumble in from a night of inebriation (one beer turns into three – or six since every beer is a double).

According to Evan, this one was supposed to be about our neighbor Sawa and her crazy monosyllabic tonal form of communication. We love Sawa, and she doesn’t really sound like Chewbacca (or look like it either), but the principle is the same. What’s more, she uses it most when shouting through our shared concrete wall when interpretation is practically impossible. Enough said.

A week from Hell, or maybe Hell's second cousin. I'm not sure.

Evan and I add the unenviable task of being “on duty” this past week. Duty, in its boiled down, no bullshit, unadulterated state requires two teachers to control the movement of one thousand students for an entire week. Fortunately, most students at our school are boys….and my students. This means I can actually track them down at their dormitory (I cannot, for obvious reasons, track down dozens of girls in their dorms on a whim).

Duty starts early. Before the first class at 7:00 am, teachers on duty must round up all students and ensure their punctuality. After break at 9:30am and lunch until 1:00pm teachers on duty must do the same. If there is an assembly after classes, the hunt begins anew. After dinner students must go to their classes for two hours of preparation time (like study hall), so again we drive the errant ones to classrooms.

Many of our students are unversed in the fine art of punctuality. They expect to roll into class fifteen minutes late or more. Or they simply skip class (dodge class) for no good reason. If we happened to catch one out and about without permission, they sputtered the most incoherent lies and fabrications about their tardiness. It was if they just had to keep trying various justifications until one stuck…it was more than a little pathetic. They’re simply really bad liars (and cheats for that matter), which I guess is not terrible except that I think they believe they actually are good liars. Their modicum of deceptive skills doesn’t carry them far, but they just plow ahead anyways.

Constantly hounding and herding students is a physically and mentally exhausting task. I now understand why most of the Rwandese and Ugandan teachers just half-ass their duty (with predictable discipline results). If you are not on your feet teaching a class, you’re outside patrolling for wanderers. On top of the physical strain, students are constantly trying to outwit you and sneak off to play hooky behind the toilet or water barrel. And they lie. And they complain, and bitch, and moan. And they’re completely disrespectful. And they don’t LISTEN! For whatever reason, many students seem to think that walking away as if unaware you are calling them will absolve them of responsibility…wrong! Those are the ones who are punished more severely.

Punishment, inevitably, is some form of cleaning. Our method of choice last week was a long, bent end machete used to slashing grass. Carry one with you at all times and you are ready to dole out some quick justice (and keep the grass a respectable length at the same time). I don’t take pleasure in punishing students because it wastes my time and their time. Plus Nyagatare was hotter than hell last week. However there is a certain satisfaction knowing that some smug fourteen year-old didn’t pull a fast one on you or any other staff member.

After a week of 5:00AM wake-up calls I was ready to sleep in on Saturday, but it was not to be. Out of the blue, we were told Friday that the district office was holding an awards ceremony for the best performing girls in S1 and S4 at our school on Sunday. What’s more, Janet Kagame, wife of President Paul Kagame and First Lady of Rwanda, was rumored to be attending. Well, the school went into DEFCON 1 alert, and all students were conscripted to clean and manicure the school grounds in anticipation of her arrival.

So on Saturday morning, after a really trying week and more than a few cold beers the night before, I found myself standing in the welcome shade of a cassia tree watching students slash grass and sweep pathways at 7:00am. I was so completely exhausted and sick (bad head cold) that I stayed home all day Sunday to sleep and watch movies…and no, I didn’t care about missing duty on Sunday. Evan and I had already so outperformed our colleagues there was no need. Bleh.

Beautiful smiles in unexpected places.

There are few things more pervasive in Rwanda than religion, and Evan and I are often questioned about our religious affiliations (not to mention our Sunday morning plans…”ummm, well, we’re busy!”). I appreciate the fact many Rwandese are deeply committed to their (usually) Christian faith, but I frankly have little personal interest in their beliefs or their churches. I’m not religious and feel that one’s religious beliefs are personal. Moreover, Rwandese church services are a bit like Homer’s Odyssey: the journey is always long, arduous, filled with pitfalls, and ends at some undisclosed, undecided time in the distant future.

However, religious services are often comingled with more clearly social events that we occasionally feel obligated to attend. Two weekends ago was a perfect example of how smoothly such events can go. Late in the week, a lovely administrative employee at school, Valentine, whose friendly smile more than makes up for her truncated English vocabulary (French, no problem) invited us to a concert and service in town.

The event was a fundraiser for a student choir and dance troupe made entirely of Nyagatare Secondary School students. Although we didn’t know it beforehand, on arrival the church appeared to be one of those hyper-emotional, hand-waving, jump up and down shouting hallelujah affairs. These scenarios quickly make me uneasy. I don’t enjoy being roped into such religious matters without fair warning, but of course that’s practically impossible in Rwanda.

Evan and I had not eaten before we walked to town at 2:30pm, so grumbling stomachs and low blood sugar made us cranky and stressed. By the time we arrived, most of the service and concert were thankfully over (we timed it well, these things can last six hours or more if you aren’t careful). The church was hidden down a narrow little rubble-strewn alley off the main strip in Nyagatare, sunk down behind a noisy video rental business. The church itself was roughly semi-circular with a lofty cheap tin roof and spindly metal support columns. At the front a large stage stretched from left to right, where the keyboardist cranked out generic Rwandan tunes. Behind the stage was an odd, billowy, folded pink fabric background that reminded me of deflated Bazooka chewing gum post-bubble burst. Simple folding chairs were arrayed across the entire expanse of cold concrete flooring. At the rear, large double doors were opened to a nice little courtyard area.

Students, we could see, made up most the remaining congregation. Our arrival meant they had to perform one last song and dance, which they dutifully (albeit perhaps a bit begrudgingly) did. I felt embarrassed since many of the students appeared dog tired. I couldn’t have predicted how happy it would make me though to see my students singing and dancing in unison. Many of my students, for whatever reason (I suspect it’s my poor teaching skills and lackluster attempts at humor), always have scowls or bored expressions etched on their faces in class. I wonder if they are truly unhappy and dislike school. I wonder if there are some larger issues that I miss. But then along comes this concert and each and every student was grinning ear to ear with genuine joy as they rhythmically stomped and swayed and shook their hips together. And they were genuinely pleased we turned up to watch and contribute to their fundraiser (so they can record some videos). Revisiting their beaming faces and limber bodies twisting and hopping as one is more than enough to make my day. Any day. Every day.

Zach and Evan’s Big Adventure: Killer Kampala and the Naughty Nile, Act 1

Four weeks ago, with our first term nearing completion, Evan and I decided to travel north to Uganda during our brief holiday to see Kampala and whitewater raft the Nile at Jinja. We were unsure what to expect since everyone we spoke with gave us wildly different narratives about the luxurious development or cramped, polluted squalor of Kampala. Jinja apparently was the industrial manufacturing ‘heartland’ of Uganda (as it turns out, everything in Jinja town appeared rusting, run-down, abandoned, or half-derelict).

Early on a Thursday morning, well before the sun’s rays beamed between my shoddy curtains, we dragged out of bed ragged and half-asleep. Down the hill and through maize fields we cut and criss-crossed our way in darkness to the bus station, arriving just as a bus destined for Kigali was rolling away. We hopped on, negotiated a cheap price to the Ryabega ten kilometers away on the main Kayonza-Kagitumba road, and sped off.

At Ryabega we needed to purchase tickets for Kampala via Kagitumba (Rwandan border town). Upon arriving we were immediately accosted by two salesmen, each from a different bus company. Both claimed their bus would arrive earlier and provide a better ride. The price was the same, so were baffled. Eventually I suggested to Evan we flip a coin (mistake!). It landed heads up, Jaguar was pronounced the winner, and the Horizon Coaches salesman walked away dejected. It was a decision we would ultimately regret.

We bought the tickets from Jaguar, thinking we had better purchase them to make sure we get on the bus when it arrived (mistake!), and waited. And waited. Then waited some more. In the meantime the Horizon Coaches bus had come, picked up a couple passengers, who, we could see, comfortably found seats. Damn, even the coin conspires against efficiency! Eventually the big Jaguar bus, mud-spattered and spewing choking diesel fumes, rolled in. The bus definitely had seen better days, and we instantly realized our error. What’s more, we hurriedly climbed aboard only to find there were no seats! I struggled to the back and half-stood, half-sat on two older gentlemen with my pack strapped uncomfortably to my chest. Evan got trapped in the aisle further to the front and was forced to stand. The bus sailed (relatively) smoothly to Kagitumba and everyone disembarked to go through border control.

After receiving our exit stamps from the Rwandan authorities we hoofed it across the border and up to the Ugandan border house. The parity in professionalism was clearly evident, but our foreign status, packs and white skin, for better or worse, seemed to expedite our experience. A worker pulled us out of line and into the house’s office where we each paid our $50 entrance visa. Afterwards we tracked down the bus which had driven a hundred or so meters down the road and managed to snag two seats, albeit at the very back of the bus – a decision we would also regret.

The roads in Uganda, well, they suck. Especially near the border with Rwanda. For hours that seemed to stretch to eternity we were jostled and vibrated into oblivion. My ass still goes numb just thinking about it. The bus was so cramped with people that you could hardly adjust position and the stench of sweat, body odor, and spilled soft drinks was at times stifling. If you opened a window to get air, you invited stinging clouds of dust; if you closed a window you risked suffocation. On top of all of this, the heat was oppressive in the bus and outside. The road to Kampala crosses the equator but it felt like we crossed into Dante’s the sixth ring of hell.

Finally, seven hours post embarkation, the bus crept into Kampala (we arrived during early onset rush hour…a real disaster!). We unloaded ourselves from the bus, squinted awkwardly in the hazy sunlight, and trudged off to find boda-bodas (motorcycle taxis) so we could drop our worldly possessions at the hostel. The hostel was quite nice and comfortable, the staff friendly, and the hot showers indeed luxurious. After recouping a bit of energy, we set off to check out some of Kampala…meaning the shopping malls. Yea, Kampala has shopping malls. At least two of them. And big.

We had a reviving dinner and ice-cold Fantas then made plans to rendezvous with a Rwandese friend from Kigali who studies at Makerere University in Kampala. There was some initial confusion, but Buonfice eventually tracked us down and we hopped on more boda-bodas for the trip to a popular student hang-out. It would be a long night.

To be continued…

Lion Ryan Nolan Ryan

***I apologize for my long absence from the blogosphere. Exams, holiday in Uganda, and the hectic return of students for Term 2 has kept me busy. Today's posts are backlogged entries that required final edits. Enjoy!

Teaching English as a second language is an often peculiar and humorous job. Sometimes challenging and frustrating, but more likely just funny. I am constantly surprised by the aptitude, or lack thereof, amongst my students. What they know, what they don’t know. Partly this is a reflection of Rwanda’s education system. For example, the breadth of knowledge in my Senior 4 and Senior 5 classes is astounding since many newcomers are from Francophone backgrounds. In essence, they’ve spent their entire educational lives learning in French, and suddenly they arrive at a new school and are required to learn everything in English (including my English class). Partly this is just the nature of ESOL instruction.

My days are usually quite long, and I cling to anything amusing to help the hours past and stem the tide of organizational ridiculousness which seems perpetually at the door step. Little things, like truly advanced vocabulary questions (my Senior 6 students find very difficult words; they frequently have me running to the Oxford Concise English dictionary) or random sentences a student unexpectedly writes particularly well in a homework assignment (dormwork really, since almost all my students live here at school). Or better yet, the highly creative words some students can craft during a game of Scrabble. (Point of clarification: I have only lost to a student twice thus far in more than thirty games; the student in question, who has impeccable English as he is from Kampala, Uganda, somehow manages to snag the x, z, and q – and play them all). Words like zebra, quantity, and oxen.

Other times I am baffled by the apparent lack of English skills in the staff and student body. Basic words misspelled on official documents for teachers and other staff. Curious errors in simple grammar jumbled with advanced and somewhat obscure idioms during staff meetings. One of my favorites is a brief note from our new librarian stating the hours of operation for the library. It is signed simply, “Libraryan,” with an odd little space inserted ever so slightly between the “Libra” and “ryan.” Libra, I initially thought, meant lion, and it just so happens to rhyme with Ryan. I also recently read The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent epic about a family of Baptist missionaries from south Georgia who move to the Belgian Congo in 1959, in which one of the characters with a brain defect speaks in anagrams (sometimes rhymed). At first glancing at the notice, I spontaneously and unaccountably blurted out Lion Ryan Nolan Ryan, just as the character was wont to do. The silly little things help keep you sane and lend much-needed perspective. Of course, we are often guilty of the same crimes we accuse others of: Libra, naturally, does not mean lion. Silly me.

All of these instances of startling proficiency or lackluster errors seem so anachronistic, but when you step back and examine the larger education system in Rwanda (and Uganda, too) I guess the picture becomes clearer. There are definitely systemic issues which predispose many people (if not most) in east Africa to very common grammatical and stylistic errors in English. I even suspect that a distinct English dialect has developed in some places like Kenya and Uganda where English colonial rule was long and pervasive. In any case, I’m torn between quietly enjoying the humorous if incorrect uses of language and stringently attempting to correct the errors so English proficiency increases. Striking a balance is the best option, and in the meantime, I hope the serendipitous two-seamers keep finding their way to me.

ciao, zach

Slack-lining song birds, vibrating cattle, and other assorted animal oddities.

If you happened to read my A-Team post, you might remember I briefly mentioned the crazy noises we awake to each morning. Nyagatare’s close proximity to Akagera National Park in rural northeast Rwanda means we enjoy a wealth of birds, bugs, and animals – some welcome, some not.

The birds are probably the most remarkable (although the safari ants are mighty impressive, too). Tiny, agile song birds in literally dozens of different get-ups and sizes that dart from tree to bush to porch railing. Sometimes, these zippy little birds will perch themselves on a ledge or open window in our courtyard, although the funniest is when they attempt to balance on our loose elastic clothesline. They bob uncontrollably up and down, twitter manically, and furiously flap their wings trying to maintain equilibrium. Eventually they yield and move to more stable ground. Some are a distinct nerf-ball yellow-green with gray highlights that zoom past as neon blurs. Some resemble dusty miniature cardinals with bright carrot orange beaks. Others are vibrant, iridescent persimmon orange with black bodies and flashes of yellow. Some are a bit larger with alternating, broken trapezoidal white and black feathering and beady blood red eyes. Still others have dark cocoa caps atop deep marine blue wings and white underbellies flecked black. It seems every other day I see a new and wonderful specie, I just wish I carried a professional photographer around in my back pocket.

We also have large, gray pigeon-like birds (this is all very scientific, mind you) sporting creamy white crowns that squawk loudly like monkeys in the weeping cassia tree directly behind our house. We call them the monkey birds for obvious reasons. They always sucker me into thinking there’s a baboon phonetics convention on our back porch. Then there’s the midnight blue ravenesque birds with inky eyes that stare inquisitively at us from the sagging chain-link fence surrounding school as we walk to and from the front gate.

Our most useful avian acquaintances are the bats. The bats prey on all manner of unwanted insects (more on them later), in particular mosquitoes and those pesky wasps colonizing our courtyard and back porch. Once the sun begins to set, they swoop into our courtyard under the cover of darkness. Sometimes they flap right past our faces as we exit our horribly squeaky kitchen door into the courtyard. It’s one of those fish-in-a-barrel scenarios since our large fluorescent stick light outside attracts flying insects like Rwandese teenagers to Chris Brown and Rihanna music videos (bizarre). The bats were steadily making a dent in our resident wasp population, but maybe the wasps got wise or something. Whatever it is, the bats have not been as active lately. Unfortunately for us, that means unrestrained wasp nest construction. More on the wasps to come.

On the animal front there is actually a relative dearth of truly interesting specimens. We’ve got mysterious wild dogs that I alone have glimpsed only once on an early morning trip to the garbage pit. It startled me in the pale, misty dawn light, but it scampered away into the tall, dewy maize fields as soon as I approached, apparently even more frightened of me. Technically we also have monkeys at the river, but they are just as elusive. We have also only seen a monkey twice now, but they are supposed to lounge frequently in the dense tree banks along the Akagera in the dusky late afternoon hours, just before the sun begins to creep down behind the hills.

Cows are king in Nyagatare, so you see them everywhere. Although some foreign breeds have been introduced into herds, the vast majority of the cattle remain the indigenous and perpetually bored-looking Ankore (the imports have not done well health-wise; the school lost three to disease before school started). The Ankore are instantly recognizable from their impressively long, upwardly curving horns, similar to a longhorn but with more arc. An Ankore could quite literally put a gaping hole straight through your midsection were it to choose to do so, but they are so unbelievably docile. Goring is pretty low on the fear list. Even when you do have a go at approaching their mottled flanks they collectively peel away in a sort of disorderly frightened shuffle. They also have a truly distinct low bellow which most nearly resembles the vibration of a cellphone on silent. The incredible pulsating cows of Nyagatare. However, I will go on the record here and state unequivocally that Ankore milk is the smoothest, sweetest, richest milk I have ever tasted, and I am fully converted to whole fat milk now (cholesterol be damned).

Geckos of all stripes and shades also frequent our house and surrounds. Some are teeny little things, barely longer than an inch, while others probably approach five or six inches. I don’t believe I have seen a gecko with the same coloration or pattern in the four months we have been here, but they are usually some combination of dusty grays and browns, sometimes striped, sometimes spotted (camouflage, you see). They creep along walls searching for tasty insect meals in their distinctive reptilian gait using their sticky bulbous toes. Occasionally we catch a glimpse of one missing some appendage, usually a tail – a lucky survivor alive for another day.

Geckos bring me to insects. Jeepers creepers do we have a lot of insects. I have already mentioned the wasps, so I’ll start there. They hang together in ominous clusters, working industriously on their papery hives suspended from our outdoor ceilings. Their bodies are cartoonishly hyperbolic: deep, dark bluish black wings and thorax with an exaggerated and particularly threatening-looking stinger. We steer clear, especially since they can fly so damn fast.

Out on the road, in our garden, and around the outside of our house we also see ants. Shiny jet-black ants nearly an inch long (Evan is quite certain they are a close relative of the dangerous bullet ants he saw in Costa Rica) that scurry aimlessly through our overcrowded, overgrown formerly garden-cum-cucumber patch (back to garden now, with okra, Japanese eggplant, rocket, and basil). Orderly hordes of deep, deep red safari ants that would put you in a terrible world of hurt were you to accidentally trespass through their ant highways on the road to school. Disgusting ant larvae that resemble giant flying maggots which inevitably commit suicide on the fluorescent light outside; apparently they are a Rwandan delicacy, but we have yet to venture there.

We also have the usual coterie of flies, pesky gnats, spiders, and other random bugs which I won’t bother to identify. The spiders are the most troublesome at the moment because we keep finding large streams of baby spiders or fresh webs filled with baby spiders around the house. We cannot figure out where they are coming from. Instead we just hope there is not some massive gathering underneath of our house or in our walls accumulating enough spiders to overwhelm us and take control of the house (think Harry Potter forest colony— yikes!). The adults are incredibly quick buggers, and they seem to hop or jump very adeptly as soon as you try to smack them with a shoe or book. I tend to purposefully ignore what might happen if one in fact bites me.

I’ll close this overly long post (sorry!) with a brief note about mosquitoes. Malaria is a very real concern in Nyagatare. Numerous students contract it (either for the first time, or a repeat), and our headmaster was stricken with an acutely bad bout of the parasitic disease the week prior to school. With that said, we rarely see mosquitoes, and always at night or the very early morning if we do. Nyagatare is quite dry and we assiduously avoid leaving standing water near the house, although the slow-moving river nearby and lower altitude don’t help. We also use nets to sleep under, where sometimes we hear the distinctive high-pitched whine of a mosquito buzzing around the room. I imagined that mosquitoes and malaria would be a much greater concern in Rwanda, but we honestly have a lot more trouble with the flying maggot ants and wasps than anything else. Taking some basic precautions (which actually does not include wearing bug spray) like bed netting, clearing standing water, and popping a basic anti-malarial keep the risk minimal. Knock on wood.

Okay, signing off. Lemme know if you’ve got questions. Another post to be up soon on Kampala and Jinja (I’ve not felt the creative juices thus far, sorry). Mwaramutse!