Teaching Middle Schoolers

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

-Nelson Mandela

I suppose that since I came to Rwanda to work for a school I should talk about that a bit more!  When I showed up in Rwanda all I knew was I was going to a very high quality girl’s boarding school for 7^th-9^th graders.  It is fairly typical in Rwanda for secondary schools to board their students and be single sex.

Specifically I assumed I would be chiefly assisting with English. Children begin their study of English in early primary school and all instruction is conducted in English within a few years.  The Primary School National Exam is administered in English, meaning every student at Maranyundo knows enough English to excel at this exam and gain admittance into the school.  But unexpectedly there is a huge range in English ability!  Some girls went to premium primary schools in the capital and are almost fluent.  Impovershed children unable to pay tuition are sponsored by the Maranyundo Initiative and likely to come from impoverished communities with less qualified teachers. Sometimes they have trouble following basic commands.  The span in a single class creates an interesting challenge.

Students are on Rwandan money.
I think this is the best indication of how highly Rwandans value education.

The first thing I noticed about Rwandan education is the seriousness of the issues they address.  I remember taking the SAT and my writing prompt being something about celebrities.  Here, the graded composition motion was “Education is a fundamental catalyst for economic development.” The entire school meets for debate every two weeks and the most recent topic was “Has foreign aid done more harm or good in Rwanda?”  Their country is facing important problems and every student knows it. 

I think the US Education System could take some notes in that regard (hehe, take notes…about school, get it?), but I still sometimes break that mold.  The girls are obsessed with typical teenage pop music and during my lesson on English articles (a, an, the) I teased them with example sentences about how Justin Bieber is the worst singer. Justin Bieber is a worse singer than Bob Marley.  They were shocked.

What the computer lab actually looks like

What it sometimes feels like.  I found these in a business courtyard in Kigali.  No idea why they're there

So far, at teachers’ requests I have covered lessons in English, Computer, Math and even substituted when the Geography teacher was unable to come.  The most challenging by far was the computer class.  The electricity went out no fewer than three times while we practiced touch typing.  But the students just groaned good naturedly and we modified the lesson.

Even with the challenges, I love it.  During my Geography session, I think they sensed my lack of plan and capitalized by asking a ton of questions. And I relished their questions and curiosity.  Despite their terrible reputation, middle schoolers are at such a great age; they are still so excited to learn and are old enough to explore deep concepts. 

Their questions included (the lesson was supposed to be an introduction into astronomy):

How many stars are in the galaxy?

How many galaxies are in the universe?

Are there aliens?

Why is there only life on Earth?

Could we live on the sun?

Does Pluto still exist?

Why do we sometimes see only half the moon?

Why is there no snow in Rwanda?

Why is Antarctica alway1s cold?

Why do people around the world have different skin colors?

Why do some people have different colored eyes?

Why do people in the US lay in the sun?

Why are there big snakes in America?

Why is America always at war?

I love working with students because that eagerness is infectious!

Umuganda Meeting

I apologize for the complete lack of pictures but I still really wanted to share.

After Umuganda was over, we wrapped up the work day with a community meeting.  Of course, I was expecting this would be in a school or somewhere inside with chairs but instead we went to a school yard and everyone settled themselves in grass under a big tree.

The mayor of Nyamata and other government officials led the meeting.  It is worth noting that they might refuse to sign something official for you if they never see you participate in Umuganda. After congratulating the community on how many people came out, they started talking about newly arrived Rwandan refugees fromTanzania.  They have lived their whole lives in Tanzania after their families fled during the violence in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s but now were forced back to Rwanda.  A lot of these people know little about Rwanda and don’t even know where their families were originally from.

They’ve been living in rented residences but it is very expensive for the government and they need to have permanent homes.  He solicited help from the community, saying even a single bag of concrete will help the homes get built.  The people at this meeting were from every income level too but he asked for any help at all.  This idea transitioned flawlessly into the mayor reminding people to be building edifices out of concrete instead of mud.  He only half joked that if anyone builds a mud unit, they’d better cover it with a tent.  He pledged to demolish it if he sees it.

The meeting next proceeded to nutrition where they went over good nutrition habits and the importance of nutrition.  I unfortunately can’t give you much more information than that because my Kinyarwanda kinda sucks and I was getting all my information from my friend next to me.  But he also talked about how there were not good rains this year so crops are not doing well and people will need to be strong if they are hungry.  This seemed kind of hopeless and too accepting of a bad situation, but I guess people don’t have very much choice.

Near the end of the meeting things got a little more sensational.  A man who had just left jail for theft was invited to come to the front, take the megaphone and apologize to the crowd and promise his life of crime was over.  One person in the crowd suggested he tell them the names of his partners but that idea was quickly squashed considering it might make people angry.  I was a bit relieved by that decision with all the machetes in the crowd for Umuganda.  Then another man came up and said he’d been robbed just last night and the thief was part of the trio that robbed him.  Right then and there it was decided the thief is no longer welcome in Nyamata and officials would escort him home to get his belongings and make sure he leaves that day.  Not exactly innocent until proven guilty, eh?  On the other hand, the public nature of the issue would definitely discourage people from committing similar crimes.

Community Day

Today was Umuganda or Community Day, an event occurring the last Saturday of every month where everyone in the community is supposed to come together to work in the community.  It is a traditional idea that kind of faded away but Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president, reinstituted the model after the genocide with the belief that it would help heal the community. 

To prepare, Marcella and I asked what we should bring to the worksite and the teachers suggested machetes, hoes or “slashers” (a tool for cutting grass, see the video above). Darn. I forgot to pack any of that!  I took that time to explain how I cut the grass at home- sit on a riding lawn mower and basically wait for the task to be over.  They laughed out loud at this idea.  And I felt pretty stupid because I had always dreaded and complained about the chore.

The next morning I was regretting my commitment to go when we left the house bright and early at 8:00 AM.  On the way, some people were clearly on their way to the worksite but many were just walking to their usual Saturday destinations. I felt pretty cocky when a man on the main road in charge of Umuganda, shamed nonparticipating people by saying into his megaphone “Even the muzungu (white people) are coming to Community Day! Why aren’t you?”

We showed up at the site on a side dirt road, where it turned out most people didn’t have a tool either and everyone was taking turns working.  Of course, everyone crowds around Marcella and I to see our physical labor skills, so I grab the hoe and try to push it into the ground.  Key word is try because the ground is rock hard and the Rwandans laughed hysterically at me for my unsuccessful attempt.  However, I looked around and noticed mostly men hoeing-  they just let me for comedic appeal :p   And the earth is so hard they literally lift the hoe over their head and slam it into the ground.  After my botched hoeing attempt I helped shovel away the freshly turned earth, which was more doable for me although it resulted in no less laughter among the Rwandans. A few Rwandans I spoke to were fascinated that I had ever used a hoe or shovel before, although I couldn’t say the same about a machete or slasher and was NOT about to try to learn with an audience.

Throughout the day we slowly learned that the community was helping to repair a road that goes around Nyamata and was now covered with grass, holes and erosion strips.  As men were hoeing the side they found a pile of abandoned cinder blocks that I carried to fill the holes for about 30 minutes.  Now the locals seemed impressed and kept suggested I was tired and might need to rest.  But I refused, still trying to prove myself. 

End of the event, people are heading home.

In the end, I think people were surprised to see us, considering foreigners usually don’t typically come.  And despite their laughing, people definitely respected us for working so hard to integrate into the community and do our part.

Developing World Problems #1- Electricity

I was originally going to call this series “First World Problems,” mostly because my complaints are kind of stupid, not unexpected and easily solved.  Nonetheless, they are inconvenient and worth grumbling about.  However, I realized most of my issues are unique to impoverished countries, so I had to rename it.  I think it might help a person who had never been to Rwanda better understand how people live here.

So my first Developing World Problem is about the power.  Let me restate my disclaimer above that I’m being ridiculous.  Very few Rwandans homes have electricity, particularly in rural areas.  And I have power.  But the lights go out almost every night.  Perhaps it goes out during the day too and I don’t know because windows are the main source of lights (electricity is very expensive so it is not wasted on light during the day).  A few times I have seen a teacher using a projector that stops working and he has to improvise and plan for that in his lesson.

But honestly, the main reason this bothers me is because my flashlight absolutely sucks.  Look at this picture.  The left is my roommate’s mini flashlight and the right light is mine.  Can you even see that miniscule amount of light on the wall?  I think it needs new batteries.  But batteries are not available in Nyamata, I would have to go to Kigali, the capital and who knows how much they would be there.  I found a flashlight at market with rechargeable batteries (I believe that is the norm here) but I was too stubborn and frugal to buy it.

What makes my whining even more ridiculous is there is a generator for Maranyundo.  If it is after 6:30 pm they will turn on the generator after a few minutes of darkness and life will go back to normal.  So I am really saying that I have nothing to grumble about.

For most Rwandans this unreliability of electricity has a greater cost than that of a flashlight. Fuel for generators is expensive and much income is lost for businesses on that expense.  The example in this World Bank article is a barber who made $4.75/day and paid $3.17/day for fuel.    Similarly, restaurants lose money when food spoils without refrigeration. Health centers waste money on unreliable electricity and are unable to safely store vaccine and medicines, not to mentions the difficulties that would come with practicing medicine in the dark.  Schools are deterred from teaching computer classes in school when they do not know if the computers will be functioning at any given time and students are prevented from studying efficiently if there is minimal light during the evenings.  Perhaps most importantly, people do not want to invest in a country where electricity is unreliable.  

Does this sound hopeless and frustrating?  Actually, what is developing in Rwanda right now is really exciting!  Access to electricity is a key priority in Rwanda and from 2008-2012 it increased from 6% of the population to 16%.   Even the number of schools connected rose 70% from 2009-2012.   They aspire to connect 70% of homes by 2017!

How will they do this? Currently their main sources come from hydropower, methane gas and peat. Domestic and International efforts are working to achieve this goal through several different sources of electricity.  Based on the Rwandan government’s track record, I would say it is very likely they will achieve their goal!

Food post #1!

I suppose the first part of a food blog should be seeing where the magic happens.  This is the kitchen!  Notice the lack of appliances, we have a coffee maker and that’s about it.  There is also a can opener, which is rare, but no vegetable peeler or rice maker and most devastating to me: no food processor.A typical fully stocked refridgerator.  Almost everything they eat is bought from the local market where people from the community man their tables and sell produce that they have made.  The milk and yogurt (not pictured here) comes from the school’s own dairy farm.

However, in Save when we stayed with the Benebikira Sisters, they put us up in a guest apartment that was clearly specially suited for Western tastes.  The most abnormal objects in the refrigerator are the several types of juice (they typically will drink only mango and ‘passion squash’), bread, apples, jam and the cheese. 

So let’s get back to the typical meal for Rwandans.  The first thing I noticed is people use their stoves much more than the oven.  In fact, the only time I have seen an oven in use here was for an American making her own food.  Another important feature of Rwandan food is absolutely nothing is measured, even for making rice!  This is likely due to the previously mentioned fact that there is little baking, but it is always surprising to me that everything works out.

Breakfast

Breakfast is usually a sweet drink consumed from a mug.  It is prepared on the stove and then put into a thermos to keep it hot for any stragglers as well as to remove the tea leaves by pouring the liquid through a filter.  The three options for breakfast are usually yogurt (a thin, drinkable form of yogurt), tea or porridge, but rarely more than one of these options.  In addition, people will eat a hot dog looking piece of bread and some bananas.

Porridge, another drinkable food.  Boiling water, hot milk and flour made from various cereals are mixed to create the consistency of thin applesauce.  Then people add as much sugar as they prefer, which is usually abundant for Rwandans.  I have seen people add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to a single mug.  They told me they add that much because they do not eat dessert, so it is their only form of sweetness.  The sugar in the picture is raw sugar and it is the only type I have seen in the country so far.

Tea (about 60% milk and the rest water).  This is also served to the teachers everyday during break at school.  Rwandans love tea!  Again, people add abundant amounts of sugar to their mug.

Bananas used for snacking are typically tiny, as shown in the picture!

Lunch and Dinner

 

Bananas are a staple in Rwanda and there is another type, shown here, that is always cooked before eating.  It is the size of most bananas found in the USA but it is always green.  These are treated like potatoes and boiled or fried.  In the picture we are making ‘chips’ and frying them.

Final product!  You can see the banana chips in this picture.  There is also rice, a staple, as well as a flavorful sauce made with eggplant, carrots and cabbage.  Every meal is very starchy with at least two different forms.  Here it is ‘only’ the banana chips and rice, but they also commonly have [mushy, overcooked] spaghetti or cassava bread, which I will explain later.  It is interesting to me, because in Ghana there was a similar starchy consistency to the meals, but people tended to eat one large meal only.  Here people pile their plates very full for all meals.

Another example of a typical meal.  The sauce is made with eggplant, carrots, and peppers.  Avocado is on the side along with chips made from potatoes, so your run of the mill steak fries.  They are just as likely to boil the potatoes; it is only by coincidence that both plates have fried foods.

Here is dodo, which we went out to garden next to the house to cut and then brought it to use for a sauce.  It is great to eat green vegetables as seems to be a bit uncommon.  The leaf is consumed and is very flavorful, a bit bitter, similar to spinach, but with an herby flavor.  For this meal it was boiled and some groundnut (peanut) flour was added to the sauce.

We also had cassava bread to eat with the sauce.  Cassava flour is mixed with water and boiled together (all unmeasured, of course).  It is then stirred and stirred until it becomes the consistency of spongy dough.  It is difficult to stir so it is held between the feet to keep it still and two hands use the spoon.  I can think of nothing in the US that is eaten with this texture and I believe it is an acquired taste, but I had similar food often enough in Ghana that I really love it.  People traditionally eat with their hands to scoop up sauce rather than using utensils.

Cassava bread

Final product!

 The bread on the upper left is cassava bread, the sauce over the rice in the upper right are made with beans and cabbage.  Beans are very common here and eaten with almost every meal.  Rwandans do not approve of my portion size.  They are constantly encouraging me to get up and have more, asking if I do not like the food or asking if I wish to lose weight.  But the truth is, after a meal I am stuffed.  I don’t know how they do it!

Meat is rarely eaten in Rwanda.  It is more commonly consumed to entertain guests, so we had it often with the Benebikira sisters, but otherwise not more than once a week.  Common meats are goat, chicken, and beef.  We had fish once.  I believe goat is most commonly eaten of all meat. 

Miscellaneous: ‘groundnuts’ are a common, healthy, protein filled snack.  But now I want groundnut sauce (peanut butter) L  They had it at the Benebikira House in the Western accommodations and now I really miss it.  It is very expensive to buy here though.  A single jar might be $8.  However, I am begging my roommate to show me how to make peanut butter without a food processor, which apparently is relatively common.

And lastly is akabanga! This little gem is Rwandan hot sauce.  It is sold in containers about two inches tall and is dispensed with a dropper.  That’s right, a dropper, because so little is needed before your mouth is on fire.  In fact, we are advised told to wash hands after handling it to prevent from us burning our eyes if we touch them after using the dropper.

Order

Order- that’s the first word I would use to describe Rwanda.  Considering the country is most known in the west for an incident filled with chaos and that currently about 45% of people live in poverty, it was completely unexpected until I arrived and saw so much structure, orderliness and organization in almost all parts of daily life.  This is atypical of the region and I spoke to a woman who had just arrived from a neighboring East African country who also said the biggest difference between her home country and Rwanda was the stability here.

Where's the trash?

The most glaring example of this orderliness is the lack of trash.  Africa, and the developing world in general, is notorious for trash strewn in all public places, but it is absent even on the busiest streets.  The country is one of the cleanest I have ever seen, debatably cleaner than the United States.  This is helped along by a ban on all plastic bags in the country.  All people use sustainable, reusable bags, greatly reducing the amount of waste on the sides of the road. 

Kigali Town Center

In that same vein, many institutions and public roads are beautifully landscaped.  It is fascinating to me that establishments take time to maintain such pleasing aesthetics.

Beautiful Benebikira Sister Compound

I had been visiting Save (pronounced saw-vay) to see more of the country and the programs to improve human welfare.  Today it was time to go home so we took a bus from Save to Kigali and then Kigali to Nyamata, where the school is located.  We were told the bus would leave Butare at 10:00 AM, pick us up in Save and then head to Kigali.  Also, we had a seat reserved for us.  I was surprised that there was even the possibility of reserving a seat or they counted the number of people they would accept on the bus.  The first example of orderliness from the woman mentioned above was that the bus drivers do not try to cram as many people as possible into their vehicles.  Sure enough, a few minutes after 10:00 the bus came and there were two seats available, just enough for us before it filled to capacity.  We comfortably road along to Kigali, listening to ‘N sync and Bob Marley for much of the way.

Notice how the bus came on time.  So does pretty much everything else:  schools, meetings, apparently buses.  This initially fascinated me.  I expected everything to run slightly behind, with no one in much of a hurry.  But that has not been the case so far.

Trash bins

Rwanda has impressed me so much.  They do not let poverty take away their dignity, perhaps obvious, but I get the impression many people view Africa and its people as hopelessly waiting for a savior.  This has not been true in my experiences and it is definitely not true here.  In fact some of their customs I would definitely recommend to the Western world!

At this point I have been in Rwanda three days and am slowly learning peoples’ names, Rwandan habits, and the daily routine.  People are desperately trying to teach me Kinyarwanda and I am desperately trying to learn.  Soon one of the nuns will start lessons for me and Marcella, the other American at the school.  But for now we are making do with impromptu lessons and learning a few words at a time.

My items are all unpacked.  I’m quite impressed with the home where I live.  It is on campus and much larger than I expected, with a very roomy living room, dining room and kitchen. Two nuns and two lay staff members live there along with us. Even the bedrooms, which you can see above, are simple but are as large as an American bedroom.  However, the bed is thinner than even a twin bed (The blue netting around the bed is a mosquito net to help prevent Malaria.  Although there are screens on all the windows, the doors are often left open during the day.)

When I arrived on Thursday the Senior 2 (8^th grade) and Senior 3 (9^th grade) girls had already started their semester and my first class was spent reading aloud a poem to demonstrate proper English pronunciation.  The English teacher was very eager to use us in his class and to learn from us.  At the end of class he asked the girls if they had any questions for us and they impulsively wanted us to sing or dance.  I’m still unsure if this was to make fun of white girl dances or they truly wanted to see what we would do.  I used the truthful excuse that I was sick and did not have much of a voice, but honestly anyone who knows me knows that I am not musically inclined at all and they will be hard pressed to convince me to dance or sing even without a cold.

Today was move in day for the Senior 1 (7^th grade) girls.  All of these girls and their families seemed very excited to be here and with good reason as it is a great honor and privilege to come.  The school is ranked as the best school in the country according to the exam scores last year. 

A special thing about Maranyundo is students of all socioeconomic statuses have the opportunity to come if they are accepted.  Those families who are unable to afford the tuition or supplies are funded by American donations.  The education comes with certain obligations for the girls to their family and community.  Rwandans know that sending a son or daughter away for school (almost all secondary schools are boarding schools) will yield a long term benefit for the entire community.

As compared to my experience in Egypt and Ghana, where the cars seemed very outdated, I was surprised by the cars that are in Rwanda.  Most are actually pretty modern!  Among the affluent there is the same sense of responsibility to community and it is frowned upon to drive your own car when you could hire a driver and provide a job for someone.  Even at the school there is a sense of responsibility among the students.  Each Senior 1 girl is assigned a ‘mother’ from the Senior 2 girls who lives with her and helps her around the schools.