It Kind of Reminds me of Ireland

Wow! It's been a long time since I've been able to write so I can't really include everything, but I guess I will talk about the most important thing that has happened so far, which was my visit to my site for the next two years. This was just like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Training is incredibly grueling and I was starting to feel a bit burnt out without having any tangible goals to work towards. Now that I have seen my site and feel confident that I will actually be able to enjoy my service there (complete with running water and electricity too!), this whole experience has gotten a lot better.

I live high up in the mountains and the terrain up to my site literally makes the mountains of Colorado look like cute little rolling hills it is so steep. This causes a lot of motion sickness on public transport, which can be a bit unpleasant, but I have yet to have someone throw up on me. My actual village is fairly close to Volcano National Park and the area is absolutely beautiful with moss-covered volcanic rock everywhere. It kind of reminds me of Ireland...or even Lord of the Rings when I can see the glowing lava of one of the volcanoes suspended in the night sky from my house.

Since I am so close to a lot of major tourist areas (volcanoes, gorillas, and even a beach!), it is easy to escape the curious looks I so often get during training and to go to market to get well-missed treats like cheese. That's not to say people in my village don't still treat me differently, but I have found that they are generally more welcoming and eager to talk to me than the population at the training site, which will be a welcomed change of pace.

My neighbors are...interesting. I live immediately next to a gigantic Catholic Church (another reason my site seems so much like Ireland), a local bar, and a primary school. Surprisingly, the bar causes me no problems at all, while the primary school will probably cause me the most problems during my stay. The kids have nothing at all to do after school and their parents and teachers don't really look after them, so they often resort to leaning in on the fence and trying to spy on the house all afternoon. Since the volunteer I am replacing is also leaving her dog with me, this could potentially create some problems down the road. Rwandans aren't necessarily the biggest fans of dogs and the kids can get a bit out of hand with her. I think I will be spending my first few months perfecting my Kinyarwanda to say "Why are you staring at me?", "I am no different from you", and "My dog cannot hurt you so don't be scared." I also think I will try to organize an after school sports or running program for the kids because if there was ever a group of children that needed one, it would definitely be these kids.

Living in a highly Catholic community will be a bit of an adjustment as well. Since I live so close to the church (and since the school I will be teaching in is Catholic), it is likely that I will have to integrate into the worship community to some extent. I had dinner with both the priests that live closest to me and the nuns that live a ways down the street and I have definitely decided that a friendship with the nuns will be beneficial to my psychological well-being. They are the friendliest women in the world and invited me to dinner, got a little tipsy, and then got dressed up and tried to teach me a traditional Rwandan dance. They also have bunnies...hundreds of bunnies...on their property. Granted, the bunnies are meant for sale and eating, but they are incredibly cute and fairly well-cared for so it is nice to be able to go and visit them.

The school I will be teaching at is probably the most unexpected perk of all. I will be teaching at a Catholic boarding school where the majority of the student body can be expected to go to university. I will also be teaching S5 and S6 (approximately Juniors and Seniors in high school), which is a bit more advance than I was expecting, but since my school is a science school, they will not be taking an English entry exam. This essentially means that I get to spend my time teaching having good dialogue and debates with incredibly smart students without the stress of standardized testing so I can determine what it is that I think it is most important for them to know. These kids are SMART too. Within the 15 minutes that I was able to talk to them during a tour of the school they have already asked me some heavy philosophical questions and I can't wait to see what they would say in writing assignments or debates. The one thing that is hard to handle is the boy to girl ratio. When I first arrived at the school, I thought it might have been all boys (something that would have been cause for a serious moral dilemma), but out of 400 students, there are 70 girls. These aren't great numbers, but they are an improvement and the girls are treated the same as the boys and have the same confidence and expectations that they will go to university. My headmaster is also big in the push for gender equality and is constantly reinforcing the message that male and female classmates should be supportive of one another, which was definitely encouraging to see.

Basically, I can't wait to start teaching! I already have a million ideas churning in my mind about potential debates, about resume workshops, and about how I'm going to structure my classroom. Another volunteer mentioned that they hosted a debate on the importance of education vs. agriculture in Rwanda, which sounded like it was rather successful and sounds like it would be right up the alley of my students. On day one, they were already asking me questions about race and ethnicity in America and why I chose to give up the developed world to come to teach them. These are hard questions to answer, but I think the ongoing dialogue of hard question after hard question will be good for me and ensure that I come out of this experience a stronger and more thoughtful person.

(As a side note, a bit of research tells me that there is a caving site close to my house! Life is good!)