Condoms, snakes and a school fete

The teaching has been going really well and I’m building up a good rapport with the students which is rewarding. I’ve been trying to broaden the context of my English teaching to include social issues relevant to the developing world which has proved really rewarding. I spent two weeks studying fair trade with my Senior 6, bolted child labour onto the end of the topic of professions with my Senior 2, and used report writing practice to justify spending two weeks of HIV / AIDS education with my Senior 5. The latter included a condom demonstration followed by all 44 students (including a nun) practicing with their own condom and banana, which I suspect the nuns who run the school will imminently reprimand me for! Challenging teaching sexual health with a language barrier. And chaotic when I told the students that yes, they could eat their banana afterwards!

Teaching computers without electricity

I’ve had a HIV / AIDS outreach youth centre in to discuss HIV / AIDS with the students, do some drama etc which was excellent but nearly didn’t happen because the Director, a nun, cancelled it without telling me and without explanation. Thankfully, I found out half an hour before and cancelled the cancellation, rounded up the 400 female students from Wednesday afternoon’s manual labour activities, herded them into the hall, welcomed the organisation to the school, showed them into the hall and stood outside the door refusing to let the nuns in! I sense that I may have been overly assertive but…! They’re going to return again for a follow up session and I’m going to try and take some of the really interested students down to the centre one weekend to show them everything they do – testing, counselling, treatment, peer education, social activities etc.

The high street of Save!

This past weekend I ran a global education workshop (development, international trade, international perceptions of different parts of the world etc) with a couple of other volunteers for the rest of the volunteers and our Rwandan colleagues. Tiring to organise with all the complications of doing so in this context and with translation for everything but it was a huge success, in marked contrast to the workshops that the Programme Office run! Weirdly at the end one of the Rwandan attendees stood up and read out a 3 page letter of thanks that the Rwandans had prepared for us. Very generous but I have never heard such a ridiculously formal and over the top letter of thanks, nor one so long. Then that was followed by an amusing response to the evaluation forms we handed out. The Rwandans misunderstood and thought when we asked for feedback on sessions titled ‘What is development?’ etc, we were testing them and they proceeded to write almost essay length responses!

Save

It’s been an eventful week or so wildlife wise. The big highlight was a snake in the house. I returned from school on Wednesday to find Bristley backed up against the front door pointing to the corner of the room. I guess ignorance is bliss because I ushered it outside with a broom while he stood pinned to the door going ‘aye ya ya’. Once outside my evidently crazy fearless carnivorous chickens gruesomely attacked, killed and ate it. Scamper stepped up from catching geckos to catch a bat and a bird, which I would have no real issue with if she just killed and ate them but she doesn’t. She carries them around in her mouth from place to place and plays with them patting them around and rolling around like a wrestler with them!

Then yesterday we had the school fete – St Bernadette Day – which was arguably bigger than Christmas! I spent almost two days solid drawing and painting two huge HIV / AIDS awareness murials on white double bed sheets for the day and revealed them right at the last minute to ensure they couldn’t veto my inclusion of a life size silhouette of a man and woman! Lots of praying, guests, food, singing, dancing, sketches and the obligatory long boring speeches! The day concluded with a student and teacher football match, well three teachers anyway, one of whom was me. Good fun and I survived but I am now sporting a massively swollen, black and blue cheek and eye after a clash and my leg needs some skin grafting! All of which added to the entertainment for the students watching. Going to ask VSO if my health insurance include facial reconstruction surgery.

A bold presentation for a Catholic school!

Life here with the Rwandans in my village, or ‘the peasants’ as my Kigali based VSO friend refers to them, is going okay. I love returning here after a weekend away. The water and power cuts are becoming longer and more frequent as Rwanda struggles affording and providing utilities, but it’s bearable. I haven’t had any more run ins with the crazy mad woman although the young female teachers next door are driving me nuts. They have been combining their abnormally loud conversational voices and habit of shouting everything they say, with hours of screaming and laughing every evening like they’re being tickled whilst watching a Chippendales show or something!

I haven’t done any of my Masters study for ages with so many things on, and the immediate future doesn’t look too promising either. Rather bizarrely, for someone who only has four months experience of teaching English, I’m going to be running part of an English teaching skills workshop for Rwandan teachers next weekend! This weekend I’m busy trying to put together the final elements of a global awareness website that’s going to be linked to VSO’s website (address to follow once it’s online!). I’m trying to identify from among the many, a couple of seriously underprivileged kids to sponsor through primary school – uniforms, materials etc. And subject to resolving a transport issue I should soon be starting to teach English evening classes to some fair trade coffee farmers who farm about 30 minutes drive from here and supply Sainsbury’s. (So next time you’re in there look out for Maraba Union Roaster’s fair trade coffee!) We’ve got a muzungu vs. Rwandan football match coming up next month too. And with the 10th anniversary of the genocide fast approaching I’m trying to write some articles for the local press back home. Oh, and twice a week I’m supposed to be studying French but my excuses are numerous and my commitment appauling! It feels good to have lots of things to get stuck into in addition to teaching but I have my last essay to do for the end of March and my exam end of April so I need to get back on track soon. The weeks and months seem to be passing by so quickly.

The market in Butare