In the past few months, things have been crazy busy! I’m now
teaching/ doing teacher training in 5 different schools within my sector,
teaching English at the health center, and organizing various different
secondary projects. A lot has happened so I’m going to try my best to keep this
post organized and less all-over-the-place.
So let’s start with school updates! As I said before I am
now working in 5 schools within my sector, the farthest being a 20 minute moto
into one of the valleys, and all others being within an hour walk from my
house. For term 2, my English Girls & Boys Club has been meeting every week
so far and the students are really starting to come out of their shells. When
we started a few months ago, my students were so afraid of speaking that our
club was mostly silent. Now, they organize their own meetings (in addition to
our club time), prepare things to share with other students, and love to speak
and ask questions. I saw them meeting on their own for the first time last
week, and was so excited I almost cried. Naturally I was jumping up and down,
clapping, and smiling up a storm, and the students said “teacher, what is
wrong?” When I told them I was so happy and proud of them they all giggled and
looked at me like I was crazy. I’m fine with it :) I think part of this change
is because 10 of my students join the APPEGA Boarding School English Club every
Monday (I go with them twice a month) to practice their English skills.
Regardless of what is causing this confidence, I couldn’t be happier. My
students are speaking and listening, and they no longer fear using English with
their peers. The little moments like this make every other struggle completely
worth it.
In addition to taking some huge steps forward with my
students, I have also started working with teachers at my school to decide upon
a secondary project for the school. Although it is stressful as all hell, the
teachers just look at me and say “please be patient with us, we know you are
using much power”. After a week of voting mayhem, and disputes between teachers
and administration, we finally counted the ballots and the teachers have
decided that they would like to create a sustainable animal husbandry project
to benefit students and teachers. We’re still in the initial planning stages
and just trying to figure out exactly what this project will look like, but for
the first time I am really seeing them come together as a staff. The goals for
our project will be to increase education about animal husbandry within the
students, teachers, and greater community, to provide malnourished students
with resources to begin their own animal husbandry projects at home, to gain
income for the school which can be used to fund other projects, and to increase
the sense of community well being among school staff members. It’s a big
project, and I’m a little nervous about it, but here’s to hoping for the best!
Now, onto teacher training! So as of right now, I am doing
teacher training sessions in 3 schools, with two sessions per month at each
school. We are focusing on student-centered learning activities, creating
teaching resources from locally-available materials, as well as discussing
positive classroom management techniques. In July, we’ll be starting the Sector-wide
Teacher Training Sessions with the help of my first Peace Corps Grant! We’ll
have the first 2 of 5 trainings, and will be meeting with all School Based
Mentors (SBMs) and English Teachers to discuss new methodology, the new
curriculum, classroom management, and even phonics. If this whole training
series is successful, we will open up the trainings to be available to other subject
teachers next year!
Last thing, I promise! We are also in the process of gathering
necessary information to submit a grant for a Permagarden Training that would
provide all community health workers in my sector with training on creating
climate resistant permagardens to help fight malnutrition in our area. Everyone
is super excited, which gives me hope that the trainings will go well and these
practices will be implemented. As much as I love working with my health center,
I am very excited for them to be getting their very own Peace Corps Volunteer
in the beginning of August! I know it will reduce the amount of work that I do
with them, but I’m hoping for a great volunteer who is as motivated as they are
to improve the health among our communities. If that means I am a little less
busy, I’m OK with it :)
Just kidding… We also had an inauguration ceremony for our
new classrooms which led to free lunch with the mayor of my district, free transport
to Kigali, and the worst sunburn I’ve had since 7th grade… AND I attended
my first traditional Rwandan wedding for my neighbor Ben’s sister. The ceremony
was beautiful and it was so cool to see how these weddings happen. We started
the day at 8:30 am after ZERO sleep, attended the traditional ceremony, missed
the religious ceremony because we had a small car accident (don’t worry, just a
small fender bender), went to the reception, then had the final ceremony where
we left the bride in her new home with her new husband. By the time we got home
it was after midnight. Even though we were all exhausted, I was super sick, and
the car had a few bumps and bruises, the wedding was awesome and I’m so happy
that I was invited to participate in all of the ceremonies!
Well, that’s it for now! Enjoy some pictures and I promise I’ll
be better about posting again in the next couple of weeks!
