May 15, 2023
I missed school on my birthday as I was in Kigali at a dermatology appointment (all good). My co-teacher Augustin sent me this from our Year 1 (10th grade) Early Childhood and Lower Primary Education students. One of the student’s birthdays is on May 14 and she must’ve remembered that mine was the following day, so I’m guessing that she was the one who created this Post-It Note (?) with birthday wishes for me. As teachers, these are the things we will remember and cherish when we are sitting in our rocking chairs.
May 10, 2023
One of the problems with having mirrored glass windows is that that birds sometimes crash into them. The other morning I heard a crash at my front door and saw this little guy sitting on the ground when I opened my door. He was flapping his wings but couldn’t fly. I assumed he knocked himself out and was going to sit in the courtyard until his circle of life closed. To my surprise, he got enough energy to land on the foundation of my house, where I took this picture. Then, to my amazement, he flew into my house! He was sitting in my sink and I didn’t know what to do as I was in a hurry to leave my house to go to Kigali, so I called my landlord over. After a few minutes, the little red bird flew right out the front door. I have no idea what kind of bird my visitor was, but it was unlike any one I’ve seen before. The interesting variety of birds are definitely one of the coolest parts of living in Rwanda.
May 8, 2023
My landlord’s son, Manzi (Melvin) is quite a character and his English is excellent, honed by hours and hours of cartoon watching. I was trying an experiment where I put a bunch of the little remnants of soap bars in tinfoil and left them outside to hopefully melt during the day and congeal at night. When I explained what I was trying to do to this 7-year-old, he said, “That won’t work.” He then proceeded to plug in my hot plate and used the top of a jam jar as a small pan to melt the pieces of soap. When they cooled, he formed them into a colorful ball of soap. Very clever!
My bicycle has always held a fascination for Manzi since I got it in October. He tried and tried to ride it, but he was just too little. After about 1, 000 attempts, he finally got it. Here’s a picture of him riding my bike for a few seconds in the courtyard. A little while later, he left the bike on the ground in the courtyard and took off with my helmet, which he likes to wear backwards, for some other adventure.
May 6, 2023
Yesterday our 11th graders went to Kabarore Vision primary school to do student teaching. The lessons I observed were on parallelograms by Ben, the parts of a fish by Isaac, and a story about elephant and a hen in Ikinyarwanda by Alice. The Math and SET (Science and Elementary Technology) lessons were delivered in English. Rwanda is putting a lot of emphasis on English in their primary classrooms now as their economy becomes more tightly integrated into the East African Community. (The seven countries of the EAC are Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.) All three of my students prepared well, did a nice job in class and really looked the part teaching the fourth graders. I sat in the back of the classroom with the cooperating teacher who scored their teaching. Their classmates who weren’t teaching got to sit in on the classes, too. Here are photos of Isaac and Alice teaching:
May 5, 2023
One of the things that isn’t lost on me is how beautiful Rwanda is, especially my little part in the Kabarore valley. Today I went to Kabarore Vision School, which is about ten steps from our school, to watch my 11th graders to do some student teaching (more on that later). Here is a picture of the school’s Rwandan flag, which has a larger band of blue with the Sun on it, along with two smaller bands of yellow and green. Quite an attractive flag! The school overlooks a really green valley, perhaps enhanced with all of the rain we’ve been getting. While at the school, I saw a pair of eagles rising on updrafts. Later in the day, I changed the words from “This Land is Your Land” to fit Rwanda. The students enjoyed singing “From the Virunga Mountains to the Great Rift Valley, From Akegera to Lake Kivu.”
May 5, 2023
I’m a little late with this one…World Malaria Day is April 25. Who knew? Not me, but Peace Corps has volunteers dedicated to educating about malaria, which is still a problem in Rwanda despite everyone having a bed net. (Peace Corps gives us a bed net and provides us with our choice of malaria prophylactics – I take Malarone.) My colleague got malaria about a month ago, but he’s already back at work. One of his children got it last year. The mosquito is the world’s deadliest animal, believe it or not. I did my part on educating about malaria with my students by doing a ‘True or False’ activity about common myths about the disease. There was some lively discussion about whether mangoes can give you malaria (they can’t), whether alcohol protects you from malaria (it doesn’t), if malaria is only a problem in rainy season (it isn’t) and if you can know if you have malaria without taking a test (you can’t). Ms. Shemsa, a 10th grader is leading our class in this activity.
May 3, 2023
It was a tragic day in The Land of a Thousand Hills. Heavy rainfall triggered landslides in western Rwanda. Many people were killed as their houses were washed away. I live in the eastern part of Rwanda. It is less mountainous than the west, and there have not been similar problems here. Below are pictures taken by Penny, a Peace Corps health volunteer, who was traveling in the west today. Mud, rocks and trees cover the roads.
May 2, 2023
While I’m not a birder, Rwandan birds and their songs are spectacular and really capture my interest. Even though I live in an area where there aren’t a lot of trees, there are plenty of birds, which are colorful and sing well. I must’ve seen 10 new species that we don’t have in the U.S. so far. The picture below is of two birds who alit on the ground just behind the staff room at school. They are black and white and I noticed that they hung out in the area where sunlight and shadow meet. Clever! The birds here have interesting behaviors, too. Because the outside of some of the windows of my house are mirrored, I occasionally get a bird who wants to battle it out with himself, sometimes at 6 a.m.
May 1, 2023
This blog has been on a hiatus for a while because my house was broken into while I was away from Kabarore. On the night of April 12-13, a thief or more probably thieves cut an iron bar that protects my bedroom window, then smashed the window and entered around 3 a.m. They took nearly everything in my bedroom (luggage, wallet with credit cards, clothes, passport, laptop, bedding and mosquito net) but left the rest of the house and my meager belongings there alone. The Rwandan Investigation Bureau donned white plastic suits and dusted my room for fingerprints. They and the Rwandan police were very professional. My friends and neighbors here in Kabarore were very helpful. Peace Corps was also supportive and got me a new computer so that I could continue to teach (all of my lesson plans, grades, student rosters and e-copies of the textbook were lost, though) but I’m haggling with them about replacing my other things. While suspects have been questioned and detained, there’s no sign of my things. I will have to get another passport. The funny thing about that was that I had just renewed it for 10 years and had it in my possession for about a week when it was stolen. Here are photos of my bedroom window after the break in and with the security upgrade.
Apr 11, 2023
One major difference between my two Peace Corps services is that, in Thailand, my students were everywhere around town and it was easy to meet them and their families. In fact, one of my students lived two doors from me in Pakkard. Here in Rwanda, our school is residential, so the students are not available to bail me out in town (i.e., help in shopping, help in saying things in Ikinyarwanda, etc.). One of my students, Eric, lives in the same town as my nearest PCV neighbor, Sandra. I told him I would visit him when I next went to Nyarabuye, which is about 12 km from Kabarore. The other day I went there and met Eric, his father, his sister and brother. Here’s a picture of me with Eric and his cute 4-year-old sister.
