Random Thoughts

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

Work is pretty dead at the moment. While the district restructuring seems to have come to a conclusion people are still a bit confused as to what their responsibilities are and last Monday everyone was informed that, as so many people had changed jobs etc, everyone has to draw up a new imihigo (performance contract) immediately (Alfred: Ruairí wisely postponed the lecture he was going to give everyone at the end of that meeting about their lack of effort and enthusiaism in using English. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof' and all that). All schools are up to their ears in exams so there is little point visiting them. I can go around next week and see the directors but for Sarah it is pretty slim pickings at the moment. We did try and visit one last week but immediately realised it was a bad move. The director wanted to bring us around all the classes where the kids were doing their exams - imagine how disruptive THAT would have been!!


MINEDUC (the Ministry of Education) have decided to bring the national English training forward from June 2010 to this December! That's for 33,650 teachers. And that will put the kibosh on all the workshops etc that VSO volunteers had been planning for that time as 33,650 teachers represents about 70% of the national total. However, I will continue doing my training with school directors on a one-to-one basis, starting now with the ones whose English is poor so I can get them before they go for training and then continue with the others who will not be attending.


GOODBYES

I mentioned before that saying 'goodbye' to friends on a regular basis is an integral part of the volunteer's life ... but that doesn't make it any easier. Yesterday I said goodbye to one of the most amazing people I have met here, Marion Wooley. Marion has been here almost two years, worked with the organization that deals with the deaf and managed to complete the first Rwandan Sign language dictionary (Alfred: not that Ruairí is ignorant of the fact that many other people - including VSO volunteers - also contributed to the project!), set a new record in domestic untidiness, raised two adorable cats and found them a wonderful home when she left, set up a new NGO to help single parents in Kigali (which, at the moment of writing, seems to be on a sound footing), wrote a really good novel, taught me more than I ever knew (Alfred: or probably wanted to know, eh? eh?) about dreams, paganism, African traditional beliefs, standing stones and an amazing variety of other topics. I could write much much more but I don't want her to be too embarrassed when she reads this (Alfred: embarrass Marion, eh? That would be something. Somebody who marks their last few days in Rwanda by getting attacked by a monkey and having to arrange rabies shots both here and back in the UK - how do you top that??). She has left a lot of very very sad people back here who are managing to console themselves by reminding themselves how lucky they were to have met her.

Here are a few pictures for us to remember her by. And I'll be seeing her in Dublin in August for my special VSO birthday party next year!!!!! (Alfred: Yeah, there will be more about that anon). I did try and find some pictures of her looking serious ... but there don't seem to be any!

(This is Martine and me saying goodbye to Marion at the airport. Think I have overcompressed a bit!)