Wednesday 27th May: St Philippe Neri Day

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.




St Philippe Neri Day

Wednesday 27th May is St Philippe Neri Day, the patron saint of the local secondary school I have visited quite often. François (my director) and I had both received invitations and he was down to make a speech but he said that he couldn’t go as he had a meeting (and hadn’t actually been told this was happening anyway) ... so could I please give the speech on behalf of the District! Well, everyone knows how much I hate speaking in public – so of course I agreed immediately. It didn’t dawn on me until later what language the speech might have to be in (Alfred: feeble attempt to build up suspense – of course it was in English).

So, having put in a few hours at work, I went home to put on my suit and off I went. We started with mass (eventually – Mass began an hour late and everything else ran even later – surprise surprise!). I had a desperate time trying to stay awake for some reason. The ceremony was not overlong, the singing was enjoyable but my eyes just kept closing. Luckily, at the gospel, a girl came over to me with a Bible in English and a slip of paper showing the reading – which was extremely thoughtful of somebody or other! Anyway, having read John Chapter 18 I then turned to Matthew and read that for a while. I had forgotten the huge list of parables he tells and how bluntly they are phrased in some cases, or at least the translation the Good News Bible uses! Anyway, that kept me going AND made me look suitably devout at the same time until, quite suddenly, my head cleared and I wasn’t sleepy anymore! (Alfred: what he ISN’T telling you is that he was actually looking for the bit that Moe the bartender refers to in The Simpson, in the episode where Homer founds his own church and invites Moe to join. Moe says: ‘I was born a snake-handler and I’ll die a snake-handler’ . And it is in Mark 16 and Luke 10, not in Matthew! But it got him reading the bible again! Mass, bible-reading – what’s next?)

Anyway, I waited until most people had left and then wandered out and started heading back through school. A group of 5th Years, mostly boys, joined me and we chatted – in French – as we headed back. They were worried that they are the last group who will do their exams in French and will therefore be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to university and jobs. I sympathised and one of the boys said: ‘I love you’ and then took my hand and insisted that we walk all the way back to school hand-in-hand.

Now, that would be unlikely to happen in Ireland and, if it did, would attract more than a little bit of attention. Here, the only person who felt in any way awkward was me, and to be honest I quickly realised that this was just how people are here (Alfred: it did eventually dawn on Ruairí that the large number of Rwandan men and women who have told him they love him owes less to his incredible personal attractiveness and magnetism than it does to the perils of translating the phrase ‘I like you’ from one language to another).

Once we got to school it was time for the ceremony part. There are loads of pictures below – actually, let’s do the pictures now.



1. Volleyball match between staff and students

Students on the left; teachers plus their coach (my friend Enock) on the right

Spectators: notice how the (literally) cool sixth years have gathered under the only tree available to keep the sun off.

More spectators; teachers celebrate winning the second set amid furious accusations of biased umpiring by the students!

2. Catholic Choir opens the official ceremony

3. The 'ballet' (sorry for getting people's hopes up about this!) and

4. a humourous poem (or maybe dialogue - the tall guy was either part of the item or just kept interrupting, not sure which)

5. Speeches: the Director (Protogene), the PTA Chairman (no idea) and the Executive Chairman of Ndora Sector (Bede Jean) - more on the latter's speech later!!!

6. Acrobatics! And me! I didn't realise Enock had figured out how to use my movie camera and he filmed me while I was talking.

The speeches - mine included (Alfred: his especially) were prettty innocuous - except for Bede Jean's. Enock was translating for me as people spoke because I wanted to know what everyone was going to say as they were all speaking before me (Alfred: like anyone was going to a) understand anything you said and b) care less). It dawned on me that Bede Jean seemed to be launching a scathing attack on the Christian churches. He said that when you see someone wearing a crucifix and professing to be a Christian, you need to be cautious because often they are anything but that, but thieves, hypocrites and evildoers. He then started asking the students questions, eliciting the answer that Jesus was crucified on Golgotha. Indeed, and when you wear a crucifix in memory of Golfotha, remember that two of the three crosses belonged to thieves - only one of the three was that of Jesus! So therefore any you meet wearing a crucifix has a 66.7% chance of being a thief!! Well, blow me down! I didn't get a chance later (you'll see why) to inquire further but rest assured I will be seeking clarification on this one! (Alfred: Reminds me of Amy's wonderful story about going to church in Kigeme and being told that the day's gospel was about how Jesus was circumcised on the Cross!)

Then we all went in to eat dinner - a melange courtesy of the school. It was really good with huge lumps of lean beef from one of the school's own cows. I chatted to two new Principals, Aimable and Innocent. Aimable showed me pictures of his two kids on his iPhone - the eldest is called Queen and the youngest is called ... Diana. I didn't dare ask.

They were interesting guys. They were only appointed in the last six to eight weeks and had given up jobs in Kigali (and left their wives and families behind) to take positions in the (their words) 'remote countryside'. Both of them said they wanted the change but also that it would look good on their CVs to have taught in less-favoured schools.

The high point of the dinner was when I mentioned to them that, while I had visited the school as an inspector previously, today I was wearing 'a different hat'. They really liked this phrase and immediatley ran around the room telling everyone. The room became full of people taking off and putting on imaginary hats, bowing to each other, even looking at the imaginary hats in their hands as if trying to figure out which one they were wearing! Really funny - in Kinyarwandan you wear a different skin, which is not that different to wearing a different hat, so I'm not quite sure why it was seen as so hilarious!

And the beer flowed - Primus and Mutzig for all who wanted it and then off to the local pub for even more!! We then got into a LONG philosophical discussion in English/French on the nature of 'change', with everyone talking at completely cross-purposes, for about an hour and a half! Much of the argument centred around Barack Obama but soon branched off into all kinds of areas, straying dangerously close to the topic of the desireability of regime change somewhat closer to home.

At 2045 Enock and I went off to see Barcelona - Man Utd. This was showing in the school dining-room (Alfred: this is a good one - the teachers persuaded the new principal to buy a satelllite dish for the school with a subscription for football on the grounds that the boarders were sneaking out of the school at night to go and watch matches in private houses, so a satellite receiver would keep them in school! Brilliant - and he fell for it!) - a normal-sized small TV set up in a corner and hundreds upon hundreds of schoolboys (and a handful of girls) trying to watch it.

As muzungu guest-of-honour, I was of course ushered up to the front and some boys summarily ejected from their seats (Alfred: to be fair, they had taken a chance by sitting on the benches clearly marked as being reserved for the teachers) and sat squashed in on all sides with beans and cassava bread underfoot as there had not been time to properly clear up the dining-room before the match began!

The match you know about (but weren't Man Utd so poor on the night? Amazingly one-sided match. At the end Barcelona almost looked a little deflated, as if it had been a little too easy for them!). Then it was back to the pub, where the others wre still drinking away and insisted that we have another beer ('one for the road' Innocent said, which makes me think they must use the same phrase over here).

And then, the most almighty row broke out. It is very rare to hear Rwandans raise their voices or show aggression in public: not unknown - I have seen pushing and shoving and even fisticuffs, especially among bus touts or the like- but you don't get it in social groups, even where they strongly disagree with each other. But the wonderful thing about this row ios that it could only have happened in Rwanda. They were not fighting about religion, or politics, or sport, or any of the usual things men in a pub would row about. The row was over differing views on the proper use of the Past Conditional Mood in English. 'If I knew v. If I had know'. I swear. Bottles banged on the table, fingers poked into chests, hands waved passionately in the air - it was great. Of course, they then asked me to adjudicate and I explained that, as a native speaker of English, I didn't know ANYTHING about English grammar (Alfred: it wasn't quite as simple as that! When pushed harder he had to do a quick diplomatic shuffle and say that, while 'If I knew' was very commonly used by English-speaking people, 'If I had known' would be more grammatically correct. That seemed to leave everyone reasonably satisfied.)

Then, although it was now 0200, Enock and the Deputy Principal Elie INSISTED on walking me home (and, as we were leaving, the principal checked with them in Kinyarwandan that that is what they were doing). And it was 0230 (and I think a total of 5 Primus - or was it six?) by the time I got into bed.

ASTIR ARTICLE

VSO Ireland recently asked me to write a short piece for my trade union's in-house magazine ASTIR. If anyone is interested this is a link to it but bear in mind it is for the whole magazine and the PDF file is about 4MB in total. And, yes, I did notice that they didn't spell my name properly, I am well used to that by now (Alfred: I'm more interested where they got that picture of a road with traffic markings in the middle of it! Doesn't look like anywhere in Rwanda we've seen so far!)

http://www.asti.ie/pdfs/Astirs/2009/Astir%20May.pdf

Alfred: and that's it for this episode. Ruairí's off to Kigali on Friday to get his knee checked out as it has started paining him again. I suspect that something crawled in there and laid its eggs when he had the accident and they are finally hatching out now but that kind of idea tends to freak him out so I am keeping it to myself. There are also going-away parties for Tinks and Mory so it should be a fun weekend!! Update soon!

Tuesday 26th May: Day 262 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.


RANDOM POINTS OF INTEREST (well, to me anyway)

Amazon.com
Well, I finally cracked and hit the amazon.co.uk website and ordered a pile of stuff – three C.J. Sanson Matthew Shardlake novels (sort of political thrillers set during the reign of Henry VIII), a book on corruption in Kenya, The White Tiger, Abyssinian Nights (a Ugandan novel set in the time of Idi Amin and after) and some book about a 19th century murder investigation. Should arrive ... well, goodness knows when to be honest!


Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th May: Champions League Semi-Finals.
Went to watch the Arsenal – Man Utd Champions League semi-final in the only house in the village with a generator an aerial. Arrived a litle late so Manchester Utd had already scored one goal. Apparently they then scored a second but all I and quite a few others could see was a very large breast with a baby attached between us and the screen. What exactly do you shout out at a moment like that?

(Alfred: Exercises in marketing and how they can backfire, Chapter One. The guy whose house it is has a certain way of bringing in customers for football matches. Anyone at all can come in and watch the first ten minutes but, if you want to stay after that you pay RWF200. Unfortunately for him, with Man Utd already 1-0 up after the first leg, they promptly scored two goals in the first ten minutes, so most of the crowd decided to head home rather than pay!)

The next day I went into Butare to see the Chelsea-Barcelona match. I was with Andy, Tiga and South African John and we ended up in Le Petit Prince. The food was mediocre and expensive (to my surprise as I had been told it was good and expensive). There was quite a big crowd but I was amazed at how many Barcelona supporters there turned out to be when they scored in injury time to win the match! Tough one – I take most defeats with equanimity (Alfred: and a lot of beer) but this was a tough one to swallow.

Thursday 7th – Saturday 9th May: Waiting for the Inspectors, more British hospitality, and why DID Anniken Skywalker go over to the Dark Side? Plus the biggest restaurant cock-up so far (Alfred: and that is REALLY saying something!)

I stayed on in Butare to try and see some of the MINEDUC inspectors in the District Education Office but none of them ever showed up. I then had lunch courtesy of the British Embassy in the Hotel Barthoz. Laurie was down on a fact-finding mission visiting some projects they are supporting in the southern province and had invited anyone who was available to come for lunch. I also met Robert from the embassy and some guy who greeted me warmly saying: ‘Ruairí, finally we meet properly.’ I had absolutely no idea who he was but smiled and shook hands, but eventually had to say to him ‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name’ presuming he was someone I had met at a DFiD briefing or something.

To my horror, I had completely failed to recognise my fellow Education Management Advisor, Ken Franklin! Admittedly I had only met Ken twice before but he was in England for three months having surgery and had put on a bit of weight, let his beard grow a bit and, because he was sitting down I didn’t notice he was six foot four! (Alfred: there are photos of Ken in earlier blog entries so we’ll see if we can get some current ones and see whether Ruairí was justified in his error or is it yet another symptom of premature senility. I mean, all this falling into holes and stuff, makes you wonder .....).

Then it rained and I couldn’t get back to Gisagara until later that evening, so I just went straight home. When I got to work the next day my boss was going frantic. He had been trying to ring me all the previous day and couldn’t get through. Neither had be got any of the texts I had sent him explaining where I was!! He was leaving for Kigali at ten (it was now 0700) and had to bring a completely revised printout of the staff allocations for all the primary and secondary schools in the area (Alfred: that’s 85 pages worth folks!!). He had hoped to get it all done the previous day but, with the chargé away and me vanished, it hadn’t happened!

Anyway, I got it all done in time and he headed off to Kigali. I went home for lunch and treated myself to the last hour of Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith. Pretty good actually – hadn’t seen it before. Certainly a hell of a lot better than films I and II. Then, having got to the end of the film three minutes before my battery ran out (Alfred: hurray!) I went back to work to find out that the generator had either been switched off or had – yet again – broken down (Alfred: Boo!!).

So, in order to get my work done I had to go into Butare in search of electricity. I arrived in Matar at 0900 Saturday and promptly took over a table in the restaurant next to a socket where I stayed for the next five hours, occasionally ordering a coffee or a Fanta Citron to justify my presence (Alfred: not that Tariq or Hassan were ever likely to say anything, let’s face it!) Then I moved to the Faucon and it gradually began to dawn on me that half of VSO had descended on Butare that weekend. Andy, Tiga, Gerrit and Tina all live here but there was Joe Walk, Chris Harvey, Rinske, Paula, Cathryn Devine, Irish Joe – strange, We all ended up at the Chineese Restaurant (the Chinese Restaurant has gone out of favour so we usually end up in the Chineese these days) ... and what a nightmare it was! Ordering food as a large group is always risky at the best of times in this country but it actually took two and a half hours before the first food arrived (Alfred: this wasn’t helped by the waiter’s coming back a long time after they had ordered to tell them that half the things they had ordered were not available!)

We had ordered two plates of dumplings (12 on each plate) as a general starter and got some extra plates to share them around. Then the main courses arrived piecemeal and most of them at best lukewarm. Anyway, we just had beers and chatted and whatever. Then the bill arrived. Now a plate of 12 dumplings is RWF4,000 but they had charged us RWF4,000 for each plate we had used!! A total of RWF24,000 in all! Needless to say we were slightly less than gruntled by this and the most immense argument started. They tried to argue that there were only ever four dumplings in a serving which was a bad move as Andy has eaten there before on a considerable number of occasions! Anyway, to cut to the chase, we eventually got them to agree there were eight per plate but that still left us paying well over the odds but, to be honest, Irish Joe and I (who were doing the arguing at the counter) felt that was as far as we were going to get and paid up rather than prolong the agony!

The funniest part of it (Alfred: wasn’t bloody funny at the time!) was the manageress. I don’t think she is the regular one but was on duty for the night. Throughout the argument she stood slumped in a semi-recumbent manner against a counter, with her face half-buried in her right hand, yawning and showing no inclination whatsoever to take any active role in proceedings, except to mumble into her hand occasionally in a way even her staff couldn’t understand. She reminded me – for some reason – of a Rwandan Nora Batty or else Basil Fawlty’s wife in Fawlty Towers, only without the same energy as Sybil had (Alfred: what the hell is he on about? How can someone remind you of Nora Batty and Sybil Fawlty at the same time? This was a woman who would have had difficulty approaching the energy level of a torpid slug, the kind of person upon whom Valium would act as a stimulant. One might estimate she had a room temperature IQ but this is Rwanda, not Lapland!). Then back to Gerrit and Tina’s where I was staying that night.

More tomorrow, I hope - I'm off to see ballet Rwandan-style. Will bring my camera this time, I can tell you! (Alfred: Yes, he said 'ballet'. We may have neither water nor electricity here but that doesn't mean we aren't cultured!! )

Random stuff: Work update, Herman and pictures

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 update
A few people have been asking me: ‘What exactly are you up to that has you so busy?’ so I thought it might be time to answer that one! Starting on Tuesday 12th May I started an inspection tour of all the schools in Ndora sector, one per day. That’s 7 primary schools (Dahwe, Gisanze, Gisagara A, Gisagara B, Nyaruninya, Ndora and Cyamukuza), lower secondary (Ndora and Cyamukuza) and one secondary school (St Philippe Neri). The routine was to get there around 0730 to allow things to be up and running, talk to the director for about an hour/an hour and a half and do what is called the administrative inspection (do they have the right documents, strategic plan, budget etc, does the director inspect classes regularly, textbooks, curricula and so on), a physical inspection of the school (classrooms, latrines, security fencing, offices, play/sports areas, school garden and whatever else is there) and finally observe as many classes as possible before heading back to the District office to teach my English classes.

Now this week, I have started to actually write up the reports on my visits. As I will be going back a second time, they are only preliminary and just as well too – doing so many schools close together may have seemed a good idea logistically but it is damned hard to keep all the memories attached to each particular school. Just as well I took lots of photos!

The problems the schools face are so varied – the only thing they have in common are that they all have problems and they are all struggling with the introduction of English as the medium of instruction. There are some really good directors and some absolutely terrible ones, schools with at least some brand-new buildings and others with mud-brick buildings constructed in 1944; one school has one latrine for every 140 pupils, none of them have electricity (though one has a generator which they occasionally have petrol for if it is a special occasion); two have running water (as in a tap in the yard), most have tanks to store water but two have nothing and the kids bring little jerrycans of water with them to school every morning (Alfred: and if you have to walk for an hour over Rwandan hills even a small jerrycan of water is going to be heavy, especially if you are aged five or six! As we say in Ireland ‘Is trom cearc i bhfad’).

Surprisingly, most schools do have textbooks and most of them are even in English but the teachers are reluctant to use them – partly (I think) because they may run into words they don’t know in English so it is safer to control the vocabulary of instruction themselves but also because I don’t think they have any idea on how to use a textbook, having neither been trained to do so nor (in most cases) having used them themselves as pupils.

One of the directors, Marie-Louise, is one of the most impressive principals I have ever come across anywhere. Her strategic plan is a work of art, both practical and ambitious at the same time. When I visited her school, she had not yet revived the last instalment of money for the running the school for 2008, let alone anything for 2009. Of her seven teachers, two had just quit, one was about to (she felt) and two others, who are university students, said they would be away for two weeks doing exams. Oh yes, and she had just been told to return to all parents any money they had donated to the school because it ran counter to the policy of free nine years basic education. But the school was operating, she was flying around looking after classes and their results in exams are pretty good considering (Alfred: also considering one very important point – her school is what is called an ESI, Ecole Secondaire Inferieur. It’s for kids who failed to achieve a high enough mark in the national primary examination to qualify for secondary school but want to continue with their education anyway, so she isn’t exactly getting the cream of the crop).

And then there are others (Alfred: best leave them nameless). For example, the one who last inspected a class in her school two months ago due to ‘pressure of work’ and (when I turned the page while her back was turned) it turned out that was the first one she had visited in four years! The school with no budget, no annual (let alone strategic) plan, no staff timetables, no documentation – couldn’t find a box to tick in that one! The school whose buildings were damaged in the 1994 genocide and have remained unrepaired ever since. And the school whose main English teacher refused to speak to me in English and taught his class the Present Simple as ‘I help, you help, he help, she help’ (Alfred: it’s a bit harsh criticising Rwandan teachers for their lack of English skills but in this case the guy has just been hired and applied for the job specifically as an English teacher rather than having the role thrust on him so I think it’s fair enough).

He also set them four sentences as exercises every single one of which was completely wrong (Alfred: actually, the scary part of this one is that, having revised the Past Simple endings with them, he then launched into – of all things - Active and Passive Voice which he explained by saying ‘Mary helps John’ is Active Voice and ‘John is helped by Mary’ is Passive Voice. Do you understand?’ to which the children all roar ‘Yes’ because they have been taught that that is what you say in answer to the question ‘Do you understand?’ If the children are half-hearted in their response or, in one case that briefly gladdened Ruairí’s heart, fall completely silent, the teacher, rather than explaining the point again simply roars even louder: ‘Do you understand?’ at which point they cop on and respond ‘yes’. Anyway, having ‘explained’ Active and Passive Voice to the P4 class, he then wrote some sentences on the board for them to turn into Passive Voice. These were:

Lion kill a boy
Freed clean the school
Sebera call Sibomana
Peter study English

Freed turned out to be Fred and, of course, adding a simple comma would turn all these into excellent examples of the Imperative but goodness knows what the kids made of trying to put them into the Passive Voice. And Ruairí never found out because the teacher – probably terrified of having to correct the examples on the board in front of him, suddenly grabbed his books, announced (in French) that he was late for the next class and fled the room!)

OK, maybe I am being a bit hard on the guy. He had only been hired two weeks previously and had replaced probably the best English teacher in the entire sector who was promoted to Director of a different school – plus the director of this school had not warned any of the teachers that I was coming, so maybe I should cut him a little slack. I didn’t do a post-class interview with him – what was I going to say? ‘Learn English fast’?

MINEDUC, or, The Jaws of Death Cheated Again

You may remember me giving out in previous posts about this MINEDUC project (Alfred: going around secondary schools in the Southern Province to assess teachers’ level of English to set a baseline against which to assess training needs) that kept getting postponed and screwing up my work. Anyway it started last week so I said I wasn’t doing it because I would have had to cancel some schools for the THIRD time. Training was on Thursday and Friday and the survey was going to start next Monday (Alfred: Emmm, that’s today actually). All through Thursday and Friday I was getting posts and Facebook messages from those lucky enough to attend. Apparently MINEDUC have pulled out all the stops on this one and appointed a really top-notch guy with loads of experience to head up the team. The fact that his name is ‘Herman’ is no surprise at he brings a certain kind of ruthless German efficiency to the entire proceedings that makes everyone certain this will be carried off with the speed, smoothness and attention to detail we have come to expect. I must try and track down Sonya soon as apparently she was particularly effusive in her comments about his abilities – glad she got the opportunity to see it all at first hand. But the really lucky one is Soraya who has actually been paired up with Herman to go and do the visits! How jealous is everyone else??? (Alfred: there’s going to be more on this, I can feel it!)

Pictures
And, finally, some pictures as the Internet connection for once seems to be reasonably fast (Alfred: that means averaging over 3kps). Had some requests for photos of where I live (and if Sarah is reading she can see where she is coming to – don’t let it change your mind!!!) plus a few more school ones from Nyaruninya.

Views on the way back from Nyaruninya Primary School

Visual aid from Science class - the Use and Purpose of Drinks. It worked really well actually. He had drawn bottles and containers of different shapes and sizes and put sticky labels over the names. The kids had to figure out what they were and, in Rwanda, everything does come in a distinctively-shaped bottle so the six answers were Primus, Mutzig, banana beer, Fanta, milk and water. Then they had to sort them into alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and then got a lecture on the evils of alcohol (Alfred: marvellously acted out by the teacher, wish we'd had a movie camera!). To the right is a shot of Nyaruninya school, eight rooms all in a long row on top of a steep hill.

Nyaruninya school garden. The directrice, Ignacienne, is extending this bigtime and is using money from the capitation grant to hire local workers to clear additional ground which the children will then plant. The soil is best suited to growing manioc which here they always plant alongside potato plants (as in the picture on the right - manioc has the long thin leaves). (Alfred: how do you dig up one and not the other? Or are they harvestable at EXACTLY the same time? Answers on a postcard please .....)

More jardin scolaire - this time carrots. And luxury of luxuries - running water in the yard!!

One half of the eight latrines for a school of 802 students. With one reserved for staff, that leaves one latrine per 115 students. On the right is another of Ignacienne's projects. As well as extending the manioc and potato area, here they are building a rabbit hutch to start breeding and selling rabbits.

HOUSE PHOTOS

The view from the verandah; the view if you move to the side and look around the outhouses!




Me about to cook dinner (Alfred: And you are where, exactly? Use Passive Voice: 'Dinner about to be cooked by me') and a little friend who lives somewhere inside the window frame in my sitting room and does his best to eat all the mosquitos.

Sitting-room with designer furniture in a beautiful shade of burgundy. OK, it's not the prettiest (Alfred: You think?) and there is rather too much of it but most volunteers live with the barest minimum of furniture so I'm not complaining! Much... Oh, and the dining-room table. That's actually the first meal I had here.

House from the front

Some shots of Gisagara village on RUSWA OYA (No Corruption!) Day. Serious building works going on throughout as the District authorities order everyone to smarten up their housefronts or face eviction!

Update - random stuff from the last few weeks

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.

Sitting in Tiga's house on Saturday 24th May having fled to Butare in search of electricity. Have a stack of photocopying and other things to do before I head up to Gitarama this afternoon to stay with Kerrie and Moira and then see Tinks on Sunday for her going-away pub crawl! Going to be interesting. Meanwhile, here are a few little excerpts from what has been going on for the last while.

New volunteer
It looks like I will be getting a second volunteer to come and join me in September - a Primary Methodology teacher called Sarah from England. Great news (Alfred: better start getting the house into shape, hadn't you then!!)

Friday 23rd May: Dieudonné, the Congolese agronomist and my new best friend!!
I ran into him one day in the Faucon – a common scenario: you are having a quiet drink on your own and some Rwandan will come up and ask if he can join you. I always say ‘Yes’ but it is almost always someone looking for money, sponsorship, a free drink or whatever. In this case the man was very well-dressed and carrying a laptop case so I thought maybe it would be different. And it was. His name is Dieudonné and he is from somewhere in Katanga in the Democratic Republic of Congo, working as an agronomist in Butare for eleven years. He only speaks French (and Kinyarwandan of course) and he speaks it very quickly and slurs all his words together so it was a real challenge figuring out what the hell he was saying.
Most times I call to the Faucon he seems to be there and last night (Friday 23rd May) he turned up when I was having a drink with Andy. First of all, when he heard that Andy worked on AIDS prevention, he dug into his briefcase and pulled out a Red Cross booklet on AIDS prevention in Rwanda that had been published in 1987, amazing early. It is a really good, solid piece of work and neither of us could believe that it had been in circulation so long ago. He said I could borrow it to make a copy, which I certainly will.

Then he dug into his briefcase and gave us some pamphlets, religious-looking stuff with a big RC on the front and a cross. Andy and I figured this was just the usual evangelising routine and thanked him, though I did think it wasn’t usual for Catholics in Rwanda to do this sort of thing. I looked at the back of the pamphlet and realised that it wasn’t religious at all (Alfred: to be more accurate, and as Mr Spock would have said to Captain Kirk: ‘It’s religion, Captain, but not as we know it!”) but information on the Rosicrucians and their work!

I don’t know how many of you know about the Rosicrucians – they crop up all the time in novels like The Da Vinci Code, Foucault’s Pendulum and so on – a secret society that claims to stretch back to Ancient Egypt and became public in the 17th century, whose focus is philosophy rather than religion (Alfred: more info – if you really want it – at www.rosicrucian.org. Obviously not a very secret society any more, eh?) Andy and I spent a chunk of the time while we were waiting for our meal translating the twelve page pamphlet (which was in French) and quite interesting it was too! So, fancy that, being recruited for the Rosicrucians by a Congolese agronomist while working in Rwanda – who would have thunk it! (Alfred: I think Andy is quite attracted to the idea – they get to wear cool robes and stuff – he was checking out Rosicrucian shopping sites on the Internet. However, in the interests of accuracy (!) it needs to be pointed out that the modern Rosicrucians’ links with the original 17th century organisation seem to be tenuous at best. We’ll keep you all updated if there are any further developments!)

Tuesday 19th May: Welcoming Ceremony for new director of St Philippe Neri Secondary School
Last Tuesday was an exciting day! In the morning I inspected Ndora Primary and Lower Secondary school – the directrice of the secondary section (and technically now of the whole school), Marie-Louise Mukatete (Alfred: he is spelling that one from memory but it might be correct) is probably the most impressive school principal I’ve met so far. Fantastic strategic, good financial planning skills, resourceful and positive in the face of overwhelming difficulties – you’ll be hearing more about her!

Once I had finished, I headed for St Philippe Neri secondary school where I had been invited to the welcoming ceremony for the new principal, Protogene. And what an event it was – just raging I didn’t bring my camera! When I arrived I saw a line of students forming an arch with their arms leading from the staffroom to the open sports area so I joined the staff as they paraded out, led by the director. All the different clubs and societies that function in the school had formed circles in different parts of the grounds and the line of staff snaked around and passed through each of them as they performed whatever it was they did – in order, they were the Seventh Day Adventist choir group, the Catholic choir group, the Protestant choir group, the scouts (scouts are BIG here in Rwanda), the gymnastic club, the traditional drumming group, the English club, the traditional dance group, the sports group and ... think that was it. One funny thing was, as we went through the Catholic choir group, various staff members took rosary beads out of their pockets and waved them in the air to show their allegiance!

Then we went to the central courtyard for the official welcoming ceremony – speeches and a series of performances by different student groups. Some of these were really fantastic, others just ... strange. The speeches were few and short by Rwandan standards which was a relief as the whole thing took over three hours anyway. There were various choir groups, a military-type marching display by the Seventh Day Adventist group (I presumed this was some kind of metaphor or allegory, but apparently it was just a marching display!), a play demonstrating the importance of chastity by the Little Children of the Virgin Mary, a hilarious karate display by four students, one of whom is obviously seriously into it and his three buddies who looked like they had been roped in at the last minute, some fantastic drumming and traditional dancing, especially one done by two male students dressed in traditional warriors’ costumes, a sketch on First Aid by the scouts, a comedy skit by the English club which was almost totally incomprehensible, and a gymnastics display which was quite terrifying, especially for anyone who has ever been concerned with Health & Safety in a school! The display area was hard earth with a nice selection of rocks and stones liberally distributed. The highlight was a very tall and narrow human pyramid, two on the bottom, two in the middle and one who climbed all the way to the top and did various ... dancing things standing on the arms of the two below him!

The highlight was a traditional welcoming ceremony. Two girls danced out with a mat, then a selection of traditional household objects – a calabash for making butter, milk containers, bowls and other kitchen things; then four of the smallest students were brought out and fed milk to symbolise that this was now the director’s new home; then a male student danced with a shield and spear which he presented to the director at the end, along with a milk container to symbolise his roles as protector and nurturer of the school (Alfred: well, that’s HIS interpretation at least – some of the things going on were pretty hard to figure out, if you ask me!).

Then, instead of heading to the staff room where I could see beer and nibbles had been laid out, we all trooped down into the village to a bar owned by the school bursar – the only bar I haven’t yet visited in the village because, not to put too fine a point on it, it is a dump. There is nowhere to sit outside and inside is damp and dark and crowded. Anyway, we all filed in and found seats, got drinks – and then had a two-hour staff meeting! It began with a few speeches of welcome but, when Protogene replied to them, he raised a number of issues relating to the use of English in the school (Alfred: apparently the Vice-Mayor for Social Affairs who visited the school recently had complained to him that the students weren’t speaking English to each other!!), budgetary constraints, plans for the celebration of their patron saint’s anniversary on the 27th May and various other bits and pieces. This then led to what in all conscience can only be called a staff meeting, with someone taking minutes on the back of some bar receipts that were dug up from a back room. Meanwhile an incredible thunderstorm broke out over our heads making hearing anything very difficult! (Alfred: given that it was all in Kinyarwandan, I’m not sure exactly what Ruairí is complaining about here).

That ran on until about 2230 and then we had a few more speeches, including one from me on what a great school they already were but were about to become even greater with such a brilliant new director, or something like that (Alfred: in case anyone out there thinks he is being sarcastic, he wasn’t. This guy is really good, has already personally fixed all the computers in the school and looks like he is going to do great things. Just what the school needs!)

I finally left at 2330 and wandered off home through the rain. A really enjoyable and interesting day, one of the best I have had since I got here!

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.


Blog update is still on the way. Am visiting my last two schools in the next two days and hope to be able to catch up after that though it is going to have to be an edited highlights or else it'll be too long to wade through. Meanwhile just a few more pics from some of my schools (it seems I was wrong when I thought people weren't interested in hearing much about my work) (Alfred: not that they have been hearing much about ANYTHING recently!)

Staff room in Nyaruninya school - they built it themselves from branches and plastic sheeting. The day I visited one class got evicted from their classroom and shared out among the rest so there was somewhere for the principal to sit and talk with me! But the views from the school grounds are amazing!

Latrines in Nyaruninya - eight for 802 students and nine staff. And is there anywhere in the world they DON'T play hopscotch?

Learning the number line in Cyamukuza primary school - excellent Maths class!!!

Alfred: Be patient guys, good stuff to come!! The insane Congolese agronomist, health and safety regulations in gymnastics displays, the breast-feeding incident during the Arsenal-Man United Champions League semi-final, THAT Barcelona goal, why Andy is really a shark, what Ruairí's guard has started doing with his bed, why Muslims don't live in the Rwandan countryside, more offers of marriage, Ruairí getting screwed over AGAIN by MINEDUC (that one is really funny IMHO), going mad on Amazon.com, the health inspectors raid the Ineza kitchen, lunch courtesy of the British Embassy, most disastrous dinner experience yet in Rwanda ...... how IS he going to fit it all in?????????

Dahwe Primary School

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.

I know, I know, I know. But there is so much back-log and, now that I seem to have a reasonably fast internet connection for once (5kbps would you believe!!) I am going to get some photos up. Some people said to me that they wouldn't mind seeing (and hearing) a bit more about the work side of things so here goes. All the photos apart from the first two are from Ecole Primaire Dahwe, Ndora Sector, Gisagara District. 779 students (405 girls and 374 boys) with 240 in 1st class and 40 in 6th class. The first two pictures are from the P1 class in Gisanze - I stuck them in because they are cute pictures and I have the upload speed for once!!

Some of the pictures I have uploaded in a higher resolution than usual - if you click on them, the larger version should appear. I hope. I haven't been having a lot of luck with photos in Blogger!

P1 class, Ecole Primaire Gisanze. When I came into the room with the Director, they were all sitting exactly like this, even though there was no teacher with them.

Ecole Primaire Dahwe. The shot on the left is of what used to be woodwork and sewing workshops. People took refuge in them during the genocide and, when they were killed, the building was badly damaged and has never been repaired. On the right are some of the classrooms that are actually in use at the moment, a mixture of proper bricks and mud bricks for the most part.

Part of the damaged building is occasionally used as an open-air classroom. On the right is Ferdinand, the director. He was appointed just a few weeks ago and only had six months' teaching experience before that. I think he is about twenty years old.

Another building on the site - it was under construction when the genocide happened and has remained untouched ever since. Constructed with mud-bricks, it is probably too badly deteriorated to be salvagable at this stage. On the right are the coffee bushes in the jardin scolaire. The students grow these (as well as cabbages and carrots) and they are sold at market to provide some income for the school.

There are twelve latrines for the 779 students and ten staff, and in pretty poor condition at that. There is no water whatsoever on site - students bring small quantities to school with them in little jerrycans (1 litre cooking oil containers for the most part).

This is one side of the latrines - six on each side. In theory one side is for girls the other for boys but it is a bit of a free-for-all. Students start school around 0700 and morning break for the whole school is at 1030 - all 779 of them, so you can imagine the crush! Apparently, one of the latrines is reserved for the staff ...

Is he looking at me or at her ? Ah, it is me after all!!

The main information board - teachers and classes. Also the new Mathematics books arrived this year, enough for all the students - but in Kinyarwandan. All Mathematics is now being taught in English, so these books are not being given to the students as it would confuse them even more.

A little girl in P3 is trying to add decimals. In English, they have adopted an incredibly cumbersome way of expressing decimals: 79.735 is not 'seventy-three point seven three five' but 'seventy-nine and seven hundred and thirty-five thousandths'. So the sum (11.23 + 79.735)was to add 'eleven and twenty-three hundredths to seventy-nine and seven hundred and thirty-five thousandths', the answer being ninety and nine hundred and fifty eight thousandths. Beats me.

More statistics on the staff-room wall. It includes numbers of orphans (one or two parents), mentally and physically handicapped (very few of these, they are rarely sent to school; the six listed here as mentally handicapped actually suffer from epilepsy but this is how they have been classified), the percentage wearing uniform (49%) and shoes (72%) and how many are covered by health insurance (41%).

The staff in their staffroom. One is away sick in hospital. Ferdinand, the Director, is in the green sports top in the picture on the left.

The staff here feel very isolated and neglected. Although the school is in the same sector as the

District Office, they rarely see any District or MINEDUC officials. Ferdinand has only recently been appointed as Director - in fact, the school has had no director since sometime early last year. The results are very poor - not a single student from the school passed their P6 exam with a high enough grade to qualify for secondary school but this is partly because, given the school's poor facilities, the parents who have stuck with it as far as P6 send their kids to other schools where they feel they will do better. I can see myself coming back here a lot in the next few months .......

That's it for now. Hope to do a bit more over the weekend and update you on what my guard has been doing in my bedroom, among other things!! And special congratulations to my wonderful god-daughter Alannah for her amazing performance as the Caterpillar in her school's ballet production of Alice in Wonderland.