***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
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, March 29, 2010
Small country. Big coincidences. Crazy prostitutes.
Truth really is stranger than fiction…way stranger. Although Nyagatare is growing rapidly and attracting new business, there is not a large, for lack of a better term, foreign community. At last count the number of abazungu stood at five, present company included. We have a tendency, more like bad habit, of conspicuously staring at other white people who visit Nyagatare (who inevitably stay at the only decent hotel in town where we also occasionally grab cold beers). ‘Sightings’ are rare and oddly wondrous things. What follows is a brief recount of a month long effort on the part of my roommate and me to track down a pair of German volunteers who apparently live in Nyagatare district.
The saga began more than one month ago. A fellow WorldTeach volunteer working in an outer suburb of Kigali known as Kicukiro (which, by the by, is truly an ordeal to find the damn bus for) had a chance encounter with a young, blond German volunteer. After a brief exchange, it came to light that the German volunteer, Betty, worked at a small, Catholic primary school in Nyagatare. What’s more, she knew both Evan and I by sight and by name. Our friend called us shortly thereafter to inquire about how we knew Betty and whether we hung out often. Of course our immediate reaction was, “Wait, who the hell is Betty, and how in the world does she know our names?” More importantly, how could someone with blond hair have escaped our keen sense for white foreigners? Blond, that’s outrageous! Our Japanese neighbor, who has been here for seven months, also reported having seen no Germans (and I’m fairly certain the two VSO volunteers here before us would concur).
No additional details were gathered, no new evidence uncovered for weeks about the mysterious Betty. We neither saw any other foreigners matching her description, nor found anyone amongst our growing contacts at bars and restaurants who knew Betty. And yet, she had given our friend accurate physical descriptions, plus our names to boot (pronounced correctly even). This unidentified umuzungu was mystifying my roommate and me. I began to secretly suspect our friend in Kigali had played a very inventive and unexpected but nonetheless cruel practical joke on us (I should remember to do the same to someone else ha!).
Then last weekend Evan went to Kigali to run a couple errands and enjoy some R&R. Saturday night he accompanied some other volunteers to a favorite spot, called Papyrus, that is part outdoor restaurant, part bar and dance club. It’s a popular establishment with the expat crowd and well-off Rwandese and usually very relaxing and enjoyable. Unbeknownst to Evan, his world was about to be turned upside down. Turned upside down by, of all things, a pugnacious, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer prostitute with a bizarre arm pit hair fetish. Just wait, bear with me.
Upon arriving, our little band of volunteers commandeered a table outside. The beers began to flow, in particular a potent newcomer called Turbo King (that I am convinced is part knock-off trappist ale, part LSD given its power to impair all logic, reason, and self restraint – luckily I steer clear). Once soft inebriation began to set in, the dancing commenced. All was happy and gay, until like a bolt from the blue a prostitute aggressively interjected herself into the group and latched onto Evan. Now perhaps you’re asking, “How do you know she was a prostitute?” All I can say is, you know it when you see it. Yes, it’s always that clear.
Evan tried every trick in the book to break away and finally managed to sneak back to the table. There he put up a defensive wall thick with other volunteers. But as time leaked away and the drinks continued to flow, volunteers began to evaporate around him to go dance, get more drinks, or go home. Suddenly he turned to his left and there was the prostitute in all her scandalousness. Surprised but not to be shaken, Evan turned to shut her out and converse with a friend from Butare (southwest; location of prestigious National University of Rwanda). Unfortunately for Evan, the ignore tactic did not send the cease and desist message strong enough. Before he knew it, the prostitute had placed her hand on his upper arm, and then began inexplicably plucking at his arm pit hair. This continued for a brief period while Evan confoundedly tried to work out what to do next.
Eventually he made a deft move to escape her grasp and swiftly made for the crowded dance floor to ditch her. Already thoroughly intoxicated but in need of respite from the crazy prostitute, Evan strode up to the bar and waited directly next to a cute young white woman. Although not his natural inclination, Evan briefly struck up a conversation with the woman, asking the usual battery of questions: name, occupation, where do you live in Kigali, etc., etc. To his great surprise, and later my own, this woman was not just another umuzungu.
In fact, her name was Sarah and she is Betty’s roommate! Evan said his mouth physically hung open and he vaguely remembers uttering something like, “You’re f-----g joking, right?” Here was irrefutable proof, given freely and unsolicited, by a person with direct contact with Betty, confirming that she did actually exist. Now, Rwanda is a small country, and there are relatively few foreigners, but the community is not insubstantial. The likelihood of Evan bumping into Sarah by chance in Kigali is incredibly slim. We go to Kigali infrequently now, and it seems that Sarah and Betty do the same. So, with mildly giddy bewilderment and a skull-splintering headache, Evan called me Sunday morning to break the news.
I was floored, utterly astounded. No way, uh-uh. Well, Evan, Sawa, and I now have a rendezvous scheduled for later this week with Sarah and Betty. I will not accept their existence until I slap my own eyes on them, but once I do I’ll report back. Until then, here’s to all the wild prostitutes in your life. Cherish them, you never know who you might meet running from them.
The saga began more than one month ago. A fellow WorldTeach volunteer working in an outer suburb of Kigali known as Kicukiro (which, by the by, is truly an ordeal to find the damn bus for) had a chance encounter with a young, blond German volunteer. After a brief exchange, it came to light that the German volunteer, Betty, worked at a small, Catholic primary school in Nyagatare. What’s more, she knew both Evan and I by sight and by name. Our friend called us shortly thereafter to inquire about how we knew Betty and whether we hung out often. Of course our immediate reaction was, “Wait, who the hell is Betty, and how in the world does she know our names?” More importantly, how could someone with blond hair have escaped our keen sense for white foreigners? Blond, that’s outrageous! Our Japanese neighbor, who has been here for seven months, also reported having seen no Germans (and I’m fairly certain the two VSO volunteers here before us would concur).
No additional details were gathered, no new evidence uncovered for weeks about the mysterious Betty. We neither saw any other foreigners matching her description, nor found anyone amongst our growing contacts at bars and restaurants who knew Betty. And yet, she had given our friend accurate physical descriptions, plus our names to boot (pronounced correctly even). This unidentified umuzungu was mystifying my roommate and me. I began to secretly suspect our friend in Kigali had played a very inventive and unexpected but nonetheless cruel practical joke on us (I should remember to do the same to someone else ha!).
Then last weekend Evan went to Kigali to run a couple errands and enjoy some R&R. Saturday night he accompanied some other volunteers to a favorite spot, called Papyrus, that is part outdoor restaurant, part bar and dance club. It’s a popular establishment with the expat crowd and well-off Rwandese and usually very relaxing and enjoyable. Unbeknownst to Evan, his world was about to be turned upside down. Turned upside down by, of all things, a pugnacious, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer prostitute with a bizarre arm pit hair fetish. Just wait, bear with me.
Upon arriving, our little band of volunteers commandeered a table outside. The beers began to flow, in particular a potent newcomer called Turbo King (that I am convinced is part knock-off trappist ale, part LSD given its power to impair all logic, reason, and self restraint – luckily I steer clear). Once soft inebriation began to set in, the dancing commenced. All was happy and gay, until like a bolt from the blue a prostitute aggressively interjected herself into the group and latched onto Evan. Now perhaps you’re asking, “How do you know she was a prostitute?” All I can say is, you know it when you see it. Yes, it’s always that clear.
Evan tried every trick in the book to break away and finally managed to sneak back to the table. There he put up a defensive wall thick with other volunteers. But as time leaked away and the drinks continued to flow, volunteers began to evaporate around him to go dance, get more drinks, or go home. Suddenly he turned to his left and there was the prostitute in all her scandalousness. Surprised but not to be shaken, Evan turned to shut her out and converse with a friend from Butare (southwest; location of prestigious National University of Rwanda). Unfortunately for Evan, the ignore tactic did not send the cease and desist message strong enough. Before he knew it, the prostitute had placed her hand on his upper arm, and then began inexplicably plucking at his arm pit hair. This continued for a brief period while Evan confoundedly tried to work out what to do next.
Eventually he made a deft move to escape her grasp and swiftly made for the crowded dance floor to ditch her. Already thoroughly intoxicated but in need of respite from the crazy prostitute, Evan strode up to the bar and waited directly next to a cute young white woman. Although not his natural inclination, Evan briefly struck up a conversation with the woman, asking the usual battery of questions: name, occupation, where do you live in Kigali, etc., etc. To his great surprise, and later my own, this woman was not just another umuzungu.
In fact, her name was Sarah and she is Betty’s roommate! Evan said his mouth physically hung open and he vaguely remembers uttering something like, “You’re f-----g joking, right?” Here was irrefutable proof, given freely and unsolicited, by a person with direct contact with Betty, confirming that she did actually exist. Now, Rwanda is a small country, and there are relatively few foreigners, but the community is not insubstantial. The likelihood of Evan bumping into Sarah by chance in Kigali is incredibly slim. We go to Kigali infrequently now, and it seems that Sarah and Betty do the same. So, with mildly giddy bewilderment and a skull-splintering headache, Evan called me Sunday morning to break the news.
I was floored, utterly astounded. No way, uh-uh. Well, Evan, Sawa, and I now have a rendezvous scheduled for later this week with Sarah and Betty. I will not accept their existence until I slap my own eyes on them, but once I do I’ll report back. Until then, here’s to all the wild prostitutes in your life. Cherish them, you never know who you might meet running from them.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Don’t mess with Texas. But if you must, ask for the guy in red gingham.
Life is a wonderfully strange thing. One might expect picking up sticks and moving to central Africa would affect some deep, profound changes in a person, but up to this point I have experienced just the opposite. The larger, grander, more abstract ideas shaping my perspectives and judgments about life remain relatively unchanged. Instead, I would argue that Africa has been a gratifying wake-up call about how humorous and interesting everyday life can be when mundane tasks witness the greatest changes.
Cleaning dusty concrete floors with an oversize squeegee and ratty push broom. Laboriously boiling and filtering drinking water. Squatting at a small plastic basin painstakingly scrubbing clothes by hand for hours. Eating an eighty percent pure starch diet composed mostly of spongy rice, unadorned spaghetti, mashed green bananas, gelatinous white corn porridge, and beans (it’s a chore, trust me). Walking four kilometers to shop at a basic market, have a cup of tea and doughnut, pick up mail, buy airtime for a cellphone, or, as was the case last Saturday, get a haircut.
God it makes me laugh just sitting here thinking about it as I write this. In Rwanda, some of the simplest things become such incredibly complex and inscrutable mental exercises. The process of getting a haircut may be the most exquisite example to date. What would be a simple, perhaps mindless, decision at home threatened to become a perplexing slog up and down the main strip of Nyagatare, me venturing to each different hair salon, apprehensively trying to steal a furtive glance inside without drawing too much attention to myself. Well, as you can imagine, that was a stupid notion. I stick out like the sorest sore thumb possible!
Now, by this point I have lost just about all of my awkward inhibitions. There’s nothing to do but get on with whatever you’ve got to do, and I heartily thank Rwanda for beating most of those stupid social reluctances out of me. Usually it’s always good for a laugh anyway, but a bad haircut is no laughing matter. So I found myself in the now rare position of fretting about a terribly simple task.
Where on earth do I go to get a haircut? Who can I trust to not royally screw things up? Will someone even attempt to cut my curly, unruly hair? How much will I have to bargain to avoid a massive umuzungu rip-off? I felt strangely unsure and anxious. Disaster scenarios began unfolding in my mind, and I momentarily paused to consider whether I really needed a hair cut (I most definitely did).
Well, after a gut-bomb breakfast of rich African tea and two dense Amandazi doughnuts, I strolled down to Texas Saloon (yes, Texas; yes, saloon – they don’t differentiate here, which makes the whole hair cut process that much more comical). Texas, I remembered, had been recommended by another teacher, so it seemed reasonable to give it a shot. Stepping through the rope curtain swaying gently at the doorstep, I made my usual Kinyarwandan greetings and took a seat on a small threadbare sofa just inside the door. Every set of eyes in the tiny joint were instantly transfixed on me and my shock of wild flyaway hair. I barely had time to set my bag down and compose myself when a particularly helpful customer across the room gestured animatedly for me to take a seat at one of the stations. I had walked in just as another patron was finishing – well at least the timing worked out.
I won’t bore you with the dreadfully uninteresting details about the hair cut itself. I’ll only mention that it seemed to take an exceptionally long time for a simple clipper cut, but the guy was insistent that things be just as he thought they ought to be. I also freely admit it was not a terrible cut given the situation, although much too short. And the best part? After an entire day’s worth of walking, haircutting, tedious school work, unsuccessfully attacking our resident wasps, half-heartedly weeding our small vegetable patch in the blazing sun next to a large swarm of army ants, and dozing restlessly in the oppressive mid-afternoon heat, I met Evan in town for dinner and a cold beer. After a couple drinks at the bar, who should make an appearance but the exact same guy who cut my hair twelve hours earlier in the same red gingham shirt and ballcap. We exchanged the basic pleasantries, had a beer together, and then Evan and I cleared off for the night. Rwanda, I thought quietly to myself as we trudged off in search of a moto home, is truly a small place.
Cleaning dusty concrete floors with an oversize squeegee and ratty push broom. Laboriously boiling and filtering drinking water. Squatting at a small plastic basin painstakingly scrubbing clothes by hand for hours. Eating an eighty percent pure starch diet composed mostly of spongy rice, unadorned spaghetti, mashed green bananas, gelatinous white corn porridge, and beans (it’s a chore, trust me). Walking four kilometers to shop at a basic market, have a cup of tea and doughnut, pick up mail, buy airtime for a cellphone, or, as was the case last Saturday, get a haircut.
God it makes me laugh just sitting here thinking about it as I write this. In Rwanda, some of the simplest things become such incredibly complex and inscrutable mental exercises. The process of getting a haircut may be the most exquisite example to date. What would be a simple, perhaps mindless, decision at home threatened to become a perplexing slog up and down the main strip of Nyagatare, me venturing to each different hair salon, apprehensively trying to steal a furtive glance inside without drawing too much attention to myself. Well, as you can imagine, that was a stupid notion. I stick out like the sorest sore thumb possible!
Now, by this point I have lost just about all of my awkward inhibitions. There’s nothing to do but get on with whatever you’ve got to do, and I heartily thank Rwanda for beating most of those stupid social reluctances out of me. Usually it’s always good for a laugh anyway, but a bad haircut is no laughing matter. So I found myself in the now rare position of fretting about a terribly simple task.
Where on earth do I go to get a haircut? Who can I trust to not royally screw things up? Will someone even attempt to cut my curly, unruly hair? How much will I have to bargain to avoid a massive umuzungu rip-off? I felt strangely unsure and anxious. Disaster scenarios began unfolding in my mind, and I momentarily paused to consider whether I really needed a hair cut (I most definitely did).
Well, after a gut-bomb breakfast of rich African tea and two dense Amandazi doughnuts, I strolled down to Texas Saloon (yes, Texas; yes, saloon – they don’t differentiate here, which makes the whole hair cut process that much more comical). Texas, I remembered, had been recommended by another teacher, so it seemed reasonable to give it a shot. Stepping through the rope curtain swaying gently at the doorstep, I made my usual Kinyarwandan greetings and took a seat on a small threadbare sofa just inside the door. Every set of eyes in the tiny joint were instantly transfixed on me and my shock of wild flyaway hair. I barely had time to set my bag down and compose myself when a particularly helpful customer across the room gestured animatedly for me to take a seat at one of the stations. I had walked in just as another patron was finishing – well at least the timing worked out.
I won’t bore you with the dreadfully uninteresting details about the hair cut itself. I’ll only mention that it seemed to take an exceptionally long time for a simple clipper cut, but the guy was insistent that things be just as he thought they ought to be. I also freely admit it was not a terrible cut given the situation, although much too short. And the best part? After an entire day’s worth of walking, haircutting, tedious school work, unsuccessfully attacking our resident wasps, half-heartedly weeding our small vegetable patch in the blazing sun next to a large swarm of army ants, and dozing restlessly in the oppressive mid-afternoon heat, I met Evan in town for dinner and a cold beer. After a couple drinks at the bar, who should make an appearance but the exact same guy who cut my hair twelve hours earlier in the same red gingham shirt and ballcap. We exchanged the basic pleasantries, had a beer together, and then Evan and I cleared off for the night. Rwanda, I thought quietly to myself as we trudged off in search of a moto home, is truly a small place.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
The A-Team splish-splashes to town.
After a maddening week at school, I was ready for some comforting R&R. Each day something conspired to derail or delay my lessons, and my voice and head were severely strained by the time I finished an epic three hour marking session Friday at 5:00pm. Luckily three fellow volunteers were coming to visit Nyagatare, check out our house, and do some hiking in the gorgeous hills around our small slice of African heaven.
Evan and I greeted our visitors in town Friday evening at the oddly named Nelson Mandela Bar (everyone seemed to be Rwandese save for us, no South Africans in sight) directly adjacent to the taxi-bus park, and we strolled downhill to Nyagatare’s main strip. Past the Umwembe Supermarket and the tall Bank of Kigali building sits City Centre Restaurant. City Centre has quickly become our preferred dining establishment because it’s cheap, filling, and regularly has the best flavor. It also serves the best mug of African tea in town. A mounded plate of mixed food, including rice, fried potatoes, a bowl of smooth tomato soup with stewed beef, and a random mixture of beans, cabbage, green beans, carrots, mashed green bananas, ugali, boiled white sweet potato, and spaghetti, plus African tea comes to 900 RWF – roughly $1.60.
After a filling dinner we returned to the Nelson Mandela Bar for a few drinks and some stimulating conversation (which is almost always in short supply with our colleagues and students). We then sped through town and up the hill to school on motorcycle taxis, much to the delight of our colleagues. After some more stimulating conversation and (polite!) disagreement, we retired. I was exhausted from the week, Friday especially, Evan was tired from preparing the house all day, and our fellow volunteers needed to recover from a marathon trip out of Kigali northwards to Nyagatare.
Most of us woke at the crack of dawn because early mornings for school united with a bright equatorial sun rising promptly at 5:30AM daily and a full orchestra of bugs, birds, cows, and small children fetching water from our enormous rain barrel adjacent to the house. We lounged around the house before scarfing down some hot tea and corn cakes with blueberry jam and waxy cheese. Then we set off for town under modestly threatening clouds and the lightest of sprinkles. We walked with a bounce in our step, glad for the company and the beautiful scenery. Within five minutes it became abundantly clear that the rain was just arriving, and before we could make a decision to return or continue, the heavens opened and drenched us.
Now, four white foreigners traipsing through Nyagatare is already a sight in and of itself (more like a sighting, but I won’t go there). Four white foreigners walking to town in soaking wet clothes clinging to our pale bodies and long matted wet hair was an out-of-body experience for many of our neighbors. The twilight zone come to Eastern Province. They obviously thought we were crazy, but we couldn’t have cared less. It felt right, no glorious, to let the heavy, slanting rain douse us thoroughly all the way to town.
It slackened slightly as we approached town, and many Rwandese began to hurriedly seek shelter in more desirable locations. Children screamed excitedly as we past, including a toddler with a spot-on Mr. T personage: cut-off t-shirt, high cut Mohawk, and a large hoop earring in each ear (tragically they were silver, not gold). Adults simply stared incredulously, occasionally blinking furiously to adjust their eyes. No, they were not dreaming. We did, in fact, on the sixth of March, 2010 march through sheets of heavy rain for more than four kilometers on our way to Nyagatare proper.
Following a brief jaunt to the Bank of Kigali for a replenishment of funds and an unsuccessful side trip to an overly expensive restaurant, we enjoyed another scrumptious meal at City Centre and just the right amount of body-warming African tea. Then we hustled into the still thick rain to the supermarket for a bit of shopping. However, the supermarket was but a short respite, and we faced an unenviable decision: remain soaking wet for at least another hour as we walked home in the rain; or, brave a couple of motos two-by-two back up to school. We chose the motos.
Looking back, we probably made a silly decision, but we were soaked to the bone, shivering, and I for one could not stomach a tedious uphill slog through thick, oozing red clay mud. Our moto drivers hustled us on board, me sandwiched between him and Evan, who was clinging perilously to the very back edge of the seat and miniscule seat rack. I managed to wack my kneecap painfully on the seat rack as I climbed aboard, nearly dismounting the driver and tipping his bike into a mire of mud and garbage. Evan donned my heavily laden backpack and dangled his legs uncomfortably off the side of the moto as we scooted off the curb. As we pulled away from town, the moto driver unskillfully navigated a series of water filled potholes and our eyes stung from the rain drops pelting our faces.
Down the rutted dirt road pockmarked with lurking, cloudy puddles we zipped past carpenters' workshops and a half-built open-sided church. Church-goers sheltering from the rain and reveling in a mid-afternoon concert were interrupted by the impromptu shout of Abazungu! from the loudspeakers. Geez, we can't escape it! Splashing through puddles was also unavoidable, and very soon our lower bodies were caked in a layer of watery mud and reconstituted cow patties. The rain continued to pour on us all the way home, Evan’s position became increasingly excruciating as his tail bone rested on a hard metal rack, and my knee throbbed mercilessly. Thankfully, and most importantly, we all arrived home in one piece.
We towel dried vigorously, donned dry clothes, and piled onto a mattress on our living room floor to watch a movie and wait the rain out. As dusk approached the rain cleared and magnificent rays of sunshine beamed from behind heavy clouds hugging the high Ugandan mountains to the north and northwest. We made our way down to the Akagera River, which flanks Nyagatare before flowing into Akagera National Park to the east. In the early evening monkeys are supposed to mingle in the tall, flat-topped trees lining the muddy river, and we hoped to give our guests a view of the local wildlife (well some of it anyway, crocodiles are also not completely unheard of in the Akagera...we decided to live dangerously).
The river had overrun its banks, bleeding out into the cow path leading downhill from school. We cautiously picked our way through and around massive puddles and stood on high ground next to the river. Directly across from our resting spot, a single, solitary monkey sat quietly in a high branch, apparently unconcerned about our presence across the unnaturally broad river. After watching for several minutes, the monkey suddenly bolted and darkness began to creep in over the hills. We quickly climbed back to school, making sure to scrub our lower legs clean with anti-bacterial soap (infections are a terrible thing to get here and can be even harder to kick). We had a delicious dinner – spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, and basil – before more movies and early retirement.
It’s amazing how energizing a little crazy fun, interesting conversation, and more than enough good humor can be. I felt ready to tackle another monster week and glad to have enjoyed the good company of my fellow volunteers. If only we could sing in the rain every weekend.
Cheers, Zach.
Evan and I greeted our visitors in town Friday evening at the oddly named Nelson Mandela Bar (everyone seemed to be Rwandese save for us, no South Africans in sight) directly adjacent to the taxi-bus park, and we strolled downhill to Nyagatare’s main strip. Past the Umwembe Supermarket and the tall Bank of Kigali building sits City Centre Restaurant. City Centre has quickly become our preferred dining establishment because it’s cheap, filling, and regularly has the best flavor. It also serves the best mug of African tea in town. A mounded plate of mixed food, including rice, fried potatoes, a bowl of smooth tomato soup with stewed beef, and a random mixture of beans, cabbage, green beans, carrots, mashed green bananas, ugali, boiled white sweet potato, and spaghetti, plus African tea comes to 900 RWF – roughly $1.60.
After a filling dinner we returned to the Nelson Mandela Bar for a few drinks and some stimulating conversation (which is almost always in short supply with our colleagues and students). We then sped through town and up the hill to school on motorcycle taxis, much to the delight of our colleagues. After some more stimulating conversation and (polite!) disagreement, we retired. I was exhausted from the week, Friday especially, Evan was tired from preparing the house all day, and our fellow volunteers needed to recover from a marathon trip out of Kigali northwards to Nyagatare.
Most of us woke at the crack of dawn because early mornings for school united with a bright equatorial sun rising promptly at 5:30AM daily and a full orchestra of bugs, birds, cows, and small children fetching water from our enormous rain barrel adjacent to the house. We lounged around the house before scarfing down some hot tea and corn cakes with blueberry jam and waxy cheese. Then we set off for town under modestly threatening clouds and the lightest of sprinkles. We walked with a bounce in our step, glad for the company and the beautiful scenery. Within five minutes it became abundantly clear that the rain was just arriving, and before we could make a decision to return or continue, the heavens opened and drenched us.
Now, four white foreigners traipsing through Nyagatare is already a sight in and of itself (more like a sighting, but I won’t go there). Four white foreigners walking to town in soaking wet clothes clinging to our pale bodies and long matted wet hair was an out-of-body experience for many of our neighbors. The twilight zone come to Eastern Province. They obviously thought we were crazy, but we couldn’t have cared less. It felt right, no glorious, to let the heavy, slanting rain douse us thoroughly all the way to town.
It slackened slightly as we approached town, and many Rwandese began to hurriedly seek shelter in more desirable locations. Children screamed excitedly as we past, including a toddler with a spot-on Mr. T personage: cut-off t-shirt, high cut Mohawk, and a large hoop earring in each ear (tragically they were silver, not gold). Adults simply stared incredulously, occasionally blinking furiously to adjust their eyes. No, they were not dreaming. We did, in fact, on the sixth of March, 2010 march through sheets of heavy rain for more than four kilometers on our way to Nyagatare proper.
Following a brief jaunt to the Bank of Kigali for a replenishment of funds and an unsuccessful side trip to an overly expensive restaurant, we enjoyed another scrumptious meal at City Centre and just the right amount of body-warming African tea. Then we hustled into the still thick rain to the supermarket for a bit of shopping. However, the supermarket was but a short respite, and we faced an unenviable decision: remain soaking wet for at least another hour as we walked home in the rain; or, brave a couple of motos two-by-two back up to school. We chose the motos.
Looking back, we probably made a silly decision, but we were soaked to the bone, shivering, and I for one could not stomach a tedious uphill slog through thick, oozing red clay mud. Our moto drivers hustled us on board, me sandwiched between him and Evan, who was clinging perilously to the very back edge of the seat and miniscule seat rack. I managed to wack my kneecap painfully on the seat rack as I climbed aboard, nearly dismounting the driver and tipping his bike into a mire of mud and garbage. Evan donned my heavily laden backpack and dangled his legs uncomfortably off the side of the moto as we scooted off the curb. As we pulled away from town, the moto driver unskillfully navigated a series of water filled potholes and our eyes stung from the rain drops pelting our faces.
Down the rutted dirt road pockmarked with lurking, cloudy puddles we zipped past carpenters' workshops and a half-built open-sided church. Church-goers sheltering from the rain and reveling in a mid-afternoon concert were interrupted by the impromptu shout of Abazungu! from the loudspeakers. Geez, we can't escape it! Splashing through puddles was also unavoidable, and very soon our lower bodies were caked in a layer of watery mud and reconstituted cow patties. The rain continued to pour on us all the way home, Evan’s position became increasingly excruciating as his tail bone rested on a hard metal rack, and my knee throbbed mercilessly. Thankfully, and most importantly, we all arrived home in one piece.
We towel dried vigorously, donned dry clothes, and piled onto a mattress on our living room floor to watch a movie and wait the rain out. As dusk approached the rain cleared and magnificent rays of sunshine beamed from behind heavy clouds hugging the high Ugandan mountains to the north and northwest. We made our way down to the Akagera River, which flanks Nyagatare before flowing into Akagera National Park to the east. In the early evening monkeys are supposed to mingle in the tall, flat-topped trees lining the muddy river, and we hoped to give our guests a view of the local wildlife (well some of it anyway, crocodiles are also not completely unheard of in the Akagera...we decided to live dangerously).
The river had overrun its banks, bleeding out into the cow path leading downhill from school. We cautiously picked our way through and around massive puddles and stood on high ground next to the river. Directly across from our resting spot, a single, solitary monkey sat quietly in a high branch, apparently unconcerned about our presence across the unnaturally broad river. After watching for several minutes, the monkey suddenly bolted and darkness began to creep in over the hills. We quickly climbed back to school, making sure to scrub our lower legs clean with anti-bacterial soap (infections are a terrible thing to get here and can be even harder to kick). We had a delicious dinner – spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, and basil – before more movies and early retirement.
It’s amazing how energizing a little crazy fun, interesting conversation, and more than enough good humor can be. I felt ready to tackle another monster week and glad to have enjoyed the good company of my fellow volunteers. If only we could sing in the rain every weekend.
Cheers, Zach.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Ready, set, teach. No wait, teach this. Oh, this too!
At an under-resourced (or is it understaffed?) secondary boarding school, new responsibilities seem to pile onto each other like rugby players in a scrum. A sneaky, perhaps sometimes illogical or confusing scrum, but a scrum nonetheless. Each day may hold a new surprise, and each one usually does. I now teach thirty periods of English at four different levels spread throughout the week, plus assist two, maybe three clubs (magazine club, a career seminar series for S6 students, and AIDS club), and perform homeroom teacher duties for a fifty student section. Then there’s this blog to update. Thankfully, I don’t teach ICT in Senior Four and Five anymore.
My days start early at school – either 7:00am or 7:50am, depending on which period I have first. I’m usually up before six o’clock to wash up, recheck lesson plans, and gulp down a meager breakfast of bread and honey or Nutella (peanut butter if we can find it cheap again!). I stroll one hundred meters from my house down the dusty mud road to the school gate and into the shaded school compound. To the west, misty clouds cling to the low, scrubby hills while the warm yellow glow of the equatorial African sunrise tints the sky behind me pastel blue and orange. The mornings are cool and crisp, and the earth smells strongly of fresh dewy dampness. It’s a refreshing and head-clearing way to start each morning. I march straight to the staff room in the administrative wing, sign the check-in log, grab a few pieces of soft, dusty chalk, and cut directly across the large school courtyard to my students’ classrooms. At 9:30AM we break for tea in the staff room, the teachers all sitting together sipping warm, milky icayi fortified with enough raw sugar to incapacitate a whole ward of diabetics. After two more periods, we break for lunch at 11:40AM before finishing at 3:30PM.
Lunch is always some stewed mix of beans, cabbage, sometimes carrots, sometimes tomatoes, and very rarely tree tomatoes. Usually it is lukewarm, but occasionally it is steaming hot. All of this is served with mounds of overcooked white rice in large plastic washbasins, the sort in which we hand wash our clothes and collect rainwater. The routine is the same: load a shallow flimsy plastic bowl with as much rice as possible, then spoon the watery bean and cabbage stew over top, making sure to collect enough liquid to cut the gelatinous blocks of rice. Despite the monotony, lunch at school is a blessing of more than one sort. First, it is something filling and relatively nutritious to eat during long days. Beans + rice + cabbage = good for you. Second, it has become increasingly hotter and fresher over the past two weeks, and hot food in the middle of the day when we have no electricity is also nice. Third, I get to spend an hour relaxing with fellow teachers, chatting, talking about students and classes, and attempting to improve my Kinyarwandan (which is going painstakingly slowly). Fourth, it’s free. Completely free. It saves me from shopping more frequently and traipsing home to eat and then return to school for more class.
As I have thirty periods a week at four different levels, I see a lot of students – roughly 550 at last count. Mondays and Tuesdays are my busiest, with eight periods and seven periods respectively. The arrangement makes for a slow, grinding start to the week. I’m relieved to reach Wednesday when I only have five periods, but the pace and number of students never really slacks. A-Level Students select a concentration consisting of three subjects. These combinations will be nationally examined at the end of Senior Six, their last year. O-Level students take a wider variety of courses and must prepare for national exams at the end of Senior 3. Each combination or section has its own classroom, and teachers rotate by period amongst the classes teaching various subjects. Many classes have their timetable, or schedule, written on the board somewhere, and it often has gaps in which the students copy notes collectively from a single source (or do God only knows what). Most classes are packed. Students sit two to a large rough wooden writing desk or use a chair with attached writing support.
At first it seemed teaching so many students would be daunting, even overwhelming, but you put your head down and start plowing. My schedule is draining and challenging, but I’m so glad to be jumping in with both feet. Preparing three or four different lesson plans a week to be taught in a jumbled order spaced irregularly throughout the week taxes one’s organizational skills. Add to lessons and teaching supporting club activities and the normal necessities of everyday life and sometimes my head spins. Happily, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My days start early at school – either 7:00am or 7:50am, depending on which period I have first. I’m usually up before six o’clock to wash up, recheck lesson plans, and gulp down a meager breakfast of bread and honey or Nutella (peanut butter if we can find it cheap again!). I stroll one hundred meters from my house down the dusty mud road to the school gate and into the shaded school compound. To the west, misty clouds cling to the low, scrubby hills while the warm yellow glow of the equatorial African sunrise tints the sky behind me pastel blue and orange. The mornings are cool and crisp, and the earth smells strongly of fresh dewy dampness. It’s a refreshing and head-clearing way to start each morning. I march straight to the staff room in the administrative wing, sign the check-in log, grab a few pieces of soft, dusty chalk, and cut directly across the large school courtyard to my students’ classrooms. At 9:30AM we break for tea in the staff room, the teachers all sitting together sipping warm, milky icayi fortified with enough raw sugar to incapacitate a whole ward of diabetics. After two more periods, we break for lunch at 11:40AM before finishing at 3:30PM.
Lunch is always some stewed mix of beans, cabbage, sometimes carrots, sometimes tomatoes, and very rarely tree tomatoes. Usually it is lukewarm, but occasionally it is steaming hot. All of this is served with mounds of overcooked white rice in large plastic washbasins, the sort in which we hand wash our clothes and collect rainwater. The routine is the same: load a shallow flimsy plastic bowl with as much rice as possible, then spoon the watery bean and cabbage stew over top, making sure to collect enough liquid to cut the gelatinous blocks of rice. Despite the monotony, lunch at school is a blessing of more than one sort. First, it is something filling and relatively nutritious to eat during long days. Beans + rice + cabbage = good for you. Second, it has become increasingly hotter and fresher over the past two weeks, and hot food in the middle of the day when we have no electricity is also nice. Third, I get to spend an hour relaxing with fellow teachers, chatting, talking about students and classes, and attempting to improve my Kinyarwandan (which is going painstakingly slowly). Fourth, it’s free. Completely free. It saves me from shopping more frequently and traipsing home to eat and then return to school for more class.
As I have thirty periods a week at four different levels, I see a lot of students – roughly 550 at last count. Mondays and Tuesdays are my busiest, with eight periods and seven periods respectively. The arrangement makes for a slow, grinding start to the week. I’m relieved to reach Wednesday when I only have five periods, but the pace and number of students never really slacks. A-Level Students select a concentration consisting of three subjects. These combinations will be nationally examined at the end of Senior Six, their last year. O-Level students take a wider variety of courses and must prepare for national exams at the end of Senior 3. Each combination or section has its own classroom, and teachers rotate by period amongst the classes teaching various subjects. Many classes have their timetable, or schedule, written on the board somewhere, and it often has gaps in which the students copy notes collectively from a single source (or do God only knows what). Most classes are packed. Students sit two to a large rough wooden writing desk or use a chair with attached writing support.
At first it seemed teaching so many students would be daunting, even overwhelming, but you put your head down and start plowing. My schedule is draining and challenging, but I’m so glad to be jumping in with both feet. Preparing three or four different lesson plans a week to be taught in a jumbled order spaced irregularly throughout the week taxes one’s organizational skills. Add to lessons and teaching supporting club activities and the normal necessities of everyday life and sometimes my head spins. Happily, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Monday, March 1, 2010
On the road to Musanze: The extraordinary lovechild of Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl.
Rwanda’s geography and landscape are remarkably diverse given its tiny size. Nyagatare is located in hot and dry northeastern Rwanda, in the Eastern Province, about forty-five minutes south of the Ugandan border at Kagitumba. Musanze, formerly Ruhengeri, is located at roughly the same latitude but further west, tucked into the high, lush mountains near Virunga (Volcanoes) National Park. Two weekends ago I visited Musanze to see some fellow volunteers and check out their digs. After a hot, bumpy ride into Kigali Friday evening, I departed early Saturday morning for Musanze.
Weaving in and out of the Kigali traffic headed west and north away from the city, our bus turned abruptly right and began a long, steep, twisting climb. The driver downshifted noisily and the bus’ transmission eased into a more comfortable gear as the incline kicked up. Curving around countless s-bends, the bus plodded upwards as other vehicles whizzed past downhill. Putting the thought of head-on collisions in a securely locked mental box is an excellent skill to develop in Rwanda. Anyway, through breaks in the trees the steep ridges of outlying Kigali framed the narrow valley below. The mountains grew taller and more impressive with each sweep outwards away from the hillsides. Everything seemed on the verge of rushing downhill into the valley floor. The bus finally crested the hill and chugged onwards, straining under its load of human cargo.
Outside the bus windows the landscape began to change dramatically. The road snaked through valleys and clung to the sides of nearly sheer cliffs, often following a small, fast flowing river the color of ruddy caramel. It resembled the savory icayi stained cloudy red-orange with ginger, cardamom, and other spices I had earlier that morning – a giant river of steaming African tea! Willy Wonka would be proud. The trees and other vegetation took on bizarre and fascinating forms, and all of it appeared ludicrously placed on the mountain sides. Tall, skinny Cassia trees with multiple plumes of lacy leaves stretched vertically to compete with enormous banks of invasive yellow-stalked bamboo. Along the road, large conifer trees (yes, fir trees) shaded small, spindly trees topped with bright flashes of large poppy red blooms, their forms blurred by the motion of the bus. The oversize splashes of vibrant color resembled an Impressionist’s quick and agile dabs of paint to a canvas. The elephantine leaves of green banana groves filled the patchwork hillsides, where they shared space with carefully crafted terraces, stands of native vegetation, and smudges of raw red earth. Tiny dirt paths criss-crossed the hills like a monumental size ant farm kit as farmers traversed the trails twisting upwards from roads and valleys to the towering ridgelines.
At points the bus would round a turn and large panoramic vistas opened before me. The rugged terrain around Musanze has a distinct appearance when seen collectively from a distance. For one, the road and mountains are so high clouds appear to float in amongst the peaks. The mountains are stacked one upon the next as far as the eye can see, and each one is more verdant than the next. The tectonic plates colliding to the west at the Great Rift Valley have creased this land and driven it skyward. So much so, the earth itself appears wrinkled by the geologic and human forces acting on it.
This region also witnessed some of the most horrific violence during the genocide. At first blush, the astounding beauty of Musanze and its surrounds is so at odds with the brutal violence of 1994. However, Rwandese are quiet and reserved, and many of them silently carry tremendous psychological burdens as a result of the genocide. I began to wonder if the earth did not, in fact, reflect the weight each of the people living in the hills bears, the land drawn tightly into deep furrows like the psyches of Rwandese themselves. I don’t mean to dwell on 1994, but it is truly inconceivable a place so stunningly picturesque and lovely should have witnessed the single most effective mass murder in history. Just some food for thought on the human condition.
Photo courtesy of fellow WT volunteer Meghan (although I don't think she knows I borrowed it! Sorry Meghan.).
Weaving in and out of the Kigali traffic headed west and north away from the city, our bus turned abruptly right and began a long, steep, twisting climb. The driver downshifted noisily and the bus’ transmission eased into a more comfortable gear as the incline kicked up. Curving around countless s-bends, the bus plodded upwards as other vehicles whizzed past downhill. Putting the thought of head-on collisions in a securely locked mental box is an excellent skill to develop in Rwanda. Anyway, through breaks in the trees the steep ridges of outlying Kigali framed the narrow valley below. The mountains grew taller and more impressive with each sweep outwards away from the hillsides. Everything seemed on the verge of rushing downhill into the valley floor. The bus finally crested the hill and chugged onwards, straining under its load of human cargo.
Outside the bus windows the landscape began to change dramatically. The road snaked through valleys and clung to the sides of nearly sheer cliffs, often following a small, fast flowing river the color of ruddy caramel. It resembled the savory icayi stained cloudy red-orange with ginger, cardamom, and other spices I had earlier that morning – a giant river of steaming African tea! Willy Wonka would be proud. The trees and other vegetation took on bizarre and fascinating forms, and all of it appeared ludicrously placed on the mountain sides. Tall, skinny Cassia trees with multiple plumes of lacy leaves stretched vertically to compete with enormous banks of invasive yellow-stalked bamboo. Along the road, large conifer trees (yes, fir trees) shaded small, spindly trees topped with bright flashes of large poppy red blooms, their forms blurred by the motion of the bus. The oversize splashes of vibrant color resembled an Impressionist’s quick and agile dabs of paint to a canvas. The elephantine leaves of green banana groves filled the patchwork hillsides, where they shared space with carefully crafted terraces, stands of native vegetation, and smudges of raw red earth. Tiny dirt paths criss-crossed the hills like a monumental size ant farm kit as farmers traversed the trails twisting upwards from roads and valleys to the towering ridgelines.
At points the bus would round a turn and large panoramic vistas opened before me. The rugged terrain around Musanze has a distinct appearance when seen collectively from a distance. For one, the road and mountains are so high clouds appear to float in amongst the peaks. The mountains are stacked one upon the next as far as the eye can see, and each one is more verdant than the next. The tectonic plates colliding to the west at the Great Rift Valley have creased this land and driven it skyward. So much so, the earth itself appears wrinkled by the geologic and human forces acting on it.
This region also witnessed some of the most horrific violence during the genocide. At first blush, the astounding beauty of Musanze and its surrounds is so at odds with the brutal violence of 1994. However, Rwandese are quiet and reserved, and many of them silently carry tremendous psychological burdens as a result of the genocide. I began to wonder if the earth did not, in fact, reflect the weight each of the people living in the hills bears, the land drawn tightly into deep furrows like the psyches of Rwandese themselves. I don’t mean to dwell on 1994, but it is truly inconceivable a place so stunningly picturesque and lovely should have witnessed the single most effective mass murder in history. Just some food for thought on the human condition.
Photo courtesy of fellow WT volunteer Meghan (although I don't think she knows I borrowed it! Sorry Meghan.).
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