Jul 13, 2023
I mentioned the construction crew working in the courtyard in my last post. There are about 7-8 guys and a woman as part of this crew. My Kinyarwanda is pretty bad and their English is worse, so communicating is difficult. This morning one guy said “engineer” and pointed to the guy who was working at the highest point. I tried to tell them that they were doing a good job. We laugh as we try to communicate. Added to this separation is that they are laborers and I’m a teacher. When I see them, I think of my father who worked as a plasterer, and then when that trade fell out of favor, he became a union carpenter. I see these guys pounding with tools, carrying heavy loads, and the constant up-and-down and think of how he did this, along with our mother taking care of things at home, so their kids wouldn’t have to. I’m heading out now and will give them some passion fruit and I’ll try to convey that I appreciate their work.
Jul 13, 2023
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is all about adapting to new challenges. Our courtyard is now a construction site as my landlord does I don’t know what to the little building used as a house for his chickens and site to incinerate paper trash. My neighbor along the back of the courtyard left last week and Jean Nepo swears that he doesn’t want me to move out, but I think he does. All of the wires that ran across the courtyard that were used as clotheslines have been taken down to make the work of the construction crew easier. Since I still have to do laundry (yes, by hand) just about every day, I needed to come up with a work-around. Voila! I took my squeegee and placed it between two chairs along the side of my house. That’s where my laundry can catch the early morning sun.
Jul 12, 2023
We rarely think about where our food comes from, but in Rwanda, you might be growing your own food or have gotten it fresh from an outdoor market. I took these photos of cassava, bananas and coffee in Nyamasheke. Americans generally don’t eat cassava. It’s kind of like a blander potato. Thais love them! Bananas are everywhere in Rwanda, come in many varieties and people here eat them in many different ways. As for me, I generally stick to the Cavendish banana for breakfast as many Americans do. Rwandans are not coffee drinkers and prefer water or tea. Coffee is a cash crop. Someone told me that farmers can get 10,000 Rwandan francs (about $10) for a kilo of dried coffee beans, which is considered good money. The coffee bean is inside a little ball like a small grape.
Jul 11, 2023
This past weekend was memorable. My fellow St. Teresa’s parishioner, Marie Gato, built a beautiful home for her family in the village where she grew up in Nyamasheke province, which is about as far as you can go from where I live in Rwanda. She asked if I would attend the blessing of the house by Fr. Placide. I said, “Sure, why not?” Her brother picked me up in Kigali at 4:25 a.m. and we left for what might be the most remote place I’ve ever been in. We were probably an hour and a half on bumpy unpaved roads to finish the trip. It was beautiful village, though – green and hilly with a nice view of Lake Kivu. You can see the houses in Congo from her village. Anyhoo, the whole village turned out for the house blessing ceremony on Saturday afternoon. It was quite an event. After Fr. Placide blessed the house, he was given a young female cow. There was a lot of eating and photos. I even made a speech, half in Kinyarwanda and half in English. I tried banana beer (yuck!) and swam in Lake Kivu. I finally made it back to Kabarore five days after I left with some serious laundry to do.
Jul 6, 2023
I have to grade about 150 final exams this term. (The Rwandans use the British English term ‘marking.’) I did so much marking that I drained a red pen! The students finished up exams on Wednesday and now they’re in a holding pattern until they are released by the school on Friday, July 14. Grades are due Monday and I’m just about done with the three classes that I have to grade. Should knock the rest off tomorrow morning before I head into Kigali for the weekend.
Jul 4, 2023
July 1 was Rwanda’s national day and July 3 was Liberation Day here, so that made for a long weekend. I hightailed it up to Uganda with my marking under my arm. (I got most of it done!) Response volunteer Penny advised me to skip Kampala, so I changed plans and went to Lake Bonyonyi, just an hour away from from Rwanda. I had some relaxing days as there weren’t many other guests at my resort, which is kind of odd because it’s high tourist season. Lake B is beautiful and dotted with little islands, one of which is Punishment Island (interesting name and more interesting story behind it). My guide Antony and I canoed around it and visited a small hospital and a school, speaking with one of the teachers there. The strangest thing was how cold it was there! This morning when I checked around 8 a.m., it was 56 degrees. The first morning I was there was even colder. Hard to imagine feeling chilly around the equator, but it was.
Jun 28, 2023
I am waiting for Peace Corps to accept my early close of service date, moving it up from September 12 to late July. The reason I want to leave before one calendar year is up is that there will be absolutely nothing for me to do at school once the Year 1 and Year 2 students leave during the second week of July. My Zimbabwean colleagues return home on Friday, July 14. After that, the school will just have Year 3 students, who I don’t teach, and their Rwandan tutors preparing for their finals amid the construction site that is our school now. As I get ready to leave Rwanda, I want to slowly give some things away. My nearest PCV neighbor, Sandra, came into Kabarore for lunch today and I gave her my toaster. (I don’t think toast has really caught on in Rwanda, so she was the only one who would appreciate it.) My friend Denis, a Ugandan who teaches at a local high school, is one of the only people here who is the same size as me, so he will get a lot of the pants and shirts that can be worn to school. My furniture will be donated to TTC Kabarore for them to sell to raise money for a chicken coop. The goal is go home with leaving as much as possible here, but I hope to pick up a few Rwandan baskets to take home.
Jun 28, 2023
The essence of Peace Corps is people realizing that we are one human family. Our school secretary, Mrs. Donatha, gave birth to her third daughter, Atete Mugume, about a month ago. My colleague Claudine took me over to her house to see the baby. While there I had a nice chat with Donatha’s husband, the principal of the primary school that is across the street from where I live. They served us soft drinks and super-delicious roasted peanuts. Her husband’s school is the Gatsibo Community Model School but there is a plaque on near the entrance that names it the “Chinese-Rwandan Friendship School” as it was built with Chinese money. Her husband went to China as part of the program of building the school, so we had a nice chat about that and other things while the ladies played with the baby. Claudine took a picture of the baby, Donatha and me. Turi kumwe – We are together!
Jun 26, 2023
I really enjoyed learning about students’ names in Thailand as it gives a great insight into the culture. Likewise, there are some wonderful names among my students here in Rwanda. The Rwandan naming protocol is unique in my experience – children are given a new last name from either their father or mother. Many students have “ishimwe” or “imana” (God) as part of their last names. In fact, I have four students in one class with the last name “Ishimwe” and none of them are related. The students’ first names have a very strong French influence. Here are some examples: Yvonne, Jean Norbert, Honore, Jean D’Amour, Claudine, and Delphine. The Bible also is a source of names and I have a Moses, Samson, Esther, Ezechiel and several students name Emmanuel. There are also some students first names that unique or strange to me, such as Somewhere, Bongo, Lovemaker, Hornella, Elissa (a boy), Allen (a girl), and Pacifique (both a female and male student have this name). There are some names which (I presume) reflect African heritage, such as Najeti, Djazila, Teta, Tidjara and Shemsa, too. Interesting!!
Jun 26, 2023
Many things about Rwanda impress me. Among them are their talented professionals. Rwanda’s civil engineers have turned a mountainous and rocky country into a functioning system of roadways with good drainage. Equally impressive are Rwanda’s architects. Kigali is a beautiful city with many buildings that catch the eye but none more so than the Convention Center. It’s got a unique design and is lit up at night in amazing colorful displays.
