I’ve only been gone a year so don’t sell the car and kick the renter out of my room.

Wow, where to begin. It is difficult to accept that a year in Nyagatare is nearly elapsed. It is certainly, almost painfully, bittersweet. There are many things I will and won’t miss about Nyagatare, but every bit of it has been enlightening, even at the lowest points. What’s more, this past year has shown me how much there is to learn about the world, myself, and the incredible complexities inherent in simply trying to help other human beings. I’m also very fortunate to have caught the travel bug early, and I think central Africa will call to me for the rest of my life.

In repose now considering a year’s worth of work and travel, I thought I’d offer a brief roundup of some things I’ve done or accomplished in no particular order:

I’ve been to six different African countries, although I’ve only got an actual visa for five of them. Five of the countries have suffered some form of serious civil conflict and social upheaval in the past twenty-five years, and may be at risk of conflict again in the near future.

I’ve met teachers and students, engineers and mathematicians, professors, peasants and politicians, bus drivers and traffic police, business owners and servants, not to mention former rebel soldiers.

I’ve seen deep calming lakes ringed by stupendous mountains and tranquil beaches cradling a picturesque turquoise ocean.

I’ve rafted the Nile, peered over the misty edge of Victoria Falls, and snorkeled with whale sharks.

I’ve helped dislodge a bus mired in mud.

I’ve eaten Lebanese food in Pretoria, Indian food in Kigali, Persian food in Kampala, southern-fried chicken in Botswana, and pizza in Tofo, Mozambique.

I’ve travelled by overnight train in Zimbabwe without derailment due to collision with an elephant.

I’ve nursed debilitating stomach aches and incredible hangovers and tended to malaria-stricken children.

I’ve learned to accept cold showers, overcrowded public transport, and uncomfortable levels of platonic body contact with perfect strangers.

I’ve survived scores of motorcycle rides on bumpy dirt roads (knock on wood!).

I’ve seen firsthand the terrible, ravaging effects HIV has on a person’s body.

I’ve coaxed shy students into finally beating me at Scrabble.

I’ve somehow consumed gelatinous rice and watery stewed beans nearly every weekday for eleven months.

I’ve learned I’m frankly a crappy teacher, but I am an expert at complaining about students.

I’ve endured serious mismanagement and unprofessionalism such that I hope to never see the likes of it again…but I know I will.

I’ve been ashamed, amused, frustrated, embarrassed, overjoyed, terrified, triumphant, dumbfounded, tired, sick (but not too often), hot and cold, occasionally bored but never for long, mostly dry, and worm-free (to my knowledge, although this will be confirmed by actual medical tests).

And, above all, I feel like a more complete person who strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) has so much unfinished business (if that’s not too cheesy).

Fortunately, I could continue on almost indefinitely. A stream of memories flooded me as a drafted this blog. So much so I was surprised by how much I had seen and experienced. I hope to share these experiences and more in person when I get back, so more on that briefly. I return to the U.S. on November 22nd. I will spend a day in Atlanta, then go north to spend time with family for the Thanksgiving holiday. However, the entire month of December will be spent in Atlanta (and maybe a day or two in Athens...in the library). I intend to fly back to Rwanda shortly after New Years to start a new job. I would love to see friends, family, and neighbors to catch up on lost time and compare notes on effective treatment of fungal infections (or, you know, whatever). With that said, I will also be very busy preparing for another position in Rwanda while wrapping up grad school applications and readjusting briefly to a much different lifestyle. In other words, free time might sadly be in short supply. At the risk of sounding like a pompous self-important jerk, I’d just like to share a few suggestions if you’d like to know more about Rwanda and my experience there (which I hope you do!).

First, I like Rwanda a lot, as much for its quirks as for its stunning beauty. It has some tremendous challenges ahead of it, and many things are far from perfect. However, blatantly insensitive questions, particularly about the genocide, are not welcome. For example, the question “Are all Rwandans really psychopathic killers?” is hopelessly stupid and patently ridiculous. Such questions are offensive, and I might just bluntly tell you so. I hope that my service here has motivated friends and family to learn a modicum about the country.

Second, and in contrast to the first suggestion, ignorance is okay. There is so much that I have to learn about Rwanda, much less other faraway countries I’ve never been too. Sometimes we know so little it’s tough to even formulate a decent question. Still, asking me, “How was Africa?” probably will not receive a very interesting answer. Instead, I suggest thinking about some aspect of your life that you might imagine changing dramatically in Africa, whether humorous or serious, and phrasing a more specific question accordingly. For example, “Did you really eat rice and beans more than three hundred times in a year?” Now that would likely generate a much more impassioned answer.

Third, I beg your pardon. I think we are all guilty of “out of sight, out of mind” to varying degrees. A year is a long time to be out of contact with close friends and family, and so much can happen in a year. People have gotten married, had babies, survived life-threatening illnesses, grieved lost loved ones, had personal successes and failures, etc. Likewise, I have had a great many things happen in my life the past year. Forgive my ignorance as I forgive yours. You never know what you might discover if you assume someone has been living in a cave for a year (not that I have been…or anything).

Expect this to be my last blog for the year. I have enjoyed writing this past year immensely; it was always a good release when I got the itch. However, the next few weeks will be spent assisting with national examinations, traveling a bit within Rwanda, and submitting applications to graduate school. I will probably return to blogging, with a different bent, when I return to Rwanda in the New Year.

Cheers,

Zach

ps. Headed back here for a few days of R&R next week:

Just what is frustrating about teaching in Rwanda?

In public, on this blog and elsewhere, I have bemoaned a general lack of critical thinking and very basic learning methods common in Rwanda. Usually such descriptions are somehow couched in a humorous anecdote or irreverent joke. For those with whom I have corresponded personally, you know my private observations are much more serious, worried, and cutting.

Now that my service is basically finished, and without going into a slew of details (some of which cannot be published on this blog anyways), there are systemic pressures and historical realities that strongly shape the ways students think and learn. In general, these combine to frustrate the hell out of me. The frustration is one part personal exhaustion and one part fear for my students’ futures. While certainly not unexpected, such frustration has, for better or worse, really shaped my experience here in Nyagatare (among other things!).

However, there are those really brightly shining stars in the classroom. Students who you know have so much damn potential, but they are being suffocated by a lack of resources, unprofessional teachers, and a formulaic system. These are the students that truly inspire; the ones who force you to show up to class even though their classmates openly mock you, skip lessons, and generally disregard instruction.

The following excerpt is pulled directly (unedited) from a recent exam I gave. The student, who will remain anonymous, is one of those exceptional students with the ability to think clearly about issues beyond his or her notes and then concisely record those thoughts. The student is very articulate and thoughtful, which sadly are wonderful skills that have little importance in the system.

Prompt: Discuss how starting lessons later at Nyagatare Secondary School might help you.

Student’s response:

“Starting lessons later in our school might help all of us students yet there are some that wake up earlier as four or five in the morning.

“On my opinion, I should propose to the school administration to first change the way of teaching students. Because students are forced to cram everything and to live in notesland; if the school could change the way of teaching the lessons, by making the students understand the material, and examine them in that way, students will have enough time of sleeping and take rest.

“That was of teaching and the early starting lesson time, hurts a lot students, because for example immediately after lunch you may find students sleeping in the dormitries. And due to that, they miss after lunch lessons, which to recover that time last is another big deal. Due to these, there are very low extra-curriculum activities; like no many students do sports, clubs are empty, others are not working, etc.

“So, to help students to a better success, and to have a healthy life later on, I propose that the school administration should study a lot about this issue, and try to find a solution. I as a student, I may suggest that we start lessons later like at eight in the morning, and make the evening prep ending at ten in the night, without forgetting to change the teaching method.”

After reading that, I quickly shared it with Evan, who also teaches the author. Evan is closer with the student than I am, and he immediately sent another student to fetch the author. The “notelands” reference is from Evan, who constantly beats a drum about thinking outside of notes in his entrepreneurship and General Paper courses. He sat the student down and had a long conversation about the student’s future and how to realize his or her incredible potential.

Thank goodness for such students. Rwanda, and the world, needs more young people like them.

Rub-a-dubs, overgrazing, and side dishes.

Relationships and sexuality are always interesting parts of culture, and Rwanda is no exception. What is interesting, from my perspective, is in Rwanda (and much of east Africa) how deeply entrenched very different dating and sexual norms are in society. Men and women, but men in particular, tend to have more concurrent sexual relationships but fewer partners on average over their lifetime than westerners. At the same time, sexuality also seems a less visible part of society, where touching others (regardless of gender) is widely accepted (and practiced!) but in entirely platonic forms. Any shred of intimacy is largely left behind closed doors. Few people speak openly about relationships or sex, and students appear to exhibit little knowledge or willingness to engage in conservation about them.

The concept of concurrent relationships is an important public health concern as HIV/AIDS rates have skyrocketed in most sub-Saharan African countries since the 1980s. In her alarming yet incredibly enlightening book The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein explores the rise of AIDS in Africa and the continent’s attempts to deal with the epidemic. She concludes that patterns of partner concurrency are largely to blame for the rapid transmission of AIDS in southern and eastern African countries. Male circumcision also appears to play a vital role, a potential reason Islamic west African countries experience much lower HIV/AIDS rates. HIV/AIDS in Rwanda is a serious problem, but not quite as acute as some southern African countries (check out the rates of HIV infection in Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and Lesotho – terrifying!). Still, I have heard that HIV rates are dramatically underreported in Rwanda, although I cannot confirm this. All manner of campaigns have been launched in east Africa to educate people about the dangers of concurrent relationships. Uganda, which successfully combated the AIDS epidemic there in the early 1990s, has some catchy slogans: “No side dishes,” and “Overgrazing.” Clever.

The nature of dating and sexuality in Rwanda makes it difficult for people like Evan and me, who already are singled out as different, to understand how people view dating and sex. Evan teaches General Paper, an all-purpose current events and history course for upper secondary students. Sexuality and HIV/AIDS are part of the curriculum, but Evan cannot accurately determine what many students think because students do not openly discuss such issues. At the same time, we know some of our students have boyfriends or girlfriends and are sexually active (think, empty condom wrappers on the football field…no, seriously). The social obfuscation which pervades much of Rwandan society does not exempt dating and sex. Unsurprisingly, the cultural barriers have also largely prevented Evan or me from having any relationship with a Rwandan woman, which I must admit is a shame because Rwandan women are beautiful. Sigh. We’ll just have to content ourselves with the ever popular rub-a-dub. I’ll let you stew on what that one is!

He gets the mélange, too.

Wow, time flies. It has been a churning whirlwind of a term filled with unexpected holidays and massive upheavals to schedules. I’ve been so consumed by getting things done and managing the mismanagement that the blog has been neglected. Expect a few more blogs before my service wraps up in three weeks. Term ends in about two weeks, then a week of preparing reports, then some freedom.

Evan and I, like Sawa, have become common figures in the Nyagatare scene, traipsing to the market, eating at a few different establishments, and drinking at one local watering hole on occasion. Generally people have grown accustomed to seeing us around, especially the motorcycle taxi drivers and university students. This blog is dedicated to those university students who try so painfully hard to pretend they are our friends.

When we’re out and about oftentimes university students will approach us or make contact when we walk by. Inevitably they tend to act as if they know us, even though our range of what I might call friendly acquaintances at the university is quite limited. Most often, they belie their posturing by calling us Ivan and Isaac – our two cover names given to people who we quite likely will never see again or don’t particularly want to hang out with at any future date and time. Ivan and Isaac are common names in Rwanda, Evan and Zach are not, so we just make it easy for them. The ruse has extended into our private life as an inside joke.

Evan’s take on the whole situation is good, and it’s best explained by the simple statement, “He gets the mélange, me too!” (A mélange is just a plate of mixed food – gastronomically terrible but filling). You see, sometimes we wonder if people psychologically make themselves our friends simply because they observe us so much and find commonalities. Wow, he drinks beer at Blue Sky. Wow, they eat omelets at City Center Restaurant. Wow, they shop for crackers at the ‘supermarket.’ Just like me. This kind of identification is fine except when it actually intrudes too much into my real personal life. If someone wants to yuck it up for a few minutes on the road with the umuzungu, fine. That’s often a funny exchange. There are even some university students I enjoy sharing a beer with. However, it becomes a little tiresome when you become a linguistic punching bag for someone’s poor English and drunken Kinyarwandan.

While I enjoy meeting new people, and I certainly have met some interesting people in Nyagatare, the simple fact is my social circle is relatively small for a reason. Evan and I socialize with people with whom we have more in common, whether it’s another volunteer, a professor at the local university, or a teacher at school who we particularly like. Ten months have been enough to convince me of that. So watch who you call Isaac, you might just give yourself away!