Find Us The Man U Game

This April marked the third genocide commemoration period that I have been in Rwanda. Every year they commemorate the Genocide. There is an official week of mourning and remembering, but for 3 months commemoration ceremonies are still held all over the country.
My first year I was here I attended a service with my Headmistress. It was interesting. I learned and experienced a lot being there, but it was not something that I really wanted to repeat again. I know how emotional I get and I didn’t care to put myself into that situation because I don’t want to take away from the Rwandans by being a spectacle (aka hysterically crying). The second year I went to Zanzibar (where I got engaged). This year we stayed in Rwanda the whole time. School is closed during this time (it is the break between first and second term).
During the first week Kigali takes on a very somber mode and most people don’t do much other than attend services and memorials. Also all TVs and Radios are tuned in to Rwanda TV, the national station. No entertainment is allowed. And I mean none. On the 6th day, which was a Saturday, Manchester United was playing. Maxon had told me that we wouldn’t be able to find a place to watch, but I really didn’t believe it. Well he was right. We went to bars, restaurants, and even fancy hotels, but none of them could play the game for us.
I realize the need to remember and commemorate, but at that time all we could think of was that we wanted to watch that game and we couldn’t.

So in case you hadn’t figured it out by now, but we are pretty big Manchester United fans. Every week we gotta watch. We got to the same place and sit with the same people. People even ‘know’ us there. For instance when I come in and Maxon is already seated sometimes I have difficulty finding him. Lucky for us workers of the sports bar will point him out to me. And last night just some random guy pointed to where he was..haha.. (This is good for me because a group of black men with shaved heads sure makes it difficult to pick out the head you want)

BALD

Maxon doesn’t have all his hair. It is very common here with a group of the men, even as teenagers. It ‘starts’ with just having big foreheads (that they are soo proud of)..
Well recently my nephew, who is a 12 yr-old, made this comment: He wondered how Maxon could be going bald, because being bald is for old people, and having children is what makes you old, and since we don’t have children he can’t be old.

Gotta love kids. They do have the best logic.

SAT Prep Class

Although the past six weeks did not have me teaching my normal night classes, I did take part in teaching a SAT Prep Class for some high school students of one of the private schools here.
Mostly I did prep work for the English section, but I did do one session for the math section. This was a lot of fun for me because it gave me the chance to interact with bright young students, compared to the adults that I normally teach. It was also neat to talk American universities with them and talk about where to go, what to major in, ect. It was also great because I overheard 3 girls talking about the show Vampire Diaries and then I mentioned that my husband and I watch it, well this made the girls crazy because they could not imagine that married couples would watch it..haha, what do they know.
Overall I think the prep course went well, but who knows until they take it, but it was interesting to see how over the weeks they did become more familiar with the types of questions (it was the first time they ever will have to take a multiple choice test).
And by this I mean that we had to teach 'basic' strategies for discarding some of the choice quickly, when to guess, when not to guess, ect.

It really took me back to high school..haha

Telenovela

Since I originally came to Rwanda I noticed that many Spanish (often Mexican) soap operas are very commonly played on various television stations.
My first year in Rwanda I was introduced to a show that is called Storms Over Paradise. After that came Hidden Passions, Shades of Sin, Don’t Mess with an Angle, just to name a few. I also realized that it wasn’t just me that was watching them. Many of the Rwandans and Ugandans watched, and not only did the women watch, the men enjoyed them very much too.
Recently one of the only channels in English (STVE2) started playing them too. For the last six weeks I was not working and therefore became glued to the TV. Not only did I decide at times to not leave my house in order to watch the next episode, but I even organized my cooking lunch and dinner times around my favorite ones. At the moment Sorteligio, Catalina y Sebastian, I am Your Master (Soy tu duena) and another one that I can’t remember the name of, are getting all my attention.
Strangely enough they are just too good to be true. I know they are so over the top, but somehow that is what makes them that much more appealing.
I think that the US needs to get on the bandwagon and start airing them dubbed..because I think a lot of Americans would enjoy them..haha