I am cursed with motos

Yesterday I finished work earlier than expected and so I ventured into Kigali to buy stationery and do chores for work such as printing things and photocopying (yes, exciting stuff I know). Well on the way back I seemed to get another crazy moto driver. I do seem to have a talent for picking them! After ten minutes of hair raising hanging on as he beeped at everyone in his wake to look at the umuzungu passenger, his moto hit a stone and he got a flat tyre. I would have though haha serves you right for driving like a madman, except for we were literally in the middle of nowhere and the light was fading.

 Some cute children came to stare at me as if I had 10 heads and in turn both me and the moto driver stared wistfully at the punctured tyre. Eventually just as I was formulating my ‘oh dear what do I do next?’ plan, he tried to mend it by sticking his key in the tyre but to no avail. So he called one of his mates to take me home (it seems that all moto drivers know each other). So in about 6 moto journeys I’ve had one fall and one flat tyre, statistically this is very bad! Its a good job I’ve no sense at all and just keep on getting back on.

Photos at long last!

At the VSO quiz during in country training with some of the other VSO Rwanda volunteers

Kigali, the capital of Rwanda

Another shot of Kigali

Me on a bus with some of the stuff I needed to get to set up home. It doesn't look like much here but believe me it was!

Intore dancers at the VSO family dinner (big volunteer get together which happens every 6 months)

VSO Rwanda volunteers January 2011 intake.  What a lovely looking bunch!

My bedroom. It has since been re-arranged!

My kitchen. I now have a rug for the floor.

My front room/office/making teaching resources all over the floor space before it got covered in junk.

So now I have worked out how to install the thingy which lets me resize pictures to a size than my modem can cope with there will be more pictures to come! I'll take some of the TTC, the outside of my house and the village soon.

Will snowman markers shorten my life?!

I’ve spent the afternoon planning lessons and making teaching resources. The only marker pens you can get here are called ‘snowman’ and they say ‘beware imitation’ on the box, but really it should say ‘beware inhalation’. As the toxic fumes invaded my front room I couldn’t help but wonder whether the few remaining brain cells I have left are being slowly eradicated. The name ‘snowman’ for marker pens is in itself a bit strange...its not as if they come in white, and I dread to think what they would do to an actual snowman if you were to draw his smile on with one of those! But snowman markers will become vital to my life as they enable me to draw pretty pictures onto rice sacks which will be to me here what PowerPoint was to me back in England. So I do love snowman markers really...

Je suis fatigue...

Feel somewhat tired today. I think it was because I spent a fair few hours in the classroom and I’ve begun to forget what thats like! Love it though really, despite the huge change in context I still feel I’m on familiar ground when I stand up in front of a class, whoever they may be. I’ve come to the conclusion that teaching is teaching anywhere. Sure there are massive differences between teaching five year old British kids and African teens but the basic principle remains the same: keep them focused, keep it real, keep it clear.  I managed to teach a couple of lessons I was fairly happy with today and got my first ‘flowers’ where students wave their hands in a sign of appreciation, felt very chuffed!

The young senior 4 students arrived today. Bless them they look so young and lost. It reminded me of my first day of university where you move somewhere new and leave your family behind. I remember stopping in the motorway services in Birmingham on the way to Nottingham University for the first time and feeling like I didn’t want to get there! These students are a couple of years younger than university age, about sixteen I think. They keep arriving on motos with a mattress and a small bag of stuff.  Its a bit of a contrast to the packed car load full of stuff I took with me to uni, most of which I probably didn’t even need.

 I think this whole experience is going to make me very anti ‘stuff’. Back at home I had so much stuff, what was the point of it all? It definitely didn’t make me a happier person. In fact I’m not convinced whether much of it enhanced my life at all. It suffocated me, crowding me out of my house like some big tsunami of clothes and stationery and DVDs and books. And when you have less stuff you have less tidying to do which has got to be a good thing when you have an anti-order anti-tidy anti-straight lines personality such as mine. So there we go, I’ll get off of my soapbox, although I would still do anything for a sink with running drinkable water...but I’ll have to wait two years for that one!

Pizza never tasted so good!

Yesterday marked my three week anniversary since arriving from the UK. I can’t quite believe its only been three weeks since I was sat in my room in my parents house surrounded by piles and piles of stuff. It seems like another world, well I guess it is in most ways. While I’m still to really understand what cash power is about,  can’t really hold down a conversation in Kinyarwanda yet and haven’t discovered whether its possible to buy eggs in the village, I do know much more than I did and I’m starting to feel more at ease in my surroundings.

This weekend I headed to Kigali to stay in the vso dorm (for free!). VSO Rwanda is one of only two vso programme offices around the world to have a dorm so I think we are really lucky. Its also on the right side of town from where I live so only takes me an hour to get there. On the Friday evening I went out for dinner with some other volunteers to a great Italian restaurant called Sol Luna. I had a pizza and its the best I’ve had in a really long time. Oh how absence makes the heart grow fonder! And I love the fact it came with French fries on top like a kind of McDonald’s pizza, genius.

 I caved in this weekend and bought a great big block of the orange gouda cheese thats readily available in Kigali. According to Kelti, it lasts for ages without a fridge and when green bits start to appear you just cut them off and carry on.  I did see the strangest thing in Nakkomatt (big Kenyan supermarket). It was cheese made from both cows and goats...I’m not so sure about that one. Its probably delicious but I’m just not sure you should mix different kinds of animals together in just one cheese...I bet you anything I will end up trying it before my time is up here.

Us UNICEF CAPACE people working at teacher training colleges got together to do some planning and thinking which was really helpful. It was also lovely to spend some time just chilling out, walking about freely and lounging about in restaurants and cafes. Just what I needed. This week I pledge to begin the exercise dvds behind closed curtains as feeling a little bit of an unfit slob. I may also take my skipping rope out into the yard. I’ve never been able to skip as I due to my height I have always had a lack of control and coordination over my limbs, but I think its time I gave it a go.

The first lesson and making friends with the kids

I survived teaching my first lesson at the college. Not my finest hour as a teacher if I’m honest but I learned more in that hour than I have done all week and its given me an idea of the many challenges there are with teaching in this context. The students are great and I have adapted my plan for when I teach the same lesson again next week. Its a very steep learning curve but I’ll get there. I keep forgetting that I’ve only been here a week!

Slowly but surely it seems that the local kids are beginning to get used to seeing my umuzungu face about. There were still slightly shocked when I came and sat next to them in their lessons today. I was observing the senior 6 (eldest student’s) teaching practice which was very eye opening. Seeing a change here will be the hallmark of whether the work I do has any impact or not. The children here are gorgeous! So lovely and unspoiled. When I went into P1 (about year 1 age in England) I just wanted to get up and teach them something fun like head, shoulders, knees and toes, they were just too cute. Perhaps they will let me in a little bit. When I have the resource centre up and running I would love to take groups out to it and model circle time and learning through play with the students.

Talking of which my resource centre now has glass on the windows! Next week they are supposed to be installing electricity which I’m extremely excited about.  I’m glad I’ve got two years because its going to take time for it to evolve. I’m lucky though that the tutor I’m working with on the project is absolutely lovely and had lots of good ideas himself. I must take some photos to compare at a later date.

Taking my first tumble...

Today was ‘heroes day’ which means no work for me! So after waiting for the rain to subside I decided to visit Steven and Mary, fellow volunteers who live in the district capital, Rwamagana. It was lovely to see them and have a good chat. It was about a 50 minute moto ride along a bumpy and steep track. It was breathtaking scenery though and I saw so much of Rwandan life. There were children spinning wooden tops on the track, women carrying huge piles of reeds on their heads  and just the most beautiful green hills you could ever imagine. I knew Rwanda was going to be beautiful but I never thought it would be quite this beautiful.

Unfortunately on the way back I took a bit of a tumble! The moto driver seemed to be a bit of a speed demon and the motorbike fell sideways going up a vertical slope. Because the slope killed his speed we were going very slowly at the time so only have a few bruises fortunately. The terrible thing was that I was in the middle of nowhere so just had to get straight back on. I wish I had a nice warm bath to soak in! Just lying on my bed with a huge cup of tea to calm my nerves! Such is life. Tomorrow I’m going to attempt to teach my first lesson at the college so wish me luck.