Because you only swear in once... oh wait

After another 10 weeks of mentally grueling training, I am officially a Peace Corps Rwanda Volunteer. Our swear-in was held on Saturday at U.S. Ambassador Stuart Symington's residence in Kigali. He has a lovely backyard where we held our ceremony under some tents. Our country director, John Reddy, gave a few words of welcome, and then we had some short thank you speeches from PCVs: Michele and Kevin together in Kinyarwanda, I in French, and lastly Katy in English. Then the ambassador gave us some words of encouragement, and we swore our oath. The oath is the most exciting part to me because it's the same words that all U.S. government employees recite. (The PCVs from Mauritania did not technically need to take the oath again, but most of us chose to repeat it anyway.)

Following the ceremony we had some delicious catered food and entertainment from a traditional dance and drum troupe. We were told that the group was created to give opportunities to children from "disadvantaged" backgrounds. Each year they travel internationally, and last time they took first place for all of Africa in a competition in Holland. I am awestruck by how gracefully some of these children can move. One girl pulled me up to join her in a dance at the end. She kept pushing my arms up higher and then would nod with satisfaction when I got them in the right place. It was fun, even though she far outshone me!


Perhaps the only sad thing about training being over was having to say goodbye to our LCFs (Language and Cross-Culture Facilitators, which is fancy Peace Corps-speak for "teachers"). Our relationship with LCFs here was much different than in Mauritania. There they were all male and at least 45 years old. Here there were more female than male, and their average age was 26. (I'm 25.) Also, in Mauritania we had the same LCF for all of training, but here we would switch often so we got to know everyone. They were definitely more like peers here, and we would go out to meals and bars with them in the evenings.



Last week we had a farewell party with a Secret Santa gift exchange, and I was put in charge of the decorations. We had already bedecked the room with paper snowflakes and stockings I sewed out of dental floss (PCVs gotta be resourceful!), but the final pièce de résistance was a one-of-a-kind winter landscape. It included hand-sketched Santa and Mrs. Claus in a sleigh drawn by 12 reindeer, with a few elves looking on -- but each character's face was one of our training staff! Unsurprisingly I ran into a big hassle trying to print the photos, but in the end everything turned out so amazing, thanks to the help of many artistically talented PCVs. I'm not sure the Rwandans really "got" what the scene represented (considering one told me, "Oh, they're goats!"), but they really appreciated it and many were taking photos of themselves next to their little characters.



I'm sure you all know that Peace Corps Volunteers don't earn much in the way of money during our service, but we do get a nice one-time "settling-in allowance" just after swearing in. Consequently on Monday, fresh from opening our new bank accounts, we all raided the shops in Kigali and purchased more than we could ever need for our new homes. Pots, and pans, sugar and spices, brooms and buckets -- we're ready to go! Peace Corps gave us some nice heavy-duty foot lockers to pack our goodies in, and we hauled everything back to Nyanza. We'll be here for Christmas together, and then we begin dispersing to our sites on Monday (in Peace Corps transportation, thankfully). Can't wait!

'Til then, I've got Christmas tunes on my iPod, Christmas lights from Kigali, and Christmas joy in my heart. ;) Wishing you the best. Noheri Nziza!

Winding down and Buyoga-bound!

It's seemed like quite a long road, but my second go of Peace Corps "pre-service training" is drawing to a close. As they say in Mauritania, alhamdulillah -- thank God! I am appreciative of our training staff because it's sure not an easy task to build a Peace Corps program from scratch, and I don't envy their task. All things considered, I feel I've learned some useful and pertinent information, and I feel very ready to start this next chapter!

We closed out our TEFL training with a final all-day technical workshop that I helped to organize. I facilitated one of the sessions, on Community Content-Based Instruction or CCBI (I'd be happy to teach you about it, if you're interested!). Then last Friday, a full nine weeks into our ten-week training, we finally learned our site placements. Usually Peace Corps trainees find out about halfway through, but again since our program is new, they were still coordinating them until just recently.

My future home is called BUYOGA! I have not seen it before and probably will not get to until I actually move there just after Christmas. But I can tell you that it looks like it's about an hour from Kigali, with a motorcycle-taxi ride for some distance off the paved road. When I asked for details from one of the Peace Corps staff members who had visited this place, she gushed, "I LOVE your site!" She said the school has a lab with 15 computers and a brand new library with books donated from World Vision. They also have animal husbandry projects with pigs, rabbits, and cows (including five shipped over from Ireland!). I don't want to say too much more because some of it is still just rumors, but I'll be sure to give you a full run-down once I arrive and get settled in home sweet Buyoga!

The last training hurdle was on Saturday as we had our final language exam, which is an oral interview called the LPI. You have a conversation with a certified tester, and they give you a holistic score. The categories are Novice, Intermediate, and High (each broken into Low, Mid, and High), and then Superior is reserved for fluency of a native speaker.

I was surprised to find that, going into the test, I actually felt more prepared than I had before my LPI in Pulaar at the end of training in Mauritania. True, I was much more immersed in the language there, as I was living with a host family and had language class for about eight hours a day. Here we seemed to spend less time in formal class, but consequently I made more of an effort to study on my own. Plus I think that the second time learning a wildly different, non-Germanic/Romance language is just that much easier. Pulaar and Kinyarwanda have a few commonalities as far as their grammar goes.

Anyway, I took the LPI in the morning, and I felt like it went pretty well. I hadn't studied much per se because I had been reviewing a lot all through training. After lunch that day, our training director told me he wanted to see me in his office. I followed him in, and he told me to take a seat. He's a little bit of a prankster, so I couldn't tell if I should be worried or not. "I want to talk about your LPI," he said. "I am very surprised with the results." Surprised like bad? Did I do much worse than I had anticipated?

He then went on to tell me I had received a score of Advanced-High. I couldn't believe it! For the record, since our program is new we do not have testers who are officially certified in LPI, so this counts only as a mock assessment. But even so, I felt shocked and very humbled, not deserving of such a ranking. Perhaps it's because I threw in some good jokes? Like when I had to pretend I was in the market and I told the tester, "Umva, mucuruzi, ndi umuzungu ku ruhu, noneho gabanya." [Listen, vendor, I'm a white person only on the outside, so reduce your price to something fair.]

Final interviews and recommendations this week, and our swear-in will be this Saturday, December 19th, at the ambassador's residence. Photos to come, promise!

Celebrate good times

It's been a busy few days! This past week was our last of Model School, the student-teaching to prepare us for working in Rwandan classrooms. We had about 500 kids total in 9 sections. Their ages ranged from about 10 to 21. I really enjoyed getting in front of students again, and Model School kids are especially fun to teach because they are the ones who have volunteered to attend class on their vacation! They are very bright, too; I was continually impressed by their skills and vocab.

I observed a class where another trainee, Bethel, facilitated a debate. I had my doubts -- even my sharpest Mauritanian students would not be able to handle such an assignment -- but these kids were totally on point. The topic was whether it's good for English to be the new medium of instruction in Rwandan schools. One boy suggested buying a self-guided CD to improve one's English. "But on those CDs, I find it difficult because I cannot understand the pronunciation," one girl countered. "Well," another boy offered, "you can practice by listening to the radio, English programs like BBC or Voice of America." I couldn't believe it! Real cogent arguments! It makes me really excited about teaching in Rwanda, that these types of activities are possible.

My final lesson was on Thanksgiving, and we talked about other holidays as well. As we brainstormed a list together, the students mentioned Valentine's Day. To check their comprehension, I asked them what happens on that day. "It is a day to visit your friends," one student told me. Any friends, I clarified? "Your honey," he said. Fair enough.

Thanksgiving came to Nyanza in a big way. For starters, somehow Peace Corps rounded up five live turkeys in this country. Then, on Thanksgiving Day, the U.S. Ambassador paid a special personal visit to us from Kigali. His name is Stuart Symington and he was kind enough (on his day off, no less) to bring us yet another turkey, homemade stuffing, and -- more than I could have hoped for! -- genuine pumpkin pie. Also, I congratulated myself for the foresight to bring Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce from America. Yes, it took up precious space and weight in my luggage, but it was so worth it! I cradled my can like a little baby in the hours leading up to our feast. I promise I did share, but I also had a healthy portion myself. (And I may or may not have slurped up the last of it with a straw.)


Between that and the pumpkin pie, it was a true Thanksgiving, not just a cheap Peace Corps imitation. We also made our own stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, corn & avocado gazpacho, and a plethora of desserts: apple pie, banana pie, mango-pineapple pie, strawberry pie, chocolate mousse, crepes with chocolate fondue, banana cake, and chocolate-peanut butter no-bakes. DELICIOUS! Some trainees picked lots of fresh flowers in autumn hues for some festive centerpieces. On the walls were kindergarten-like hand turkeys we had traced and decorated, and we also put up a big poster-sheet where we listed things we're thankful for. Then we ate by candlelight with light jazz playing in the background. It was a warm and fuzzy and happy day.


But the celebrations didn't stop there! This weekend was also the most important Muslim festival of the year, which is called Tabaski in West Africa or just Eid elsewhere. It commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham and is traditionally celebrated with a great feast. Mauritanian PCVs never miss a chance to party, so on the heels o Thanksgiving we also brought Tabaski to Nyanza. (There is a Muslim population in Rwanda, but it's pretty small, less than 2%.) We got a 2-for-1 deal on goats, only $44 total.

After a year in Mauritania, I've certainly seen my share of animals being slaughtered, but I still can't really bring myself to watch the act of it. The blood makes me queasy; once that's all cleared away, I find the skinning and organ removal pretty interesting, like a cool science lesson. Goats' stomachs are really big, for instance. Their hearts seem comparatively small -- something I can tell you because this weekend, for the first time in my life, I tasted some heart. It tasted fine because it was smothered in butter and garlic and curry, but the consistency was odd. Squishy, not firm at all, almost spongy. Anyway, we made lots of delicious kabobs (not with heart meat) and perhaps the most wonderful Mauritanian dish, banafe. It's a meat and potato stew with lots of thick broth that you soak up with bread.

The final cause for celebration is that last week I FINALLY got my luggage I'd requested from Mauritania. When we were informed of our evacuation, we were in Senegal and were not allowed to return to Mauritania, but we could give Peace Corps an itemized list of things we wanted (up to 100 pounds). Various staff members went to every one of our sites and attempted to get what we'd asked for. Our Mauritania country director had told us that our bags would be waiting for us here in Rwanda when we arrived eight weeks ago, but unfortunately I guess there was a lot of red tape to sort through.

I'd heard horror stories of other PCVs who were missing a bunch of stuff or who received "surprise" items (like Marta, who got a mysterious pair of gold sequin panties... ?!) But in the end I got all the important stuff, which is pretty amazing and I am really grateful to Aw, the Associate Peace Corps Director who packed my bags. I got all my lesson plans and teaching materials, and my Pulaar language books, and all my clothing. Alllll the other stuff that I left behind I bequeathed to my host family. It's all good, I was going to leave all that stuff for them eventually anyway. Guess they've been living high on the hog with my thick foam mattress and sharp American knives and solar-powered lantern and big buckets and woven mats and...