Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
corner of the world
I am sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Kigali. I came for a moment of alone time and to also prove to myself that I can get out and about on my own now. I sit in a corner (always the best spot) listening to a podcast of George Saunders reading for the New Yorker. Large coffee, bigger salad -I am happy. My friends and family are twenty four hours of travel away but also, when the internet is up, right here with me. Hi y'all.
Tired is the adjective I use the most here. Everything takes a few extra steps, many more minutes, and much planning. My favorite taxi driver, Tachien, comes to a complete stop before maneuvering over the many speed bumps on Kigali's rough roads, my computer is not compatible to our one school printer (I save on flash drive, borrow another teacher's computer, print, return computer, realize I have printed the wrong document, repeat steps), and everywhere I go, there is so much to take in, language barrier to overcome, etc. It is not hard, in fact, this transition has been easier than I first assumed it would be. But I am tired. Very tired. It seems each summer I forget (as does voice and feet) how much school takes out of me. I'm trying to get in the rythm, figure out my kids, and get a vision of where each class will go.
Today, with 9/11 as the subject of my dailey journal writing, each student was to write on a course of action that altered his/her country's history. Eleven countries were represented in one of my classes and every student shared a portion of their world. They told of their family members deaths in the genocide, their ancestors part in the formation of the slave trade, their flight out of South Africa...
"Nobody in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told the story." Rudyard Kipling
Tired is the adjective I use the most here. Everything takes a few extra steps, many more minutes, and much planning. My favorite taxi driver, Tachien, comes to a complete stop before maneuvering over the many speed bumps on Kigali's rough roads, my computer is not compatible to our one school printer (I save on flash drive, borrow another teacher's computer, print, return computer, realize I have printed the wrong document, repeat steps), and everywhere I go, there is so much to take in, language barrier to overcome, etc. It is not hard, in fact, this transition has been easier than I first assumed it would be. But I am tired. Very tired. It seems each summer I forget (as does voice and feet) how much school takes out of me. I'm trying to get in the rythm, figure out my kids, and get a vision of where each class will go.
Today, with 9/11 as the subject of my dailey journal writing, each student was to write on a course of action that altered his/her country's history. Eleven countries were represented in one of my classes and every student shared a portion of their world. They told of their family members deaths in the genocide, their ancestors part in the formation of the slave trade, their flight out of South Africa...
"Nobody in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told the story." Rudyard Kipling
Sunday, September 9, 2007
languages of art
My first week of teaching at the Kigali International Community School has posed many different challanges and adjustments that I will strive to overcome and be flexible with. The staff is incredible - serving the purpose of creating an influential learning environment and sharing the goal of getting K.I.C.S. accredited.
Mrs. Laura and Mrs. Christine teach Pre-K and are from Kenya. Mrs. Christine moved to Rwanda with her husband, who coaches Rwanda's national basketball team. The team just placed 14th in the African playoffs - which is very good considering there are fifty plus countries in Africa. When I visited last February with Stephen and Teena Tucker, I met a woman from the States who played on the Rwanda Women's basketball team. I ran into her at church with Christine and her husband last Sunday, and am going to watch her play in a tournament in the ucpcoming weeks. Since I can't cheer and yell at Razorback games this year, I will cheer and yell for Rwanda!
Miss Amy teaches Kindergarten and 1st grade, my roomate Lauren teaches 2nd and 3rd grade, and Linda Huang teaches 4th and 5th grade, as well as computer courses. For secondary classes, my roommate Amanda teaches courses in math and history. Our principal, Brian Dolinger, teaches high school Algebra and Geometry and three parent volunteers (who are also college professors) teach Psychology, Biology, and Chemistry. I am teaching seven grades of Language Arts - 6 through 12, and elementary art! I see the entire school throughout the week.
My students come from a wide range of backgrounds - Embassy kids who have had schooling all over the world and speak four languages, Rwandans, South Africans, Costa Ricans, missionary and NGO children - such a variety of ages, schooling, cultures, etc. When I read their experiences from journal writing or stand in front of the classroom explaining a concept - I understand now how small my worldview is - how much I have to grow and learn - how I am the student.
Mrs. Laura and Mrs. Christine teach Pre-K and are from Kenya. Mrs. Christine moved to Rwanda with her husband, who coaches Rwanda's national basketball team. The team just placed 14th in the African playoffs - which is very good considering there are fifty plus countries in Africa. When I visited last February with Stephen and Teena Tucker, I met a woman from the States who played on the Rwanda Women's basketball team. I ran into her at church with Christine and her husband last Sunday, and am going to watch her play in a tournament in the ucpcoming weeks. Since I can't cheer and yell at Razorback games this year, I will cheer and yell for Rwanda!
Miss Amy teaches Kindergarten and 1st grade, my roomate Lauren teaches 2nd and 3rd grade, and Linda Huang teaches 4th and 5th grade, as well as computer courses. For secondary classes, my roommate Amanda teaches courses in math and history. Our principal, Brian Dolinger, teaches high school Algebra and Geometry and three parent volunteers (who are also college professors) teach Psychology, Biology, and Chemistry. I am teaching seven grades of Language Arts - 6 through 12, and elementary art! I see the entire school throughout the week.
My students come from a wide range of backgrounds - Embassy kids who have had schooling all over the world and speak four languages, Rwandans, South Africans, Costa Ricans, missionary and NGO children - such a variety of ages, schooling, cultures, etc. When I read their experiences from journal writing or stand in front of the classroom explaining a concept - I understand now how small my worldview is - how much I have to grow and learn - how I am the student.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Planes, taxi, bus, car, canoe....
Rosemand Carr's book, The Land of a Thousand Hills gives a wonderful portrait and history of Rwandan life, and I encourage all to read her book. She died several years ago but not before opening an orphanage for victims of the genocide. Kay Ellen now runs her orphanage and invited our house to come with her to teach Rwandan teachers simple methods of teaching English.
My first week in Rwanda and I am off for a weekend away. I packed a small backpack full of conservitive dresses (the island where we are headed is known for it's traditional views - parents used to threaten to send their unruly children here), camera, toilet paper, and chapstick. We walked down our hill, grabbed a taxi, and headed for the bus station in the center of town. While waiting for the bus, Amanda and I hopped on motorcycle taxis and got coffee at the Uniun Trade Center - which houses my favorite spot- Bourban Coffee. Motorcycle taxis are quite scary - the cleanliness of the helmet is enough to make me choose another mode of transport - but, it is cheap, fast, and what a thrill!
The bus ride lasted several hours - which then included several hours of a radio program that ranged from a guy hysterically laughing ( they loved this), to rap from the Congo, to Justin Timberlake. I luckily had my iPod. The landscape is beautiful. Rwanda's hills, scaffold crops, mud huts, kiosks selling fantas and cokes, the ever present Rwandans walking for water and work, the occassional baboon or monkey sighting, bright green tea fields, all of this...so incredible.
We arrived in the town that houses Rwanda's only university, had a lunch of grilled cheeses and soup, and met a missionary named Martha. Martha has been living in Rwanda for 16 years, and experienced first hand the tragedy of the genocide in 1994. Her stories of close friends lost, of family hoping for her safety, of her grandmother sighting her on CNN and knowing she had made it out, were fascinating and hard to imagine. Martha drove us four hours on a rough steep road to the Congolese border where we met Kay Ellen and spent a night in a Catholic guest house that had glow in the dark crucifixes above every bed. No joke.
We woke early and had a breakfast of very yellow omelettes, very weak coffee, and bread before heading to Lake Kivu's water for our canoe ride to the Island. We were met on the beautiful island by many children who followed us through the village asking the mazungus for money, books - "Give me paper, Mazungu. Give me." Give me is something I hear on a daily basis. We then went to the island's restaurant - an open air room where we waited an hour for a peice of banana, grilled, and a skewer of goat stomach. I couldn't stomach the stomach - so I chewed my banana and tonic water slowly.
We walked through the primary school where children flocked to touch and shout the strange white ladies marching across their world. We went into a classroom that had long tables, pews, and a chalkboard. Teachers ushered students away from the open window with weeds as whips, and we began sing song versions of English lessons. Three schools were represented, and the professional development went a long in about the same manner as in our public schools. There were teachers who actively listened, those who talked among themselves, and those who kept staring at the clock. They all had a good time when we began our activities.
That night, after a long day of teaching, singing, explaining, and walking with kids hanging off of me, we took a boat back to the main land and went to a headmistresses home for dinner. She had prepared traditional Rwandan food with several of her friends - and under the bare bulb and her children's shy gazes, we ate and talked and had a wonderful feast. Life is beautiful.
My first week in Rwanda and I am off for a weekend away. I packed a small backpack full of conservitive dresses (the island where we are headed is known for it's traditional views - parents used to threaten to send their unruly children here), camera, toilet paper, and chapstick. We walked down our hill, grabbed a taxi, and headed for the bus station in the center of town. While waiting for the bus, Amanda and I hopped on motorcycle taxis and got coffee at the Uniun Trade Center - which houses my favorite spot- Bourban Coffee. Motorcycle taxis are quite scary - the cleanliness of the helmet is enough to make me choose another mode of transport - but, it is cheap, fast, and what a thrill!
The bus ride lasted several hours - which then included several hours of a radio program that ranged from a guy hysterically laughing ( they loved this), to rap from the Congo, to Justin Timberlake. I luckily had my iPod. The landscape is beautiful. Rwanda's hills, scaffold crops, mud huts, kiosks selling fantas and cokes, the ever present Rwandans walking for water and work, the occassional baboon or monkey sighting, bright green tea fields, all of this...so incredible.
We arrived in the town that houses Rwanda's only university, had a lunch of grilled cheeses and soup, and met a missionary named Martha. Martha has been living in Rwanda for 16 years, and experienced first hand the tragedy of the genocide in 1994. Her stories of close friends lost, of family hoping for her safety, of her grandmother sighting her on CNN and knowing she had made it out, were fascinating and hard to imagine. Martha drove us four hours on a rough steep road to the Congolese border where we met Kay Ellen and spent a night in a Catholic guest house that had glow in the dark crucifixes above every bed. No joke.
We woke early and had a breakfast of very yellow omelettes, very weak coffee, and bread before heading to Lake Kivu's water for our canoe ride to the Island. We were met on the beautiful island by many children who followed us through the village asking the mazungus for money, books - "Give me paper, Mazungu. Give me." Give me is something I hear on a daily basis. We then went to the island's restaurant - an open air room where we waited an hour for a peice of banana, grilled, and a skewer of goat stomach. I couldn't stomach the stomach - so I chewed my banana and tonic water slowly.
We walked through the primary school where children flocked to touch and shout the strange white ladies marching across their world. We went into a classroom that had long tables, pews, and a chalkboard. Teachers ushered students away from the open window with weeds as whips, and we began sing song versions of English lessons. Three schools were represented, and the professional development went a long in about the same manner as in our public schools. There were teachers who actively listened, those who talked among themselves, and those who kept staring at the clock. They all had a good time when we began our activities.
That night, after a long day of teaching, singing, explaining, and walking with kids hanging off of me, we took a boat back to the main land and went to a headmistresses home for dinner. She had prepared traditional Rwandan food with several of her friends - and under the bare bulb and her children's shy gazes, we ate and talked and had a wonderful feast. Life is beautiful.
Food is MMM good.
For those who were concerned about the digestables, it has not been an issue by any means. And for those who suggested, like Keiko, that losing weight would be an easy accomplishment in Africa, I think personal discipline will have to continue to rule. The third night I was in town, I went with a large group of teachers, Salvation Army workers, and Food for the Hungry employees, to a birthday party at an Indian restaurant. The food was incredible. This has been the case for all the places I have gone - pizza places (though, there is really only one kind of cheese in Rwanda), a coffee shop with internet access and better than Starbucks americanos, and a city market that has a variety of choices for my grocery list - cheap vegatables and fruits, soy milk, fresh bread, etc. The meat is questionable and will remain that way for me. And, Oh! The ice cream, or an ode to ice cream.....mmmm delicious.
So guys, I'll miss big ice teas, ice in general, restaurants with service that comes within a couple of hours, and protein, but other than that, I am satisfied.
So guys, I'll miss big ice teas, ice in general, restaurants with service that comes within a couple of hours, and protein, but other than that, I am satisfied.
This Is Africa
When you look out your small portal to the outside world after being restrained to one spot by a fasten seatbelt sign and two crying newborns for 24 hours, the lights of Rwanda's capitol seem few. The prayers that went up in those few minutes of landing were heard, and after going through customs and holding my breath until the last huge blue trunk with a green ribbon (thank you mom) were gathered, I was greeted with smiles and roses by my new community. It seemed the entire Kigali International Community School faculty showed to greet the principal's wife, Christy Dolinger and myself, as we arrived.
Jessica Brogdon and two of my fellow teachers, Linda and Lauren, drove me to the duplex I share with Lauren and Amanda. My room was set up with a few of the things I had sent over with Dale Dawson, and though the exhaustion was great from travel, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Todd and Jessica Brogdon live next door to us, and that has been such an amazing touch of home.
The next few days were spent adjusting, unpacking (but where to unpack? There are no drawers!), and meeting an interesting mix of "Mazungus" who create the ex-patriot community in Kigali. I also began setting up my classroom at the beautiful new K.I.C.S. facility that is a two minute walk from my house and shares a view of rolling hills. I also began taking daily runs around the busy Kigali streets. It has been during this time that I have felt a bit of independence and begun to get a since of the geography of the town. Each morning run brings a new adventure, whether being followed by small children chanting "Mazungu, Mazungu!" or having to avoid a herd of goats, veering away from a huge dead snake, and always, ALWAYS being stared at. This never ends. Ever.
But I guess a white girl running through a herd of goats with small children chanting behind her to avoid a dead snake would be something funny to stare at. I would laugh at me.
Jessica Brogdon and two of my fellow teachers, Linda and Lauren, drove me to the duplex I share with Lauren and Amanda. My room was set up with a few of the things I had sent over with Dale Dawson, and though the exhaustion was great from travel, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Todd and Jessica Brogdon live next door to us, and that has been such an amazing touch of home.
The next few days were spent adjusting, unpacking (but where to unpack? There are no drawers!), and meeting an interesting mix of "Mazungus" who create the ex-patriot community in Kigali. I also began setting up my classroom at the beautiful new K.I.C.S. facility that is a two minute walk from my house and shares a view of rolling hills. I also began taking daily runs around the busy Kigali streets. It has been during this time that I have felt a bit of independence and begun to get a since of the geography of the town. Each morning run brings a new adventure, whether being followed by small children chanting "Mazungu, Mazungu!" or having to avoid a herd of goats, veering away from a huge dead snake, and always, ALWAYS being stared at. This never ends. Ever.
But I guess a white girl running through a herd of goats with small children chanting behind her to avoid a dead snake would be something funny to stare at. I would laugh at me.
I boarded a plane for Rwanda on the 13th of August. It took a lot to get me on that plane - not physically get me on, but many years of growing up, having a support system, and undeserved grace from God. I boarded after turning around several times to find my family and best friend still standing past the security gate waving - remove shoes, turn, wave, tear up - remove belt, turn, wave, tear up - take out laptop, turn wave, tear up, etc. I did make it on that plane after excessive waving and tissue use to land first in Chicago, then another boarding without waves or loving faces for Brussels, and then another for Kigali, Rwanda. My final destination will be my home for the next year. I will be teaching Language Arts for grades 6 through 12, and Elementary Art for grades K through 5. Let the adventure begin...
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