Mar 15, 2023
Baby naming ceremonies are a big deal in Rwanda. My colleague Rachel and her husband Sylvester (standing on either side of the baby in the photo) had a party to celebrate the birth of their daughter, Ineza (middle name which I forgot) Briere, in November. There were prayers, speeches and a feast for relatives, neighbors and friends to welcome the little girl to the community. Tutors from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Senegal and me from the US were there. A very nice time was had by all.
Mar 10, 2023
There seems to be a lot of influence from the British educational system in Rwanda, which is, I suppose, where we get this teaching coat, or “itaboriya” in Kinyarwanda. All of the Rwandan and Zimbabwean tutors (again, the British influence) wear them, but the volunteer from Senegal and I do not. The jackets are numbered 1-20 or so and are stamped ‘TTC Kabarore.’ The tutors take great pride in wearing them. However, I finally got so sick of having my clothes covered in chalk dust, so I broke down and spent the $12 to have my tailor Paul make one for me. Here’s me in my jacket in front of the staff room at our school.
Mar 6, 2023
Our teacher training college prepares and serves a lot of food. The 500+ students get breakfast, which I understand is porridge, the 40 or so tutors (teachers), administration and staff get a tea break mid-morning, everyone gets lunch at the school and the students get dinner. That’s a lot of work! The kitchen staff cook the food by using these large pots which are heated by wood. This is not a sustainable way of cooking as the school does not own a woodlot and wood is expensive.
Mar 5, 2023
Kabarore Teacher Training College is also a working farm supervised by a Catholic nun, Sr. Yevgeny (sp?). She can be seen a few times a week figuring out what to plant in the several fields that dot our campus. I’ve seen beans, shallots and cabbage being grown, plus some other plant I can’t put a name to. If I understood correctly, the school can sell the heads of cabbage for 30 cents a piece. We sometimes get cabbage mixed in with our beans at lunch, so that shows that she school is using some of what they grow to feed the students and staff. Here is a picture of a cabbage patch with boys playing soccer in the background.
Feb 26, 2023
One of the cool things about living abroad is that you get services which are hard to find or don’t really exist anymore in the U.S., like shoe repair guys. In Kabarore, I have a tailor, Mr. Paul, who makes Rwandan-style shirts for me. He’s also making what we would consider a lab jacket. All tutors at Kabarore Teacher Training College wear them, but the ones they have are too small for me. I’m sick of getting my clothes covered in chalk dust, so for about $12, I’m having an ‘itaboriya’ (I think I have that word right) made for myself by Paul. His English is as bad as my Ikinyarwanda, but we get across enough to do business, with the occasional bit of help from one of my colleagues at the school.
Feb 21, 2023
One of the interesting things about travel is that you see English used in creative ways that cause a chuckle. Here’s a sign from a liquor store in Kigali. Last week, a student was wearing a sweatshirt that read, “It’s not drinking alone if your dog is home.” It took a while for me to explain that one to the students as those concepts do not really make sense in Rwandan culture. Finally, I see a guy in the Kayonza bus park who always has on a t-shirt with “Ask me how to get 10% off” on it. I’ll have to ask him one of these days.
