Lovin' my kids, my house, and Larry

I've been BUSY! What is that all about?

School is great. I only wish I got to see my kids more -- two 50-minute periods a week per class is not much. As hard as I try in my planning, I almost always run out of time in class for all that I want to do! But we're having fun. I love that I can have legit conversations with these kids in English. Their contributions may not always be entirely grammatical, but they can make themselves understood.

We just did a really fun activity for International Women's Day where I divided the students into small groups to read and summarize a short text about a particular distinguished female. I tried to pick mostly strong black women as good role models for these kids, so we had Michelle Obama, Condoleezza Rice (though some found it hilarious that she is named "rice"), Rosa Parks, Wangari Maathai (ashamed to say I'd never heard of her before researching this project, but what a cool Nobel laureate from Kenya). Summarizing in a foreign language is not an easy task, so I was, yet again in this country, really impressed by some of the results. I also asked them to write what they had learned from the text. Actual responses: "to love each other and never care about the color of the skin," and "try and fail, but do not fail to try." Where that came from, no idea. Awesome.

Plus, my kids here are SO well-behaved! I've not had a single discipline issue so far in six weeks of teaching. When I gave my first quiz, I prefaced it with my customary ixnay-on-cheating spiel. In Mauritania, cheating was the standard, and the kids were masterful. One rolled up a tiny strip of paper inside the clear barrel of a pen; another had a friend outside the classroom toss a balled-up sheet in through an open window. But here -- I didn't see a single instance. And I'm darn good at busting cheaters. I was stunned, happily.

In grading, there are the mistakes that break your heart because they're just so far off the mark, but I prefer the mistakes that just crack me up. For instance, one kid gave me a late assignment with a handwritten note: "I didn't the homework because I was illing." (Yeah you were, son, yeah you were.) Anyway, the most enjoyable part of marking midterms for me was the fill-in-the-blank vocab section, with a word bank. Here are a few priceless errors that felt the wrath of my red pen:

- The doctor will give you INJURIES to make you feel better.
[Only if I'm looking to win a malpractice suit!]
- In a democracy, everyone has the same OPPRESSION.
[Technically I guess so?]
- Mutoni brought the SKUNK to start the fire for cooking.
[Count me out for that meal]
- The USA has more than 300 million RIGHTS.
[Interesting from an outside perspective]
In other news, I'm thrilled to announce to you that I'M IN MY NEW HOUSE!! I had to fight for it ("But the fence isn't done, and we still need to paint" -- I don't care, let me move my stuff!!), but I forced my way in about two weeks ago now. It's pretty spectacular. I'm getting all settled, still waiting for a few pieces of furniture, but I promise to give you a proper tour when it's all set up. I'm loving it, though. Here's a teaser pic of the view out my front door. The tallest mountain in the distance is Muhabura, 30 miles away on the border with Uganda. It's a volcano about 13,500 feet high.


So I got the big birthday present of getting to be in my new house! Other highlights of that day included teaching my adult English class to sing the "Happy Birthday" song to me, opening two stellar care packages (props to Teresa and my sister Brenda!), and most importantly, a shout-out on Voice of America radio. Now, please understand: VOA broadcasts worldwide. And the best DJ is Larry London, who I listen to every day. So I was giggling like a little girl for a solid hour after he wished me a happy birthday in Rwanda *and* said I put a smile on his face! OH, LARRY LONDON!

I leave you with this: for the past several birthdays, I've taken photos of myself displaying my new age. Turns out 26 doesn't work quite as well.

Odd & cheesy

I owe you a blog. I also owe you photos, in a big way. Trouble is, I was waaaaaiting and hoping to show you pictures of my new house.

BUT I STILL. DON'T. HAVE. A HOUSE.

This is my biggest point of frustration lately. When I moved to Buyoga on December 30th, they told me the house needed a few repairs and would be ready in two weeks. So, why should I be surprised that now it's March, and I've yet to move into it? Sigh. It's progressing... slowly... I repeatedly am given be-all-end-all deadlines that pass without fanfare, but it looks like I actually may get into it soon. "Soon," like, perhaps by the end of this week. Maybe. My birthday is the 10th, and lately I just have my fingers crossed that the house will be my big gift.

In other news, it's the rainy season here. Majorly. For the past week it's been coming down HARD. I understand that America's been hit with a slew of snowstorms recently, and actually the rainstorms here are quite similar. People just lock themselves inside, postponing appointments or work or school (my students can't believe when I actually show up to class, with my umbrella and rain jacket and boots). And the rural areas don't have the infrastructure to deal with such relentless deluge. Roofs notoriously leak, fields get flooded out, and rocky hillsides crumble dangerously onto roads below.

This past Friday I'd had plans to go to Kigali, but the rain would not let up. It'd been pouring all the day before, and by that morning it was still sprinkling steadily. I knew the "roads" (read: rugged dirt paths) would be a muddy mess. Remember, my primary -- and only available, normally -- mode of transportation out of my site is by motorcycle taxi.

Well, it was a wild ride alright. I was wearing my jacket over top of my huge hiking backpack, plus my awesome ginormous astronaut-looking helmet on my head. The whole time, with white knuckles, gritted teeth, and knitted brows, I was praying an inner monologue something like this: "Don't fall, don't fall, goslowgoslowGOSLOW!, oh please, oh God, oh God please..." ad infinitum. My driver navigated the way commendably, and very wisely had me get off and walk at about five different points. But even so, I experienced my first moto wipeout. It wasn't so much catapulting through the air as it was a very ungraceful slow capsize. And the consequence of falling wasn't so much danger of bodily injury as danger of getting absolutely covered in mud. Which is what happened. Plus, okay, a fabulously gnarly purple bruise on my hip and a skinned knee. What are you gonna do? We made it, which is what counts!

Part of the reason I wanted to get to Kigali so badly was to meet our newest class of Peace Corps trainees, who arrived Thursday night. There are about 35 of them, all working in the health sector. It was fun to get to chat a bit and answer some of their questions. After being in the Peace Corps for over 20 months now (is it already so long?!), it's nice to share this hard-won knowledge with people who can benefit from it. I'll be headed down to their training site in a couple weeks to facilitate some sessions.

I'm trying to continue studying Kinyarwanda when I can, although I'm busier nowadays. And truthfully I don't get a ton of opportunities to speak it on an everyday basis, since everyone at school speaks English to me (in some degree of comprehensibility). But I like to greet the villagers I pass as I'm walking to work, and of course I use it in the market to negotiate prices. Inevitably, a surprised bystander overhears me and comments to no one in particular, "Arakizi!" It's pronounced like "odd-a-cheesy," which is how I always render it in my head, and it means she knows it. It never fails to bring a satisfied smile to my face.

So that's my life these days. Odd & cheesy. And more than a little muddy.

Seriously, where am I?

On my final weekend before school started, I went to visit Mark and Matt, fellow transfers from Mauritania. They get the prize for sweetest set-up in Peace Corps Rwanda. They are working at a university and living on the campus, overlooking gorgeous Lake Kivu (16th largest lake in the world, you know!). The boys live together in a cushy 3-bedroom house with a furnished living room, indoor bathroom, running water, kitchen with 4-burner electric stove/oven and fridge, and free high-speed wireless internet. Not exactly roughing it! But fortunately, Mark and Matt are quite amenable to receiving visitors. We had fun making some delicious food (facilitated by a care package -- thanks, Yates!) and night-swimming in the lake. The water is a ridiculously perfect temperature, at all times of day and all seasons of the year. The full moon was rising over us just as we waded in, and if I swam out far enough I could see it barely peeking through the trees. It was one of those ridiculous moments where you look around like: seriously, where am I?!

The boys' site is about two and a half hours from Kigali. On my bus ride there, I grabbed a window seat and settled in with my iPod. After a bit, I happened to see the girl two over from me with some viscous liquid on her hand, dripping onto my backpack on the floor below her. My initial thought was: aw, poor girl, did she break an egg or something? I noticed she was holding a brown paper bag -- which she promptly puked into. AND then the girl between us joined in vomiting too, in the same bag!! Unbelievable, so gross. Leaking all over the floor, onto my stuff, which they didn't even attempt to wipe off. And wryly I remembered PCVs' horror travel stories about people spewing out of control on these buses. In this "Land of a Thousand Hills," the roads have many twists and turns, and yes, the drivers tend to whip around them, but get it together. Honestly.

Sure enough, there was more throwing up on my ride back.

School has been a little slow getting started here, unsurprisingly. For the first week I just played secretary and helped to register new kids (continuing in my valiant struggle to interpret Kinyarwanda names). It's a boarding school, so before classes could really get underway, we had to wait for at least the majority of students to arrive. They came from all over the country, rolling up to the school on motorcycle taxis or in private cars, each kid invariably toting the same things: a backpack, a small suitcase, a bucket with a lid, and a rolled-up foam pad mattress. Guess that's all you need for boarding school in Rwanda.

Now, two full weeks since our start date, a few slackers are still trickling in, but stuff has gotten started at least. I am teaching all 5 or 6 sections of the highest level at our school, S4 (4th year of secondary school, about equivalent to 10th grade American). For English, each section has two one-hour classes per week. I am thrilled about only teaching one level, because that means only one level to plan for. Planning is what takes forever here, when you're working with such limited resources. In Mauritania I only taught 8 hours per week, but that was for 4 different levels. I much prefer this.

I'm really impressed with the kids. I feel like we run a pretty tight ship at our school, so there aren't discipline issues. The biggest struggle for me, I think, will be working with such a multi-level classroom. I have some students who grew up in anglophone Uganda and are absolutely fluent in English. One doesn't even speak Kinyarwanda! So of course these kids are bored out of their minds when I am speaking painstakingly deliberately in my "Special English."

But overall, teaching has put a pep back in my step. The general skill level here is enabling me to do so much more than I could in Mauritania. This past Thursday I'd wanted to do a lesson on Nelson Mandela, since February 11 was the 20th anniversary of his release from prison (a fact I knew only from the relentless coverage on BBC and Voice of America). Completely coincidentally, when visiting Mark I had just gotten a copy of the movie Invictus, which so happens to be all about Mandela. I haven't even watched it yet, but I thought I'd flip through it just to see if there might be anything to jump out at me. And what do you know, the very opening scene reads: "South Africa: February 11, 1990" -- followed by real footage of Mandela (due respect to Morgan Freeman). How perfect, I thought! Am I brave enough to show this clip in class? I wouldn't have dared in Mauritania, with 75 wild kids in a single classroom. But here, the classes are a relatively much more manageable size, 30-40, and they're so good.

Well, I dared. And it was GREAT! After watching the clip, kids that hadn't spoken all class were suddenly raising their hands. I loved it. They picked up on the white and black boys playing football separately, visual evidence of apartheid. And when I asked what it means for a country to be democratic, one girl told me, haltingly with crisp enunciation, "It means a government of the people." "Yes!" I replied, impressed with the answer. But she wasn't done: "...by the people, for the people." Are you kidding me?! Seriously, where am I?

Ihangane: Kinyarwanda 101

It turns out Monday is a Rwandan holiday ("Heroes' Day"), so the first day of school will be Tuesday, February 2nd. What's one more day, anyway? This week I hung out at school a bit with the secretary, Divine -- pronounced as French, dee-VEEN. She's my bud. When work slowed down, she pulled up some music videos on the office computer. These included a karaoke version of "My Heart Will Go On" and, even more hilariously, the classic "Right Here Waiting for You." I almost couldn't handle the cheesiness of the video, but Divine seemed to study the big '80s hair quite seriously.

I got to meet some kids one day, as I helped Divine to distribute grade reports to the hopelessly curious students who took national exams last fall. They lined up in the hallway and approached us in the office one at a time. Without fail, each student supplied his or her impossibly long name to me in nothing more than a cryptic mumble, and it was all I could do to fumble for some small scrap of it to aid me in finding the same sounds somewhere in the stack of papers before me.

Interestingly, Rwandans don't do family names. When a child is born, the parents typically give one name in Kinyarwanda and a second in French. Siblings rarely share a common name between them. The Kinyarwanda name is written in all caps and serves as something of a "last name," though here it comes first. The individual may be called by either name (though it seems more common to go by the French one). The Kinyarwanda name always has some significance, and frequently it has to do with God. A sampling: NKUNDIMANA "I love God," HANGANIMANA "Face God," TUYISHIME "Let's praise Him," IRAKOZE "Thanks be to God."

I continue determinedly to study Kinyarwanda, trying to improve my vocab and ease of speaking. It doesn't help that my poor mind's clouded up with Pulaar, the language of my village in Mauritania (not to mention French and, doggedly, Spanish). Pulaar and Kinyarwanda don't have much in common on the surface, but I've happily been noting a few surprising similarities:

- In both, "to marry" is a different word depending on your gender. For males, it's an active verb; for females, passive.
- In both, the word for "month" is the same as that for "moon."
- In both, the names for various days of the week are simply "the second, the third," etc. (but, tryingly, the Pulaar week begins with Sunday, whereas the Kinyarwanda week starts on Monday).
- In both, there is no specific word for the sister of your mother, or the brother of your father. You just call them another parent.
- In both, to say "we're leaving now," you use the past tense, as if it's already happened.
- In both, the word for "trouble" is exclusively used in the plural.

One of the new Kinyarwanda words I learned this week was gukama, the verb "to milk." As I said before, the stable boys at my house bring me a fresh pitcher of milk each morning and evening. My school director had started a little running joke that they should teach me how to milk the cows myself. "What if no one is here one day?" he reasoned. "You will die of thirst!" So the other night, when the youngest boy (about 16) came in to get my empty pitcher, he said something largely incomprehensible in Kinyarwanda but which I somehow understood to mean he wanted me to come outside. I consented, and then he said something else and pointed to his rubber boots. Gotcha. I went in my room, cuffed up my pants, and put on my own pair.

It was dark already, but another kid held a flashlight for us. The young one squatted down next to the cow, pulled on an udder three or four times, said okay and handed me the pitcher. I offered only a nervous laugh. He laughed too, showed me once more, squish squish squish so effortlessly, and held out the pitcher again expectantly. Learn by doing, I figured, and cautiously I gripped an udder. I could barely get a trickle! Graciously, he showed me yet again, really yanking on it and using his thumb to squeeze out the milk. I improved -- though also the udder occasionally got away from me, causing me to miss the pitcher. And yes, at one point I squirted myself in the face. But the onlookers praised me: "Ni byiza cyane! Ur'umuhanga pe! So good! You're so skilled!" I just laughed again. When I drank my evening tea that night, it was with a special sense of satisfaction.

Unfortunately, my new house is still not ready. The latest estimated completion date is February 10th. I went to see it this week, and they are making progress. Ihangane -- be patient. Afterwards I walked with my director up the path to the school, and I breathed in the tranquil hills, all the green green green, the morning mist in the valley. Jarring me from this reverie, my director pointed out the original house they'd been planning to give me. Apparently he had shown that one to Peace Corps initially, but then, he told me, he discovered there are some mines beneath it.

...MINES! And suddenly I remember where I live. I saw scars on the faces of so many of my future students this week, and I can't forget. In 1994, while my best friend and I choreographed Ace of Base dances in her living room, these kids' families died. Still can't believe that.

Officially a Buyogan (Buyogian? Buyogite?)

I arrived in Buyoga on December 30th. From Kigali, you head north to Rulindo District for an easy 40 minutes on a snaking paved road that seems to ascend endlessly higher and higher. Then comes the "fun"... For my initial arrival, I got to travel with all my luggage in a nice Peace Corps SUV, but normally the primary mode of transport from this point is an exhilarating motorcycle taxi. You weave your way up crumbling dirt paths, climbing to still higher heights. After another 40 minutes, you reach Buyoga, perched on a mountainside with views of terraced farms on adjacent hills and meticulously-groomed tea plantations in the valley below. I know, I know, I'm living the hard life. That's just the beginning, though!

My headmaster gave me the tour of the secondary school where I'll be working, and let's just say I'm pretty excited. It bears little resemblance to my school in Mauritania, as it boasts among other things: electricity (with back-up solar power as well as a generator), a photocopier, a computer lab, a fully-stocked chemistry lab, satellite TV in the teachers' lounge, basketball and volleyball courts, and a brand new library. In September $50,000 worth of donated books arrived from the nonprofit World Vision. There are textbooks in all subjects, dictionaries, CD-ROMs and audio cassettes -- mostly in English but some in French also. Unbelievable. Additionally, my very-motivated headmaster has plans to buy laptops and equip the school for wireless internet perhaps as soon as April. (YES, PLEASE!)

The school also has some animal husbandry projects. Literally in my backyard are six cows, and just down the road are five special cows that were a gift to our school from the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. In October they arrived on a plane from Ireland. Their dairy production is up to 5 times that of a Rwandan cow! And there are also about 200 rabbits, all colors and sizes -- and all really cute.

As for accommodations: upon my arrival at site in Mauritania, I was given an empty one-room cement block, about 10' x 10', with no electricity and a latrine outside. Here I have a whole house?! My headmaster picked one out for me, so now it's being pretty much gutted and revamped. Probably not necessary, really, but that was already in the works. They told me it'd take two weeks when I arrived, and then someone said a month, so I'm hoping to split the difference perhaps. Anyway, I guess the Ministry of Education is paying for all this, because I'm sure not. But the new house will have three bedrooms, a living room, electricity and -- an indoor bathroom! Now, admittedly, this is still rural Africa, so yes, it's really just a cement hole that you squat over... but THIS hole is indoors! And it drains to a pit outside. I am thrilled. Until the new place is ready, I am staying in a similar house, also all to myself. I have sofa chairs and a coffee table and a big wooden bed. And I don't even have to sleep in a net because there are no mosquitoes at this elevation. Oh, the luxury.

So, I have a lot to look forward to this year! For now, though, I pretty much just have a lot of time to kill. The first day of classes isn't until February 1st, so that's essentially when my work begins. In the interim I've been settling back into that familiar Peace Corps life of perpetual free time. I've achieved my long-time goal of being able to name the capital of every country in the world, so that's pretty exciting (South Africa has three; Nauru has none!). Also I have a cumulative score of $6127 on iPod Solitaire, if that means anything to you. And pretty much whenever I'm in my house, I'm listening to the BBC or Voice of America on the radio. They have some excellent programs, which keep me in touch with world news and American pop music -- from yesterday and today! Who could ask for anything more, right?

OK, OK, I try to do some "useful" things with my time as well. I've been meeting people in the community, and I started giving daily English classes at the school to 4 or 5 enthusiastic coworkers. Also, I've been having fun experimenting with my cooking. You have to understand, cooking totally from scratch on a single burner takes some time and effort. But I have made a successful tomato sauce, and gazpacho, and you can't beat good old French fries. Produce is super cheap here. There is a market every Thursday in Buyoga, so I stock up for the week by spending about $2. Each of the following costs the equivalent of 20 cents (100 Rwandan francs): a kilo of potatoes, 20 small tomatoes, 3 avocados, 4 large green bell peppers, a pineapple. And the stable boys outside my house even bring me fresh milk from the cows twice a day!

As I glance back over this blog entry, I see an exclamation point in every paragraph. You got me: I'm pumped.

I do have fleas, so you can't win 'em all, I guess. But there's hydrocortisone for that.