Would you find it unusual to visit a school and find all of the teachers wearing white labcoats? Yeah, me neither. It’s par for the course here in Rwanda. I have been trying really hard to plan more school visits before the rainy season (mid-September) descends upon us and my commute becomes even more challenging. I am planning to use those rainy days to create lesson plans, make didactic materials (ie: visual aids out of rice sacks) and to possibly make a giant map of Kamonyi so that I can label the schools I’ve located to date.
The school I visited last week (with the labcoats), also had a Primary 6 class of 70 students. Yes, SEVENTY. Where in most cases, there is “double vacation” meaning students attend school either in the morning OR in the afternoon, this school has decided that more hours in the classroom means more learning. It is a lofty ambition but I wondered as I watched a lesson on Area/Perimeter, whether one teacher responsible for 70 students can actually teach effectively. I also remarked that I definitely prefer teaching the younger ones as the mustached boy in row 5 kept winking at me!
As I walked over to the second campus of this primary school, (they have two locations but are considered one school), I was greeted by about 500 primary kids. There isn’t any feeling more awkward than 1,000 eyes on you- well, except spending an hour observing a lesson on adverbs with a dozen wasps circling overhead. Yup, there are wasp nests in the rafters of this classroom. The teacher and students just disregard them and I tried to as well. It was a little harder to keep a straight face when the sounds of “clippity-clop, clippity-clop” were heard overhead as a goat had made it’s way on to the school’s tin roof.
My favorite part of that day was actually during the first 5 minutes of the Primary 4 lesson. The teacher was very progressive and had a full lesson plan prepared beginning with a warm-up song- (hey, I might not even be needed here, this is already child-centred learning, I thought to myself). He had the students sing “The animals go marching two by two, Hourrah, Hourrah”(*It is to be noted that due to the Rwandans common interchanging of the letters “L” and “R”, he was in fact singing “Houllah, Houllah”). The students had to pick a partner of the opposite gender and parade them around the room. Imagine my surprise when a four-foot nothing charming young boy, waltzed over to me and insisted that I be his partner for the Hourrah, Hourrah. I got quite the chuckle out of his bold assumption and proceeded to dance around the room quite contently. (Hey is that an adverb?)
It always amazes me, when I first visit a school and I’m on the yard with hundreds of little ones (P1-P3)-who are staring at me as if I have three heads- that one or two are courageous enough to walk up to me and shake my hand. I often wonder if this would be a good way to assess leadership ability. Why are some too afraid, too bashful, too insecure and others quite confident and self-assured? Needless to say, the three-headed red-haired mutant always smiles and says “Good morning!” which prompts about a dozen others to suddenly be struck by the boldness too. At lunch, watching the sea of children part as Emile made his way over to me on his moto with my escape vehicle was a bit of a welcome relief. This particular school is the largest one I will visit with a population of 2170 students and 38 teachers. I am heading back their tomorrow- wasps, Casanova eight year olds, labcoats and all.
Monday, August 31, 2009
August Notes
Okay, so Kampala was a month ago so I need to catch you up. The Italian roommate moved back to Italy and a few weeks later the American girl, Karen moved in. Now, Karen and I get along really well- plus she brought with her a small fridge and stove (this is life-changing news!!) We’ve taken to watching episodes of 21-Jumpstreet on her laptop in the evenings. She works for “Food for the Hungry” with our friends Christi and Tom. In about one week, we will be joined by another VSO named April who has come to work in Gitarama as an audiologist. I welcome the company and although some days the 2 hours of commute to Kamonyi is un-fun, I marvel at how lucky I am NOT to have to live in the remote area first suggested. The first week of August was still school holiday but I elected to work through it. (My four days in Kampala was vacation enough- there is work to be done!) I rented a moto and spent three hours driving around Kamonyi District trying to locate my 20 schools. Emile, my moto driver speaks only Kinyarwanda but we were able to locate 9 schools altogether- and one Black Mamba Snake!! Funniest part was, I was standing about 2 feet from it, remarking on how it looked like a long stick, or piece of rubber tire before I finally acknowledged, oh yeah, that’s a snake.. okay a pretty big, menacing looking one.. that’s okay it’s dead. I think in retrospect, had it been alive, the ending of this story would’ve been different. I snapped some pictures (it was on the playground of Shelli Primary School) and as you may or may not be able to tell, someone had taken a shovel and cut it into thirds. Aside from the occasional spider, our now FOUR ghecko housepets (yup Bill and Sally Ghecko have two young offspring now) and kitchen ants of various sizes, I haven’t actually had to deal with much African Wildlife.
Around August 8th, we said goodbye to one VSO girl who was returning to England, having completed her one year contract. I was so curious about how she felt to be leaving. Some VSOs are around university age and their year of volunteering is prior to entering the “real world”. Others are of the retirement age and they have the benefit of having completed their careers. There are only a handful who have chosen to break away from their current career to veer off into “volunteer world”. I’m finding I relate very well to Karen, Christi and Tom who work for FH- we are all the same age. Luckily, I am also finding that the need to lean on or seek advice from people has lessened. (I really value my independence so this is a welcome relief). There are far less emergencies, queries or concerns and those that do come up, I can try to resolve or absorb myself. The upside to these friendships are the regular convening of meals/poker night/movie night or trips into Kigali together. The highlight of these experiences may have been two Saturdays ago when one VSO from Ireland celebrated his 50th birthday at an Indian restaurant with 80% of all VSO volunteers living in Rwanda in attendance. It was nice to meet up with so many friends I’d come across during my first few months here. In the context of the group dynamic though, the people who arrived together definitely have a tight bond. I’m a little envious of that. There are 15 new volunteers who’ve just arrived yesterday and they are receiving a 10-day orientation. I reflect somewhat on my turbulent beginning and am grateful to have landed smoothly here in Gitarama with such a nice group of friends. Okay, next blog will include details of the golfball-sized bumblebees, the bat colony in Shyogwe and the goat on the roof of the Primary 4 classroom during a lesson on adverbs! Haha, life is never dull here.
Around August 8th, we said goodbye to one VSO girl who was returning to England, having completed her one year contract. I was so curious about how she felt to be leaving. Some VSOs are around university age and their year of volunteering is prior to entering the “real world”. Others are of the retirement age and they have the benefit of having completed their careers. There are only a handful who have chosen to break away from their current career to veer off into “volunteer world”. I’m finding I relate very well to Karen, Christi and Tom who work for FH- we are all the same age. Luckily, I am also finding that the need to lean on or seek advice from people has lessened. (I really value my independence so this is a welcome relief). There are far less emergencies, queries or concerns and those that do come up, I can try to resolve or absorb myself. The upside to these friendships are the regular convening of meals/poker night/movie night or trips into Kigali together. The highlight of these experiences may have been two Saturdays ago when one VSO from Ireland celebrated his 50th birthday at an Indian restaurant with 80% of all VSO volunteers living in Rwanda in attendance. It was nice to meet up with so many friends I’d come across during my first few months here. In the context of the group dynamic though, the people who arrived together definitely have a tight bond. I’m a little envious of that. There are 15 new volunteers who’ve just arrived yesterday and they are receiving a 10-day orientation. I reflect somewhat on my turbulent beginning and am grateful to have landed smoothly here in Gitarama with such a nice group of friends. Okay, next blog will include details of the golfball-sized bumblebees, the bat colony in Shyogwe and the goat on the roof of the Primary 4 classroom during a lesson on adverbs! Haha, life is never dull here.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Kampala! Kampala!
For the record, I was quite nervous to travel to Kampala but the opportunity presented itself and off I went. At the bus station in Kigali, the vendors are constantly calling: "kampala! kampala!" and asking if you want to go there. This time, yes. The trip itself is 10 hours by bus and costs twelve dollars. The border is about 1 and a 1/2 hours from Kigali and you know you're in Uganda because it has a much less cultivated landscape and is much flatter. During the bus ride, we drove through their National Park. I kept imagining that the rocks on boulders were actually lions or wildebeasts.... but they were actually just rocks on boulders. I did see antelopes and some crazy water-buffalo looking things with massive horns. Okay, and the birds of Uganda are massive !! There is a picture on my blog- honestly, they look like they consume small men for breakfast! The terrain out the window is much wilder, whereas in Rwanda, it is a patchwork, quilt pattern of land; every inch of which is being farmed for food. I ate a brochette served up at the bus window and arriving in Kampala, immediately noticed how crowded and busy the streets were. It makes no sense to own a car in Kampala because it's constantly bumper to bumper traffic. There are many more street kids but far less amputees. And no signs depicting memorials or tributes to the genocide. The parliament building is an imposing structure, and I just happened to be reading "The Last King of Scotland" while on my trip. Idi Amin's persona wouldn't fit inside that huge parliament building !
On day one, I decided to hit the markets and the shopping mall. It felt so strange to be inside "Mr. Price" (like a Zellers), trying on clothes after four months of not shopping. I actually didn't buy a thing, I just felt really out of place. I did find a great bookstore, reminiscent of a Chapters. During my four days in Kampala, I had no idea how much a shilling was, but had predetermined a set amount of money when I exchanged it at the forexe. There were Bata shoe stores, but unfortunately my size is in between their 3 and 4 so no shoes for me :( I'm still keen to find a pair of running shoes as mine have worn almost completely through. The local markets in Kampala have much more than Kigali or Gitarama markets and I'm soon shopping happily admist the skirts and dresses.
Altogether, I find that making my way around Kampala (mostly on foot because the motos don't provide helmets) is much easier than expected and other than keeping one hand on my handbag and remembering to look the "other way" before crossing the street, it is far more comfortable than I anticipated and my nervousness dissipates quickly. Among the highlights of my time in Kampala are eating pizza (twice!!), going to the movies (some John Travolta movie) with popcorn, stumbling upon a craft market steps from my guest house on the last day, taking the bus out to Entebbe to see Lake Victoria, hiring a moto to drive me to several churches, mosques and cathedrals and finally the knowledge that I'm capable of travelling by myself.
When I do arrive back in Rwanda, it is like coming home. There is a certain appeal to being somewhere familiar and the culture of Rwandans is such that, if I ever needed anything I wouldn't have to wait long for help from someone. Case in point: arriving back at the Kigali bus station, I have to wait over an hour and a half for a bus back to Gitarama- my final destination. After ten hours of travelling, I am exhausted, in need of a shower and some food and contemplating catching a moto back home because I don't want to wait. The bus attendant, flags down a near-full bus and waves me over. She's found room for me on this one, I only had to wait 15 minutes of the alloted 90 minutes. I gratefully shake her hand and head home.
There are some plans to return to Uganda in a few months to whitewater raft the Nile. I'm sure I'll enjoy that trip too, but there will be something sacred about this little jaunt I did on my own.
Oh yeah, and I found a bag of Lay's potato chips in Kampala's Nakumatt. Cradled that thing all the way home like precious cargo. Salt and vinegar- YUM !
On day one, I decided to hit the markets and the shopping mall. It felt so strange to be inside "Mr. Price" (like a Zellers), trying on clothes after four months of not shopping. I actually didn't buy a thing, I just felt really out of place. I did find a great bookstore, reminiscent of a Chapters. During my four days in Kampala, I had no idea how much a shilling was, but had predetermined a set amount of money when I exchanged it at the forexe. There were Bata shoe stores, but unfortunately my size is in between their 3 and 4 so no shoes for me :( I'm still keen to find a pair of running shoes as mine have worn almost completely through. The local markets in Kampala have much more than Kigali or Gitarama markets and I'm soon shopping happily admist the skirts and dresses.
Altogether, I find that making my way around Kampala (mostly on foot because the motos don't provide helmets) is much easier than expected and other than keeping one hand on my handbag and remembering to look the "other way" before crossing the street, it is far more comfortable than I anticipated and my nervousness dissipates quickly. Among the highlights of my time in Kampala are eating pizza (twice!!), going to the movies (some John Travolta movie) with popcorn, stumbling upon a craft market steps from my guest house on the last day, taking the bus out to Entebbe to see Lake Victoria, hiring a moto to drive me to several churches, mosques and cathedrals and finally the knowledge that I'm capable of travelling by myself.
When I do arrive back in Rwanda, it is like coming home. There is a certain appeal to being somewhere familiar and the culture of Rwandans is such that, if I ever needed anything I wouldn't have to wait long for help from someone. Case in point: arriving back at the Kigali bus station, I have to wait over an hour and a half for a bus back to Gitarama- my final destination. After ten hours of travelling, I am exhausted, in need of a shower and some food and contemplating catching a moto back home because I don't want to wait. The bus attendant, flags down a near-full bus and waves me over. She's found room for me on this one, I only had to wait 15 minutes of the alloted 90 minutes. I gratefully shake her hand and head home.
There are some plans to return to Uganda in a few months to whitewater raft the Nile. I'm sure I'll enjoy that trip too, but there will be something sacred about this little jaunt I did on my own.
Oh yeah, and I found a bag of Lay's potato chips in Kampala's Nakumatt. Cradled that thing all the way home like precious cargo. Salt and vinegar- YUM !
Friday, August 7, 2009
Unicef
Unicef- let's backtrack momentarily so I can share my experience with my teacher friends. VSO asked if any volunteers wanted to help Unicef run a child-centre methodology workshop in support of their "Child Friendly Schools" Campaign here in Rwanda. Me and Chris (another VSO) said yes and during the school break, spent five days working with Unicef. The first thing I noticed was what a difference international funding makes. Unicef is located in downtown Kigali, steps from the American Embassy and the Ministry of Education headquarters in a bright, blue, tall office building complete with security checkpoints and air-conditioning. We met with the staff, including a dynamic leader from Bangladesh who was spear-heading the campaign, Kamal. We drafted a plan for the three day workshop and quickly learned that Chris and I would be responsible for 8 workshops each. The training took place at a primary school on top of Mount Jali 45 minutes outside of Kigali. The bus ride in was bumpy, dusty and rural (is that an adjective?). We left at 7am and arrived to meet 40 or so participants. Most were primary school teachers but some were representatives from the NCDC (national curriculum development) or ADRA (disability program) or KIE, ULK and TTCs (teacher training colleges). We quickly ascertained that this workshop would be unlike our VSO-modestly-funded training workshops.
Over the next three days, we presented, collaborated, taught and learned from one another. The Head Unicef guy had arranged a "teacher motivation song" to be sung intermittedly throughout the workshop. It worked !
Day one, we introduced the idea of teaching to multiple intelligences and Chris role-played a typical old-fashioned teacher who stands at the front with chalk and is demanding of student participation. I got to be the "fun" teacher and modeled the same subject matter (parts of the body as it was decided) using song and Simon says. Guess which teacher was more popular? We then presented stations with activities, each modeled after the 9 multiple intelligences. For you "non-teacher" types- these are visual/spatial, kinesthetic, logical/mathematical, musical (for example: individually, we each have one or two types of learning styles that are our strong points- I am visual-kinesthetic). I ran the math centre and ANA LIMBEROPOULOS... I used the probability game with the spinners ! We made roulette wheels, predicted the likelihood of the paper clip spinning to a stop on green/blue/pink/yellow and then compared the results of our ten spins to our estimations. The kinesthetic workshop was run by Bruce outside- a version of Ship to Shore. And so forth. This was followed up with each group designing a brief lesson plan implementing one or more of these learning strategies and presenting them to the group.
Day two involved making didactic material- as much as possible. And while we had many resources like construction paper, markers, glue and paint that we often don't have at VSO workshops, there was still a time limit to what we could make. However, both Chris and I happen to be quite creative. We made a mini-market using modelling clay, leaf art, musical instruments, texture drawings, windmills, science experiments and posters on rice sacks. A workshop was presented on lesson plans, on what consitutes a "child-friendly" school, on tower-building, on problem-solving, we sang the alphabet song, went on a "Lion Hunt" with song, did math with tangrams, played snakes and ladders, made Big Books and basically, on twelve hour days, accomplished a lot !
Day three was the culmination of everything. The materials we created were then replicated by the teachers. I ran a science workshop. **For the record, it is ironic that I got to run the math and science workshops as I'm more of an arts and language person.* Anyway, again PRIMARY TEACHER COLLEAGUES.. I showed the teachers how you can do art/science with found objects. We did texture drawings and leaf art and made sailboats out of waterbottles and did brown bag riddles describing animal characteristics. It's amazing to me that my years at PAFI have really provided me with a bank of knowledge.
At the end of Day 3, there was a big showcase of our new resources. The teachers had also been given material and were shown how to make their own pocket charts. Basically exactly like we have at home from Scholar's Choice for word walls and math manipulatives but with fabric sewn together into 200 little pockets. Representatives from the President's office (yup, Kagame!) were there along with the Director of Unicef, members of the Ministry and many other important looking people. There were many speeches and then we had enlisted a few of the keener teachers to present the resource room themselves, in other words, rather than us the trainers explaining how the math/probability game works, Ivan and Gilbert presented it to the Ministry guys. This is how to see if your teaching was effective too.
Finally, the workshop ended with the singing of the special song and then each person in the room receiving a candle. The headteacher of the school we were at lit hers and then we passed the light along, finally ending with the Ministry of Ed dude. The teachers read a pledge about promising to make their schools more child-centred. It was actually quite a moving, if exhausting, three days. Because it was my first workshop, ever, in Rwanda, it was kind of neat to have helped run such a successful one. A week later, we met for a follow-up debrief kind of meeting and then a big dinner at Unicef, during which our Country Director and Education Program Manager attended and learned about what the workshop and the goal of the Unicef program was all about. In 2007, there were 22 child friendly schools in Rwanda and by next year there will be 144 active child friendly schools, including 7 in my district !! Unicef wants to partner with VSO, so this could mean I help with many more similar workshops. What a fabulous learning experience ! Also, the Head Unicef guy wrote a letter to our Country Director as he was quite pleased about VSO's contribution to the workshop.
Well, just yesterday, I received a text message from Seraphine, one of the teachers involved in the workshop. She just wanted to tell me that she was using some of the games she had learned in the workshop in her classroom now.
Well, school term officially resumes on Monday. I have worked through most of the holidays- Unicef, training in Nyamata with Elspeth and going to Kamonyi sporadically. This week I actually went to Kamonyi, rented a moto guy for 3 hours and had him drive me around in search of my 20 schools. We successfully found, photographed and added to my map- 9 schools in that one afternoon! My backside still hasn't recovered from 3 hours on the moto...haha! My weekend in Kampala was a great mini-vacation, I must admit. I have big goals for the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, here, making big plans is a little redundant. It is advisable to focus on the day to day instead. Yeah, tell that to the innate-core-of-my-being, task-driven, personality-trait that is determined to set goals and accomplish them. It's like swimming upstream- haha. I'll adjust.
Cheerio!
Becky
Over the next three days, we presented, collaborated, taught and learned from one another. The Head Unicef guy had arranged a "teacher motivation song" to be sung intermittedly throughout the workshop. It worked !
Day one, we introduced the idea of teaching to multiple intelligences and Chris role-played a typical old-fashioned teacher who stands at the front with chalk and is demanding of student participation. I got to be the "fun" teacher and modeled the same subject matter (parts of the body as it was decided) using song and Simon says. Guess which teacher was more popular? We then presented stations with activities, each modeled after the 9 multiple intelligences. For you "non-teacher" types- these are visual/spatial, kinesthetic, logical/mathematical, musical (for example: individually, we each have one or two types of learning styles that are our strong points- I am visual-kinesthetic). I ran the math centre and ANA LIMBEROPOULOS... I used the probability game with the spinners ! We made roulette wheels, predicted the likelihood of the paper clip spinning to a stop on green/blue/pink/yellow and then compared the results of our ten spins to our estimations. The kinesthetic workshop was run by Bruce outside- a version of Ship to Shore. And so forth. This was followed up with each group designing a brief lesson plan implementing one or more of these learning strategies and presenting them to the group.
Day two involved making didactic material- as much as possible. And while we had many resources like construction paper, markers, glue and paint that we often don't have at VSO workshops, there was still a time limit to what we could make. However, both Chris and I happen to be quite creative. We made a mini-market using modelling clay, leaf art, musical instruments, texture drawings, windmills, science experiments and posters on rice sacks. A workshop was presented on lesson plans, on what consitutes a "child-friendly" school, on tower-building, on problem-solving, we sang the alphabet song, went on a "Lion Hunt" with song, did math with tangrams, played snakes and ladders, made Big Books and basically, on twelve hour days, accomplished a lot !
Day three was the culmination of everything. The materials we created were then replicated by the teachers. I ran a science workshop. **For the record, it is ironic that I got to run the math and science workshops as I'm more of an arts and language person.* Anyway, again PRIMARY TEACHER COLLEAGUES.. I showed the teachers how you can do art/science with found objects. We did texture drawings and leaf art and made sailboats out of waterbottles and did brown bag riddles describing animal characteristics. It's amazing to me that my years at PAFI have really provided me with a bank of knowledge.
At the end of Day 3, there was a big showcase of our new resources. The teachers had also been given material and were shown how to make their own pocket charts. Basically exactly like we have at home from Scholar's Choice for word walls and math manipulatives but with fabric sewn together into 200 little pockets. Representatives from the President's office (yup, Kagame!) were there along with the Director of Unicef, members of the Ministry and many other important looking people. There were many speeches and then we had enlisted a few of the keener teachers to present the resource room themselves, in other words, rather than us the trainers explaining how the math/probability game works, Ivan and Gilbert presented it to the Ministry guys. This is how to see if your teaching was effective too.
Finally, the workshop ended with the singing of the special song and then each person in the room receiving a candle. The headteacher of the school we were at lit hers and then we passed the light along, finally ending with the Ministry of Ed dude. The teachers read a pledge about promising to make their schools more child-centred. It was actually quite a moving, if exhausting, three days. Because it was my first workshop, ever, in Rwanda, it was kind of neat to have helped run such a successful one. A week later, we met for a follow-up debrief kind of meeting and then a big dinner at Unicef, during which our Country Director and Education Program Manager attended and learned about what the workshop and the goal of the Unicef program was all about. In 2007, there were 22 child friendly schools in Rwanda and by next year there will be 144 active child friendly schools, including 7 in my district !! Unicef wants to partner with VSO, so this could mean I help with many more similar workshops. What a fabulous learning experience ! Also, the Head Unicef guy wrote a letter to our Country Director as he was quite pleased about VSO's contribution to the workshop.
Well, just yesterday, I received a text message from Seraphine, one of the teachers involved in the workshop. She just wanted to tell me that she was using some of the games she had learned in the workshop in her classroom now.
Well, school term officially resumes on Monday. I have worked through most of the holidays- Unicef, training in Nyamata with Elspeth and going to Kamonyi sporadically. This week I actually went to Kamonyi, rented a moto guy for 3 hours and had him drive me around in search of my 20 schools. We successfully found, photographed and added to my map- 9 schools in that one afternoon! My backside still hasn't recovered from 3 hours on the moto...haha! My weekend in Kampala was a great mini-vacation, I must admit. I have big goals for the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, here, making big plans is a little redundant. It is advisable to focus on the day to day instead. Yeah, tell that to the innate-core-of-my-being, task-driven, personality-trait that is determined to set goals and accomplish them. It's like swimming upstream- haha. I'll adjust.
Cheerio!
Becky
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