Monday 6th October: Day Thirty in Rwanda

Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.

Work! I actually worked for almost all of today!! Yeee-hah! Got up 0530, breakfasted on a bun and bananas and water, washed my hair in more really cold water because it was all sticking up, got all dickied up in my suit and headed off to be collected by Francois. Today I am visiting schools (plural I hope). Off we went and got to Gisagara. Then things went a bit wierd. Francois had no key to his office and Alexi was in Kigali, so Francois couldn’t get in and give me the sample inspection forms I needed. So Francois decided that this was actually a good thing, as he didn’t want my fresh insights and experience polluted by seeing how Rwandans did it! Instead, while he went to the meeting I could draw up a new inspection form based on my own experiences and see how it tallied with the Rwandan reality! (Alfred: you have to admire this, it’s exactly the sort of bullshit Ruairí would come up with in this situation)

Of course I didn’t have my laptop and, if I did, no printer to print stuff out on. So I sat down in the ‘house’ with some tea and drew up three inspection documents off the top of my head (physical inspection – buildings, facilities etc), administrative inspection (mostly stuff about the principal) and teaching inspection (class observation). Then, as I was seeing two schools, I had to write the whole thing out a second time. Made me appreciate those mediavel monks a lot more, I can tell you.

I won’t bore all you (mostly) non-teachers with too much detail, but the secondary school (1st – 3rd Year only) had 150 students, four class groups, six teachers to teach all the subjects and four classrooms and the tiniest staff room you can imagine (about the size of my office in Rathdown). ICT is compulsory for all students (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and a few other bits and pieces) but they don’t have any computers so it is all theoretical. The same applies to Physics, Chemistry and Biology – in fact there is no equipment of any sort, though they do have textbooks for all the students and teachers which is a change from only a few years ago.

The primary school has 1200 students in 17 classes (do the maths) and 17 teachers plus the principal: no secretary, no support staff etc. The day runs from 0730 to 1630 (0730 to 1215 for up to 3rd class) with extra study on Saturday for the 6th class who have their big exam to see if they can get into secondary school (only about 12% do). The biggest difference here is that EVERYTHING is set out by the Department of Education (MINEDUC) – each school has an identical timetable, all teachers are required to teach the subjects in a certain order and reach specific places by certain days etc. As both the primary principal (Redempta) and secondary principal (Marie-Louise) told me, at least it means the staff can’t grumble about their timetables!


Francois collected me at 1530 and we wheezed back to Butare on his increasingly-asthmatic bike (clutch problems). When I got back to the hotel I was immediately nabbed by Pascal to meet his friend Gilles about their project (helping orphans and victims of rape from the genocide and also those psychologically traumatised) – that took an hour and a half and then Francois arrived back to see me again! He now claims (!) that the police have told him he can’t ride his bike because he doesn’t have a licence and therefore he will have to take the bus and therefore the District will HAVE to do something! How convenient! Tina and I are meeting Mike Silvey the Rwanda country director Wednesday so Francois says we can tell him everything is going to be fine! I don’t think so!

Trust me – that is the short version of today, whatever Alfred may say (Alfred: got to agree this time!). I will tell you more about Pascal and Gilles’ project anon – it’s really interesting but I’m not sure if they want me to join their committe or just advise them (former: no, latter: yes) – time will tell. I’m going to the Faucon for a beer and hopefully some football on the TV. And if anyone feels like writing to me the old-fashioned way, it’s me at BP129, Butare, Rwanda!

NÓTA BREISE: Breithlá shona faoi shéan is faoi mhaise chuig Muireann ní Mhóráin agus buíochas ó chroí lena cairde ar fad a thug chomh flaithiúil sin do mo chuid iarrachtaí airgead a bhailiú do VSO! Tá súil agam go raibh oíche iontach agaibh ar fad!

Thank you very much to all those who have supported my ongoing fundraising effort. I will be continuing my fundraising for VSO for a few more months so, if you would like to contribute, please go to www.mycharity.ie/event/ruairi.