A Sliver of Rwandan Insight on Kony 2012

When I first heard about Kony 2012, it had already been viral in the states for a couple of days. I didn't get a chance to watch it until about a week after a friend posted a link to it on my wall, or until controversial screenings of it were quickly called off after a riot in Lira, Northern Uganda.

My personal opinion on the video was that it was well-intentioned, but paternalistic by focusing so much on the efforts of American do-gooders and so little on the opinions and desires of actual Ugandans. The video also dumb the issue down pretty significantly, thus failing to emphasize the fact that Joseph Kony is currently in the DRC (although, if you watch closely, he does mention it) and that ending violence in the DRC is a much more complicated and monumental task than the mere capture of one man....but that's an entirely different topic and different 100 blogs in and of itself.

However strong my own opinion on this video was (and is), I decided that a more valuable voice to add to the conversation was the voice of my students. While they are not Ugandan, my students are mostly of an age in which they have witnessed violent conflict within their own lifetimes. They also live in such close proximity to the Congo where Kony is said to be hiding that many of them are Congolese or have family that live in the Congo so I figured their opinion was more relevant than my own.

I was also happy to see that the organization I first volunteered for in Africa, The Real Uganda, had posted Ugandan reactions to the video, giving a voice to the people that the film claims to be helping. They were outraged. Following my expectations, Ugandan bloggers said that the video was lacking vital information, demeaned the power of Ugandans to act for themselves, and failed to address real Ugandan needs for post-conflict development. I expected my students to have similar views.

They did not give me the answer I anticipated. Despite the fact that I had prefaced the video by saying that it had sparked massive controversy in Uganda and that it was OK for them to criticize the film, they had a fairly positive opinion of it. They were happy to see Americans paying attention to an African issue and agreed with the sentiment that Kony should be made famous. Angie, who at first needed help with some of the facts, was of the opinion that "People are people. Where they are should not stop others from giving help to them." In what seemed to mostly be an attempt to satisfy my urge to criticize the movie, Patrick mentioned that perhaps the people in Uganda who do not like the video are politicians who don't like the fact that the movie makes them look like they are powerless to catch Kony on their own. I mentioned that the movie glossed over a lot of important details about the conflict in the DRC, but their response was that maybe now that people were paying attention to Kony, they would do their own research and come up with better solutions. I didn't have the heart to tell them how little people actually use their access to information technology.

I was initially convinced that I had failed to explain the situation of Uganda and that that was the reason my students weren't more critical of the film. However, after a little reflection, I think their response can be attributed to Rwanda's own, very different, history. In 1994, the United States did precisely the opposite of what it is doing now in Uganda. Instead of intervening in what was clearly a genocide, American policy makers refused to acknowledge the tragedy occurring in Rwanda for what it was. Now, in the aftermath, my students frequently point to the US to say that it should be doing more to intervene on crises taking place in Africa. While discussing how the lack of US aid to the Somalian famine was due to America's own weakened economy last week, Faustin said, “I think that, if I have a house with three chambers, and one of those chambers is destroyed, I might want to rebuild that third chamber. But, if you have a house and all of your chambers are destroyed, it is better that I use that money to build a chamber for you because you have nothing and I still have a house." Politics aside, he said, it was always the responsibility of those who have even the smallest ability to help those who are suffering.

Granted, Kony 2012 isn't about Rwanda, but it is about stopping a man guilty of significant crimes against humanity and that's something I trust my students to have a fairly good understanding of. Take their opinions with a grain of salt, knowing they come from a different place than the Ugandan rioters who were so vehemently against the film, but also that their opinion comes as a result of Americans doing nothing. My own opinions on America's responsibilities as a wannabe global superpower are constantly on shaky ground and my conversation with my students has done nothing to solidify them.

It Takes a Village

You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child? Well, here in Rwanda, it also takes a village to raise a...well, I guess I'll go ahead and say it...a muzungu. Actually, it takes several, which is due to the fact that a village is approximately 10 households around here so my community as a whole is easily made up of four villages outside of my own. And man, do my villages have some collective parenting skills! They know when I'm sick; they know when I'm tired; they know when I'm cold and when I'm hungry....of course, they always think I'm hungry and frequently remark and the sad fact that I have not, in fact, gained any weight since arriving in Rwanda, which is really something I ought to remedy as soon as possible. From my basic physical needs to my education as a proper umunyarwanda (Rwandan citizen) my villages have all the bases covered.

I realized this for the first time two days ago as I was about to enter the school grounds to teach. I was stopped by Sister Patricia, who wanted to fix my hair and to try to wipe something that turned out to be a bit of dead skin off on my face. This is fairly common practice for the nuns, but here, in front of my place of work, I realized for the first time how much I was being mothered. However, it's not just the nuns that seem to think I need looking after. It is the personal responsibility of every mama in town to make sure I am doing well. If I don't wear a sweater, I'm told to go home and get one; if I wear a sweater, I'm told to put my hood up; and, if my hands are cold, I must be sick and there is a good chance someone will come by my house later with tea and bread...not that I mind. Even my all-male staff refuses to allow me to walk in the rain, a doting tendency that borders on the absurd when it's sprinkling and I need to make my way from the teachers' lounge to the classroom. Last week my headmaster spent so long running around the grounds to find me an umbrella that it had virtually stopped raining by the time he handed it to me so I could go home.

In addition for monitoring my physical well-being, my villages are heavily invested in my education and each person I talk to during the course of the day is a teacher. On some days, my glowing parents are thrilled that I seem to have learned a new word (although it's often an old one that I simply haven't had the occasion to use yet) and even happier to try to teach me something new. Beyond my ongoing language education, the mamas that run the co-op with which I work are raising me to be the perfect Rwandan bride and constantly comment on the good fortune of my future husband when I do something as mundane as pulling a weed or sticking my hand in a puddle of cow manure to plant a sweet potato. And these skills actually do equate into my appeal for marriage. I was recently informed that several men have, in fact, been by to visit the priests (my surrogate fathers for the next couple of years?) to ask for my hand in marriage. Thankfully, the fathers had the sense to tell them to ask me, knowing full well that none of them would muster the courage.

A few months ago, I would have found all of this undeserved attention rather undesirable. I would have assumed that people treated me with so much deference due to some sort of horrible socially-constructed racial divide, the precise barrier that I am trying to break down in being here. However, it seems that the doting is more of a result of my villages getting to know me than it is that they see me as a foreigner. They certainly wouldn't have been so comfortable commenting on my choices in fashion (earrings are a big deal around here) or grabbing my hair to fix it in the middle of the marketplace if they still saw me as a complete outsider. Buhoro buhoro (slowly by slowy, as they say here), I am working my way into this overgrown family of mine.

To Explain Why I Came from America

Ah! The joys of teaching. Today marked the official beginning of my World Wise Schools (WWS) correspondence program with students in America. I brought in letters from a 6th grade class that, conveniently enough, my mother teaches at the school I went to growing up in Evergreen. The chaos that ensued was too precious not to take some time away from marking papers to record it.

Right off the bat, my students were dumbfounded by the difficulty of the task: to read a letter and to write a letter. While their English is definitely at a level where they were able to understand the assignment, their self-confidence is not. After I explained the instructions for the task in each of my classes, there were absolutely no questions...that is, until it was time to begin. Suddenly, my instructions were completely unclear and my students were telling me they had no idea what I could possibly expect of them. When we went step by step through the instructions a second time, I found that they actually understood each word perfectly, so I asked the what the question was. The only response they had for me was, “It is difficult, teacher.” It wasn't that they didn't understand what I expected of them, it was that they were terrified of actually doing it.

Eventually, I did manage to calm them enough to break into groups to read the letters, but then I found that they wanted to write back in groups. Of course, we all know how the story of the group project. One person does all the work, the rest learn nothing, and they all end up with the same score. I had to vehemently deny this option and insist on the fact that my students are in fact separate entities and could, in fact, write a letter about themselves all on their own. I had overcome my second hurdle.

Once they began writing, the results were magnificent. First, Innocentos in my S6 class just about cried when he came to the end of a letter and found that the author had ended it by saying, “I can't wait to hear from you.” He started dashing madly around the classroom to ask each of his peers what it could have possibly meant and was convinced that it meant his pen pal was not looking forward to hearing him. Even after I had identified the problem, forced him to sit down, and explained that “I can't wait” is a common English phrase that also means “I am excited,” he didn't believe me and ended up including the following in his letter:

I'm not happy for you because at the end of your letter you wrote “I can't wait to hear back from you!” I will be happy when you will tell me why you wrote it.

Who knew such a harmless and well-intentioned phrase could cause so much damage?

On the whole though, the results of the letter writing project were phenomenal. Sure, some students copied their pen pal's letters word for word, which led them to write that I had once been a student at their school and that my mother is their teacher or that they had recently gotten a few inches of snow....none of which are true, but some of the other results were both hilarious and heartwarming.

One student had just been reading an entertainment section of The Denver Post in Newspaper Club on a day that I had introduced them to comics, crosswords, advice columns and letters to the editor. This particular student was completely shocked by what he read and just had to ask a student in America about it. He wrote:

Dear my friend: John

How are you Me I'am OK Because I have life.

I Had to ask you a few question

I have just read the letter from Disgusted in last week's copy of your news paper in it she makes very wild remarks about the youth of to day and suggests that we are all noisy selfish violent

Where is his evidence

I have met some very disagreeable adults even in my own short life, but know people young and old, are different

Remark like that of Disgusted help no one I am surprised that you found space in your paper to print it and promote his views

My GOD bless you

So there you have it, the opinion of a Rwandan youth on the opinion of an American adult on American youth. That's what this dialogue should be all about: asking questions about a different culture and thinking critically about differences of opinion. Students at the Montessori School of Evergreen are in for a real treat when those letters arrive.

They will also be receiving a huge dose of gratitude. One student wrote:
"Do you eat every morning break fast? How it can be possible?" serving as a reminder of how lucky many of us are to be eating three meals a day. My students' gratitude for having both parents or for having a family with siblings, coupled with decently awkward questions about the marital status of their pen pals (a perfectly normal topic of discussion, here in Rwanda) spoke volumes about the importance of family in this country as their questions about whether or not there are animals like cows and gorillas in Colorado were a good indicator that a correspondence program was a perfect choice to both break down some of the mental barriers constructed from leading an isolated, village life and teach them about life outside of their tiny country. Of course, they will probably also break down some of the barriers of living the sheltered and privileged life of Evergreen, Colorado.

Of course, reading through their letters tonight has also told me how appreciated I am...something a former English teacher of my own has recently reminded me is far too rare an occurrence in the life of an educator. One of my students wrote:

Catie is my teacher explain why she came from America to teach in Rwanda? But for school Catie is best teacher We love so much.

That's the thing about being a teacher, especially here in Rwanda, the benefits always outweigh the costs. Yes, I have come a long way from home to do this, and yes, one some days it has been challenging. Today itself was a challenge just to pull my students' teeth and get them to write a page-long letter a piece, but by the time I got down to reading those letters, it was all absolutely worth it.

Club News

Off the bat, one of my favorite things about teaching at a boarding school was the club life. It's a rare thing for students that go to day school in Rwanda to have time for extracurriculars, but the kids at my school are blessed with plenty of free time and, man, do they know how to use it. Completely without the assistance of any of the staff, the students run a slew of clubs ranging from Anti-SIDA (AIDS) to Chemistry Club. I have now become an active participant in two of them.

The first was English Club, which I was “obliged” to join by my headmaster and which, I must admit, I was somewhat reluctant to take on at first because it seemed like just more of the same of what I was already doing in class and I am not a fan of monotony. However, English Club has turned out to be a great place to try out all of my game ideas and to get students really engaged in dialogue (as opposed to lectures on articles or verb agreement) and, in the past week, has made a huge turn for the better by transforming from English Club in a student-run newspaper. Now this is my kind of club. In high school, I used to spend hours after school editing The Claw (or satirical Flaw), taking my position as the Editor-in-Chief of a high school journalism learning experience far too seriously. This is exactly what I intend to do with my new project. Thus far, we have just started organizing. There isn't really a lot that happens around here so I was didn't want to get my students' hopes up to write a bunch of feature-length articles full of ground-breaking news each month. Instead, I decided to focus on the fun stuff by introducing the idea of a monthly survey of student opinions, a club update section, and an advice column. Just for kicks, I also decided to encourage them to include a comic strip and crossword that I will help to write so students can practice their English. It might just be the nostalgia, but I walked out of our newsie meeting today with a huge smile on my face, feeling like I was 16 again.

Of course, nothing can bring back high school like a good fist fight can. I noticed Karate on the club list during my site visit (months before I was even officially sworn in as a volunteer) and knew immediately that I wanted to join. On my first day of school, I started asking my teachers about it every day over lunch. When my students asked me what my favorite sport was, I made a point of telling them that it was Tae Kwon Do, which is a lot like Karate and then went on a martial arts tangent, listing all of the different styles (Tai Chi, Judo, Krav Maga, etc.) and expounding upon the awesomeness of various Kung Fu movies. They got the hint. About a month into teaching, one of my students chased me down as I was leaving school and asked me to come and “play Karate.” Playing Karate turned out to be much more intense than it initially sounded. Even without any equipment or a formal instructor, my students manage an intense practice, complete with drills, forms, and unpadded sparring. To be honest, I was a bit intimidated, but somehow managed to gain my students' respect and ended up teaching a class of entirely Tae Kwon Do and being asked to be their new master so they can compete in tournaments in Kigali. I'm not sure if I deserve the title of “Master,” but I am really excited to help out. I started by bringing my yoga mat into practice so they could all get a feel for kicking a real target and pairing them off so they could practice blocking in a more realistic format. However, the real issue comes down to padding. My students spar completely void of any equipment, on a concrete floor, surrounded by precariously stacked desks. Considering the fact that they're all decently intelligent young men, I really feel that it would be ideal if they had something to protect their craniums with. So, here it comes, my shameless plug of the week: Send old sparring gear to Rwanda! I know it would be really expensive to ship, but my guess is that a decent portion of the people reading my blog have dabbled in the martial arts and might have an old helmet or chest gear they're willing to get rid of and I really only need enough equipment for two people to spar at one time. Let me know if you think you can help out.