There is no public library in Rwanda. Most schools have something they call a library, but to be honest what they have do not do the word justice. Therefore one of the projects of the Rotary club here is to build a public library. This had been going on for a while, but I believe things are finally on their way, the building is actually being constructed and books are starting to be donated.
My school has a chapter of the interact club(the school version of rotary). Therefore when a shipment of books was donated a group of students volunteered to help sort the books. Being more familiar with books and how a library is set up my roomate and I volunteered to accompany the girls not only to supervise, but to also work. And let me tell you, work is what we did.
We worked from approximately 9 am till 3 pm(with a lunch break).
The first thing we had to do was sort the boxes of books into subjects. On the floor using chalk we wrote labels, therefore creating piles of books all over the floor as we sorted. Before we started we had told the girls to come to us if they weren't sure about what category a book should go into. Well, this resulted in my roommate and I being consulted for I would say 80% of the sorting. At times this was frustrating because I felt some of the girls were not even trying to read the titles or the back of the book/book jacket, they were purely picking up books and coming to us for the answer. Of course me being me was all over the place with doing my own sorting and helping the girls. Another hard part was that we only made so many categories and sometimes we would be unsure where to put a book because we knew where it would belong in an American library, we just hadn't made all those distinctions in the genres(but you have to start small). One of the worst categories was Novels. In here we put everything from biographies, memoirs, classic literature, to actual novels. At times it was very frustrating but there was just no way to separate them out more without my roommate and I doing it, because the girls just don't know enough about books and how to distinguish them apart.
As the day wore on we were joined by some university students who are also in interact clubs. I had hoped they would really be a help. I think that it was about 50-50. At times they would be great workers,and at other times all they would do is stand around and browse the books,not to mention that they too had to ask us what categories books belong in.
After we had sorted a massive amount of books we then had some of the girls start to record them and box them up. The girls did this very well, but at times finding the author of the book was not easy for them(I would like to thank Edgewood Elementary School for taking us to the library and having to learn all about books and how a library functions).
Overall though I was very proud of the students for working as hard as they did even when they weren't familiar with the system.
They only thing I have to complain about is what happened at the end of the day. I was very dissapointed in my students. As much as I understand what they did, and why they did it, I just cannot agree with it, no matter how much they, or someone attempts to convince me.
So here's the deal.
The man in charge of the public library committee for Rotary is the nicest person ever. He actually cares about everyone, and especially the students at my school. But, that doesn't mean that students should take advantage that he will do whatever they want. Some of the girls wanted to take novels for themselves. I told them no, these were books donated to the library, and they are going to have to wait untill the library opens. Well what did they do, they went and asked, and of course the VERY nice man said yes and he knew that I did not agree, so he came to talk to me. He said we would make a comprise and that instead of giving the books to the girls, he would donate the ones the girls took to the our school's library. I said fine, because at this point the students already had the books. I told the girls this, yet as we were on the bus back to school I saw students writing their names in the books and I asked them why, and they tell me teacher its my book, and I was like you are selfish, those books are supposed to be for the school library.
That is why I was dissapointed. I know they are young and that they are students who always just care about themselves, but they are 17 years old, and its time for them to act responsibly. Those books were donated to a public libary to be used by many, not to my students for their private usage.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Candidate Party
Candidate Party, aka a graduation ceremony and party
The secondary school system in Rwanda is divided into ordinary level and advanced level, otherwise known as O and A level respectively. There are 3 years to each level. In the first three levels the students take a variety of classes. They then sit for the O-level exam, which tests them on about 8 subjects. Based on their scores they are then able to apply/go to A-level either at the school they attended O-level, or they can transfer schools. In A-level the students study in a tract or combination. The combinations have 3 principle classes(subjects) and then a few other electives, some of which are nation mandated, and others are given by certain schools. Then at the end of their 3 years in A-level, they take another national exam. It is this exam that will decide their future, what they can study in univeristy(if they go) and even where they will study.
Clearly the O and A- level National Exams are very important in the lives of students here, so it should make sense that we want to celebrate it. In the past at my school these celebrations were always done through religious groups, but this year it was decided that we would have a school wide celebration. Not only would the non-candidate students be invited, but each candidate would be able to invite 2 people to attend.
All the teachers were invited and the invitation said the event started at 9 am. I don't know why after all this time I still believe things will start on-time, I should learn, but I continue to show up on time. Sunday morning was a rainy morning, but I still got there at 9 am. On the walk from my house up to school I passed the dormitories and some of my students ran out to tell me I looked smart,etc. Then as I passed by the wash house I saw candidates still in towels greeting me a good morning. I was like, hey ladies aren't you supposed to be somewhere right now, they reacted with yes teacher we are coming we are coming.. yet none of them were dressed yet.
As I walking up to school I realized I had no idea where exactly I was going;I asked one of the girls and she offered to show me there. The party was set up on the basketball court, there were 3 big tents. When I arrived only my headmistress was there and everything was still being setup, even though it was after 9 at this point. Somehow I wasn't surprised.
I'm not sure when exactly everything started, but I want to say between 10 and 10.30 was when most of the family and students arrived. I must say that the girls looked fabulous. They were dressed in traditional dresses that are somewhat reminiscent of an indian sari(sp?). All the girls had different patterns and accessories, you could tell they really took the time to get ready(some of them were 2 hours late).. The girls even tried to work with their short little fros to make them look good, I was surprised with what they were able to do.
The official part of the day consisted of giving out certificates and having a few speeches. The girls sang and danced for us, and presented our headmistress with a gift. Then there was a chance for family members to give gifts. Then it was lunch time. I was shocked at how well lunch worked out considering the amount of people that were in attendence.
Then the waiting started.
In the afternoon I'm not even sure what was exactly planned but we sat around for a while(at least there was a DJ playing music).
Then the unofficial party started. All the families and friends were taking pictures and just having fun. We had a singer called LilG perform, he's most likely 16 plus or minus. He's Rwandese and the students went crazy for him.
Most of the rest of the day consisted of me sitting around with my students, talking and taking pictures with them. I was told we were waiting for more musical guests to come. I asked what time were they expected, they told me 8 pm, and that point I looked at my watch saw that it was 6.30 and I was like OK, I'm going home I'll be back later..
Later in the night I went back with some of my fellow teachers and we hung out some more with the students. Finally these other singers did come, and the girls went crazy, I couldn't believe it. We teachers left around 10.30, but the girls continued till around midnight.
Overall it was a great day and I know I won't forget it and I'm pretty sure the students won't forget it either. I also loved the fact that on Monday morning at 8 am the senior 6s were already studying,they really are serious girls.
The secondary school system in Rwanda is divided into ordinary level and advanced level, otherwise known as O and A level respectively. There are 3 years to each level. In the first three levels the students take a variety of classes. They then sit for the O-level exam, which tests them on about 8 subjects. Based on their scores they are then able to apply/go to A-level either at the school they attended O-level, or they can transfer schools. In A-level the students study in a tract or combination. The combinations have 3 principle classes(subjects) and then a few other electives, some of which are nation mandated, and others are given by certain schools. Then at the end of their 3 years in A-level, they take another national exam. It is this exam that will decide their future, what they can study in univeristy(if they go) and even where they will study.
Clearly the O and A- level National Exams are very important in the lives of students here, so it should make sense that we want to celebrate it. In the past at my school these celebrations were always done through religious groups, but this year it was decided that we would have a school wide celebration. Not only would the non-candidate students be invited, but each candidate would be able to invite 2 people to attend.
All the teachers were invited and the invitation said the event started at 9 am. I don't know why after all this time I still believe things will start on-time, I should learn, but I continue to show up on time. Sunday morning was a rainy morning, but I still got there at 9 am. On the walk from my house up to school I passed the dormitories and some of my students ran out to tell me I looked smart,etc. Then as I passed by the wash house I saw candidates still in towels greeting me a good morning. I was like, hey ladies aren't you supposed to be somewhere right now, they reacted with yes teacher we are coming we are coming.. yet none of them were dressed yet.
As I walking up to school I realized I had no idea where exactly I was going;I asked one of the girls and she offered to show me there. The party was set up on the basketball court, there were 3 big tents. When I arrived only my headmistress was there and everything was still being setup, even though it was after 9 at this point. Somehow I wasn't surprised.
I'm not sure when exactly everything started, but I want to say between 10 and 10.30 was when most of the family and students arrived. I must say that the girls looked fabulous. They were dressed in traditional dresses that are somewhat reminiscent of an indian sari(sp?). All the girls had different patterns and accessories, you could tell they really took the time to get ready(some of them were 2 hours late).. The girls even tried to work with their short little fros to make them look good, I was surprised with what they were able to do.
The official part of the day consisted of giving out certificates and having a few speeches. The girls sang and danced for us, and presented our headmistress with a gift. Then there was a chance for family members to give gifts. Then it was lunch time. I was shocked at how well lunch worked out considering the amount of people that were in attendence.
Then the waiting started.
In the afternoon I'm not even sure what was exactly planned but we sat around for a while(at least there was a DJ playing music).
Then the unofficial party started. All the families and friends were taking pictures and just having fun. We had a singer called LilG perform, he's most likely 16 plus or minus. He's Rwandese and the students went crazy for him.
Most of the rest of the day consisted of me sitting around with my students, talking and taking pictures with them. I was told we were waiting for more musical guests to come. I asked what time were they expected, they told me 8 pm, and that point I looked at my watch saw that it was 6.30 and I was like OK, I'm going home I'll be back later..
Later in the night I went back with some of my fellow teachers and we hung out some more with the students. Finally these other singers did come, and the girls went crazy, I couldn't believe it. We teachers left around 10.30, but the girls continued till around midnight.
Overall it was a great day and I know I won't forget it and I'm pretty sure the students won't forget it either. I also loved the fact that on Monday morning at 8 am the senior 6s were already studying,they really are serious girls.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Menus
As we all know, going to different countries can cause many cultural difference to be observed. Some of them can be easy to accept or adapt to, and others can be very difficult to grasp, and even after time they still might seem strange.
Having been in Rwanda now for 10 months I feel that I have noticed and taken in many new and/or different things. I want to take the time to talk about something that greatly amuses me and that has caused a few entertaining meals while I have been here. What I'm talking about may not be revolutionary or even all that important, but believe me when I say, it is very different here then it is in the states or most european countries. What I'm talking about is menus.
While I was growing up I was fortunate enough to not only live in areas that supported multicultural food, but I was also lucky enough to have parents that would spend good money to give us wide varieties in the food that we ate. At the time I hadn't even realized how I valued all the food I ate..coming here sure changed that.
Let's first talk Rwandese restaurants. A 'normal' place will serve brochettes and fries. There might be an option about what kind of meat you get. Some places even make 'omelettes.' Oh, wait, I forgot to mention, thats for dinner. Almost all places here only do buffets for lunch; those include all the different types of potatoes, bananas, rice, sauces, maybe some greens, and meat. What this means is that when you go into most places they don't have menus. What they might have is under their sign saying that they are a restaurant there could be pictures of the food available. This means that you just have to talk to your server to figure out what you are going to get. And remember, always ask for a cold drink, if not they will bring it warm, and I'm serious.
Now onto 'our' restuarants. We will go with typical suburbia fare. Every place we could go to is going to have a menu, and most likely the menu will be multiple pages. When we are young we might not know what to order because we don't know what the different foods are, but by the time we are older we can't decide on what we want because there are too many options, not because we aren't familiar with the choices. And let us not forget that we don't ever ask for a cold soda or beer, and most sodas are free refills, and water is almost always free(unless you are going for the fancy stuff).
That is just how it is for us, and I'm not specifically talking about the high-end places, just the normal run of the mill joints.
So now imagine being here. Places with menus are great. It means that there will be some options. I want to make it clear though that I love brochettes and fries, some days I down-right crave them, but other days, you just want some good old food.
As I mentioned when I wrote Kigali for Tourists, there are some good food places here, and honestly most cravings can be satisfied as long as you are willing to pay.. which if you are with a group of other westerners, you usually are willing. That is to say, the average Rwandese person does not go to these places, and even if you suggested food like indian, chinese, or italian, they wouldn't even know what exactly that meant.
This leads me to my amusement.
I have been out a few times with some of my non-American friends and watching them pour over the menus is always fun. Now, I don't mean to make fun of my friends, because they mean a great deal to me, but its just I never thought somone wouldn't know what carbonera, or bolognese, or arrabiata meant(in reference to sauces on pasta). Things like that have just become second nature to me, not just because I speak Italian, but because if you eat the food enough you just know what is in the different sauces. Normally in cases like this, my friends ask me to order for them, which is just fine because I can guess what they would like. The part that makes me laugh is just when they ask me questions and I'm at a loss to explain what something is, like capers or anchovies or chili. Somehow my explanations are always lacking, even though in my own head I know perfectly well what something is. It is also always great when your friends keep the menus for a little light reading over the meal.
With all of that said, every once in a while my friends and I stumble upon a Rwandese restuarant with a menu, and we suddenly get super excited, we just can't help ourselves. Somehow a restuarant feels more real to us because of it having a menu..strange right?
Having been in Rwanda now for 10 months I feel that I have noticed and taken in many new and/or different things. I want to take the time to talk about something that greatly amuses me and that has caused a few entertaining meals while I have been here. What I'm talking about may not be revolutionary or even all that important, but believe me when I say, it is very different here then it is in the states or most european countries. What I'm talking about is menus.
While I was growing up I was fortunate enough to not only live in areas that supported multicultural food, but I was also lucky enough to have parents that would spend good money to give us wide varieties in the food that we ate. At the time I hadn't even realized how I valued all the food I ate..coming here sure changed that.
Let's first talk Rwandese restaurants. A 'normal' place will serve brochettes and fries. There might be an option about what kind of meat you get. Some places even make 'omelettes.' Oh, wait, I forgot to mention, thats for dinner. Almost all places here only do buffets for lunch; those include all the different types of potatoes, bananas, rice, sauces, maybe some greens, and meat. What this means is that when you go into most places they don't have menus. What they might have is under their sign saying that they are a restaurant there could be pictures of the food available. This means that you just have to talk to your server to figure out what you are going to get. And remember, always ask for a cold drink, if not they will bring it warm, and I'm serious.
Now onto 'our' restuarants. We will go with typical suburbia fare. Every place we could go to is going to have a menu, and most likely the menu will be multiple pages. When we are young we might not know what to order because we don't know what the different foods are, but by the time we are older we can't decide on what we want because there are too many options, not because we aren't familiar with the choices. And let us not forget that we don't ever ask for a cold soda or beer, and most sodas are free refills, and water is almost always free(unless you are going for the fancy stuff).
That is just how it is for us, and I'm not specifically talking about the high-end places, just the normal run of the mill joints.
So now imagine being here. Places with menus are great. It means that there will be some options. I want to make it clear though that I love brochettes and fries, some days I down-right crave them, but other days, you just want some good old food.
As I mentioned when I wrote Kigali for Tourists, there are some good food places here, and honestly most cravings can be satisfied as long as you are willing to pay.. which if you are with a group of other westerners, you usually are willing. That is to say, the average Rwandese person does not go to these places, and even if you suggested food like indian, chinese, or italian, they wouldn't even know what exactly that meant.
This leads me to my amusement.
I have been out a few times with some of my non-American friends and watching them pour over the menus is always fun. Now, I don't mean to make fun of my friends, because they mean a great deal to me, but its just I never thought somone wouldn't know what carbonera, or bolognese, or arrabiata meant(in reference to sauces on pasta). Things like that have just become second nature to me, not just because I speak Italian, but because if you eat the food enough you just know what is in the different sauces. Normally in cases like this, my friends ask me to order for them, which is just fine because I can guess what they would like. The part that makes me laugh is just when they ask me questions and I'm at a loss to explain what something is, like capers or anchovies or chili. Somehow my explanations are always lacking, even though in my own head I know perfectly well what something is. It is also always great when your friends keep the menus for a little light reading over the meal.
With all of that said, every once in a while my friends and I stumble upon a Rwandese restuarant with a menu, and we suddenly get super excited, we just can't help ourselves. Somehow a restuarant feels more real to us because of it having a menu..strange right?
Tusker Fame Season 3
Since American Idol type shows are huge in the Western world, it shouldn't be surprising that some variation would also be popular here(or even exist).
In the case of East Africa, the show is called Tusker Project Fame, this year was season 3. The show consisted of try-outs and a selection process, with the chosen few moving into a house together. Every week they performed and some of them were put on prohbation. Then the public gets to vote to save someone. Then the remaining house members can also save someone, resulting in the eviction of one of the contestants. Each show also has a theme for song picking, African music to 'western' music. They even did group numbers. Of course there were also judges;and just like American Idol who has Simon, Tusker has Ian. A twist is that the house has faculty who helps them each week with the different aspects of performance. The winner of the show is given a year-long record deal and of course money. The show is centered in Kenya, but most of the East African countries had contestants particapating, and at times it seems very much a patriotic competition, not just a talent competition.
Like many of my friends here, it was easy to become addicted to the show. In my own defense, I wasn't watching it because I thought the people were all that talented, it was more that it was amusing to watch.(Some of my friends thought, and still think that they were actually talented)
The last few weeks things had really heated up because the show was getting down to the wire and there was still a Rwandese guy left, and his chances were looking good. After much speculation and debate, the show finally got down to its final 5 contestants: 2 Kenyans( Boy + Girl), 2 Ugandans(Girlx2), 1 Rwandese(Boy). This past weekend was the culmination. On Saturday night one contestant was voted off, and then on Sunday night they announced the winner.
Based on population alone, I really thought that one of the Kenyans was going to win. The votes were for who you wanted to save, and to vote you had to send a text message. The show is filmed in Kenyan, sponsored by a huge kenyan beer company. But then many of my friends said that the show wouldn't let a Kenyan win again, that they thought it was going to be the Rwandese since Tusker is trying to to emerge into the market here, and what better way than this.
Honestly I didn't care who really won, and I didn't think that one was more talented than the others, they were all pretty normal if you ask me. But none-the-less I did have someone I did not want to win.HAHA. This one Kenyan guy just annoyed me and didn't settle right with me. Well what do you know, on Sunday night it came down to the final two being the Rwandese and the Kenyan, and you know what, the Rwandese won.
This country went crazy. My school went crazy.
My headmistress and I ran out of her house to go join the students in the celebration. The girls were jumping and screaming. This wasn't just that a guy named Alpha won the competition, it was about a Rwandese named Alpha winning the competition.
On Monday evening Alpha returned to Kigali. The airport was packed. Too many people had come out to see him. Then he went to the national stadium where they had a welcome celebration/concert. It was all over the news. It was crazy.
I know that there are some Americans who have gone crazy over the american idol favorites, but this just felt different. I can't describe it, but as all my students were hugging and jumping all over me, one felt not just the happiness they had for this guy, but also the national pride that they felt because HE won.
Now we will just have to wait and see if he comes out with a CD and how good it is actually going to be..
In the case of East Africa, the show is called Tusker Project Fame, this year was season 3. The show consisted of try-outs and a selection process, with the chosen few moving into a house together. Every week they performed and some of them were put on prohbation. Then the public gets to vote to save someone. Then the remaining house members can also save someone, resulting in the eviction of one of the contestants. Each show also has a theme for song picking, African music to 'western' music. They even did group numbers. Of course there were also judges;and just like American Idol who has Simon, Tusker has Ian. A twist is that the house has faculty who helps them each week with the different aspects of performance. The winner of the show is given a year-long record deal and of course money. The show is centered in Kenya, but most of the East African countries had contestants particapating, and at times it seems very much a patriotic competition, not just a talent competition.
Like many of my friends here, it was easy to become addicted to the show. In my own defense, I wasn't watching it because I thought the people were all that talented, it was more that it was amusing to watch.(Some of my friends thought, and still think that they were actually talented)
The last few weeks things had really heated up because the show was getting down to the wire and there was still a Rwandese guy left, and his chances were looking good. After much speculation and debate, the show finally got down to its final 5 contestants: 2 Kenyans( Boy + Girl), 2 Ugandans(Girlx2), 1 Rwandese(Boy). This past weekend was the culmination. On Saturday night one contestant was voted off, and then on Sunday night they announced the winner.
Based on population alone, I really thought that one of the Kenyans was going to win. The votes were for who you wanted to save, and to vote you had to send a text message. The show is filmed in Kenyan, sponsored by a huge kenyan beer company. But then many of my friends said that the show wouldn't let a Kenyan win again, that they thought it was going to be the Rwandese since Tusker is trying to to emerge into the market here, and what better way than this.
Honestly I didn't care who really won, and I didn't think that one was more talented than the others, they were all pretty normal if you ask me. But none-the-less I did have someone I did not want to win.HAHA. This one Kenyan guy just annoyed me and didn't settle right with me. Well what do you know, on Sunday night it came down to the final two being the Rwandese and the Kenyan, and you know what, the Rwandese won.
This country went crazy. My school went crazy.
My headmistress and I ran out of her house to go join the students in the celebration. The girls were jumping and screaming. This wasn't just that a guy named Alpha won the competition, it was about a Rwandese named Alpha winning the competition.
On Monday evening Alpha returned to Kigali. The airport was packed. Too many people had come out to see him. Then he went to the national stadium where they had a welcome celebration/concert. It was all over the news. It was crazy.
I know that there are some Americans who have gone crazy over the american idol favorites, but this just felt different. I can't describe it, but as all my students were hugging and jumping all over me, one felt not just the happiness they had for this guy, but also the national pride that they felt because HE won.
Now we will just have to wait and see if he comes out with a CD and how good it is actually going to be..
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
AERG/Turikumwe Party
A few Saturdays ago I attended a 'party' of one of the student organizations at my school. I had been coming home on Friday night and I saw the girls cleaning up the library, and I asked what they were doing. They told me that on Saturday morning they would be having a party for the candidate students in their club. Candidate students are students in the S3 and S6 year who will take the national exams for O and A level when the school year is finished. In this case the party was more for the S6 girls since they would be graduating/leaving school at the end of this year. Some of my students invited me to attend, so of course I said yes.
This party went from 9 am to 12 pm. In my head I thought that I could go to part of it and then leave just because Saturday morning is normally a very productive time for me. Come Saturday morning I found out that what they might call a party is not exactly what I(we) would call a party.
This event had a program. Some alumnae were there, and a few family members were there. Not to mention some other students in the same club, but at different schools, then a whole bunch of important people were there too.
Before I go on, I think that I should explain what AERG and Turikumwe are.
AERG (Association des Etudiants et Elèves des Rescapés du Génocide) is an association that was created in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide on October 20, 1996 at the National University of Rwanda. Its principal mission is to assure the total representation of student survivors of the 1994 genocide and to solve the problems hindering their performance in schools.
Now at my school the students took it one step farther and made their own organization called Turikumwe. Now a few years ago(5 to be exact) some of these girls realized that they wanted a network for themselves when they leave school, hence Turikumwe being born. So this party was not just celebrating the girls leaving school, but also them now becoming apart of the alumnae organization.
The program was extensive. There were speeches, modeling, singing, dancing. All around a good time. Everything was in Kinyarwanda, but I was luckily enough to have a kind student next to me translating so I knew at least what was going on.
In the program they thanked and gifted many people who helped them, including a "mother","father', and "uncle", and "brother". You could tell just from how the girls acted that although there might not have been biological connections, these people really were their family.
As always, I greatly enjoyed the modeling, singing, and dancing. I have to say, these students really did a great job. There were 3 modeling times. They did both Rwandese traditional styles and separate African styles. They also did some traditional dances. I tried to take as many pictures and videos as I could.
As the morning wore on I wanted to leave, but each time it looked like I might leave my students would tell me, no no teacher there is something else coming up that you will want to see, so of course I stayed. Like most things here, time is not always follwed, so although they had originally told me that it would go till noon, I wasn't surprised that it lasted till 1pm. Well, at least come 1 pm was the first oppurtunity I had to leave.
Overall I was so thankful that my students invited me to attend, and that I could to partake in such a fun time.
This party went from 9 am to 12 pm. In my head I thought that I could go to part of it and then leave just because Saturday morning is normally a very productive time for me. Come Saturday morning I found out that what they might call a party is not exactly what I(we) would call a party.
This event had a program. Some alumnae were there, and a few family members were there. Not to mention some other students in the same club, but at different schools, then a whole bunch of important people were there too.
Before I go on, I think that I should explain what AERG and Turikumwe are.
AERG (Association des Etudiants et Elèves des Rescapés du Génocide) is an association that was created in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide on October 20, 1996 at the National University of Rwanda. Its principal mission is to assure the total representation of student survivors of the 1994 genocide and to solve the problems hindering their performance in schools.
Now at my school the students took it one step farther and made their own organization called Turikumwe. Now a few years ago(5 to be exact) some of these girls realized that they wanted a network for themselves when they leave school, hence Turikumwe being born. So this party was not just celebrating the girls leaving school, but also them now becoming apart of the alumnae organization.
The program was extensive. There were speeches, modeling, singing, dancing. All around a good time. Everything was in Kinyarwanda, but I was luckily enough to have a kind student next to me translating so I knew at least what was going on.
In the program they thanked and gifted many people who helped them, including a "mother","father', and "uncle", and "brother". You could tell just from how the girls acted that although there might not have been biological connections, these people really were their family.
As always, I greatly enjoyed the modeling, singing, and dancing. I have to say, these students really did a great job. There were 3 modeling times. They did both Rwandese traditional styles and separate African styles. They also did some traditional dances. I tried to take as many pictures and videos as I could.
As the morning wore on I wanted to leave, but each time it looked like I might leave my students would tell me, no no teacher there is something else coming up that you will want to see, so of course I stayed. Like most things here, time is not always follwed, so although they had originally told me that it would go till noon, I wasn't surprised that it lasted till 1pm. Well, at least come 1 pm was the first oppurtunity I had to leave.
Overall I was so thankful that my students invited me to attend, and that I could to partake in such a fun time.
Kakawete
In case you were not aware, last week was Teacher's week, and October 5th as international teacher's day. Which for us meant no school. It should be noted that I did not find out about this till Sunday night, but what can you do?
Regardless, on Monday we had a party for us teachers. Kindof like a end of year celebration. During it we has a kakwete, which roughly translated to secret santa or gift exchange partner..haha. On Friday we picked our person. It was funny because they kepy trying to describe to me what we were doing and they couldn't believe that I was familiar with such a thing. The next thing that was funny was that some people were telling who they had, don't they understand the whole secret part..haha.
But, I was a good person and didn't tell anyone who I had, I wanted it to be a surprise. I got the computer teacher at my school. I wasn't sure what to buy since there was no price limit, it was up to the person doingthe buying depending on how much they like the person(straight up). I decided to go with simple and easy. I bought him 2 ties and a book.
The actual event. If there is one thing that I am trying to learn while in Rwanda, I must say that I think that it is patience. We has been told to meet at 1.30 and then we would arrive at the place at 2. Of course knowing this I was prepared to most likely not actually leave till 2 or later. Well what do you know, not only were people running late, but at the last minute the location of our party was even changed, which caused people to later than usual.
Eventually things did kick-off, but because of the change in venue, things weren't ready when we would have liked, so we had to stall. Call it what you want, but that is what it was. Our MC of the evening essentially was stalling till food was ready. Luckily they provided drinks up front, if not I dont think I could have handled waiting for food(I had not had lunch and was mad hungry). Finally the food came around 4.30 give or take. After we ate we did our gift exchange. It was a lot of fun to see who got who and the little speeches they would make were very amusing.
I was very happy with what I got. I think my kakawete really thought about me and got me some neat stuff. I got they wooden giraffes, and two little drums. Not to mention a nice necklace and earrings. Overall it was a good night.. It might have been a little longer than we had originally planned, but it was totally a good laugh, and produced some good pictures.
Can't wait for next year
Regardless, on Monday we had a party for us teachers. Kindof like a end of year celebration. During it we has a kakwete, which roughly translated to secret santa or gift exchange partner..haha. On Friday we picked our person. It was funny because they kepy trying to describe to me what we were doing and they couldn't believe that I was familiar with such a thing. The next thing that was funny was that some people were telling who they had, don't they understand the whole secret part..haha.
But, I was a good person and didn't tell anyone who I had, I wanted it to be a surprise. I got the computer teacher at my school. I wasn't sure what to buy since there was no price limit, it was up to the person doingthe buying depending on how much they like the person(straight up). I decided to go with simple and easy. I bought him 2 ties and a book.
The actual event. If there is one thing that I am trying to learn while in Rwanda, I must say that I think that it is patience. We has been told to meet at 1.30 and then we would arrive at the place at 2. Of course knowing this I was prepared to most likely not actually leave till 2 or later. Well what do you know, not only were people running late, but at the last minute the location of our party was even changed, which caused people to later than usual.
Eventually things did kick-off, but because of the change in venue, things weren't ready when we would have liked, so we had to stall. Call it what you want, but that is what it was. Our MC of the evening essentially was stalling till food was ready. Luckily they provided drinks up front, if not I dont think I could have handled waiting for food(I had not had lunch and was mad hungry). Finally the food came around 4.30 give or take. After we ate we did our gift exchange. It was a lot of fun to see who got who and the little speeches they would make were very amusing.
I was very happy with what I got. I think my kakawete really thought about me and got me some neat stuff. I got they wooden giraffes, and two little drums. Not to mention a nice necklace and earrings. Overall it was a good night.. It might have been a little longer than we had originally planned, but it was totally a good laugh, and produced some good pictures.
Can't wait for next year
Saturday, October 3, 2009
The Expo
Each year there is an exposition in Kigali. I'm not sure for how long this has been going on, but I know in the recent past its been here. I had first heard about the Expo from one of my students since I had complimented her on a top and she told me she bought it at the expo. The expo was the first week of August, and luckily since school was moved back students were able to attend, and my student invited me to go with her. I accepted.
I met my student and her older sister(which I had already met before) in town and we took a bus out to the expo. It was located on what we might call a fair grounds, or something of the like. We had gone in the early afternoon which I was informed was not a busy time to be there, but there was still a good number of people around.
There were huge tents and stalls set up. All the major companies in Rwanda had a booth. Then there were all the random merchants from leather goods to jewelry to irrigation equipment to the super chopper(something you would seeon infomericals). Some of the stalls were even separated by what African country they were from. It was a good time to just browse and walk around and look at everything. Then there were all the food and drink stands attached to the concert area, where they had DJs playing music. At this point in time it really was a family atmoshere. There were children dancing and winning prizes, and children dressed out in their finest. Overall a pretty fun time. As I was walking around with my student we ran into another student of mine who was working there and I got a free hat from the booth she was working at. score for me.haha.I love free stuff, who doesn't.
In terms of shopping I wasn't doing much, only browsing. But still it wasa great time, and I was really happy that I had gone.
The expo went on for about 2 weeks. The first time I went it was the beginning of the expo in the afternoon. The next time I went was the second to last night of the expo, the night before students had to go back to school, and it was night time.
Wow. The expo was crazy packed. I loved it. I loved the crush of people, the way you have to walk with the crowd, you go where they go..It felt like I was in a city..haha.I'm serious. And oh, the people watching. It was so good. Even at like 9pm the mix of people was so diverse. From families with newborns to friends and couples. If you can imagine it, most likely those people could be found. My friends I was with were not too keen on it, they just wanted to sit around, but I enjoyed walking in the crowd. I will admit that like any fair, what happens in the evening, heavy drinking, which leads to what, drunk people. Now me being white sure draws some attention, so I did have a few runins with some dunk men wanting a kiss but no harm, no foul.Plus my friends protect me..haha.
After we had walked around for a while we found a nice place to sit and watch people[one of my favorite activities]. Not only had we found a comfy place to sit, but we also were at a perfect place for watching. The booth that we were sitting next to had a camera set up to a big screen TV, so if the people were paying attention and looking at the TV they would see themselves walking past the booth. This obviously yielded great results. The faces and actions they did once they noticed they were 'on camera' were priceless. And to make it even better, from our vantage point the people didn't always notice me so I was able to do some of my own staring without always being stared back at, aka perfection.haha.
Overall the Expo was a good time and I was happy that I was able to go twice. Next year I will totally go back. I'm not sure if I will buy anything, but purely for the sense of crowdedness and people watching, it would totally be worth going.
I met my student and her older sister(which I had already met before) in town and we took a bus out to the expo. It was located on what we might call a fair grounds, or something of the like. We had gone in the early afternoon which I was informed was not a busy time to be there, but there was still a good number of people around.
There were huge tents and stalls set up. All the major companies in Rwanda had a booth. Then there were all the random merchants from leather goods to jewelry to irrigation equipment to the super chopper(something you would seeon infomericals). Some of the stalls were even separated by what African country they were from. It was a good time to just browse and walk around and look at everything. Then there were all the food and drink stands attached to the concert area, where they had DJs playing music. At this point in time it really was a family atmoshere. There were children dancing and winning prizes, and children dressed out in their finest. Overall a pretty fun time. As I was walking around with my student we ran into another student of mine who was working there and I got a free hat from the booth she was working at. score for me.haha.I love free stuff, who doesn't.
In terms of shopping I wasn't doing much, only browsing. But still it wasa great time, and I was really happy that I had gone.
The expo went on for about 2 weeks. The first time I went it was the beginning of the expo in the afternoon. The next time I went was the second to last night of the expo, the night before students had to go back to school, and it was night time.
Wow. The expo was crazy packed. I loved it. I loved the crush of people, the way you have to walk with the crowd, you go where they go..It felt like I was in a city..haha.I'm serious. And oh, the people watching. It was so good. Even at like 9pm the mix of people was so diverse. From families with newborns to friends and couples. If you can imagine it, most likely those people could be found. My friends I was with were not too keen on it, they just wanted to sit around, but I enjoyed walking in the crowd. I will admit that like any fair, what happens in the evening, heavy drinking, which leads to what, drunk people. Now me being white sure draws some attention, so I did have a few runins with some dunk men wanting a kiss but no harm, no foul.Plus my friends protect me..haha.
After we had walked around for a while we found a nice place to sit and watch people[one of my favorite activities]. Not only had we found a comfy place to sit, but we also were at a perfect place for watching. The booth that we were sitting next to had a camera set up to a big screen TV, so if the people were paying attention and looking at the TV they would see themselves walking past the booth. This obviously yielded great results. The faces and actions they did once they noticed they were 'on camera' were priceless. And to make it even better, from our vantage point the people didn't always notice me so I was able to do some of my own staring without always being stared back at, aka perfection.haha.
Overall the Expo was a good time and I was happy that I was able to go twice. Next year I will totally go back. I'm not sure if I will buy anything, but purely for the sense of crowdedness and people watching, it would totally be worth going.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Kibuye Trip
Originally between term 2 and term 3 there was supposed to be 3 weeks. But as time for the new term to start we found out that they were going to extend the holiday. Since that meant staying another week just in my house in Kigali, with not much to do I decided to go out with some of my friends. We decided to to go to Kibuye for 3 days. I went with one of my married couple friends. We figured we could have a good time and do it pretty cheaply.
Once we arrived we went to a great brochette shack. Then we made our way to one of the hotels. We had wanted to stay at a certain place, but when we arrived we found out that all the rooms available were the too expensive ones, so we smartly decided to go elsewhere. We went back to the place we stayed at during midservice. We were able to get a great room with 2 beds and our own bathroom. Score for us. I think the man was a little puzzled that the three of us would like to stay in one room, but this was about having fun on the cheap, so of course we were okay with doing it. To try and make it seem like it wasn't a big deal my friend and I said that we were sisters..haha.. Guess here in Rwanda married couples don't stay with in the same room with single people..
Originally we had wanted to stay at the other place because it was closer to where we wanted to go swimming.My friend had founda good place were we could jump in the water and it was rocky so we wouldn't have to worry about being on the sand. But, where we ended up staying just meant we would have a little walk to go swimming.The good thing about where we were staying is that their restaurant had a pretty decent meat pizza that was hardy, yet really cheap,the perfect combo for us.
Part of being away that was so nice was the fact that it felt as though we could really relax since we weren't home. In the morning we could just sit around, read books, chat, play scrabble, or cards. These might seem like simple things, but they are emensly satisfying.
We did go swimming. And man was it nice. I don't care that I could have caught something in Lake Kivu, it was just too nice to be in that water. We didn't even swim that much, it was more just hanging in the water and enjoying the feeling of being cool on a really hot day. The only semi-strange thing was that there were some Rwandese hanging about and when we got out of the water it felt a little like they were watching us. But then again, they were watching us..haha. Think about it, 3 white folks, in bathing suits..haha.. how could you not look??
Overall it was a good 3 days in Kibuye, and I was happy that I had gone with my friends. It was just the kind of relaxing break I needed before the new term started.
One note about the trip:When we had been walking back from swimming there were some girls looking at us rather strangely, and to be honest this is a normal accurance, but then when I thought about it seemed they looked a little familar. Being the polite people that we are, we said hello, and what do you know, we got a reply of hello teacher. That is when I realized the reason they look familar isn't just that they are student age girls with shaved heads, but because they were two of my students. We stopped and greated them. It was a nice little extra on the trip.
Once we arrived we went to a great brochette shack. Then we made our way to one of the hotels. We had wanted to stay at a certain place, but when we arrived we found out that all the rooms available were the too expensive ones, so we smartly decided to go elsewhere. We went back to the place we stayed at during midservice. We were able to get a great room with 2 beds and our own bathroom. Score for us. I think the man was a little puzzled that the three of us would like to stay in one room, but this was about having fun on the cheap, so of course we were okay with doing it. To try and make it seem like it wasn't a big deal my friend and I said that we were sisters..haha.. Guess here in Rwanda married couples don't stay with in the same room with single people..
Originally we had wanted to stay at the other place because it was closer to where we wanted to go swimming.My friend had founda good place were we could jump in the water and it was rocky so we wouldn't have to worry about being on the sand. But, where we ended up staying just meant we would have a little walk to go swimming.The good thing about where we were staying is that their restaurant had a pretty decent meat pizza that was hardy, yet really cheap,the perfect combo for us.
Part of being away that was so nice was the fact that it felt as though we could really relax since we weren't home. In the morning we could just sit around, read books, chat, play scrabble, or cards. These might seem like simple things, but they are emensly satisfying.
We did go swimming. And man was it nice. I don't care that I could have caught something in Lake Kivu, it was just too nice to be in that water. We didn't even swim that much, it was more just hanging in the water and enjoying the feeling of being cool on a really hot day. The only semi-strange thing was that there were some Rwandese hanging about and when we got out of the water it felt a little like they were watching us. But then again, they were watching us..haha. Think about it, 3 white folks, in bathing suits..haha.. how could you not look??
Overall it was a good 3 days in Kibuye, and I was happy that I had gone with my friends. It was just the kind of relaxing break I needed before the new term started.
One note about the trip:When we had been walking back from swimming there were some girls looking at us rather strangely, and to be honest this is a normal accurance, but then when I thought about it seemed they looked a little familar. Being the polite people that we are, we said hello, and what do you know, we got a reply of hello teacher. That is when I realized the reason they look familar isn't just that they are student age girls with shaved heads, but because they were two of my students. We stopped and greated them. It was a nice little extra on the trip.
TZ
Note:This happened during break two between Term 2 and Term 3, aka during August..
Lets start at the very beginning.
Leaving Kigali International Airport to fly to Kilamnjaro,TZ. First, the airport had free wireless, and it was decent internet, I was impressed. Then the airplane. It was one of those with propellars on the wings.crazy right. The flight was short and sweet, but they did give us food. I had me a sweet tuna and cheese sandwich.score. The view from the airplane was great. I took a few pictures, but to be honest my camera could not do it justice,so I stopped.
In Kilamanjaro we got picked up by our tourguide for our safari. We were told that we were lucky because we got to see the mountain uncovered by clouds. We even stopped on the side of the road to take pictures.
Here starts our week safari. I am going to break the week down into 2 categories.Lodging and Animals.
Although I could argue that the animals were the best and most important part of the trip,I am going to have to talk about what really matters--the lodging.Lets be real, I have been living in my little house for about 8 months and a little luxury sure ain't bad.
Each of the places that we stayed in were "lodges," and most of them were even inside or very near a national park, yet most of the finer amenities were not lacking...The only semi-true complaint I can make is that not all the places had TVs in their rooms. Although I might understand the reasons why, I still must admit, if there had been TVs in all the places, I'm not sure I could even complain.
The food was great. Some of the buffets were legit. The hot water wasn't bad either..haha. Even our boxed lunches were stellar. One of the lodges even had an infiniti pool overlooking the national park.. I would highly recommend any of the Serena Lodges.
I do have one story to go along with the lodging. When we were in Serengeti national park, we were told that we had to be walked to our rooms because animals move about the grounds..which is true, yet just another way for them to ask for money.(note at times it was ackward because they would stand around waiting expectantly)
We had arrived in the evening and some of the workers were there to show us to our rooms and carry our bags. Since I was in a room by myself I went off with this bellboy(lack of a better word). As we are unlocking the door the man asks if I am alone and I say yes. He then says oh you aren't married, I reply no. His response was then why not, what is wrong with you.And then he had the nerve to wait around for a tip. Luckily his phone rang and I told him he could take it outside, and I shut the door in his face. To be honest his actiona did not surprise me at all. After living here for the short amount of time that I have,nothing like that can surprise me,its almost a normal question for a woman to get. But what was surprising is that this was a lodge were essentially westerns excusively go, so shouldn't this man know what we do and what we do not say...just saying..especially if he wants us to give him money..
Now, the Animals.
Where to begin. I don't even know where to start. I can hardly put into words everything that we saw. It was unbelievable, truely a life changing experience to see all of these animals. There were zebras, giraffes, elephants, wildebeasts, various type of antelope creatures that have varying sizes and butt colors(I kid you not, white, black, black striped, etc). Not to mention the lions, leapards, cheetas, hippos, warthogs, hyenas. And the birds. We really saw some great birds, and I am not in the least bit ashamed to say that.
We saw animals grazing, animals eating, animals on the prawl, and even saw a few dead animals. We heard bones cracking as animals munched on their lunch. We saw and heard baby elephants squell as they ran to their mothers. We saw giraffes run and elephants knockin' down trees. We saw zebras go to their watering hole. We saw lions on the hunt. We saw some baby cheetas botch a hunt job with their mom. I could go on and on.
We also saw tons of tourists. At times it would feel like we were the only jeep driving around, and then suddenly it would be a jeep convention and there would be at least 20 all around looking at some good animal. Near the end, and I can't even believe I am saying this, we were a little "over" the giraffes and zebras. When our guide would ask if we wanted to stop, we would just say no no, its just another______. Which reminds me, the jeep. It was a fun vehicle. It had two rows of captain chairs and a back bench. The top could pop up letting us stand and take photos, but still remaining up so that the sun could be blocked.
And oh one cannot speak of the jeep without speaking of the DUST. DAMN. At times it was bad. Thankfully we had all our quick dry safari clothes so they could be washed out at night and worn the next day if need be.(yes I am a dork)
But back to the animals. I never really thought it could have been like that. Seeing all different animals in different parks,crazyness. Even with my dinky little camera I was able to get some quality photos that whenever I look back at them I will be able to remember an awesome week.
There is no way I can describe everything, but I can say I thank my family and friends for going on this trip and taking me with them. It was something that I can not and will not ever forget.
One last thing to tell you: This safari was NOT like the movies. It was better than the movies.
Lets start at the very beginning.
Leaving Kigali International Airport to fly to Kilamnjaro,TZ. First, the airport had free wireless, and it was decent internet, I was impressed. Then the airplane. It was one of those with propellars on the wings.crazy right. The flight was short and sweet, but they did give us food. I had me a sweet tuna and cheese sandwich.score. The view from the airplane was great. I took a few pictures, but to be honest my camera could not do it justice,so I stopped.
In Kilamanjaro we got picked up by our tourguide for our safari. We were told that we were lucky because we got to see the mountain uncovered by clouds. We even stopped on the side of the road to take pictures.
Here starts our week safari. I am going to break the week down into 2 categories.Lodging and Animals.
Although I could argue that the animals were the best and most important part of the trip,I am going to have to talk about what really matters--the lodging.Lets be real, I have been living in my little house for about 8 months and a little luxury sure ain't bad.
Each of the places that we stayed in were "lodges," and most of them were even inside or very near a national park, yet most of the finer amenities were not lacking...The only semi-true complaint I can make is that not all the places had TVs in their rooms. Although I might understand the reasons why, I still must admit, if there had been TVs in all the places, I'm not sure I could even complain.
The food was great. Some of the buffets were legit. The hot water wasn't bad either..haha. Even our boxed lunches were stellar. One of the lodges even had an infiniti pool overlooking the national park.. I would highly recommend any of the Serena Lodges.
I do have one story to go along with the lodging. When we were in Serengeti national park, we were told that we had to be walked to our rooms because animals move about the grounds..which is true, yet just another way for them to ask for money.(note at times it was ackward because they would stand around waiting expectantly)
We had arrived in the evening and some of the workers were there to show us to our rooms and carry our bags. Since I was in a room by myself I went off with this bellboy(lack of a better word). As we are unlocking the door the man asks if I am alone and I say yes. He then says oh you aren't married, I reply no. His response was then why not, what is wrong with you.And then he had the nerve to wait around for a tip. Luckily his phone rang and I told him he could take it outside, and I shut the door in his face. To be honest his actiona did not surprise me at all. After living here for the short amount of time that I have,nothing like that can surprise me,its almost a normal question for a woman to get. But what was surprising is that this was a lodge were essentially westerns excusively go, so shouldn't this man know what we do and what we do not say...just saying..especially if he wants us to give him money..
Now, the Animals.
Where to begin. I don't even know where to start. I can hardly put into words everything that we saw. It was unbelievable, truely a life changing experience to see all of these animals. There were zebras, giraffes, elephants, wildebeasts, various type of antelope creatures that have varying sizes and butt colors(I kid you not, white, black, black striped, etc). Not to mention the lions, leapards, cheetas, hippos, warthogs, hyenas. And the birds. We really saw some great birds, and I am not in the least bit ashamed to say that.
We saw animals grazing, animals eating, animals on the prawl, and even saw a few dead animals. We heard bones cracking as animals munched on their lunch. We saw and heard baby elephants squell as they ran to their mothers. We saw giraffes run and elephants knockin' down trees. We saw zebras go to their watering hole. We saw lions on the hunt. We saw some baby cheetas botch a hunt job with their mom. I could go on and on.
We also saw tons of tourists. At times it would feel like we were the only jeep driving around, and then suddenly it would be a jeep convention and there would be at least 20 all around looking at some good animal. Near the end, and I can't even believe I am saying this, we were a little "over" the giraffes and zebras. When our guide would ask if we wanted to stop, we would just say no no, its just another______. Which reminds me, the jeep. It was a fun vehicle. It had two rows of captain chairs and a back bench. The top could pop up letting us stand and take photos, but still remaining up so that the sun could be blocked.
And oh one cannot speak of the jeep without speaking of the DUST. DAMN. At times it was bad. Thankfully we had all our quick dry safari clothes so they could be washed out at night and worn the next day if need be.(yes I am a dork)
But back to the animals. I never really thought it could have been like that. Seeing all different animals in different parks,crazyness. Even with my dinky little camera I was able to get some quality photos that whenever I look back at them I will be able to remember an awesome week.
There is no way I can describe everything, but I can say I thank my family and friends for going on this trip and taking me with them. It was something that I can not and will not ever forget.
One last thing to tell you: This safari was NOT like the movies. It was better than the movies.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Kigali as Tourists
Having my family and friends come to Kigali was an interesting experience. In one way I got to see the city in a different light, and in another way it just confirmed everything that I had already thought about it.
Their first experience in Kigali was the Gisozi Genocide Memorial. Which as I have described before I will not go into again.
Then we went on our trips around the country, ending back in Kigali for 2 nights.
We drove down from Gisenyi semi-early in the morning, so we ended up back in Kigali around lunch time. We checked into our hotel, we stayed at the Mille Colline. Then we headed out to lunch, did Chinese food in order to switch some things up. Not to mention its a good way to get flavorful meat and vegetables here. At the end of lunch I started talking about dinner. They didn't understand that the reason I was talking about dinner is because thats the only next thing to do.
After we ate I did take them around Town a bit. It takes all of about 10 minutes to walk around. I did take them to an art coop, so that should count for something. Other than that, there really isn't much to see, so what else could I do but take them into Nakumatt, essentially a low-grade wallmart(but to us who live here, it is heaven at times)..
And thats about it. For me it was all about being in the hotel, watching TV, and taking a shower. Then the next day came. I brought them to my friends house to see where another person from my group lives, and because they were dog-sitting, and who doesn't like to see dogs..aka I had NOTHING else to do with them. For lunch I took them to a good pizza place. Then at lunch we were already planning what to do for dinner, Indian.
Do you see a trend. I am sad and sorry to tell you this in case you didn't already know. There honestly is not much to do in Kigali. I love it here, but lets be real, as a tourist attraction it doesn't have a lot to offer. There are many restaurants, but other than that, not so much.
Now my parents fully understood why whenever my friends come to the city on the weekends all we do is go out for food, there is nothing else to do.
I'm not saying don't come here, come here. But be prepared.
Their first experience in Kigali was the Gisozi Genocide Memorial. Which as I have described before I will not go into again.
Then we went on our trips around the country, ending back in Kigali for 2 nights.
We drove down from Gisenyi semi-early in the morning, so we ended up back in Kigali around lunch time. We checked into our hotel, we stayed at the Mille Colline. Then we headed out to lunch, did Chinese food in order to switch some things up. Not to mention its a good way to get flavorful meat and vegetables here. At the end of lunch I started talking about dinner. They didn't understand that the reason I was talking about dinner is because thats the only next thing to do.
After we ate I did take them around Town a bit. It takes all of about 10 minutes to walk around. I did take them to an art coop, so that should count for something. Other than that, there really isn't much to see, so what else could I do but take them into Nakumatt, essentially a low-grade wallmart(but to us who live here, it is heaven at times)..
And thats about it. For me it was all about being in the hotel, watching TV, and taking a shower. Then the next day came. I brought them to my friends house to see where another person from my group lives, and because they were dog-sitting, and who doesn't like to see dogs..aka I had NOTHING else to do with them. For lunch I took them to a good pizza place. Then at lunch we were already planning what to do for dinner, Indian.
Do you see a trend. I am sad and sorry to tell you this in case you didn't already know. There honestly is not much to do in Kigali. I love it here, but lets be real, as a tourist attraction it doesn't have a lot to offer. There are many restaurants, but other than that, not so much.
Now my parents fully understood why whenever my friends come to the city on the weekends all we do is go out for food, there is nothing else to do.
I'm not saying don't come here, come here. But be prepared.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Gisenyi
This is next leg of my journey during my break after my second term of eaching..
After gorrila trekking we then continued our journey in Rwanda to Gisenyi, which is on Lake Kivu.
Compared to the drive from Kigali to Musanze, this drive was all knew to me. I got to see another part of Rwanda. To be honest it is on drives like this that one realizes how much love they can have for a country. It really is just that beautiful. The winding roads, the little villages, and the tea plantations are just breath taking.
I was lucky enough to stay at the Serena Lake Kivu. This is essentially like any good resort hotel. It was a vacation, and boy oh boy did I need one.
Lets just sum of the greatness of this place: TV with multiple movie channels, comfy bed, hot water, electricity, wireless internet, and the big one: AC. To be honest my first night there I didn't even know their was AC. Then the next day my mom was in my room and she was like wow you are keeping it really hot in here, and I said what do you mean, how could I make it cooler, and she was then like well you could then turn on the AC. Lets just say I then layed on my bed for who knows how long just feeling the cool air blow over me.HAHA.
Now for my ChemE dorks. I know I have neglected who I am for too long, so lets talk about what really matter, Methane extraction from a lake. Yes that is right folks, in Lake Kivu there is a methane extraction project.
And there is also a huge bottling factory. yes I know this is not strictly ChemE, but I had been deprived for too long, so the littlest thing could make me happy..
Lets just say this helped give me a fix of what I had been missing.. as you all know I am a ChemE crazy girl..haha..
After gorrila trekking we then continued our journey in Rwanda to Gisenyi, which is on Lake Kivu.
Compared to the drive from Kigali to Musanze, this drive was all knew to me. I got to see another part of Rwanda. To be honest it is on drives like this that one realizes how much love they can have for a country. It really is just that beautiful. The winding roads, the little villages, and the tea plantations are just breath taking.
I was lucky enough to stay at the Serena Lake Kivu. This is essentially like any good resort hotel. It was a vacation, and boy oh boy did I need one.
Lets just sum of the greatness of this place: TV with multiple movie channels, comfy bed, hot water, electricity, wireless internet, and the big one: AC. To be honest my first night there I didn't even know their was AC. Then the next day my mom was in my room and she was like wow you are keeping it really hot in here, and I said what do you mean, how could I make it cooler, and she was then like well you could then turn on the AC. Lets just say I then layed on my bed for who knows how long just feeling the cool air blow over me.HAHA.
Now for my ChemE dorks. I know I have neglected who I am for too long, so lets talk about what really matter, Methane extraction from a lake. Yes that is right folks, in Lake Kivu there is a methane extraction project.
And there is also a huge bottling factory. yes I know this is not strictly ChemE, but I had been deprived for too long, so the littlest thing could make me happy..
Lets just say this helped give me a fix of what I had been missing.. as you all know I am a ChemE crazy girl..haha..
Gorillas
I know that it has been a long time, but I'm finally back, and now I have so much to say. This particular story comes from back in July... hope you enjoy
After lunch on Friday we drove up to Ruhengeri(Musanze). We stayed at the Hotel Gorillas. Oh My. So Nice. I had TV and a hot shower. I had forgot how white my skin could be.
Saturday morning. We left at 6.15 to drive up to the national park. Once we arrived at the station we then waited around a bit for everyone to arrive. They then divided us up into groups and brought us to our guides. Our group was the 5 of us and 2 Belgian women. We met our guide, Patience, and he then briefed us on what we were about to experience. Then we all piled back into our cars and drove off. Of the 14 families of gorillas, only 7 are visited by tourists, the others are for research.. Each group goes to a different family. In order to know where they are, there are gorilla trackers that start early in the morning so then they can walkie-talkie our guides so that we can find the gorillas as easily as possible. Before we even started hiking we first had about a 45 minute drive along the bumpiest, rockiest road ever. The scenery was great, the "African massage," not so great. While we were driving we were going through little 'communities.' As our cars drove through all the little children would turn out. Most of the children had little pieces of paper with some sort of gorilla drawing on them. They were trying to sell them to us. Obviously at some point someone must have stopped and bought one, because all the little children would come running when they saw our cars a-coming.
Once we came to the end of the road, we then had about a 15 minute walk to the edge of the park.The entire park is surrounded by a stone wall. Once we climb the wall we are in. Along with us and our guides were two army men sent in case of wild animals, eg buffalo, come at us, since they have guns.
We had about a 45 minute 'walk' to wear the trackers had spied the family of gorillas we were going to see. It was pretty steep. Not a horribly long walk, but the walk was hard-core steep. My first spying of a gorilla came when the young Belgain woman in front of mepointed one out in a tree. Of course we did exactly what we were not supposed to do,point. We continued a little bit, and it ends up that at the base of the tree where we saw our first gorilla was the family of them. We had two juvinile boys wrestling for us. They were pretty good. I would think a few high school boys in the US could learn a thing or two from them on the mats.
In the background was the Silverback, but we couldn't really see him that well because he was just chilling on the ground. To be honest I was a little relieved.. this meant that our group of camera clicking humans was not distrubing him enough.
On second thought this does not really surprise me when you think about how the park works. Every day for an hour they are exposed to crazed tourists, so it must become normal, somehow.
Right before our time was up with the gorillas they switched our postion so we could see from another angle. Thats when we saw a mother. Our guide pointed out the mother and the baby, and honestly my first thought was that I must be an idiot because I really am not seeing anything, but then I realized, that tiny thing laying on the mother, the thing that is about the size of a mini-football is a baby gorilla. Holy cow. It was crazy. Honestly I knew that a baby would be small, but in comparision to the mother it really was shocking.
On the way back down, it took about 20 minutes. We did see how much of climb we had done on the way in though.
SO, the afternoon. After we did gorilla trekking on Saturday we went back to our hotel, took showers, and then had lunch. We then decided to walk around Ruhengeri(Musanze) a little bit. Since I had already been there before I felt comfortable going with my family. I even took them through the market and off the beaten road. Overall I think it was a good time. They really got to experience what being a Muzungu is like, cause 5 of us walking around sure brought out the stares alright.
Now. My HEAVENLY experience. And no I am not mincing words when I use that description. I am pretty sure that I used all the hot water that the hotel had to offer. Gosh, one cannot believe all the dirt that comes off with hot water in comparision with cold water..haha.
Then, Sunday morning we were off to trek gorillas yet again. This time we went to the family with the english translation of a name 'Lucky.' I would try to describe to you how we got to the family, but I honestly do not think that you would believe me if I told you.But here it goes anyway: After walking through a forrest of bambo, we then realized that we were on the edge of a ravine type thing. The gorillas were at the bottom of the ravine. Essentially it required some classy bottom sliding down bushes..haha.. I'm serious.
This hour that we spent with the gorillas was unbelievable. At times we were totally less than the seven meters away. I got some awesome video.
Overall the gorilla trekking was something one could never imagine. I had asked my dad if he ever thought that we would be doing something like this in our lives, but he told me that honestly when he was a boy and he learned about gorillas he never even dreamed that one day he could see them in real life, and not in a zoo. To him it wasn't even something that was dreamable, it just seemed that impossible.
If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, take it from me, it is worth every cent. You will never be able to go to a zoo ever again.
After lunch on Friday we drove up to Ruhengeri(Musanze). We stayed at the Hotel Gorillas. Oh My. So Nice. I had TV and a hot shower. I had forgot how white my skin could be.
Saturday morning. We left at 6.15 to drive up to the national park. Once we arrived at the station we then waited around a bit for everyone to arrive. They then divided us up into groups and brought us to our guides. Our group was the 5 of us and 2 Belgian women. We met our guide, Patience, and he then briefed us on what we were about to experience. Then we all piled back into our cars and drove off. Of the 14 families of gorillas, only 7 are visited by tourists, the others are for research.. Each group goes to a different family. In order to know where they are, there are gorilla trackers that start early in the morning so then they can walkie-talkie our guides so that we can find the gorillas as easily as possible. Before we even started hiking we first had about a 45 minute drive along the bumpiest, rockiest road ever. The scenery was great, the "African massage," not so great. While we were driving we were going through little 'communities.' As our cars drove through all the little children would turn out. Most of the children had little pieces of paper with some sort of gorilla drawing on them. They were trying to sell them to us. Obviously at some point someone must have stopped and bought one, because all the little children would come running when they saw our cars a-coming.
Once we came to the end of the road, we then had about a 15 minute walk to the edge of the park.The entire park is surrounded by a stone wall. Once we climb the wall we are in. Along with us and our guides were two army men sent in case of wild animals, eg buffalo, come at us, since they have guns.
We had about a 45 minute 'walk' to wear the trackers had spied the family of gorillas we were going to see. It was pretty steep. Not a horribly long walk, but the walk was hard-core steep. My first spying of a gorilla came when the young Belgain woman in front of mepointed one out in a tree. Of course we did exactly what we were not supposed to do,point. We continued a little bit, and it ends up that at the base of the tree where we saw our first gorilla was the family of them. We had two juvinile boys wrestling for us. They were pretty good. I would think a few high school boys in the US could learn a thing or two from them on the mats.
In the background was the Silverback, but we couldn't really see him that well because he was just chilling on the ground. To be honest I was a little relieved.. this meant that our group of camera clicking humans was not distrubing him enough.
On second thought this does not really surprise me when you think about how the park works. Every day for an hour they are exposed to crazed tourists, so it must become normal, somehow.
Right before our time was up with the gorillas they switched our postion so we could see from another angle. Thats when we saw a mother. Our guide pointed out the mother and the baby, and honestly my first thought was that I must be an idiot because I really am not seeing anything, but then I realized, that tiny thing laying on the mother, the thing that is about the size of a mini-football is a baby gorilla. Holy cow. It was crazy. Honestly I knew that a baby would be small, but in comparision to the mother it really was shocking.
On the way back down, it took about 20 minutes. We did see how much of climb we had done on the way in though.
SO, the afternoon. After we did gorilla trekking on Saturday we went back to our hotel, took showers, and then had lunch. We then decided to walk around Ruhengeri(Musanze) a little bit. Since I had already been there before I felt comfortable going with my family. I even took them through the market and off the beaten road. Overall I think it was a good time. They really got to experience what being a Muzungu is like, cause 5 of us walking around sure brought out the stares alright.
Now. My HEAVENLY experience. And no I am not mincing words when I use that description. I am pretty sure that I used all the hot water that the hotel had to offer. Gosh, one cannot believe all the dirt that comes off with hot water in comparision with cold water..haha.
Then, Sunday morning we were off to trek gorillas yet again. This time we went to the family with the english translation of a name 'Lucky.' I would try to describe to you how we got to the family, but I honestly do not think that you would believe me if I told you.But here it goes anyway: After walking through a forrest of bambo, we then realized that we were on the edge of a ravine type thing. The gorillas were at the bottom of the ravine. Essentially it required some classy bottom sliding down bushes..haha.. I'm serious.
This hour that we spent with the gorillas was unbelievable. At times we were totally less than the seven meters away. I got some awesome video.
Overall the gorilla trekking was something one could never imagine. I had asked my dad if he ever thought that we would be doing something like this in our lives, but he told me that honestly when he was a boy and he learned about gorillas he never even dreamed that one day he could see them in real life, and not in a zoo. To him it wasn't even something that was dreamable, it just seemed that impossible.
If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, take it from me, it is worth every cent. You will never be able to go to a zoo ever again.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
VOA-Where is Egypt?
Let me start by saying I have never claimed to be good in geography. But, with that said, I do have a world map from doctor's without borders hanging on my wall(thanks mom!).
So here's the deal. I am addicted to VOA. I listen to it daily. Both in the morning, at night, and sometimes during the afternoon. Not only is it my major source of news, but it also provides many great music programs. Normally I would start talking the station up because I love it so much, but sorry folks, not today.
First--I'm not sure if what I'm saying is correct, but at least it is what I think, and since this is my blog, I'm gonna go with what I think.haha.
This morning I was listening to VOA world news as I was eating my oatmeal and drinking my hot chocolate(with my doxy). They came to the story of Pres. Obama going/coming to Ghana. At first they were discussing the reasons why the White House picked Ghana and not some other country. Then they go into how this is very important as the President's first trip to Africa.
Let me stop there. I was like WHAT? I thought he was in Egypt just a few weeks ago giving a huge speech, I even listened to it on VOA, and the end got cut off(so I remember that day well).
Continue with VOA. They go on to talk about how him going to Ghana is just as important as him going to speak in Cairo and how for that speech it was to the Muslim world, but in Ghana it will be all the Africans listening.
Now I am not going to try and argue that the Muslim world is Africa. BUT, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Egypt is in Africa. I know that maybe when the Pres. was there he was not directing his speech to "All Africans," but still, he was in Africa. This dissapointed me. VOA is my source of news. Now, if I'm right that means I was able to catch this on my own, but what if VOA is/has been wrong other times, and I never caught it?? Can you imagine how this is going to affect me??
Therefore, PLEASE, correct me if I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, cause if I'm right, that means VOA is wrong, and surely that would crush me.
So I'm putting it out there, someone, please comment and enlighten me.
So here's the deal. I am addicted to VOA. I listen to it daily. Both in the morning, at night, and sometimes during the afternoon. Not only is it my major source of news, but it also provides many great music programs. Normally I would start talking the station up because I love it so much, but sorry folks, not today.
First--I'm not sure if what I'm saying is correct, but at least it is what I think, and since this is my blog, I'm gonna go with what I think.haha.
This morning I was listening to VOA world news as I was eating my oatmeal and drinking my hot chocolate(with my doxy). They came to the story of Pres. Obama going/coming to Ghana. At first they were discussing the reasons why the White House picked Ghana and not some other country. Then they go into how this is very important as the President's first trip to Africa.
Let me stop there. I was like WHAT? I thought he was in Egypt just a few weeks ago giving a huge speech, I even listened to it on VOA, and the end got cut off(so I remember that day well).
Continue with VOA. They go on to talk about how him going to Ghana is just as important as him going to speak in Cairo and how for that speech it was to the Muslim world, but in Ghana it will be all the Africans listening.
Now I am not going to try and argue that the Muslim world is Africa. BUT, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Egypt is in Africa. I know that maybe when the Pres. was there he was not directing his speech to "All Africans," but still, he was in Africa. This dissapointed me. VOA is my source of news. Now, if I'm right that means I was able to catch this on my own, but what if VOA is/has been wrong other times, and I never caught it?? Can you imagine how this is going to affect me??
Therefore, PLEASE, correct me if I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, cause if I'm right, that means VOA is wrong, and surely that would crush me.
So I'm putting it out there, someone, please comment and enlighten me.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
July 4th
100 days over
Yesterday was Liberation day. It marks the end of the genocide, the end of the 100 days. In the morning there was a 'celebration' at the national stadium. H.E. Kagame spoke at it. There was tradiontal songs and dances performed. I had already learned from my students that they aren't just any traditional songs, they are specific for liberation day. There was also a military demonstration (its more like a parade, but everyone here uses the word demostration). This was in the morning, and was over at 1 pm.
Now--my day. As you all know, 4th of July is not only a holiday here in Rwanda, but also a HUGE holiday in America.Independence Day. Fireworks. BBQs. Family Fun. Ect. Thats normally what happens, right?--here.no.
Friday night I met up with some of my friends and we went out to dinner. We went to this amazing Ethiopian resturant. It was my first time ever eating Ethiopian. Tons of fun. Highly suggest it if you have never. After dinner we went out for a coke at this bar/resturant that we had seen before but it doesn't have a sign/name that we could see, but we decided it might be fun. Well its called Rodeo. They had a band. It was like country-western-rwandese music..Man did we have fun. and our cokes were good too(I'm serious about the cokes). I stayed the night with my friend at her room she had got for the night. Although I live in Kigali and could have 'easily' gone home, sometimes it is just easier to do this. Not to mention of course the fact that I wanted to stay cause I could take a hot shower on Saturday morning..haha.
Saturday morning-CLEAN HAIR. YES. CLEAN HAIR. oh man, it was so nice, so nice. anyway sorry, I'm getting off track. We had a lazy morning and then headed out around 10.30ish. Well well,although we had held out hope that things would be open, once again, no. Luckily our trusty Blues Cafe was open and we went there for tea. Most of the people who were there were whites. Not very surprising. What was interesting was that they had their rain flaps down. We figured that as the day went out, hopefully more things would open. This was correct. At almost exactly 1 pm things started opening up so we could then go food shopping. It was also interesting because around this time the cafe lifted the flaps.. I can't help but wonder if they were trying to be on the DL about being open??who knows.
Food Shopping-- My friend and I did it up right. We decided to go all out. She and I bought ground beef, hot dogs, cheese, spices for the meat, popcorn kernals, chips, rolls, and ketchup. Then we went back to my place. We stashed the hot dogs for later in my heasmistress' fridge,but then we went to town on the meat. We made AMAZING burgers. We spiced them up, put onions indside. Oh it was good. Then we toasted the rolls on the burner. Oh man, you can't imagine how good it was for us. Then we had our cheese and ketchup on it. For once we did not have to worry about there being mayo or some other random sauce on the burger. and we knew the flavors would be good. We brought two of my chairs and my coffee table outside and we ate outside. It was such a pretty day with a good breeze. We sat outside for about 4 hours. It was just so relaxing. For a second I could have imagined myself doing this back home in America.HA.
Later in the day we made killer popcorn. I know its easy to do, but we were so proud of ourselves. All around we had a very relaxing Fourth of July. Although there we no fireworks,we did manage to have some fun.
And the best part is, we saved the hotdogs and one bag of chips to eat today..haha.. the fun just continues.
I hope everyone at home was able to have the same fun that I did.(even if you did get fireworks)
Yesterday was Liberation day. It marks the end of the genocide, the end of the 100 days. In the morning there was a 'celebration' at the national stadium. H.E. Kagame spoke at it. There was tradiontal songs and dances performed. I had already learned from my students that they aren't just any traditional songs, they are specific for liberation day. There was also a military demonstration (its more like a parade, but everyone here uses the word demostration). This was in the morning, and was over at 1 pm.
Now--my day. As you all know, 4th of July is not only a holiday here in Rwanda, but also a HUGE holiday in America.Independence Day. Fireworks. BBQs. Family Fun. Ect. Thats normally what happens, right?--here.no.
Friday night I met up with some of my friends and we went out to dinner. We went to this amazing Ethiopian resturant. It was my first time ever eating Ethiopian. Tons of fun. Highly suggest it if you have never. After dinner we went out for a coke at this bar/resturant that we had seen before but it doesn't have a sign/name that we could see, but we decided it might be fun. Well its called Rodeo. They had a band. It was like country-western-rwandese music..Man did we have fun. and our cokes were good too(I'm serious about the cokes). I stayed the night with my friend at her room she had got for the night. Although I live in Kigali and could have 'easily' gone home, sometimes it is just easier to do this. Not to mention of course the fact that I wanted to stay cause I could take a hot shower on Saturday morning..haha.
Saturday morning-CLEAN HAIR. YES. CLEAN HAIR. oh man, it was so nice, so nice. anyway sorry, I'm getting off track. We had a lazy morning and then headed out around 10.30ish. Well well,although we had held out hope that things would be open, once again, no. Luckily our trusty Blues Cafe was open and we went there for tea. Most of the people who were there were whites. Not very surprising. What was interesting was that they had their rain flaps down. We figured that as the day went out, hopefully more things would open. This was correct. At almost exactly 1 pm things started opening up so we could then go food shopping. It was also interesting because around this time the cafe lifted the flaps.. I can't help but wonder if they were trying to be on the DL about being open??who knows.
Food Shopping-- My friend and I did it up right. We decided to go all out. She and I bought ground beef, hot dogs, cheese, spices for the meat, popcorn kernals, chips, rolls, and ketchup. Then we went back to my place. We stashed the hot dogs for later in my heasmistress' fridge,but then we went to town on the meat. We made AMAZING burgers. We spiced them up, put onions indside. Oh it was good. Then we toasted the rolls on the burner. Oh man, you can't imagine how good it was for us. Then we had our cheese and ketchup on it. For once we did not have to worry about there being mayo or some other random sauce on the burger. and we knew the flavors would be good. We brought two of my chairs and my coffee table outside and we ate outside. It was such a pretty day with a good breeze. We sat outside for about 4 hours. It was just so relaxing. For a second I could have imagined myself doing this back home in America.HA.
Later in the day we made killer popcorn. I know its easy to do, but we were so proud of ourselves. All around we had a very relaxing Fourth of July. Although there we no fireworks,we did manage to have some fun.
And the best part is, we saved the hotdogs and one bag of chips to eat today..haha.. the fun just continues.
I hope everyone at home was able to have the same fun that I did.(even if you did get fireworks)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Yes I'm actually writing this
Okay-- I can't actually believe I am going to blog about this, but I am. As the whole world knows, Michael Jackson has died. I know that many people are fans, how can one not be, but still, I never never thought that some people would take it so hard. Especially here.No lie.
Numerous people that I know here are devastated. At first I thought they were joking, but then I soon came to realize that they were being serious. And honestly this shocked me.
I understand and believe that he was a great singer and truly changed music history with many of his songs and albums, and lets not forget the dancing. But still. He has not released anything recently, remember he was going to tour again because he was out of money. And yes I'm going to say it, let us not forget about the whole mess involving him and the possible child molesting. I refuse to bring that into it, because everyone has an opinion, so I will just put it out there.
In my book he deserves to be mourned, of course. But does it mean that the average person needs to stop their life for a day, I think not. Maybe this is insensitive, everyone deals with sorrow differently, but still. It just boggles the mind.
When I was on facebook yesterday(Friday) I read an interesting thing. One of my friends had said that the whole world news was dominated with the death of one man, yet the fact there was a explosion on a bus in Iraq that killed how many people, people are even talking about. His comment really summed up how I felt.
Well so as not to go on and on about MJ, I want to just make one more observation. First I want to say that of course what I am about to say is not how everyone thinks here, but I have had this conversation with more than one person here.
I have talked with some people that think Michael Jackson is African.(note its not just him, but he is a good case example, and the discussion was brought back up since he died)
Now for us, he is African-American. He was born and raised in America. So were his parents. So are most African-Americans. Many families have even been in American much longer than us "white folks" who might have came later, eg through ellis island. But people here still say they are African and don't see a difference. From what I can tell, nationality, heritage, and ethinicity is sometimes very hard to explain to some people here. I have also had similiar discussions with other people from my group, so I know they have encountered this too. Not really sure what it means, but it does make my mind tumble.
Numerous people that I know here are devastated. At first I thought they were joking, but then I soon came to realize that they were being serious. And honestly this shocked me.
I understand and believe that he was a great singer and truly changed music history with many of his songs and albums, and lets not forget the dancing. But still. He has not released anything recently, remember he was going to tour again because he was out of money. And yes I'm going to say it, let us not forget about the whole mess involving him and the possible child molesting. I refuse to bring that into it, because everyone has an opinion, so I will just put it out there.
In my book he deserves to be mourned, of course. But does it mean that the average person needs to stop their life for a day, I think not. Maybe this is insensitive, everyone deals with sorrow differently, but still. It just boggles the mind.
When I was on facebook yesterday(Friday) I read an interesting thing. One of my friends had said that the whole world news was dominated with the death of one man, yet the fact there was a explosion on a bus in Iraq that killed how many people, people are even talking about. His comment really summed up how I felt.
Well so as not to go on and on about MJ, I want to just make one more observation. First I want to say that of course what I am about to say is not how everyone thinks here, but I have had this conversation with more than one person here.
I have talked with some people that think Michael Jackson is African.(note its not just him, but he is a good case example, and the discussion was brought back up since he died)
Now for us, he is African-American. He was born and raised in America. So were his parents. So are most African-Americans. Many families have even been in American much longer than us "white folks" who might have came later, eg through ellis island. But people here still say they are African and don't see a difference. From what I can tell, nationality, heritage, and ethinicity is sometimes very hard to explain to some people here. I have also had similiar discussions with other people from my group, so I know they have encountered this too. Not really sure what it means, but it does make my mind tumble.
Proverbs
Normally when I am at school I do internet in 2 places. Either I'm in one of the staff rooms or I am in one of the senior 1 classrooms. I like this because the students always leave me alone and I feel I can do my browsing in relative peace.
In the back of the classroom I am currently sitting in I always see a poster that says Proverbs on it. Now up till now I have never actually gone all the way back to read them, but today I did. And after reading them I decided that I had to share them. It should be noted that I have copied the poster exactly how the students have it.
Proverbs
1. A word to the wise is enough.
2.A rolling stone gathers no mass.
3. Traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.
4. A friend in need is a friend indeed.
5. One man's meat is another man's poison.
6. Where there is a way there is a will.
7. A great talker is a great liar.
8. You leap what you sow.
9. Actions act more than words
10. A good liar should have a good memory
11. Time lost is never gained.
12. Try and fail but never fail to try.
13. Laugh laugh makes silly.
14. Think twice before you act.
15. Practise makes perfect
16. Knowledge is power.
17. Prevention is better than cure.
18. Nevercross a bridge before you come to it.
19. Cut your cloth according to your coat.
20. Charity begins at home.
Now that you have read them, I think you can agree that it is a little bit amusing. I will admit that some of them are good, but I also have to say that some of them I do not like. Now if you know me, you can most likely guess which one that is(cough number 3 cough cough).
But what can you do?
The only real question I have is who gave them this list of proverbs?
In the back of the classroom I am currently sitting in I always see a poster that says Proverbs on it. Now up till now I have never actually gone all the way back to read them, but today I did. And after reading them I decided that I had to share them. It should be noted that I have copied the poster exactly how the students have it.
Proverbs
1. A word to the wise is enough.
2.A rolling stone gathers no mass.
3. Traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.
4. A friend in need is a friend indeed.
5. One man's meat is another man's poison.
6. Where there is a way there is a will.
7. A great talker is a great liar.
8. You leap what you sow.
9. Actions act more than words
10. A good liar should have a good memory
11. Time lost is never gained.
12. Try and fail but never fail to try.
13. Laugh laugh makes silly.
14. Think twice before you act.
15. Practise makes perfect
16. Knowledge is power.
17. Prevention is better than cure.
18. Nevercross a bridge before you come to it.
19. Cut your cloth according to your coat.
20. Charity begins at home.
Now that you have read them, I think you can agree that it is a little bit amusing. I will admit that some of them are good, but I also have to say that some of them I do not like. Now if you know me, you can most likely guess which one that is(cough number 3 cough cough).
But what can you do?
The only real question I have is who gave them this list of proverbs?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Hillywood
Rwanda Film Festival
For the fifth year running Rwanda has had a film festival also called Hillywood. It is a traveling festival that goes in the cities but also the villages. They travel with a blow up screen and show the movies to the people. The movies are about a variety of things, from documentaries about different African countries to comedies and dramas directed by Africans, and even some random foreign films.
So far I have gone and seen 4 movies.
The first was Children of Congo. It was a documentary focused on the street children in Kinshasha and Goma. One of the most interesting aspects of the movie was the relation of children to being on the street and them being accused of sorcery. To be honest I had never thought of this. From what the film showed, it seems that when bad times fall on families they can blame it on a child, accuse them of sorcery or witchcraft, and then kick them out of the house. Of course the children are not witches.
Aside from looking at the causes of street children, the film also looked into the different programs that are trying to help the children and make whatever dent into the problem they can.
Overall I thought it was an okay documentary.
The next film I saw was Iron Ladies of Liberia. This is a go see. For sure. It is a documentary following the President of Liberia's first year in office. It also follows the new police commissioner of the country. Both of these positions belonged to women for the first time. The documentary takes place right after Liberia went through major conflicts. Not only is it informational to those of us who are not so well informed, but it also is enlightening to see women in such positions of power and how they deal with it.
I highly suggest if you can find this film, that you get it, and watch it.
The third documentary I watched with my friends was called War Child. It is a documentary about Emmanuel Jah, a child soldier from the Sudan who has become singer/rapper. He tells his story and then we get to see him go back to Southern Sudan for the first time since he was smuggled out as a child. One of the most amazing parts of the film was the achival footage they had of him as a boy in a UN refugee camp in Ethiopia.
Although at times it seemed a little to long and that it wouldn't ever rap up, I can still say that I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
If you cannot find this documentary I would suggest you look up some of his music, because he sings about his past experiences.
The last movie that I have seen as of now was called Iesta. It was the shortest documentary at only 55 minutes. But by far those 55 minutes are the most well used. As we all know 15 years ago there was a rwandan genocide. Too many people were killed, yet there is only one documented killing while it happened. Those murdered were recorded by cameraman Nick Hughes. If you hav ever watched anything about the genocide I am sure you have seen the clip, because it is the only clip of killings actually happening, everything else is just of the bodies afterwards.
This documentary is about Nick Hughes going back to Rwanda to find out who were the people he captured on tape being killed, and who were the people did it. This movie was obviously emotional on all fronts, but I have to say that it was also very interesting. I can't rightly explain. Or rather I can't find the write words to explain. But please look into this documentary.
For the fifth year running Rwanda has had a film festival also called Hillywood. It is a traveling festival that goes in the cities but also the villages. They travel with a blow up screen and show the movies to the people. The movies are about a variety of things, from documentaries about different African countries to comedies and dramas directed by Africans, and even some random foreign films.
So far I have gone and seen 4 movies.
The first was Children of Congo. It was a documentary focused on the street children in Kinshasha and Goma. One of the most interesting aspects of the movie was the relation of children to being on the street and them being accused of sorcery. To be honest I had never thought of this. From what the film showed, it seems that when bad times fall on families they can blame it on a child, accuse them of sorcery or witchcraft, and then kick them out of the house. Of course the children are not witches.
Aside from looking at the causes of street children, the film also looked into the different programs that are trying to help the children and make whatever dent into the problem they can.
Overall I thought it was an okay documentary.
The next film I saw was Iron Ladies of Liberia. This is a go see. For sure. It is a documentary following the President of Liberia's first year in office. It also follows the new police commissioner of the country. Both of these positions belonged to women for the first time. The documentary takes place right after Liberia went through major conflicts. Not only is it informational to those of us who are not so well informed, but it also is enlightening to see women in such positions of power and how they deal with it.
I highly suggest if you can find this film, that you get it, and watch it.
The third documentary I watched with my friends was called War Child. It is a documentary about Emmanuel Jah, a child soldier from the Sudan who has become singer/rapper. He tells his story and then we get to see him go back to Southern Sudan for the first time since he was smuggled out as a child. One of the most amazing parts of the film was the achival footage they had of him as a boy in a UN refugee camp in Ethiopia.
Although at times it seemed a little to long and that it wouldn't ever rap up, I can still say that I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
If you cannot find this documentary I would suggest you look up some of his music, because he sings about his past experiences.
The last movie that I have seen as of now was called Iesta. It was the shortest documentary at only 55 minutes. But by far those 55 minutes are the most well used. As we all know 15 years ago there was a rwandan genocide. Too many people were killed, yet there is only one documented killing while it happened. Those murdered were recorded by cameraman Nick Hughes. If you hav ever watched anything about the genocide I am sure you have seen the clip, because it is the only clip of killings actually happening, everything else is just of the bodies afterwards.
This documentary is about Nick Hughes going back to Rwanda to find out who were the people he captured on tape being killed, and who were the people did it. This movie was obviously emotional on all fronts, but I have to say that it was also very interesting. I can't rightly explain. Or rather I can't find the write words to explain. But please look into this documentary.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sample Tests
I have not wrote about school in a while, and since we are a little over half-way throught term 2 I decided it might be nice for me to show some samples of the work that I give my students. I am going to show you two different classes, aka different levels.
Now these samples are a little different then what I normally give, because I used them as a gauge to see how much of what I am saying the students actually understand. You will see that there are no equations or reactions that need to be solved, no math to be done. They are purely short answer questions. Everything that I asked I have taught, or it is something they should have already known, but I have noticed that they have problems with the topic.
Sample 1:
S5BCM2
Subject: Chemistry
Teacher:GPal
1. Draw 4 structures that are the following:
(1) Ammonia
(2) Primary Amine
(3) Seconday Amine
(4) Tertiary Amine
*Make sure you name the three amines*
2. Why don't carboxylic acids dimerise in the presence of water?
3. Are carboxylic acids soluble in water?
intermolecular forces?
4. If we have two solutions of the same concentration, which will have a lower(more acidic) pH, methanoic acid or ethanoic acid?
5. a) What two compounds can be used in the reduction of aldehydes and ketones?
b) What compound can be used in the reduction of carboxylic acids?
c) Why can't the same two compounds work for aldehydes, ketones, AND carboxylic acids?
6. When a reaction is said to be violent, what does that description mean?
7. a)When a reaction is conducted under reflux, what does this mean?
b) Why would someone want to conduct an experiment under reflux?
8. What is the structural difference between a carboxylic acid and an acid chloride?
9. Name 3 compounds that could be used to create an acid chloride from a carboxylic acid.
10. What does decarboxylation mean?
11. a) What are acid derivatives?
b)Give an example of a compound that is an acid derivative.
12. Why do acid chlorides have a strong smell?
13. a) Are acid chlorides solube in water?
b) If so, are all possible acid chlorides solube?
c) If not, why aren't they soluble?
14. What do water, alcohols, and phenols have in common?
15. a)Asprin is a product of reacting what with an acid chloride?
b)What is Asprin?
16. a)What does the term "N-substututed amine" mean?
b) Draw an example.
17. What does the word anhydride mean?
18. What is the structural difference between carboxylic acids and acid anhydrides?(Draw if you need help explaining your words)
19. Why is there no such thing as an aqueous solutionof an acid anhydride?
20. If we want to compare the stength of intermolecular forces between 2 compounds, what must be true so that we can correctly conduct the comparison?
21. What type of compounds have a permanent dipole?
22. a)What possible intermolecular forces could a non-polar molecule have?
b)What possible intermolecular forces could a polar molecule have?
Sample 2:
S4BCM
Subject:Chemistry
Teacher:GPal
1.Draw a wave
a)Identify the wavelength on the drawing.
b) Identify the amplitude on the drawing.
2.Give the equation that shows the relationship between lamda,nu, and c. Identify what each variable symbolizes and what the units of the variable are.
3.What is the difference between a continous spectrum and a line spectrum?
4.a)What is the general meaning of a spectrum?
b)Give an example of a specific spectrum.
5.What is the ground state of an atom?
6.When something is quantized, what does it mean?
7.An electron can move up and down between different energy states.
a)Which direction is it traveling when energy is absorbed?
b)Which direction is it traveling when energy is emitted?
8.An electron starts at one energy level and moves to another.
Give an example of where the electron will start and end if it is part of the:
a)Lyman Series
b) Balmar Series
9.An electron can be described as having properties of what two things?
10. What does the uncertainty principle state?
11.What does Paul's Exclusion Principle state?
12. What are quantum numbers used for?
13.Name each quantum number and give its symbol.
14.What values can the quantum number ml have?
15.How many nodal surfaces does a 3p orbital have?
16.What is the number of orbitals in a subshell?
17.How many total different orbitals are there in the n=3 energy level?
18.If n=3 and ml=-2 , what must be the value of l?
19.How many d orbitals are there?
20.What is an electron density plot?
21. What orbital has 3 nodal surfaces and 8 regions of electron density?
22.What does the orientation of a orbital refer to?
23. What are the 2 possible orientations for the electron spin magnetic quantum number?
24.a)What does diamagnetic mean?
b)What does paramagnetic mean?
25. If n=1, what are the values of the other 3 quantum numbers?
I will let post later about the results of my students..aka how they did on these tests..
Now these samples are a little different then what I normally give, because I used them as a gauge to see how much of what I am saying the students actually understand. You will see that there are no equations or reactions that need to be solved, no math to be done. They are purely short answer questions. Everything that I asked I have taught, or it is something they should have already known, but I have noticed that they have problems with the topic.
Sample 1:
S5BCM2
Subject: Chemistry
Teacher:GPal
1. Draw 4 structures that are the following:
(1) Ammonia
(2) Primary Amine
(3) Seconday Amine
(4) Tertiary Amine
*Make sure you name the three amines*
2. Why don't carboxylic acids dimerise in the presence of water?
3. Are carboxylic acids soluble in water?
intermolecular forces?
4. If we have two solutions of the same concentration, which will have a lower(more acidic) pH, methanoic acid or ethanoic acid?
5. a) What two compounds can be used in the reduction of aldehydes and ketones?
b) What compound can be used in the reduction of carboxylic acids?
c) Why can't the same two compounds work for aldehydes, ketones, AND carboxylic acids?
6. When a reaction is said to be violent, what does that description mean?
7. a)When a reaction is conducted under reflux, what does this mean?
b) Why would someone want to conduct an experiment under reflux?
8. What is the structural difference between a carboxylic acid and an acid chloride?
9. Name 3 compounds that could be used to create an acid chloride from a carboxylic acid.
10. What does decarboxylation mean?
11. a) What are acid derivatives?
b)Give an example of a compound that is an acid derivative.
12. Why do acid chlorides have a strong smell?
13. a) Are acid chlorides solube in water?
b) If so, are all possible acid chlorides solube?
c) If not, why aren't they soluble?
14. What do water, alcohols, and phenols have in common?
15. a)Asprin is a product of reacting what with an acid chloride?
b)What is Asprin?
16. a)What does the term "N-substututed amine" mean?
b) Draw an example.
17. What does the word anhydride mean?
18. What is the structural difference between carboxylic acids and acid anhydrides?(Draw if you need help explaining your words)
19. Why is there no such thing as an aqueous solutionof an acid anhydride?
20. If we want to compare the stength of intermolecular forces between 2 compounds, what must be true so that we can correctly conduct the comparison?
21. What type of compounds have a permanent dipole?
22. a)What possible intermolecular forces could a non-polar molecule have?
b)What possible intermolecular forces could a polar molecule have?
Sample 2:
S4BCM
Subject:Chemistry
Teacher:GPal
1.Draw a wave
a)Identify the wavelength on the drawing.
b) Identify the amplitude on the drawing.
2.Give the equation that shows the relationship between lamda,nu, and c. Identify what each variable symbolizes and what the units of the variable are.
3.What is the difference between a continous spectrum and a line spectrum?
4.a)What is the general meaning of a spectrum?
b)Give an example of a specific spectrum.
5.What is the ground state of an atom?
6.When something is quantized, what does it mean?
7.An electron can move up and down between different energy states.
a)Which direction is it traveling when energy is absorbed?
b)Which direction is it traveling when energy is emitted?
8.An electron starts at one energy level and moves to another.
Give an example of where the electron will start and end if it is part of the:
a)Lyman Series
b) Balmar Series
9.An electron can be described as having properties of what two things?
10. What does the uncertainty principle state?
11.What does Paul's Exclusion Principle state?
12. What are quantum numbers used for?
13.Name each quantum number and give its symbol.
14.What values can the quantum number ml have?
15.How many nodal surfaces does a 3p orbital have?
16.What is the number of orbitals in a subshell?
17.How many total different orbitals are there in the n=3 energy level?
18.If n=3 and ml=-2 , what must be the value of l?
19.How many d orbitals are there?
20.What is an electron density plot?
21. What orbital has 3 nodal surfaces and 8 regions of electron density?
22.What does the orientation of a orbital refer to?
23. What are the 2 possible orientations for the electron spin magnetic quantum number?
24.a)What does diamagnetic mean?
b)What does paramagnetic mean?
25. If n=1, what are the values of the other 3 quantum numbers?
I will let post later about the results of my students..aka how they did on these tests..
Rwandan Women's Network--Village of Hope
Some of you might not know, but at the start of term 2 I got a housemate. She is American, and is working for the Peace Corps. Part of her job at my school is so start and run an outreach/community service club for the students(e.g. key club in highschool).
She had gotten a suggestion from our headmistress to work with the Rwandan Women's Network. This sounded like a good idea, so she decided to go for it. Since she had never been there or knew anyting about it, I offered to go with her, since I too had never gone, but two people are always better than one, right?HAHA..
I don't know all the facts, but if you are interested, I would say google the group. But I will give you what background I do know. It is an organization that started in 1996 for women and their children who survived the genocide. The do a variety of programs. From teaching basic heatlh, their human rights, to entreprenuership skills, the organization trys to give these women not only an education, but a way to make a life for themselves. They also have a place called the village of hope, which is a set of homes where the women can live. They are all over Rwanda,but one of their sites is about a 40 minute walk from my school.
This past Saturday was Umuganda.(for those of you who do not remember, this is the monthly community service that the entire country MUST participate in). My roomie worked out that we would take 30 students over and they would work in the compound. Since I was interested and since it was the first time they were going I offered to my roomie to go with her. She of course accepted. So Saturday morning at 7 am we met with the 30 students and headed out. We brought slashers(curved machetes used to cut grass), hoes, and brooms. Once we made it over there we met with a bunch of the women and we divided the girls up into working groups. It was really neat to see the students working alongside the women. I too did work.. I didn't just sit around and watch... don't worry, my momma taught my better.
I worked with the hoeing group. All my students were soooo surprised that I knew how to use a hoe and that I was giving them lessons. They were like "teacher, did you grow up on a farm?" I laughed and said of course not, but I am an adult so of course I know how to do work..haha.. sometimes the girls just make me laugh soo much; I just want to know what do they think my life was like.
I also showed some of the girls how to properly sweep. One needs to put some force into it. Especially with the dusty floors here. I did not try cutting the grass, but at some point I do, its just that the slasher actually looks hard to use. After the work was done the women brought out drums, and they and the students started singing and dancing around. It was really neat.
Before we knew it it was time to go.
At the moment my roomie is working on a proposal for what other projects we can do on a weekly basis. I'm not sure how involved I can get, just because I am very busy with teaching, but this is definitely something that when I have time, I want to go to also.
She had gotten a suggestion from our headmistress to work with the Rwandan Women's Network. This sounded like a good idea, so she decided to go for it. Since she had never been there or knew anyting about it, I offered to go with her, since I too had never gone, but two people are always better than one, right?HAHA..
I don't know all the facts, but if you are interested, I would say google the group. But I will give you what background I do know. It is an organization that started in 1996 for women and their children who survived the genocide. The do a variety of programs. From teaching basic heatlh, their human rights, to entreprenuership skills, the organization trys to give these women not only an education, but a way to make a life for themselves. They also have a place called the village of hope, which is a set of homes where the women can live. They are all over Rwanda,but one of their sites is about a 40 minute walk from my school.
This past Saturday was Umuganda.(for those of you who do not remember, this is the monthly community service that the entire country MUST participate in). My roomie worked out that we would take 30 students over and they would work in the compound. Since I was interested and since it was the first time they were going I offered to my roomie to go with her. She of course accepted. So Saturday morning at 7 am we met with the 30 students and headed out. We brought slashers(curved machetes used to cut grass), hoes, and brooms. Once we made it over there we met with a bunch of the women and we divided the girls up into working groups. It was really neat to see the students working alongside the women. I too did work.. I didn't just sit around and watch... don't worry, my momma taught my better.
I worked with the hoeing group. All my students were soooo surprised that I knew how to use a hoe and that I was giving them lessons. They were like "teacher, did you grow up on a farm?" I laughed and said of course not, but I am an adult so of course I know how to do work..haha.. sometimes the girls just make me laugh soo much; I just want to know what do they think my life was like.
I also showed some of the girls how to properly sweep. One needs to put some force into it. Especially with the dusty floors here. I did not try cutting the grass, but at some point I do, its just that the slasher actually looks hard to use. After the work was done the women brought out drums, and they and the students started singing and dancing around. It was really neat.
Before we knew it it was time to go.
At the moment my roomie is working on a proposal for what other projects we can do on a weekly basis. I'm not sure how involved I can get, just because I am very busy with teaching, but this is definitely something that when I have time, I want to go to also.
Football For Real This Time
Now for those of you who did not read my last post, I will quickly update you. I am the football coach at my school. We were supposed to have a game; it didn't happen because the students did not have proper identification.
This is now the story of the game that eventually did happen.
The following Friday we had the gam rescheduled for. The students had a week for the school to make them identity cards. Somehow, they actually came through, and every player had a card.(oh side note--the most frustrated part of the previous Sunday had been that the basketball team had also not has identity cards, and they let them play)
We had to leave school early to go to the game because it was being played at some other school's field. It was about 40 minutes away. That means bus ride with students. HAHA.. man did I feel old watching them do all their singing and chanting and clapping as we were driving. We finally arrived at the school, we got off the bus, and then had to walk to the field. Now this seconday school was right next to a primary school. All the children were just playing in the yard. What happens when I come by. They go CRAZY. I had over 100 children crowded around me because they all wanted to say hello and touch me. I actually had to tell my students to continue on without me because there was no way that I could move. Eventually I was able to start moving, but I had about 30 follow me to the field. As much as I might complain about the whole muzungu thing, I will admit that when children like these do it, I honestly can't get angry at them. They aren't asking me for money, and they aren't trying to be rude. They just don't know any better because they have never seen a white person before.
Okay-back to football. Our girls won 3-0. Not to brag, but we walked all over them.HAHA... The funny thing being that there were soo many mistakes my girls were making. At times it was soo frustrating because I wanted to scream out at them to do things, but their comprenhension of English is not that good, then add in the fact that they are spread out over a field and are concentrating on playing, they couldn't follow what I was saying.
After the game we had our bus ride back. The girls were soo excited. I had thought they were energetic on the way, it was nothing compared to the way back. It was actually a lot of fun. They made me smile the whole way back.
In the end I was very pleased that not only did we get to play, but also that we won. I will admit I had been worried about how they would take it if we lost..haha.. but luckily we didn't. :)
This is now the story of the game that eventually did happen.
The following Friday we had the gam rescheduled for. The students had a week for the school to make them identity cards. Somehow, they actually came through, and every player had a card.(oh side note--the most frustrated part of the previous Sunday had been that the basketball team had also not has identity cards, and they let them play)
We had to leave school early to go to the game because it was being played at some other school's field. It was about 40 minutes away. That means bus ride with students. HAHA.. man did I feel old watching them do all their singing and chanting and clapping as we were driving. We finally arrived at the school, we got off the bus, and then had to walk to the field. Now this seconday school was right next to a primary school. All the children were just playing in the yard. What happens when I come by. They go CRAZY. I had over 100 children crowded around me because they all wanted to say hello and touch me. I actually had to tell my students to continue on without me because there was no way that I could move. Eventually I was able to start moving, but I had about 30 follow me to the field. As much as I might complain about the whole muzungu thing, I will admit that when children like these do it, I honestly can't get angry at them. They aren't asking me for money, and they aren't trying to be rude. They just don't know any better because they have never seen a white person before.
Okay-back to football. Our girls won 3-0. Not to brag, but we walked all over them.HAHA... The funny thing being that there were soo many mistakes my girls were making. At times it was soo frustrating because I wanted to scream out at them to do things, but their comprenhension of English is not that good, then add in the fact that they are spread out over a field and are concentrating on playing, they couldn't follow what I was saying.
After the game we had our bus ride back. The girls were soo excited. I had thought they were energetic on the way, it was nothing compared to the way back. It was actually a lot of fun. They made me smile the whole way back.
In the end I was very pleased that not only did we get to play, but also that we won. I will admit I had been worried about how they would take it if we lost..haha.. but luckily we didn't. :)
Finally Football
For the last few months of I have been the soccer, or as we will call it from here on out,the football coach of my school's team. Now all this really entails is taking the girls to football practice every day. Since our school does not have a field of its own we need to go to fields that are near by. The closest field is behind a lumber yard, about a 10-15 minute walk, depending on how lazy the students are being.
But because this field is used by others, the only days that we have found it not occupied are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thusday we just run. And in all honesty the running is good because many of the girls are very out of shape.
The few students that are very good play multiple sports, so they can't always come to football. Not to mention the fact that volleyball and basketball have regular games, so of course the girls need to practice for those more.
This means that most of the time I end up with a rag tag group of students. Well that is not exactly true. I normally end up with a bunch of the younger students who just want to get off the school grounds, so doing sports with me provides them with a way to get out.
The reason for this post now is because in the last week I had two funny football stories.
Story Number 1:
It had rained for about 3 days. Many hours each day(normally this does not happen). Then the sun came out. I took a group of students to go play football. We found the field already occupied. There was the other field that we could see, but that we had never been too. I suggested that we go. I told the captain to start leading the girls and I would follow up in the rear.
Bad Idea Number One that I had. To go from the field that we were at to the other field we had to cross a boggy marsh. The trail we were following started out well. But then we started encountering all of the trenches of muddy water that we needed to jump. Of course this was Bad Idea Number 2. In case you have never seen me jump, lets just say I was not gifted with that athleticism. For lets say the first 8 jumps I did very well. I was even helping the students across. Then--the final jump--now it didn't look that bad, but because I wanted to be careful I always give myself a running start.
I cleared the trench. But what happens when you get a running start and then jump, you continue for a few steps after the jump. Well, I had seen grass on the other side and it hadn't worried me. Bad Thought Number One. it was not grass. It was water grass. That means that when I cleared the muddy trench water I then 'landed' in water grass. The water went up to my knees. I am serious. All the students just stood there in shock and started saying sorry sorry teacher. I of course climbed out and said its okay,lets keep going. We then played football for two hours--me in soaking wet shoes and socks, not to mention wet and dirty legs. We shall say it was 'pleasant.'
On the way home I told the girls that we need to find another way back, and luckily the captain is a good girl, and she came through. It was a little longer of a trip, but totally worth it.
Story Number 2:
The next day I took the girls to play football again since we had a game on Sunday(it was friday now). For extra help two of my fellow teachers came with me. Which was really nice. We decided to just go directly back to the field we had used the previous day. Once again I had the captain lead the girls, and she was kind enough to take us on the slightly longer path, but the dry one. We had a decent practice.
At the end of practice I told the girls we had to go back to school and I asked the captain to lead the girls again(I always follow up in the rear to make sure I don't lose any students). Well my two fellow teachers come to me before we set off and say, why are we going to go that way, its faster to go the other way. All the students start laughing. I then inform them that the students were being kind to me so I don't wet again because I'm not a very good jumper. Both men laughed for about 5 minutes, and then they said too bad because we are going that way.HA. so then I had to do the jumping again. BUT-this time-I was succesful. aka I did not get wet.
Story Number 3:
We are going to skip ahead in time to Sunday. On Saturday we did have practice, from 7 am to 11.30 am. It was hard core. though nothing really special happened.
Sunday morning-7 am. We meet the students. There was both a basketball and football, so it was a good number of students coming to play. Not to mention about the 20 students we were taking as spectators. This being where it is, we didn't actually leave till around 8.30 after all is said and done. We traveled about 15 minutes away to a school that did have their own field/court. It was a coed school, and being a sunday there were many students around to watch. Basketball started playing first. About 20 minutes into their game, the other football coach started to get in a huff that we needed to start football. Now for purposes like this, I am not the coach, one of the guys is, just because it makes interactions easier.
These two men argued for about 10 minutes about how why can't we wait till the basketball is over because three of our players for football are on the basketball team. While the other man's point was that students can only be on one team.
Well conclusion of the arguement: we have to start football. I get the girls and tell them to head over to the field so can start warming up. Meanwhile I spoke with the basketball coach and he said after another 15 minutes he can give me the girls(our team was winning by a lot).
Here comes the Drama.
The people in charge of district sports come to check the girls out. We had to have a list of the students playing(roster), and identification to prove they were who we said they were(so we can't bring in ringers). For proof we have a team photo. This did not go over well. They wanted individual identity cards for each students. But our students did not have them. This then started a 90 minute arguement. And I am really not lieing. It was intense. Students were involved. I was involved. Everybody was saying something to somebody.
Now I understand the issue they have, but I could not understand why we couldn't just play the game under protest, so at least that way the girls get to play. But NO NO NO, the other team's coach was having none of them. At one point I had to drag away the two men from my school because they were getting so angry I knew that nothing good could come of it.
In the end we didn't get to play. We went back and watched the boys basketball game that came after the girl's. Although it was a good day, I know all the students were really dissapointed about it. Because I was feeling bad for them, and because we had been gone from school soo long, and they missed lunch, I bought enough gum to give each girl a piece. It was amazing how happy that made them. Essentially they were all just tuckered out. We didn't get back to school till 4 pm. Now we had asked the kitchen to save them food, but they didnt save enough, so the oldest girls/captains didn't eat at all, whilst the rest of the girls were just sharing food.
Since I felt bad for them I invited the 5 students back to my house and made them pasta and green beans. It was nice. I think they enjoyed it. At least it was something different for them(the girls eat the same food everyday)(well then again so do I, but I do it because I like to, they do it because they don't have another choice).
Well thats the end of my three football stories in one week. As you can tell, it sure was a long week.
But because this field is used by others, the only days that we have found it not occupied are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thusday we just run. And in all honesty the running is good because many of the girls are very out of shape.
The few students that are very good play multiple sports, so they can't always come to football. Not to mention the fact that volleyball and basketball have regular games, so of course the girls need to practice for those more.
This means that most of the time I end up with a rag tag group of students. Well that is not exactly true. I normally end up with a bunch of the younger students who just want to get off the school grounds, so doing sports with me provides them with a way to get out.
The reason for this post now is because in the last week I had two funny football stories.
Story Number 1:
It had rained for about 3 days. Many hours each day(normally this does not happen). Then the sun came out. I took a group of students to go play football. We found the field already occupied. There was the other field that we could see, but that we had never been too. I suggested that we go. I told the captain to start leading the girls and I would follow up in the rear.
Bad Idea Number One that I had. To go from the field that we were at to the other field we had to cross a boggy marsh. The trail we were following started out well. But then we started encountering all of the trenches of muddy water that we needed to jump. Of course this was Bad Idea Number 2. In case you have never seen me jump, lets just say I was not gifted with that athleticism. For lets say the first 8 jumps I did very well. I was even helping the students across. Then--the final jump--now it didn't look that bad, but because I wanted to be careful I always give myself a running start.
I cleared the trench. But what happens when you get a running start and then jump, you continue for a few steps after the jump. Well, I had seen grass on the other side and it hadn't worried me. Bad Thought Number One. it was not grass. It was water grass. That means that when I cleared the muddy trench water I then 'landed' in water grass. The water went up to my knees. I am serious. All the students just stood there in shock and started saying sorry sorry teacher. I of course climbed out and said its okay,lets keep going. We then played football for two hours--me in soaking wet shoes and socks, not to mention wet and dirty legs. We shall say it was 'pleasant.'
On the way home I told the girls that we need to find another way back, and luckily the captain is a good girl, and she came through. It was a little longer of a trip, but totally worth it.
Story Number 2:
The next day I took the girls to play football again since we had a game on Sunday(it was friday now). For extra help two of my fellow teachers came with me. Which was really nice. We decided to just go directly back to the field we had used the previous day. Once again I had the captain lead the girls, and she was kind enough to take us on the slightly longer path, but the dry one. We had a decent practice.
At the end of practice I told the girls we had to go back to school and I asked the captain to lead the girls again(I always follow up in the rear to make sure I don't lose any students). Well my two fellow teachers come to me before we set off and say, why are we going to go that way, its faster to go the other way. All the students start laughing. I then inform them that the students were being kind to me so I don't wet again because I'm not a very good jumper. Both men laughed for about 5 minutes, and then they said too bad because we are going that way.HA. so then I had to do the jumping again. BUT-this time-I was succesful. aka I did not get wet.
Story Number 3:
We are going to skip ahead in time to Sunday. On Saturday we did have practice, from 7 am to 11.30 am. It was hard core. though nothing really special happened.
Sunday morning-7 am. We meet the students. There was both a basketball and football, so it was a good number of students coming to play. Not to mention about the 20 students we were taking as spectators. This being where it is, we didn't actually leave till around 8.30 after all is said and done. We traveled about 15 minutes away to a school that did have their own field/court. It was a coed school, and being a sunday there were many students around to watch. Basketball started playing first. About 20 minutes into their game, the other football coach started to get in a huff that we needed to start football. Now for purposes like this, I am not the coach, one of the guys is, just because it makes interactions easier.
These two men argued for about 10 minutes about how why can't we wait till the basketball is over because three of our players for football are on the basketball team. While the other man's point was that students can only be on one team.
Well conclusion of the arguement: we have to start football. I get the girls and tell them to head over to the field so can start warming up. Meanwhile I spoke with the basketball coach and he said after another 15 minutes he can give me the girls(our team was winning by a lot).
Here comes the Drama.
The people in charge of district sports come to check the girls out. We had to have a list of the students playing(roster), and identification to prove they were who we said they were(so we can't bring in ringers). For proof we have a team photo. This did not go over well. They wanted individual identity cards for each students. But our students did not have them. This then started a 90 minute arguement. And I am really not lieing. It was intense. Students were involved. I was involved. Everybody was saying something to somebody.
Now I understand the issue they have, but I could not understand why we couldn't just play the game under protest, so at least that way the girls get to play. But NO NO NO, the other team's coach was having none of them. At one point I had to drag away the two men from my school because they were getting so angry I knew that nothing good could come of it.
In the end we didn't get to play. We went back and watched the boys basketball game that came after the girl's. Although it was a good day, I know all the students were really dissapointed about it. Because I was feeling bad for them, and because we had been gone from school soo long, and they missed lunch, I bought enough gum to give each girl a piece. It was amazing how happy that made them. Essentially they were all just tuckered out. We didn't get back to school till 4 pm. Now we had asked the kitchen to save them food, but they didnt save enough, so the oldest girls/captains didn't eat at all, whilst the rest of the girls were just sharing food.
Since I felt bad for them I invited the 5 students back to my house and made them pasta and green beans. It was nice. I think they enjoyed it. At least it was something different for them(the girls eat the same food everyday)(well then again so do I, but I do it because I like to, they do it because they don't have another choice).
Well thats the end of my three football stories in one week. As you can tell, it sure was a long week.
Dos de Mayos
Now many of you may be thinking, is this girl crazy? doesn't she know her dates? yes yes yes, you can assure yourself that I am not crazy. We just celebrated dos de mayos, and here's why: it was one of my friend's birthday's. She and her husband are from Houston, and had originally met working in a Mexican restaurant, hence the themed party.(not to mention any reason to drink is a good reason)
Almost everyone from my program showed up. It was essentially an open house starting at noon and going till whenever at night. It was essentually BYOB, and then everyone chipped in on bringing different snacks. For instance I had been asked to bring 2 pineapples.
Let me tell you it was a great party. Just very relaxing. It gave us all a chance to chat and talk about how our second term had started, and also let us be free since we were inside a house and not everyone was looking at us because of our skin color.
We had samosas with gaucamole and salsa that my friend made, and then in the evening we had 'quesadillas' on chapati. Not to mention all the fruit and little snacks. We also 'roasted' peanuts..haha..
It was also great because we used the even as a giant book exchange because we were all in the same place at the same time for once..
I took a book that I had heard about for ages,but never had a chance to read--The Alchemist. For those of you who have not read it, I highly recommend it. It is not a long book, and it truely is a great read for so many reasons.
Since it was my friend's b-day, I wanted to get her something, but then the question becomes, what does one need here? We don't lead very exciting lives. really. So I decided to do what I could, give money to buy food, because that is really all we spend money on. I gave her a 1000 rwf, and told her to not spend it all in one place.haha..this is funny because 1000 rwf is less than 2 usd.
So for all of you who celebrated cinque de mayo, I hope you had fun, but I don't think you could have had as much fun as I did. :)
Almost everyone from my program showed up. It was essentially an open house starting at noon and going till whenever at night. It was essentually BYOB, and then everyone chipped in on bringing different snacks. For instance I had been asked to bring 2 pineapples.
Let me tell you it was a great party. Just very relaxing. It gave us all a chance to chat and talk about how our second term had started, and also let us be free since we were inside a house and not everyone was looking at us because of our skin color.
We had samosas with gaucamole and salsa that my friend made, and then in the evening we had 'quesadillas' on chapati. Not to mention all the fruit and little snacks. We also 'roasted' peanuts..haha..
It was also great because we used the even as a giant book exchange because we were all in the same place at the same time for once..
I took a book that I had heard about for ages,but never had a chance to read--The Alchemist. For those of you who have not read it, I highly recommend it. It is not a long book, and it truely is a great read for so many reasons.
Since it was my friend's b-day, I wanted to get her something, but then the question becomes, what does one need here? We don't lead very exciting lives. really. So I decided to do what I could, give money to buy food, because that is really all we spend money on. I gave her a 1000 rwf, and told her to not spend it all in one place.haha..this is funny because 1000 rwf is less than 2 usd.
So for all of you who celebrated cinque de mayo, I hope you had fun, but I don't think you could have had as much fun as I did. :)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Jurassi Park Back-Up Island
Many of you might be familiar with Jurassic Park. If you remember correctly, you will remember that at the end of the movie we are reminded that there is another island that has the dinasours.. well I have found that island. It is called Bat Island, and it is in the middle of Lake Kivu.
This past weekend I was in Kibuye, one of the towns around the lake. On Saturday afternoon my group boarded a boat to take us out onto the lake.
When we left it was sunny with clouds on the distant horizon. Perfect boating weather. The boat ride took a little bit over an hour+. But we did have a bunch of the boys jump off the boat and go swimming. Once we got to bat island, we all got off the boat and watched as the boatmen tried to secure the boat...remember this I will touch on this later.
We are now on the island. We start following the boatman along a semi-marked path. Along the path we have our first encounter that makes us think Jurassic Park--big piles of poop. After we had walked only about 5 minutes the guide started to clap which caused many of the bats to come out of the trees and fly around. CRAZY. I had never seen so many bats. It was CRAZY. Sooo neat. I took lots of pictures. Granted in many of the pictures they just look like black things in the sky, but I know what they are..haha..
Now lets get to the Jurassic Park Back-Up Island part. As we all know, where bats live, obviously dinasours live too. Also, what other animal could leave such odd droppings. HAHA.
My one friend and I proceeded to create our own Jurassic Park Back-Up Island video. Not gonna lie, its pretty good. Essentially it gave everyone a good laugh.
After we had seen the bats, which really how long can you watch them fly around, 10, 15 minutes?? ..we headed back to the boat. We, as in those of my group, would like to thank a tree that our boat got caught in, if not it would have floated off..haha.. But luckily that tree was present and we were able to get back on our boat and head back. Most of the ride back was in the dark, yet it was still oddly beautiful even though one couldn't really see anything.
Note: The poop that we saw belonged to cows that live on the island, or so they say.. How do cows get to the island?? Just saying.. it could be dinasours..haha :)
Note 2: On the other side of Lake Kivu is the DRC, so I got pictures of mountains that are in the DRC, but the lake is HUGE, so the mountains are truely, and utterly in the distance.
This past weekend I was in Kibuye, one of the towns around the lake. On Saturday afternoon my group boarded a boat to take us out onto the lake.
When we left it was sunny with clouds on the distant horizon. Perfect boating weather. The boat ride took a little bit over an hour+. But we did have a bunch of the boys jump off the boat and go swimming. Once we got to bat island, we all got off the boat and watched as the boatmen tried to secure the boat...remember this I will touch on this later.
We are now on the island. We start following the boatman along a semi-marked path. Along the path we have our first encounter that makes us think Jurassic Park--big piles of poop. After we had walked only about 5 minutes the guide started to clap which caused many of the bats to come out of the trees and fly around. CRAZY. I had never seen so many bats. It was CRAZY. Sooo neat. I took lots of pictures. Granted in many of the pictures they just look like black things in the sky, but I know what they are..haha..
Now lets get to the Jurassic Park Back-Up Island part. As we all know, where bats live, obviously dinasours live too. Also, what other animal could leave such odd droppings. HAHA.
My one friend and I proceeded to create our own Jurassic Park Back-Up Island video. Not gonna lie, its pretty good. Essentially it gave everyone a good laugh.
After we had seen the bats, which really how long can you watch them fly around, 10, 15 minutes?? ..we headed back to the boat. We, as in those of my group, would like to thank a tree that our boat got caught in, if not it would have floated off..haha.. But luckily that tree was present and we were able to get back on our boat and head back. Most of the ride back was in the dark, yet it was still oddly beautiful even though one couldn't really see anything.
Note: The poop that we saw belonged to cows that live on the island, or so they say.. How do cows get to the island?? Just saying.. it could be dinasours..haha :)
Note 2: On the other side of Lake Kivu is the DRC, so I got pictures of mountains that are in the DRC, but the lake is HUGE, so the mountains are truely, and utterly in the distance.
Bus Ride to Musanze
Over Easter weekend my friend and I went to Musanze, formerly known as Ruhengari. Previous to the program that we are both on, my friend had lived in Musanze off and on for 2 years, so she knows the city real well. She told me before we got on the bus in Kigali that I have to stay awake because the view will be amazing. Well she was right.
The ride there took a little over 2 hours. I was lucky enough to get a window seat for the ride, and did I ever enjoy it. To get from Kigali to Musanze you have to travel Northwest up into 'mountain' country. Essentially you weave your way amongst hills the entire time. It was amazing to see the country side. Most of these hills were either fully tiered or just planted directly on the slope. We saw many people both out and about, aka walking on the road, and then we saw many people working in the fields. As we passed through small towns and villages we saw people doing anything and everything that they could possibly do. I felt like it was the Rwanda that I was missing because I live in Kigali. Now don't get me wrong, I love Kigali, but something can be said for the countryside.
As we got farther North the weather did get colder, which is GREAT. I was sitting next to the window so I got the amazing breeze in my face, I had not felt so wonderful for about 15 weeks. But then what do you know happens, the Rwandese get cold so they asked me to close the window so I did.. yet for that short time with the window open it made the bus ride even better.
I would also like to note that I happened to see two waterfalls on the bus ride. Also once you get to Musanze it is really neat because whenever you look up at the skyline you see the volcanos looming in the distance.
The bus ride back was almost as good, the only down side was that it rained so the views weren't as good as the ride up. That just means I will have to go back to see what I missed.
The ride there took a little over 2 hours. I was lucky enough to get a window seat for the ride, and did I ever enjoy it. To get from Kigali to Musanze you have to travel Northwest up into 'mountain' country. Essentially you weave your way amongst hills the entire time. It was amazing to see the country side. Most of these hills were either fully tiered or just planted directly on the slope. We saw many people both out and about, aka walking on the road, and then we saw many people working in the fields. As we passed through small towns and villages we saw people doing anything and everything that they could possibly do. I felt like it was the Rwanda that I was missing because I live in Kigali. Now don't get me wrong, I love Kigali, but something can be said for the countryside.
As we got farther North the weather did get colder, which is GREAT. I was sitting next to the window so I got the amazing breeze in my face, I had not felt so wonderful for about 15 weeks. But then what do you know happens, the Rwandese get cold so they asked me to close the window so I did.. yet for that short time with the window open it made the bus ride even better.
I would also like to note that I happened to see two waterfalls on the bus ride. Also once you get to Musanze it is really neat because whenever you look up at the skyline you see the volcanos looming in the distance.
The bus ride back was almost as good, the only down side was that it rained so the views weren't as good as the ride up. That just means I will have to go back to see what I missed.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Let Them Entertain Me
The ending of the first term brings the girls a lot of free time. Normally during the day they just sit around or watch movies, or even debate. Then the entertainment chief organized two special entertainment events.
On Saturday afternoon/night was the first event. It started at 4.30, then we had a break for dinner at 6, and then it started back up at 7.30ish. So what was the event you ask, well it was a combination of a lot of things. They had a few groups do some dancing and then they had another top model competition. Once again it was fierce. In this competition there were girls of all ages involved. Then inbetween rounds, when the girls were changing, they played jeapardy. I have used this game in my class as a fun review activity. I alter the rules a bit so it can work with 30+ people. Before they played they had me come up and introduce the game. I should mention that the entertainment chief is one of the students that I teach. I think that jeapardy went okay. Since they only had 4 girls playing and then about 500 watching I believe it got a little boring for the crowd, but it made me happy that they tried it. They even did double jeapardy and final jeapardy..haha.. love it.
The second big entertainment event was Wednesday night. It started at 8 and went to 11. This was the closing event of the term. Different clubs and organizations at the school performed. They sang songs, did traditional dancing, hip-hop, and skits. The event ended with a boom--for those of you who don't know, evidentally boom is the english word for a dance..ah. wonder how I missed that one when I learned english..
Honestly it was really fun, and I am SO happy that I was invited and that I went. I would like to note that I was the only teacher invited. Just to give you an idea of how it was for me I will tell you about two of the skits that were performed. One was done by the club Fight Against Aids. Actually I am going to talk about the demostration that they did first. They had about 10 girls from the club stand in a straight line with hands behind their backs. The president of the club gave one girl a stone and the girls passed it amongst themselves. After a certain amount of time they called girls out of the audience to guess which girl had the stone. This was done about 4 times, obviously each time the girl could not guess correctly. Well you might ask what was the point of this, it was to remind the girls that one cannot always see who has HIV/AIDS..(at least this is my guess, it was all in kinyarwanda). The club then did a skit about a group of friends and how a girl borrrowed a sweater from another girl and then a third girl freaks out at her friend for wearing a sweater that someone with HIV was wearing since of course one can get HIV that way.. After the skit the president of the club then outlined the ways it IS transmitted, and ways that it is NOT transmitted (I was told this happened, of course I did not understand what they said). The other skit was about women equality and how cultural/society treats or views women here. Overall they were nice breaks amongst the dancing and singing.
Now the boom. Ha. First of all the girls all wanted to make sure that I was staying to dance, and I did. But for the first 15 minutes the girls would barely dance 'with' me, rather if I started dancing they would all stop dancing and make a circle around me so they could all watch. Lets be real, I'm not THAT good of a dancer for that..haha.. Luckily the entertainment cheif solved the problem and turned the lights off in the dining hall. This helped a bit.. eventually the girls just separated to dance with themselves, which was fine with me. I stayed with a group of about 15 girls and danced. It was fun, essentialy I made a fool of myself, but hey that is what dancing is all about, right?
Some of the girls tried to teach me to dance like the do, but since half of them could be amateur belly dancers, I, of course could not follow along. I tried to explain to them that I don't know how to make my stomach/hips move like that and all they could say was why not? haha.. how cute.
I had wanted to hook my ipod up to their radio so they could listen to some other music than the 3 CDs they have, but I failed to hook it up, over break I am going to try an buy the cassette that you plug your ipod in to then play it in a radio, because I know come term two the girls would love to listen to my music..haha..
And to finish this off I would like to say I think I have a 'new' favorite song. Many of you might know about my obsession with Toto Africa, or rather my brother singing the song and being the musical instruments, well the girls have a remix version of the song with African drum beats in the background. It is amazing, I love it. I must find a way to bring it home. :)
oh wait one more thing, I introduced the running man and the cabbage patch to the girls; they could not stop laughing.
On Saturday afternoon/night was the first event. It started at 4.30, then we had a break for dinner at 6, and then it started back up at 7.30ish. So what was the event you ask, well it was a combination of a lot of things. They had a few groups do some dancing and then they had another top model competition. Once again it was fierce. In this competition there were girls of all ages involved. Then inbetween rounds, when the girls were changing, they played jeapardy. I have used this game in my class as a fun review activity. I alter the rules a bit so it can work with 30+ people. Before they played they had me come up and introduce the game. I should mention that the entertainment chief is one of the students that I teach. I think that jeapardy went okay. Since they only had 4 girls playing and then about 500 watching I believe it got a little boring for the crowd, but it made me happy that they tried it. They even did double jeapardy and final jeapardy..haha.. love it.
The second big entertainment event was Wednesday night. It started at 8 and went to 11. This was the closing event of the term. Different clubs and organizations at the school performed. They sang songs, did traditional dancing, hip-hop, and skits. The event ended with a boom--for those of you who don't know, evidentally boom is the english word for a dance..ah. wonder how I missed that one when I learned english..
Honestly it was really fun, and I am SO happy that I was invited and that I went. I would like to note that I was the only teacher invited. Just to give you an idea of how it was for me I will tell you about two of the skits that were performed. One was done by the club Fight Against Aids. Actually I am going to talk about the demostration that they did first. They had about 10 girls from the club stand in a straight line with hands behind their backs. The president of the club gave one girl a stone and the girls passed it amongst themselves. After a certain amount of time they called girls out of the audience to guess which girl had the stone. This was done about 4 times, obviously each time the girl could not guess correctly. Well you might ask what was the point of this, it was to remind the girls that one cannot always see who has HIV/AIDS..(at least this is my guess, it was all in kinyarwanda). The club then did a skit about a group of friends and how a girl borrrowed a sweater from another girl and then a third girl freaks out at her friend for wearing a sweater that someone with HIV was wearing since of course one can get HIV that way.. After the skit the president of the club then outlined the ways it IS transmitted, and ways that it is NOT transmitted (I was told this happened, of course I did not understand what they said). The other skit was about women equality and how cultural/society treats or views women here. Overall they were nice breaks amongst the dancing and singing.
Now the boom. Ha. First of all the girls all wanted to make sure that I was staying to dance, and I did. But for the first 15 minutes the girls would barely dance 'with' me, rather if I started dancing they would all stop dancing and make a circle around me so they could all watch. Lets be real, I'm not THAT good of a dancer for that..haha.. Luckily the entertainment cheif solved the problem and turned the lights off in the dining hall. This helped a bit.. eventually the girls just separated to dance with themselves, which was fine with me. I stayed with a group of about 15 girls and danced. It was fun, essentialy I made a fool of myself, but hey that is what dancing is all about, right?
Some of the girls tried to teach me to dance like the do, but since half of them could be amateur belly dancers, I, of course could not follow along. I tried to explain to them that I don't know how to make my stomach/hips move like that and all they could say was why not? haha.. how cute.
I had wanted to hook my ipod up to their radio so they could listen to some other music than the 3 CDs they have, but I failed to hook it up, over break I am going to try an buy the cassette that you plug your ipod in to then play it in a radio, because I know come term two the girls would love to listen to my music..haha..
And to finish this off I would like to say I think I have a 'new' favorite song. Many of you might know about my obsession with Toto Africa, or rather my brother singing the song and being the musical instruments, well the girls have a remix version of the song with African drum beats in the background. It is amazing, I love it. I must find a way to bring it home. :)
oh wait one more thing, I introduced the running man and the cabbage patch to the girls; they could not stop laughing.
Open House at KHI
On Thursday afternoon I was told that I would be taking 2 students on Friday to an open house at KHI for what would essentially be a career fair. KHI is the Kigali Health Institute.
Friday morning I left school with 2 senior 6 students and we headed out. Once we arrived we got a small tour of some of the classrooms and library before we got to the career fair part. In one of the school's courtyards they had a bunch of tents set up for the different departments. The school has a total of 10 departments, all somehow linked to health, whether it be nursing, or environmental health, or medical imaging. Slowly we worked our way from booth to booth and gathered information. What was great is that each department had a little pamphlet so I was able to get one for the school and all the other girls who could not attend. I will admit there were a few times when the people at the booths were explaining something to me as though I was 10 years old, but I did not want to be like excuse me I have a degree in Engineering you do not have to explain to me why clean water is good for one's health.
But, it was a really cool event to go to. It was also nice because we ran into some former girls who graduated from my school.
Now the event went from 9-4.30 in the afternoon. We had arrived around 10 am. To be honest I had gone to every booth by noon. But my students had not since they ran into other highschools in attendance and of course started chatting it up. Which I have no problem with, I understand it, but still, it was boring. Really boring. Luckily the girls finally got hungry and we left around 2 to go and get some food in town.
On the way back home I asked the two girls if they would consider going to KHI for university, and they both said no, it did not have what they wanted to study. Which in one hand I think its great that the girls want to study very hard things but at the same time I don't know the plausibility of every girl at my school going to study medicine, because that is what they all want to study.. I guess only time will tell.
And just one thing as a final note, the event had a DJ, and at one point the song 'Boom,Boom, Boom, I want you in my room...' came on, and I burst out laughing. :)
Friday morning I left school with 2 senior 6 students and we headed out. Once we arrived we got a small tour of some of the classrooms and library before we got to the career fair part. In one of the school's courtyards they had a bunch of tents set up for the different departments. The school has a total of 10 departments, all somehow linked to health, whether it be nursing, or environmental health, or medical imaging. Slowly we worked our way from booth to booth and gathered information. What was great is that each department had a little pamphlet so I was able to get one for the school and all the other girls who could not attend. I will admit there were a few times when the people at the booths were explaining something to me as though I was 10 years old, but I did not want to be like excuse me I have a degree in Engineering you do not have to explain to me why clean water is good for one's health.
But, it was a really cool event to go to. It was also nice because we ran into some former girls who graduated from my school.
Now the event went from 9-4.30 in the afternoon. We had arrived around 10 am. To be honest I had gone to every booth by noon. But my students had not since they ran into other highschools in attendance and of course started chatting it up. Which I have no problem with, I understand it, but still, it was boring. Really boring. Luckily the girls finally got hungry and we left around 2 to go and get some food in town.
On the way back home I asked the two girls if they would consider going to KHI for university, and they both said no, it did not have what they wanted to study. Which in one hand I think its great that the girls want to study very hard things but at the same time I don't know the plausibility of every girl at my school going to study medicine, because that is what they all want to study.. I guess only time will tell.
And just one thing as a final note, the event had a DJ, and at one point the song 'Boom,Boom, Boom, I want you in my room...' came on, and I burst out laughing. :)
Term 1 Exams
Exam Week
This past week of school were term one exams. Since I have 4 classes, I had to write 4 3 hr exams. Which in case you don't know is a lot, and in reality all I could do was hope that it was doable in 3 hours and/or that it wasn't too easy.
During exam week, which for some classes only consisted of 3 days, we as teachers had to supervise exams. But, we are not supervising our own exams, so in case students have questions or there are typos, sorry, noone to help them. Which as I will explain later, can present a problem.
Now this was my first time ever proctoring an exam, and let me tell you, it is boring. Essentially for 3 hours I was singing songs in my head to try and keep myself awake.
Now lets talk cheating. It was amazing how many students would just start talking to their deskmate or would 'casually' look at the paper next to them. What is funny to me is that this is the easiest way to get caught, I wanted to be like, 'hello students, aren't you smart enough to cheat without getting caught.' Though I did not say this, instead I would remind them that this was the class' first warning and the next time I see it happen I would take the exam away and the student would get a zero.' Which honestly I don't even know if I had the power to do that, but whatever..haha.
Now lets talk paper usage. Wow. These students use a lot of paper. Even at the begining of the exam when I would explain to them how much paper they got, they would then raise their hand an hour later an say teacher I need the paper. Sometimes I caved and I would give them more, but sometimes I would say no. It is not because I am mean, but if the teacher who wrote the test says they only need so much paper, then thats all they are going to get, and here is why: students here write as much as they can for every problem, even if they have already answered the question, even if the question did not eask for examples. It is absurd,they just want to regurgitate their notes back, and thats pure memorization. Students here do not know how to be brief or how to summarize, or how to answer why questions, or how to explain something other than with a straight definition.
Now lets talk answers. While I was supervising exams I will admit that as students finished their test I would read their answers, because lets be real, what else do I have to do. As I was proctoring a geography exam, I saw by far the best answer ever, and it was on numerous people's paper. The question was explain the causes of population growth in Africa. Some of the students answered, 'African women are the most fertile women in the world.' First I want to say, that I honestly do not have any statistics to back this or not, but I am pretty sure that this in general is not true. Now the other reason I found it funny was because I was reading other exams I figured out what they meant to say, which is, 'African women are married young, so during their most fertile years they are having children constantly because most African families do not use family planning.' Note that these are two different reasons. I would even like to submit that there are American women who get married at 18, it just happens to be that a lot of Americans use family planning to decide when and if they have children.. But that is enough on that, I had just wanted to share what had given me a chuckle.
The Mixup
Every class is called by their year(grade) and their tract. For example, S5BCM, means senior 5 Biology Chemistry Mathmatics. Well the week before exams the exam board of Rwanda changed how classes were called. This made S4PCM into S4MPC, and S4MPC into S4PCM. Can you already envision what the mixup was. Long story short, my exam for S4PCM was given to the new PCM, aka a class that I do not teach. That then meant that my class did not have an exam, or rather I could not give them the same exam because they had already seen the exam the other class took. This meant that on wednesday afternoon I had to write a whole new exam, which was hard work, so I could then have the students take it on Thursday. gr. It should also be noted that I felt bad for the other teacher who had his students take my test and not his, and he had to keep it that way, he was not allowed to give them a new test, yet his class has chemistry 7 hours a week, and this one of mine only has it 2 hours a week, so the exams are obviously covering different information.
Grading, or as they say, Marking
I worked my ass off over the weekend because I had been told grades needed to be turned in on Monday. Grading 4 classes of approx. 40 students each is long, and hard. It is even harder when I have to constantly think about what english sentence they are trying to say. But in the end I got my 4 classes done. Well it ends up that one of the chemistry teachers is sick or left, or who knows, but I was asked to grade a chem exam for S1. I said of course because I understand it has to get done, and I'm TOO nice. It ends up it wasn't just one exam, but 3 classes' exam, which totalled roughly 150 extra exams for me to mark. I would also like to say I was not given the answers or the grading scheme, so I got to make that up all on my own. Great right. Wait, it gets better. Evidentally another teacher needed help, and I was given another exam to grade. So all of monday and tuesday I was marking exams that did't even belong to me. Now this just pissed my off because I ws tired of looking at exams, and I was tired of teachers asking me oh gina you aren't done marking yet, you need to hurry. Near the end of the day of tuesday I was 'barking' at them that these exams are not mine, I finished mine already. What also pissed me off was that other teachers were actually still marking their exams when I had finished marking 8 exams. WTF. Also I got very annoyed on Tuesday when the Senior 1 exams that I had marked, this teacher was in school and didn't say a word to me about the fact that I marked his exams. gr. But we will leave it that I am done marking, and nothing could convince me to mark anything or do anything for the rest of the week.
This past week of school were term one exams. Since I have 4 classes, I had to write 4 3 hr exams. Which in case you don't know is a lot, and in reality all I could do was hope that it was doable in 3 hours and/or that it wasn't too easy.
During exam week, which for some classes only consisted of 3 days, we as teachers had to supervise exams. But, we are not supervising our own exams, so in case students have questions or there are typos, sorry, noone to help them. Which as I will explain later, can present a problem.
Now this was my first time ever proctoring an exam, and let me tell you, it is boring. Essentially for 3 hours I was singing songs in my head to try and keep myself awake.
Now lets talk cheating. It was amazing how many students would just start talking to their deskmate or would 'casually' look at the paper next to them. What is funny to me is that this is the easiest way to get caught, I wanted to be like, 'hello students, aren't you smart enough to cheat without getting caught.' Though I did not say this, instead I would remind them that this was the class' first warning and the next time I see it happen I would take the exam away and the student would get a zero.' Which honestly I don't even know if I had the power to do that, but whatever..haha.
Now lets talk paper usage. Wow. These students use a lot of paper. Even at the begining of the exam when I would explain to them how much paper they got, they would then raise their hand an hour later an say teacher I need the paper. Sometimes I caved and I would give them more, but sometimes I would say no. It is not because I am mean, but if the teacher who wrote the test says they only need so much paper, then thats all they are going to get, and here is why: students here write as much as they can for every problem, even if they have already answered the question, even if the question did not eask for examples. It is absurd,they just want to regurgitate their notes back, and thats pure memorization. Students here do not know how to be brief or how to summarize, or how to answer why questions, or how to explain something other than with a straight definition.
Now lets talk answers. While I was supervising exams I will admit that as students finished their test I would read their answers, because lets be real, what else do I have to do. As I was proctoring a geography exam, I saw by far the best answer ever, and it was on numerous people's paper. The question was explain the causes of population growth in Africa. Some of the students answered, 'African women are the most fertile women in the world.' First I want to say, that I honestly do not have any statistics to back this or not, but I am pretty sure that this in general is not true. Now the other reason I found it funny was because I was reading other exams I figured out what they meant to say, which is, 'African women are married young, so during their most fertile years they are having children constantly because most African families do not use family planning.' Note that these are two different reasons. I would even like to submit that there are American women who get married at 18, it just happens to be that a lot of Americans use family planning to decide when and if they have children.. But that is enough on that, I had just wanted to share what had given me a chuckle.
The Mixup
Every class is called by their year(grade) and their tract. For example, S5BCM, means senior 5 Biology Chemistry Mathmatics. Well the week before exams the exam board of Rwanda changed how classes were called. This made S4PCM into S4MPC, and S4MPC into S4PCM. Can you already envision what the mixup was. Long story short, my exam for S4PCM was given to the new PCM, aka a class that I do not teach. That then meant that my class did not have an exam, or rather I could not give them the same exam because they had already seen the exam the other class took. This meant that on wednesday afternoon I had to write a whole new exam, which was hard work, so I could then have the students take it on Thursday. gr. It should also be noted that I felt bad for the other teacher who had his students take my test and not his, and he had to keep it that way, he was not allowed to give them a new test, yet his class has chemistry 7 hours a week, and this one of mine only has it 2 hours a week, so the exams are obviously covering different information.
Grading, or as they say, Marking
I worked my ass off over the weekend because I had been told grades needed to be turned in on Monday. Grading 4 classes of approx. 40 students each is long, and hard. It is even harder when I have to constantly think about what english sentence they are trying to say. But in the end I got my 4 classes done. Well it ends up that one of the chemistry teachers is sick or left, or who knows, but I was asked to grade a chem exam for S1. I said of course because I understand it has to get done, and I'm TOO nice. It ends up it wasn't just one exam, but 3 classes' exam, which totalled roughly 150 extra exams for me to mark. I would also like to say I was not given the answers or the grading scheme, so I got to make that up all on my own. Great right. Wait, it gets better. Evidentally another teacher needed help, and I was given another exam to grade. So all of monday and tuesday I was marking exams that did't even belong to me. Now this just pissed my off because I ws tired of looking at exams, and I was tired of teachers asking me oh gina you aren't done marking yet, you need to hurry. Near the end of the day of tuesday I was 'barking' at them that these exams are not mine, I finished mine already. What also pissed me off was that other teachers were actually still marking their exams when I had finished marking 8 exams. WTF. Also I got very annoyed on Tuesday when the Senior 1 exams that I had marked, this teacher was in school and didn't say a word to me about the fact that I marked his exams. gr. But we will leave it that I am done marking, and nothing could convince me to mark anything or do anything for the rest of the week.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Debate Tournament
This past Saturday was the first ever debate tournament that I attended. Yes, I know that in highschool most of my friends did debate, even my sisters did, but I did not.
So this is how I ended up at a debate tournament of all places.
When I was returning home on Friday night from a Persian New Year's celebration/ Birthday celebration I came upon one of the senior 6 students at my school. After the normal pleasantries I asked what she was doing on Saturday (since I had thought something was going on at my school). She told me that nothing was happening at the school tomorrow, but she would be going to debate in the morning and that I should come to watch. She said they would be leaving at 7 am. I figured what else am I doing at 7 am, so I said sure I would like to go. Come Saturday morning I was ready at 7 am, but we of course did not leave till 7.30. 20 students from my school went. The debate 'coach' would be meeting us there I was told. So we all piled on the bus that had come for us. As soon as the bus pulled out of the school the girls asked the driver to put on music and put it on loud. The driver put in a tape, and I'm not kidding when I say the song that came on was "red, red wine." And yes all the 20 girls knew the words; it gave me a good chuckle.
Now on the bus with us, other than the driver that is, was a police man. Since I didn't know why I asked one of the students, and she informed me that it was because the police were sponsoring the debate. It should be noted that at the time I had no idea what that statement really meant, but I would soon find out.
We shortly arrived at our destination, we only traveled far enough for us to listen to 2 songs, to the dismay of the girls. Now this is where for me it got good. We pulled into the National Police Headquarters; which for those of you who do not know is a huge compound/base in Kigali. Well when I was told the police were sponsoring it, it also meant they were hosting it.
I'm not going to lie, I was really excited, I mean its not every day one gets to be inside of a national police headquarters. As we were unloading from the bus another police officer came and told us that we could walk around for a bit while we waited for the other schools to come. I didn't have to be told twice, I got moving, I wanted to see as much of the place as I could. Although I wanted to, I figured it would be best if I didn't take pictures while I was wondering. I believe I amused my students with my curiousity.
After the second school arrived we were ushered into this other compound within the compound. Within the next half an hour 3 other schools arrived, so that there was a total of 5 schools. Essentially it was the 5 best schools of Kigali(private and public). The students proceeded to greet eachother and just be students. This was all very interesting to see how they mingled amongst the private and public school students. Also some of the students from the private school were foreigners.
After a bunch of waiting we were directed into a conference room. There we waited for more time. I finally found out that the reason we were waiting was because the commision general of the police force was running late and we were waiting for her(yes it is a women in charge).
When she had finally arrived, we could finally start, it was now approx. 10.30 am. She began with some brief words and then quickly passed it off to an officer from the CID who then did a short presentation on the current crime rates in Rwanda. Then the actual debate tournament could be started.
From each school there were 5 students(+or-)who would be debating. These students were called out of the conference room and divided into 8 teams of 3 students (I have no idea which school did not have 5 students participating). We then had 4 teams stay in the conference room, and the other 4 teams went to another room. Then half the audience was divided to go watch in the other room.
The format of the debate went like this. First affirmative or negative positions in regards to the motion were assigned to the first two teams. They then had 5 minutes to make their game plan. Then the first speaker of the affirmitive team had 6 minutes to speak. Then the third speaker of the negative team had 3 minutes to ask questions or cross interegate the first speaker. The first speaker of the negative team then had 6 minutes to speak, followed by a 3 minute cross interigation by the 3rd speaker of the affirmitive team. This same scheme repeated itself for the 2nd and 3rd speakers for both sides; the only difference was that they only had 5 minutes to speak instead of the first speaker's 6 minutes.
Immediately after the first pairing of teams finished, the other two teams went up and the process started all over again. I will admit I was a little confused that the teams not participating got to watch what the other teams said.
So what was the motion they were debating over? The fact that Rwanda wants to involve its youth in crime prevention and reduction.
After the first two pairing finished, it was time for lunch. When lunch was finished the judges announced the winner of both pairings. Then those two winners debated against each other. Meanwhile this same format was happening in the other room with the 4 other teams. In the end each room had 1 team that was the winner, the rooms came back together again and these 2 teams debated in the finals to have a final winner.
This was all very interesting, but I will admit at times also a little boring, since it was the same topic debated each time, and almost every group made the same points.
The only thing I did not think was fair, though I know it was fair. The team that ended up being the final winners, for each of their rounds they had the affirmitive position, which I think was the easier position to defend.
My main observations was that the teams which had the negative side had a hard time coming up with substantial points/arguments and the confidence that they were believe what they said. Now I know that they didnt believe it, and I was talking to my students in the audience about this, that the point of debate is not whether you believe it or not, but you try to make yourself the stronger team by having the best arguements and by being able to pick apart what the other team said in cross examinations.
This in my opinion is where many of the students lacked. Now I think the main reason is that they are not fully comfortable with the English langauge so they don't know how to use ceratin words to give themselves an advantage or how to word a question so that you stick the other teams with saying something they did not want to say, but I guess that comes with time and experience. No surprise the 'best' debater went to a white boy. And I am not saying that he was not good, but in my opinion half the time his opposition was just so overwhelmed with the speed in which he spoke and flumixed by how he worded his questions they could never gain proper footing when he spoke to them in cross examinations or when they were cross examinning him.
Also in my opinion there were many openings that the negaitve teams had to try and win some points, but most of the time the students did not use them. The biggest chances they lost out on was the affirmative teams' usage of such definitive words, such as always, proven, or perfectly. These are powerful words to be used when arguing and I believe it could have given them a chance to score some points.
Though at the same time I believe that all the affirmitive teams failed to point out one of the most obvious points. So each negative teams argued that by using the youth in crime prevention and reduction they would be exposing the youth to bad things. They then went on to say the only role of the youth in the country was that they must go to school and be educated. What confused me is that not one group pointed out that by having the youth go to school and recieve an education that in itself is a from of crime reduction and prevention.
I also found it interesting that not one negative group asked the affirmitive teams how they would ensure that if the youth were used there would be some oversight so that the youth were just not being programmed to do something, aka ensurance that someone in power could not abuse it and make himself an army of youth(which we have seen happen in parts all over the world).
But hey, what can I say really, they are only students, and who knows how much experience they have in debating. While even though I have never formally debated, I am an expert arguer who has different life experiences so I can look at a topic differently from them.
Oh side note-- At one point of the debate I had to really restrain myself from not making too big of an outburst, I managed to control myself to only making a snort/laugh sound. You see in one of the cross examinations a students asked for an example of a stable African country, and the other student said Madagascar. Clearly the student had not been following the news this past week, cause if they had, they would have known that that example might not have been the best to use.
Well in the end the debate tournament was a lot of fun for the students, and I was definietely happy that I had come to watch it. On the way home the students had asked the bus driver to take the long way home so they could listen to music longer. On the radio an Akon song came on, and of course ALL the girls LOVE Akon, so the bus was filled with 20 girls screaming the words as loud as possible, all I could do was smile.
The only other thing to note about this day was that when I had agreed to go, I did not know it was a tournment or that it would take all day. We left school at 7.30 am, and did not return till roughly 6 pm. HA. and here I had wanted to run errands and see people from my program. But on the other side I did get a free lunch out of it, not to mention I was inside the National Police Headquarters.
Oh I forgot one more thing. The names of the two teams in the finals. When the man in charge introduced them as "the eagles", the team replied we fly high. The second teams was introduced as "the creme cakes," and what did they respond but we taste good..HAHA...
Sorry one more thing. Today in school I had a few teachers tell me they saw me on TV on Sunday. I had known that the debate tournament was being taped, and a few times they panned the audience, well guess what I got filmed, and I was on Rwandan tv..hahahaha. :)
So this is how I ended up at a debate tournament of all places.
When I was returning home on Friday night from a Persian New Year's celebration/ Birthday celebration I came upon one of the senior 6 students at my school. After the normal pleasantries I asked what she was doing on Saturday (since I had thought something was going on at my school). She told me that nothing was happening at the school tomorrow, but she would be going to debate in the morning and that I should come to watch. She said they would be leaving at 7 am. I figured what else am I doing at 7 am, so I said sure I would like to go. Come Saturday morning I was ready at 7 am, but we of course did not leave till 7.30. 20 students from my school went. The debate 'coach' would be meeting us there I was told. So we all piled on the bus that had come for us. As soon as the bus pulled out of the school the girls asked the driver to put on music and put it on loud. The driver put in a tape, and I'm not kidding when I say the song that came on was "red, red wine." And yes all the 20 girls knew the words; it gave me a good chuckle.
Now on the bus with us, other than the driver that is, was a police man. Since I didn't know why I asked one of the students, and she informed me that it was because the police were sponsoring the debate. It should be noted that at the time I had no idea what that statement really meant, but I would soon find out.
We shortly arrived at our destination, we only traveled far enough for us to listen to 2 songs, to the dismay of the girls. Now this is where for me it got good. We pulled into the National Police Headquarters; which for those of you who do not know is a huge compound/base in Kigali. Well when I was told the police were sponsoring it, it also meant they were hosting it.
I'm not going to lie, I was really excited, I mean its not every day one gets to be inside of a national police headquarters. As we were unloading from the bus another police officer came and told us that we could walk around for a bit while we waited for the other schools to come. I didn't have to be told twice, I got moving, I wanted to see as much of the place as I could. Although I wanted to, I figured it would be best if I didn't take pictures while I was wondering. I believe I amused my students with my curiousity.
After the second school arrived we were ushered into this other compound within the compound. Within the next half an hour 3 other schools arrived, so that there was a total of 5 schools. Essentially it was the 5 best schools of Kigali(private and public). The students proceeded to greet eachother and just be students. This was all very interesting to see how they mingled amongst the private and public school students. Also some of the students from the private school were foreigners.
After a bunch of waiting we were directed into a conference room. There we waited for more time. I finally found out that the reason we were waiting was because the commision general of the police force was running late and we were waiting for her(yes it is a women in charge).
When she had finally arrived, we could finally start, it was now approx. 10.30 am. She began with some brief words and then quickly passed it off to an officer from the CID who then did a short presentation on the current crime rates in Rwanda. Then the actual debate tournament could be started.
From each school there were 5 students(+or-)who would be debating. These students were called out of the conference room and divided into 8 teams of 3 students (I have no idea which school did not have 5 students participating). We then had 4 teams stay in the conference room, and the other 4 teams went to another room. Then half the audience was divided to go watch in the other room.
The format of the debate went like this. First affirmative or negative positions in regards to the motion were assigned to the first two teams. They then had 5 minutes to make their game plan. Then the first speaker of the affirmitive team had 6 minutes to speak. Then the third speaker of the negative team had 3 minutes to ask questions or cross interegate the first speaker. The first speaker of the negative team then had 6 minutes to speak, followed by a 3 minute cross interigation by the 3rd speaker of the affirmitive team. This same scheme repeated itself for the 2nd and 3rd speakers for both sides; the only difference was that they only had 5 minutes to speak instead of the first speaker's 6 minutes.
Immediately after the first pairing of teams finished, the other two teams went up and the process started all over again. I will admit I was a little confused that the teams not participating got to watch what the other teams said.
So what was the motion they were debating over? The fact that Rwanda wants to involve its youth in crime prevention and reduction.
After the first two pairing finished, it was time for lunch. When lunch was finished the judges announced the winner of both pairings. Then those two winners debated against each other. Meanwhile this same format was happening in the other room with the 4 other teams. In the end each room had 1 team that was the winner, the rooms came back together again and these 2 teams debated in the finals to have a final winner.
This was all very interesting, but I will admit at times also a little boring, since it was the same topic debated each time, and almost every group made the same points.
The only thing I did not think was fair, though I know it was fair. The team that ended up being the final winners, for each of their rounds they had the affirmitive position, which I think was the easier position to defend.
My main observations was that the teams which had the negative side had a hard time coming up with substantial points/arguments and the confidence that they were believe what they said. Now I know that they didnt believe it, and I was talking to my students in the audience about this, that the point of debate is not whether you believe it or not, but you try to make yourself the stronger team by having the best arguements and by being able to pick apart what the other team said in cross examinations.
This in my opinion is where many of the students lacked. Now I think the main reason is that they are not fully comfortable with the English langauge so they don't know how to use ceratin words to give themselves an advantage or how to word a question so that you stick the other teams with saying something they did not want to say, but I guess that comes with time and experience. No surprise the 'best' debater went to a white boy. And I am not saying that he was not good, but in my opinion half the time his opposition was just so overwhelmed with the speed in which he spoke and flumixed by how he worded his questions they could never gain proper footing when he spoke to them in cross examinations or when they were cross examinning him.
Also in my opinion there were many openings that the negaitve teams had to try and win some points, but most of the time the students did not use them. The biggest chances they lost out on was the affirmative teams' usage of such definitive words, such as always, proven, or perfectly. These are powerful words to be used when arguing and I believe it could have given them a chance to score some points.
Though at the same time I believe that all the affirmitive teams failed to point out one of the most obvious points. So each negative teams argued that by using the youth in crime prevention and reduction they would be exposing the youth to bad things. They then went on to say the only role of the youth in the country was that they must go to school and be educated. What confused me is that not one group pointed out that by having the youth go to school and recieve an education that in itself is a from of crime reduction and prevention.
I also found it interesting that not one negative group asked the affirmitive teams how they would ensure that if the youth were used there would be some oversight so that the youth were just not being programmed to do something, aka ensurance that someone in power could not abuse it and make himself an army of youth(which we have seen happen in parts all over the world).
But hey, what can I say really, they are only students, and who knows how much experience they have in debating. While even though I have never formally debated, I am an expert arguer who has different life experiences so I can look at a topic differently from them.
Oh side note-- At one point of the debate I had to really restrain myself from not making too big of an outburst, I managed to control myself to only making a snort/laugh sound. You see in one of the cross examinations a students asked for an example of a stable African country, and the other student said Madagascar. Clearly the student had not been following the news this past week, cause if they had, they would have known that that example might not have been the best to use.
Well in the end the debate tournament was a lot of fun for the students, and I was definietely happy that I had come to watch it. On the way home the students had asked the bus driver to take the long way home so they could listen to music longer. On the radio an Akon song came on, and of course ALL the girls LOVE Akon, so the bus was filled with 20 girls screaming the words as loud as possible, all I could do was smile.
The only other thing to note about this day was that when I had agreed to go, I did not know it was a tournment or that it would take all day. We left school at 7.30 am, and did not return till roughly 6 pm. HA. and here I had wanted to run errands and see people from my program. But on the other side I did get a free lunch out of it, not to mention I was inside the National Police Headquarters.
Oh I forgot one more thing. The names of the two teams in the finals. When the man in charge introduced them as "the eagles", the team replied we fly high. The second teams was introduced as "the creme cakes," and what did they respond but we taste good..HAHA...
Sorry one more thing. Today in school I had a few teachers tell me they saw me on TV on Sunday. I had known that the debate tournament was being taped, and a few times they panned the audience, well guess what I got filmed, and I was on Rwandan tv..hahahaha. :)
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