Whirlwind week
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 11/Jul/2010 12:19, 34 days ago
A whirlwind week which will stay with me for a long time! On the first day of July, the Rwandese celebrate, albeit modestly, Independence; the main activities..music, dancing and merry making are three days later or Liberation Day. It was a bright sunny day without a hint of rain...we have not seen clouds in anger for over a month. The dirt roads are dusty to say the least, spewing a fine film of sandy mica every time a moto passes. Everyone's clothes are turning slightly uniform khaki in colour which may be where the idea of camouflage was conceived? After a lazy breakfast of porridge, sweet small bananas and the finest Rwandan coffee (which is as good as anything that you can buy in France) we embarked on an exploratory walk to find what was rumoured to be the best goat brochette seller in Rwanda. Walking through the town, it appeared that all those in Nyanza and beyond were making the most of the opportunity of the midweek holiday, the market was heaving with everything from baskets, mats, a huge assortment of fruit and veg, live chickens tethered by their feet in groups of up to ten, pots, pans, brightly coloured plastic bowls and several enormous stalls of carefully sorted second hand clothes. We resisted the lure of bargaining for a new outfit for the forthcoming wedding and continued our amble up the hill to the main road, passing a long snaking open earthen trench which is slowly meandering its way from Kigali. This is the second countrywide optic fibre cable network. In a few years the ambition is for all to have the opportunity to access free broadband alongside the one laptop per child programme. A minor problem is the current lack of widely available electricity, but there are huge hydro and biogas projects underway to help resolve the shortfall. Solar energy is in its infancy but is being installed in a few schools and local rural public offices.The buvette was obvious, bright Rwandan sky blue walls, Primus murals, a cacophony of chatting emanating from an array of small outdoor open rooms which encircled a central courtyard. We managed to find a vacant table with two plastic garden-type chairs and ordered food with an accompanying beer. At the next door table a couple of male Rwandans were diving into what looked extremely appetizing skewers, full of lean hot meat. On seeing us drooling, they invited us to join them to share their feast. Not wanting to upset anyone...we did..and gosh was it good! Lean goat loin on multiple skewers, hot and well seasoned...it soon disappeared. We got talking and discovered that one of them was part German. The conversation seemed to be centred around football, naturally. He invited us to his house to watch the forthcoming Germany v Argentina game. What an experience....cold beers, surround speakers, huge TV, freshly roasted peanuts just for the three of us. Luckily Germany won, he was delighted. Our paths have not crossed since, so with Germany's demise, his euphoric mood may well have been short-lived. Nevertheless, his hospitality was very generous and his company very engaging.At very short notice, I was informed by the District that the Minister of Education was spending Friday 2ndJuly in Nyanza. All schools were to be closed, as all teachers had been invited to a meeting with him to hear the plans for the future of education and to have the opportunity to voice their opinions. The District Education Office was sent spinning; preparing speeches, handouts, arranging the delivery of 1500 bottles of Fanta, flowers, bunting, intore dancers/singers to be engaged, let alone benching for the masses. I thought that I was to play an invisible role...far from it! Second row, chief photographer, the only 'muzungu', traditional Rwandan dress, all contributed to a fairly high profile time. The Minister's hour and a half long speech in Kinyarwanda contained about five minutes in English referring specifically to VSO and indirectly to me...what an honour! After about ten questions to which his responses were detailed and warmly received...we danced, sang and clapped as only Rwandans can...the atmosphere was very positive and upbeat. Although, Abdullah, the Mayor, closed the formal proceedings, whisking the Minister out, the merriment continued. To my surprise, I was invited to leave the 'party' and join the dignitaries for lunch, still in my Rwandan dress. With only about a dozen local officials enjoying the melange of beans, spinach, rice, potatoes, chicken and pineapple, there was ample opportunity for me to thank the Minister for his kind words. He has a very positive vision for education in Rwanda over the coming years.On Monday we arose at dawn, six o'clock is a beautiful hour to see the countryside across the valley, the light takes on all sorts of hues that are impossible to do justice to with a camera. Unusually my phone rang at 6.30am. Odd but I answered it only to find out that the President had called today a public holiday....work clothes were quickly shed and jeans put on. Public notices are often conveyed over the radio in Kinyarwanda. Without the linguistic ability to understand such announcements, we are totally dependent upon friends to inform us...luckily the brush telegraph was working well and we could make the most of our extra day holiday. I had a presentation to prepare for the VSO Education Sector meeting later in the week and Melanie and I had the last training day to fine tune.After nine sector-based whole days training sessions it seemed unbelievable that we were nearly at an end. Early in May, we had had the apparent hair brained idea to deliver a three pronged training programme to all 1075 teachers in Nyanza District. This would involve closing all schools in the sector for the chosen day, only the P3 and P6 students (11/14 year olds roughly) from the host school would be required to attend. The day comprised of three two hour sessions, within each teachers observed a model lesson delivered by a VSO methodology trainer, lesson planning discussion and group activity, lesson delivery by a Rwandan teacher, followed by an overarching plenary. The subjects covered were English, Social Studies and in the case of P6 Mathematics. There was an added complication, double shifting. With large numbers of children eligible for schooling, early year groups are split in half with group A attending in the morning, whilst the remaining ones, B, are schooled in the afternoon. This process is alternated over a two week period. This all meant that the students in the lower school would be different in the afternoon, although, normally we cause such excitement, it just meant that the two groups were combined for the afternoon lessons, in one huge class. Yes, chaos, but great fun as we then round the day off with sport Rwandan style, balloon, potato and spoon, rice sack and three legged races. The children love it and the teachers all have a good laugh at our demonstration runs. The third part of the training programme involved me briefing all the attending Heads on a detailed analysis that I had done on the previous year's National exams. For each sector, I had produced a ten page school specific document that was capable of confusing all, especially me!The final training day had been postponed from early June, but this delay had enabled VSO Programme Office in Kigali to schedule the training into a visiting media team's itinerary. Help! VSO UK was sending out for a week a reporter and photographer specifically to Rwanda to help future recruitment, global publicity and raise awareness. Our training was first in line! Normally it was me taking the photographs, to be on the other side was going to be something else! There was added pressure, VSO Country Director was attending as was a representative from another training agency. To have so many 'white' people in a rural school had huge potential for problems. At least one group of students would not have been briefed on the previous days preparation visit. It was my role to ensure the smooth running of the day and host the visitors.Bugger! We woke on the day...no water, no electricity and two of our usual moto drivers occupied elsewhere..things did not bode well! Sarah, the third member of the team today, had driven up by herself on her own motorbike. Brave lass! But there was an hour of rough dirt roads ahead even before we start training...what did we wear? Dresses/skirts and motorbikes did not mix. Hair with crash helmet was a disaster zone. There was no privacy at the school...maybe we could find a cupboard to change in? We set out nervously, just after 6.0am, with a sense of foreboding.After three quarters of an hour ride down bumpy tracks, we arrived dusty. The classrooms had been cleaned, blackboards still needed washing, but the Head was overseeing the process. Luckily, our VSO visitors did not arrive for an hour, by which time the day's timetable was in full swing, teachers discussing lesson planning and the students fully settled. Glad rags on we were ready to take on the world! The day unfolded without many hiccups..well until lunchtime, by which time many photographs had been shot and interviews conducted. It was market day in Ntyazo sector, one by one all, well, most of the teachers, wandered off site in the direction of the centre of shopping activity. We were glad of the break. However, it dawned on us that we needed at least a few teachers to make the afternoon session work...but how do we encourage them back? Headteachers to the rescue, within half an hour most of the teachers had meandered back plus brown bags full of local produce...no goats or chickens fortunately. All that remained was 'sports' day'. Well it proved to be hilarious, dust everywhere, balloons escaping only to pop with a large unexpected bang, causing nervous giggles amongst the girls. Three women trying to demonstrate the balloon between the knees race with skirts on was a spectacle that the students will not forget in a hurry! Rice sack racing was a chaotic hit, we were laughing so much at the huge variety of techniques that we forgot to declare a winner. So the whole race had to be carried out again! At one point I looked down at my sandaled feet, they were almost universally black with grim. Having dismissed all the pupils, I called the teachers together, thanking them and drawing the day to a close. Many of them had a two hour walk to their homes so a 4.0pm finish at least meant that they could get back there in daylight. We still had clearing up to do and interviews to be completed. At 5.45pm, tired, dirty but immensely proud of our achievement we arrived back in Nyanza. The thought of travelling to Kigali for the VSO Education sector that night put off until tomorrow.Dawn brought another day, another set of challenges. The two day meeting in Kigali was a biennial gathering of all education volunteers and associates. We were to present a report on our training. Considering death by power-point a no-go area, but with little other than the many pictures that I had taken to draw upon, we devised a pictorial presentation. But when the agenda was finally circulated there was no apparent slot for us. Not to be phased by this, behind the scenes negotiation released a ten minute slot each, twenty minutes, brilliant. No problem! However, the day's schedule was already slipping and we had been squeezed in before lunch. We needed to make it good, snappy and engaging. Modestly, though I say it myself...it was. It fitted the bill exactly, Melanie and I rocked! The feedback will prove if it was just us who felt that way, but maybe, all will be revealed at a later time? Who knows? Who cares? We felt that we had achieved much in our minor way over the whirlwind week and that's what matters!