International Women's Day
on Geri Skeen (Rwanda), 13/Mar/2011 14:45, 34 days ago
There was some confusion about whether Women’s Day was a holiday here. The same confusion as on election days. General Secretary went off without clarifying. She was going to Goma in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to show solidarity with the women there living in a conflict zone. I learnt too late to arrange to accompany her that another member of staff was going to help build a house for a poor woman; women building while the men cooked for them for once. So I went to Shyogwe, a village an hour and a half’s walk away, and Michael took me round the school. I ended up teaching anatomy to a class of maybe eighty children. They were mostly about nine years old though some were older as you repeat years at school here until you pass them. I was confident on the cardio-vascular system and the musculo-skeletal system, but when they started telling me about the ear, they knew more than I did, at least in terms of naming the pinna, cochlea and so on. The curriculum requires them to memorise huge amounts of information, much of it not taught in the UK until pupils are several years older. In addition, the children have to contend with having ikinyarwanda as their first language, having been taught in French until two years ago, and since then being taught in English, though still with French textbooks. And that is by teachers who themselves have ikinyarwanda as their first language, have taught in French until two years ago, and now teach in English. We finished with some singing, including‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands etc’ and ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes etc’. It is a government priority to encourage girls to study science– not traditionally considered suitable for girls here – so quite by chance I did end up doing my bit for Women’s Day.Later Michael took me to a hill which is the site of the palace of the king who was grandfather to the current Rwandan king– who lives in exile in the US. It is a hill with a 360 degree view, a place where you feel you can see all of Rwanda, hill after hill far into the distance; a place where it is easy to see why this country is known as the land of a thousand hills. There were outcrops of a granite-like stone on the top, some of them with rows of little circular depressions. They say the king of Rwanda played a game here involving placing stones in the depressions and moving them in turn according to some set of rules. A young woman had followed us up the hill. She picked up some stones and distributed them in some of the depressions, then asked her friend to play with her. I couldn’t fathom the game at all, though she was definitely the more confident player. When the game was over she smiled up at us, pleased to have shown us a part of Rwandan history.On the walk back, we came across much evidence of the drinking of banana beer which follows celebrations of days such as Women’s Day. Several times women wished me‘Happy Women’s Day’.