Why even plan?

I needed to go to Kigali for a training development workshop for a few days, but I really didn't want to miss any precious class time. I teach six sections of the same level, and it's very frustrating when due to missed classes they're are at all different points and then I try to coordinate things like scheduling a midterm. Thus, I went to great lengths beforehand to arrange for making up all the hours I would miss. I juggled stuff around, once got usurped by another teacher and had to re-reschedule, worked my booty off -- but I did it. I was set to go away for the conference, and when I returned all my sections would be on the same page again.

...or so I PLANNED...

Honestly, I never learn. I know I have previously mentioned on here the frustration of "surprise holidays," but I really can't over-emphasize how often they seem to crop up and drive me insane. (A subset would also be "surprise staff meetings," which are almost always held during teaching hours.) People here often ask me some variation of, "How can Rwanda become like America?" And in situations like this one, I just want to scream: STOP! DOING! THIS! Stop missing all these class hours for nonsensical reasons, or your kids will never, ever get ahead.

This time it was a national holiday for President Paul Kagame's second swearing-in, on a Monday. Banks, post offices, schools, all closed. Then it was announced the following Thursday that the next day would be yet another national public holiday, for the Muslim celebration of Eid ul-Fitr. This day off in particular made me even angrier than the first. Let me just say, I love Muslims, and I have much respect for Islam after my 14 months living in Mauritania. Commemorating the end of Ramadan is an important event -- FOR MUSLIMS. Do you know what percentage of Rwanda is Muslim? Reports vary, but my almanac says 5%. And more importantly, that 5% is all but ignored the other 364 days of the year. In public schools and public ceremonies, prayers are always given. And they are always given to a Christian God and Jesus, never to Allah. It just disgusted me that suddenly when an opportunity arose for another day off, everyone would embrace the Muslim population, and only then.

Anyway, I digress. So my classes were all messed up despite my best efforts, and I had to push back my midterm by a week and add some additional "filler" lessons for the sections who would have extra class hours before the exam. When I went to grade them, the first class I looked at performed so well that I wondered if I had made the exam too easy. The next class was the same, and the next. But then two of my sections, even some of the best students, scored rather atrociously. I was so confused, at first. What's going on here? Then I realized: Duh. What do you know. The two sections who did so terribly were the exact same two who did not get the extra in-class practice. And the results were undeniable: the median grade in my worst-performing class was a full 20% lower than that of the best class. It sickened me to discover. I'm sorry, children. I'm so, so sorry.

In other news, rainy season is back in business, and with it my treacherous-moto-rides-of-death down my mountain. I achieved possibly my all-time worst moto experience not too long ago. When we set out on the 45-minute ride back to my village, the weather was very overcast, but dry. Then before long, it started POURING. It got extremely cold, and a dense fog surrounded us. My bag was getting absolutely drenched, and I felt certain that my computer inside was done for. Helplessly I just sat shivering behind the driver and fought the urge to cry in misery. My guy drove very slowly so that we wouldn't wipe out, but in the moment I couldn't be grateful because I so desperately wanted to be in my house, dry and warm. Miraculously, the computer survived relatively protected. The worst damage was to a paperback novel I'd thrown on top of the bag, but even that dried out okay.

My PCV friend Mandy came to visit my site for a weekend, which was a good time. I gave her the grand tour, which mainly consists of showing off the animals:

Even got Mandy to milk a cow for the first time!


And we couldn't miss the opportunity to cook up some delicious Mexican cuisine. We noted how for this same meal in America, we would just buy a bag of tortillas, buy a bag of shredded cheese, buy a jar of salsa, buy a tub of guacamole. All we'd have to "do" really would be to heat up some meat. Here, we rolled out the tortillas by hand, used a veggie peeler to shred the cheese that Mandy had carted literally halfway across the country, bleached and then chopped up tomatoes for the salsa, mashed an avocado for the guac but didn't have any lemons so made do with a bit of vinegar, then warmed and seasoned the canned chicken sent in a care package from my mom. Ah, that Peace Corps get-up-and-go.

Stop telephoning me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e

There is better cell phone coverage in Rwanda than in much of rural America (granted, the country's the size of Maryland, but still). Go to the smallest possible barely-a-village you can find, and someone there will own a cell phone. It doesn't matter if they don't have electricity; many small shops or even government offices will allow people to charge their phones for a small fee.

It's easy and relatively cheap to get yourself a phone number. There are no contracts to sign up for. You buy a SIM card from a little corner store, for $1.70 or less. You pop this into any cell phone, and you're good to go. The most economical phone model only costs about $16. Then you buy phone credit as you go in the form of a little card with a code you punch into your phone. You can check your credit balance on the phone at any time. It's pretty efficient.

You are only charged for outgoing calls, never for incoming. Consequently, if someone wants to talk with you but they're low on credit, they will "beep" or "flash" you -- that is, call you so it rings once, then quickly hang up. If you are the recipient of a flash, you are expected to call that person back (and spend your own money on it). It's a pretty annoying practice, if you ask me. There are only a handful of people from whom I'll tolerate a flash.

When you do answer the phone, who speaks first? This is always a fun game. A lot of times here, it's the person making the call, not the one answering. I can't help but find it a little disconcerting when I am just bringing the phone to my ear and I already hear someone greeting me. But sometimes they do wait for you to speak first, which brings us to the next question -- what does one say when answering the phone? The French "Allô" ("Hello") is possible, but more common is the French "Oui?" (or Kinyarwanda translation, "Karame?") At first I hated this, because it's like you're answering and just snapping, "Yeah? What?" But I confess that now this is actually how I answer the phone when speaking with Rwandans.

And to end the conversation? Well, that's easy. Just hang up. No need for goodbye! When you've said all you need to say, hit "end" -- as quickly as possible, it seems. You get charged by the second, after all.

Now in the U.S. we have a certain social convention that says you're not supposed to call most people, say, before 8 AM or after 9:30 PM. This rule DOES NOT APPLY in Rwanda, to my deep regret. Here it's acceptable to call absolutely anytime you feel like it. I have woken up to the sound of my phone ringing as early as 4:40 AM (seriously) and as late as 10:45 PM (I tend to get in bed at 8), and these calls were from people I barely know. Charming.

But if you don't answer the phone when someone calls you? Well, God help you. Rwandans cannot fathom what you could EVER POSSIBLY be doing that would preclude you from picking up their call. It is not only acceptable, but in fact expected that you answer your phone any time it is ringing. This includes: if you are on public transportation, if you are a teacher teaching a class, if you are sitting in a meeting, if you are in church, even if you are the guest of honor at a special ceremony. Accordingly, when I don't answer my phone because perhaps I've decided that I don't want to speak to that particular caller, the person will continue to call. And call. And call. And call. Twenty times consecutively is not unheard of.

We have another social convention in the U.S. that says you probably shouldn't pass around someone's phone number without their consent (be it implicit or explicit). Nope. Not here. Rwandans share my number like it's going out of style. I can't confirm the following chain of events, but I honestly believe something like this has happened more than once:

1: I give a moto-taxi driver my number while arranging a pick-up.
2: This driver then, I can only assume, tells all his friends, "Hey, guys! I met a muzungu, I even have her number!"
3: Random men I've never met start calling me incessantly (flashing me, more likely) and attempt to practice their very, very poor English.

Sigh.

So the title of this blog comes from, of course, the Lady Gaga song "Telephone." The lyric above is what I often sing out loud while trying to send a telepathic message to my relentless caller.

To close, in other news, today marks two years since I first swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania. I shaved my head. Hair grows back.


(If you never got to before, you can see more head-shaving photos here.)

Welcome to my crib

(I know I promised this some time ago, but if I may quote two clichés: easier said than done & better late than never...)

So I hope you're happy! =P I just sat in this chair for the better part of an entire day in order to upload this short video, a tour of my house in the village. I wanted to add some captions to it, but at this point I'm too sick of sitting here! You're all smarties -- I think you'll be able to figure most things out. And sorry the quality isn't great, but it gives you an idea.

Disclaimer: For the record, I know that I'm not "roughing it" as much as I could be, and not nearly as much as I did before in Mauritania. I'm grateful for my nice little house here!

Mama meets Africa!

View Larger Map
Total time Mom spent in Africa: 21 days
Total time on public transportation: 55 hours

But, if I can speak for both of us, it was a glorious time! First we spent four days at my site, the little village of Buyoga. Usually I am the only white person for miles around, so since my mother doubled the local muzungu population, we attracted quite a lot of attention. In particular, my students were SO excited to receive her. They even arranged a precious little welcome ceremony, where different groups performed traditional dance and modern hip-hop routines. There were also a number of "speeches" made in careful halting English.

It was really fun to get to share with my mom how I live here. First order of business, a tutorial on the squat-latrine -- yes, it may sound scary, but I pride myself on keeping mine really clean! Then I showed Mom how I wash my hands, cook food, wash dishes, bathe, do laundry... no simple tasks without running water. I also taught her about the different rhythm of village life, and I was pleased she was already getting the idea when after the second day she was slipping on her pajamas by 6:30pm! (Once the sun goes down, what is there to be awake for?)

After Buyoga, it was on to the south of Rwanda. We visited Butare a.k.a Huye, where there is an informative national museum and a newly opened ice cream shop (the first of its kind in Rwanda!). I also took my mom to our favorite local "pork joint," where we buy fried pork by the kilo. My friends and I typically share a platter between just two people, so that's 1.1 pounds of meat apiece. Mmmm. Then we had a lovely drive through a rainforest (Nyungwe) to reach Nyamasheke, right on Lake Kivu. There was a Peace Corps kickball tournament there, so Mama got to meet some of my PCV friends.

Next came the big day we'd especially been waiting for, the gem of tourism in Rwanda: GORILLA TRACKING! Less than 700 mountain gorillas exist worldwide, and all of them live in the wild in a region that spans Rwanda, Uganda, and D.R. Congo. (These are the same gorillas of Dian Fossey/Gorillas in the Mist fame.) For visiting the gorillas, the limited number of daily permits sells out months in advance, but we had secured ours for July 27.

We got a car to drive us up to the entrance of Volcanoes National Park, where we were assigned to a group of gorillas. Ours was called Hirwa, which means Luck. There is a maximum of 8 people who may visit any group on a given day. You set out together with a park guide, who communicates via walkie-talkie with trackers who locate the animals. The gorillas make new nests every night, but normally only travel about 1 kilometer per day.

We walked for about an hour, ascending the mountain, pushing our way through the dense forest. Then the guide told us to leave all our things with the guards who were with us, and we were able to bring only our cameras as we continued. And suddenly, there they were. Right in front of us. In a small clearing, the massive silverback "daddy" lounged on his stomach, scratching his chin, completely indifferent to our company. A mama (one of six in the family) tended her two tots in a bush to our left. The rule in the park is to maintain a distance of 7 meters from the gorillas -- but the gorillas themselves of course don't mind this restriction, and one pushed right by us when we evidently were in the way of his crossing. It was incredible!

We were allowed one hour to spend observing the gorillas, an hour that passed far too quickly but was unforgettable. My photos aren't spectacular because I don't have a fancy enough camera and flashes were forbidden (plus I'm sure my hands were shaking!), but I do have a few shots and I managed to post one video too:



Mom and I spent a lovely afternoon and overnight in Gisenyi on Lake Kivu before we crossed the border north to Uganda. We have a friend from home, Janet, who's been there for five years now working as an engineer, so we stayed with her and enjoyed her generous hospitality. She lives with a Ugandan friend "Mama Jordan" (meaning the mother of first-born Jordan) and her two children, Jordan and little Janet. While in Uganda, we traveled to Jinja, self-proclaimed adventure capital of East Africa. We white-water rafted on the Nile River! It was awesome, yet another truly memorable experience. We camped right on the shores there, and then the next day we hiked around Mabira Forest and spotted some monkeys.

We also accompanied Janet on a site visit to consult on some local water projects. It was neat just to see more of the countryside and to compare. In general, my impression of Uganda was that the poor are poorer and the rich are richer than in Rwanda -- but I don't know if that's accurate. There is an abundance of street food, which is heavenly since it's illegal in Rwanda. There is also more litter, though. The landscape is different, too, because whereas Rwanda is one rolling hill after another, Uganda has a considerable amount of flat space, and at a lower altitude (therefore hotter). We visited a tiny rural church literally made out of sticks, and a lavishly funded orphanage/school where the children have an impressive show choir:



Our last couple days together were spent relaxing and unwinding a bit back in Kigali. After mostly roughing it in "austere" rooms with questionable foam-pad beds and occasional hot water, we upped the ante a bit and lodged in relative extravagance at Step Town Motel, for which I'd like to give an enthusiastic recommendation. They just opened within the past year, so they're pretty unknown in Rwanda, but we had a fabulous stay and the staff were excellent.

I whittled my array of photos down to a manageable amount, so please enjoy. (The fact that I was able to upload this many pics AND two videos is courtesy also of Step Town Motel and its incomparable wireless internet!) You can browse through the slideshow below, or click through to the external Picasa album to see the photos in larger format.

Catching up

You may have noticed I've been terribly, terribly delinquent with my updates. I apologize! I have lots of excuses, but they're all pretty lame and predictable: busy, work, traveling, sick, etc. etc. (Nothing cool like burning my face off this time.) And the longer I wait, the more I want to tell you! Sigh... I don't like doing mega-long blog entries, so I will choose only the highlights and also try to break this up with a few sub-headings for you.

*
Surprise!
Trimester 2 of school is winding to a close. The close-of-term date that the Ministry of Education originally gave us was July 23. It's assumed that this is the day kids get to leave (it's boarding school), so I guessed that exams would be the week leading up to that, putting the last day of classes around July 16. Then I found out that teachers demand an entire week for grading, so the last day of classes would be more like July 9.

I went to teach last Thursday, July 1. It was Rwandan Independence Day. I knew it was Independence Day. Several times now in the past weeks, I've had this conversation:

- Will we have class on July 1st?
- Why? What's July 1st?
- Well, it's your Independence Day. [I point to the red-inked date on the wall calendar.]
- Oh, is it? No, yeah, of course we'll have class. Independence Day isn't really a big deal.
- Really? Because it's important to me to plan. It's near the end of the term, and I want to know how many more class periods I'll see my kids.
- Yes yes yes, of course. No, we'll definitely have class.

So, clearly we had no class that day. I reeeeally should know better by now -- this happened frequently in Mauritania, too. It's like every time an ANNUAL holiday comes up, it seems to be the first time anyone has ever heard of it and they have no recollection of it until the day before. Or day of.

In addition to the surprise holiday, we had a surprise teachers' meeting that day, in which we discussed the proposed exam schedule. "OK," says the school director, "so the last day of classes is tomorrow. Right?" Everyone agrees. What?! Tomorrow? And you're telling me this now?? That's just great, because I don't even teach on Fridays, meaning I've unwittingly already taught my "last" class to each of my sections. I was not pleased. The final compromise was that this week will be a week of "revision" (review), but if teachers want to still teach last-minute things, they have that option. Fine. I figured I'd have two hours left with each of my classes, and I would be able to get them all on the same page before exam time. I planned accordingly.

Came to school this morning for my 8:00 class. I found only one person in the teachers' lounge, but that's not strange because teachers are often late (a fact my director pointed out to them during the staff meeting, saying that Julie Ann is the only teacher who is always on time -- not awkward at all, yes). But this teacher then informed me that it was a holiday today. Again? Surprise! Two surprise holidays in a row! Happy Liberation Day (which was really yesterday, the 4th, but why not take an extra day off school as well?).

*
Live from Buyoga...
I saw an idea in one of my language teaching manuals about having kids prepare a "newscast" presentation in groups. They suggested you show an example clip first so that the students clearly understand what's expected. Well, that's great, I thought, but I don't have anything to show them... or do I? So, some PCV friends helped me out, and I had far too much fun making a 5-minute faux-newscast, complete with amazing transitions and news-y music. (Wish I could post it here for you, but my connection can't handle that!) I wasn't sure if the kids would "get" it, but they seemed pretty into it when I showed them in class on my laptop. Then I divided them in groups of 6 and set them free over the weekend to prepare.

I had a blast watching them present. Some of them really got into it! One boy fashioned a necktie out of notebook paper, looking very sharp. I had some real characters, trying on their best enthusiastic American accents (which more resemble a speech impediment) and using some of the same tag lines I'd had in my sample newscast -- they have great memories.

Maybe my favorite group set up a desk like a little panel, and the "host" stuck his compass in it, pointy-side down, with the pencil directed towards him like a microphone. He finished his bit and the next girl sat down, but she was nervous so she didn't notice the compass there and was not facing it. Her group was trying to whisper to her, but she didn't hear, so the host walked over and casually spun the "microphone" pencil so that it was pointed toward her. I was cracking up!


And then their stories... I told them the news didn't need to be true, since I was more concerned about their presentation abilities than actual content. One group reported on our school's football club in a match with Manchester United, and another had Beyoncé and Rihanna coming to perform a concert in our school refectory. One girl cast all her friends as Miss Rwanda, Miss East Africa, etc., and had them all in attendance at the BET Awards. A few other stories of interest, in their own words:

"In last day America told to Iran let to produce nuclear weapon. Iran refused and answer America we are continue to produce them. If you want to fight us come we are ready to fight with you."

"The new singer called Lady Gaga who likes to wear knickers in her clips now is going to stop wearing knickers in her clips."

"On Friday 51st Septdecember 2030, in Amazone forest the lion was collided with mosquiato, after that accident the lion was dead. But mosquiato had only problem on leg and on buttocks, after that accident two elephants quickly take a mosquiato to the hospital and doctors told us that tomorrow this mosquiato will be allright."

*
Little Miss Sunshine
Up until now, I haven't really had a Kinyarwanda name in my village. During training, my teachers had given me the name Kamikazi, which I thought was hilarious and awesome. It means little queen. I tried to introduce myself with that name when I arrived to my village, but the few people I told just laughed and asked what my real name was, so I gave up.

Now that I've been here a while, I decided to let my students choose and vote on a name for me. Their suggestions were super sweet and touching. In the end, the winner far and away was Akazuba, which is a diminutive form of the word "sun." One group summed up their choice thus:

"We name you this name because it's that we love and you shine and you are white as sun. Many people like the sun in the morning and all students love our teacher as that sun. Before that you come here, our knowledge was low, we were like in darkness. But after that you get here we're in light. It means that you are like a sun in darkness. Thank you!!!"



*
Umunyarwandakazi
I got my hair braided again, with extensions. This woman did a much more thorough job than I had last time, and everything's holding up well after about 19 days now. Even in Kigali people have been impressed that I got it done in the village. It took 7 hours and cost 5000 francs, about $10. Now, I'm told, I am a true umunyarwandakazi -- Rwandan woman.



P.S. My mom arrives on July 17, to stay for 3 weeks! Not sure that I'll get to update while she's here, so perhaps expect another short hiatus... =) I promise to take lots of pics!