Training Rwandan style
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 01/Jun/2010 14:33, 34 days ago
The mechanised alarm resonates in my dream. I turn over open one eye, the sound continues. It is five o'clock in the morning, the first hints of dawn permeate through the thin green floral curtains, a mosquito buzzes close by, the temporary noise hiatus stops. Silence. My mind shakes into action. It is the third day of our district-wide training programme. Motos will be here in an hour. With a sense of expectation I brush aside the mosquito net, swing my legs out of bed and head off for a shower. This is an interesting exercise in itself. The shower delivers only cold sand coloured water. So the previous night, water was boiled, thermos filled, awaiting this moment. I walk bare footed along the still dark corridor into our living area. A large empty red bucket is charged with the still hot water. I carry it back to the shower room, double its contents with cold cloudy water. The bucket shower lasts all of a minute, but long enough to awake me fully. There is something moving in the corner by the closed door. The shadows cast by the energy saving light turn the toad into an enormous monster! It is the same colour as the floor, so I carefully dry myself whilst keeping a close watch on the moving object. It is trying to escape through the closed wooden door. Failure! The empty red bucket now comes into its own. On its side I corner the warty creature and shovel it into the container. Once upright the toad is secured, escape foiled. With a towel wrapped around my torso, I open the back door, safe in the knowledge that the night guard has already departed to his family and breakfast. The struggling reptile is released by the back culvert. Its life expectance is further extended by the unusual lack of pied crows this morning. With every passing moment the sky and clouds are changing. The array of colours is extensive, reds, oranges, purples and eventually yellows. An artist's dream. But not for me today.Clothes on, breakfast quickly consumed, rucksack packed, I am ready. I await a beep from Melanie. The extensive use of mobile phones in Rwanda puts western society to shame. Beeping is a free way of communicating. Two rings then hang up. The caller is identified as a missed call. We have a pre-arranged agreement to utilise this when we are ready to go. By the time the phone does beep, the sun is breaking through. No sign of rain. The rainy season is drawing to an end, dust is already penetrating even the smallest creaks. Three motos and drivers are waiting. Impressive for Rwanda, as time keeping is very flexible and varied here. The words for time are based on the sun as a clock, starting at sun rise or 6 a.m. or one o'clock Rwandan time. However, clocks themselves are a rare commodity. There is total reliance upon the ever versatile mobile. Loose that and time really does stand still! Tugende! We set off for an hour's cross country trek to one of the farthest sectors in the District.Our training concept seemed a good idea at the time. Having visited well over two thirds of the 76 primary schools in Nyanza, it was obvious that teachers needed some guidance in lesson delivery and variations in basic methodology. Our idea is, in each of the ten sectors, to base a day's classroom training in a centrally located school using two sets of pupils, one each in upper and lower school. The rest of the school and all other schools will be closed in the sector for that day, as all teachers would attend the training. The logistics to achieve this have been challenging, but thus far there has been an impressive teachers' attendance rate of over 95%. We have two qualified VSO primary teachers and me...! The idea is to teach throughout the school day starting at 7.20am. The teachers would see a model lesson, have the opportunity to analyse it, create a lesson plan and then produce a lesson for one of their colleagues to deliver. At each stage there is opportunity for critical discussion. For the most part, the teachers are engaged, positive and absorbed in the whole process. They are grateful for any guidance and are delighted when praised, something that we try to do often. However, there are those few who sit at the back, chat or just fall asleep! I know that the some have trekked for over an hour to get to the training, but .....sleep! There has been a small amount of snide comments (mostly over food), resulting in me on one occasion delivering a parable to around 150 teachers! I must admit that the effect was immediate and we had a great afternoon, all fully engaged. I must try it more often! This form of training is a first for Rwanda which in itself is a huge accolade but quite a responsibility. It will have cost nearly one million Rwandan Francs when we have finished. But it will have been delivered to well over 1100 teachers. We might end up presenting our evaluations to non-government agencies in an effort to obtain additional funding, with the notion that this programme might be extended to other districts. The District has been very supportive, covering almost a third of the costs. They have built the training programme into their performance management targets for next year. Exciting and challenging at the same time.Today's training started with magnificent views from the hill top school. Low clouds lined the valleys, whilst the early morning sun shone on the verdant exposed hillside. The different shades of green from the various crops shimmering in the light breeze. Sogem, maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and pineapples. The teachers start arriving, by 9.0am most have managed the rough stony tracks to get to the school. By this time we are on the third part of the training cycle. Oh well, they catch on the second round. They are keen and very eager to observe. It is a struggle to prevent them entering the classroom and distracting the students. But I have partial success and divert most of the latecomers to the reception waiting room. The morning swiftly passes, everyone seems happy with the lunch of fanta and dough ball (mandazi). Around the corner on the sports pitch an impromptu game of volleyball was in full flow. Secondary students versus spritely teachers. I joined for a laugh...but...first shot of the ball fell flat on my arse much to everyone's amusement. Nothing hurt, just pride. But it did mean that the afternoon passed humorously albeit at my expense! Having had a frenetic morning, spent a delightful afternoon alternating playing with class full of pupils and briefing Heads on their students' performance at last year's public examinations. I have spent many hours generating the rafts of statistics, no one seems to have thought to produce them prior to me. The Heads are fascinated by the data, and beg me to train them further. Wow!!!!After a tiring day, with handshakes all round, smiles and farewells from the lingering children, we depart, bumping on the back of a moto for the next hour. Three down, seven more to go!