Slowly but surely, a strange thing has happened. I’m starting to feel like everything around me is normal. Now, I still never know what’s going on, everyday at least one thing happens that I can’t fathom (e.g. We’re driving along the side of a mountain, the moto driver suddenly stops, starts shouting, gets me off the bike, and speeds off, leaving me alone in the middle of nowhere. No problem, I didn’t need to know why he threw that Mickey fit, sure enough the other driver came back after a while to tell me that driver #1 had gone to get his brakes fixed and would be back to get me soon. You just never know what is going on here) I still notice and love the differences, like how beautiful the countryside is, and the way the people are, and the amazing journey through the mountains to get to school, etc, etc, but things that used to confuse me are becoming normal. Like today when a gang of little boys joined me on my run, that was fine, it seemed normal. Or while I was waiting (for ages) at the bank and saw a man sitting on top of another man and holding his hand when there were loads of free seats, that was normal. The nightmare journey to Ngororero? I did it again last week. It was grand. When people I don’t know follow me and want to know all about my personal life and ask for my number, I don’t get freaked out. I also don’t give them my number, but I can say no without being rude. I can even pee in a hole in the ground without complaining. much. I don’t think the goats are amusing anymore. I was uncomfortable when Beate and Felicien thought they had to clean my shoes, but not anymore. Now I just hide my shoes if they’re muddy. It’s funny how quickly we adapt. It’s not just me, one volunteer (who shall remain nameless) told me that a while ago, she saw her own arm, and for a split second she thought ‘oh yeah, I’m white!’. I just stayed with priests for two nights, and spent my evenings making small talk with a man in a Hawaiian shirt with holy Mary on it, and that wasn’t odd at all. OK that was a lie, the priests were a bit funny. Oh and getting our hair cut in Kigali, when Rose and I ended up doing each others hair in the hairdressers chair, that was a mad experience. OK forget the adapting idea, I still think Rwanda is mad and I still love it for being different!
I mean, I’m only here a few weeks and I’m still a fish out of water. There’s some things I will never get used to. Like the conditions in schools. It’s difficult to write about this but I want to write about the schools we work in. Basically, we forget how lucky we are in Ireland. Schools here have NOTHING. Tricia and I have just completed two weeks of observations in schools in a remote sector. What we saw was a real eye opener. The schools usually have uneven earth floors, sometimes the children have only low benches to sit on with no tables to write on. They have no colours or pencils and a shortage of paper, so they don’t draw or do free writing. The walls are bare, there are no resources to put up but even if there were, the walls are these dusty bricks, you can’t get a nail into them and nothing sticks. Classes are huge. I went to a nursery where one teacher had 81 three year olds. And they were as good as gold, I don’t know how she got them to be like that. The children seemed so happy to be in school, they were all smiles. You should have heard them when they started singing, I have never seen or heard anything so cute!!!! The teachers get paid a pittance and work double shifts, which means they teach from 7am until 5. (sometimes factor in an hour or more each way, walking to school and home on top of this long day)There is no such thing as special needs, resource teachers or even differentiation. One head teacher introduced us to a little girl with no legs. She drags herself around the school on her hands and knees. She’s been provided with an old battered wheelchair, but it has to stay in the classroom because it can’t cope with the mountain the school is on. There is no support or help for her at the moment. Another head teacher I met when I visited Pauline’s school told us that the children are all hungry in that school, they are lucky if they eat once a day. There is a milk for schools scheme, but the really needy schools don’t get it because they are too far away from the road. He told us that a lot of children don’t even get to go to school, because you aren’t supposed to go if you don’t have shoes and a lot of families can’t afford shoes for their children. Another school has very poor attendance because the children are out working. In 6th class, there are very few boys, and only one of them passed his exams last year.
It’s all just so so sad. We’ve met teachers who are so hard working and inspiring and enthusiastic, I really admire them and I hope we can be helpful in some way when we start the training workshops in June.
I’ve realised how miserable this blog has turned! If anybody reading this thinks I need to tone it down, please tell me! And I’m so happy to be in Rwanda, the poor teachers have a tough time but I’m really looking forward to starting the training and doing something constructive. Apart from work, this week I’m going to Kigali for fun and food and the cinema and we’re doing a fun run on Sunday so the next blog entry will be nicer. And to end on a very happy note – I don’t want to speak too soon but it’s been really sunny recently and I think the dry season has arrived!
No comments:
Post a Comment