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.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
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.
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