The first two weeks were spent in Kigali, the capital of
Rwanda. We stayed in a decent hotel with running water and internet on most
days. Here, we had a guide named Steve who is an amazing individual. He grew up
in Nyamyumba (where we spent the next two weeks) and was sponsored by Mabawa,
the NGO we worked with there. He was
basically our dad for those two weeks because we wouldn’t have been able to get
around or do anything without him.
These weeks we spent discussing entrepreneurship with
students at IPRC – Kigali. The school is very nice with lots of classrooms,
computers, a decent sized library, and workshops with fancy machinery. They
have housing for students to live on campus and even a cow to provide milk for
the residents. The students we worked with were mostly first-year students
studying Information Communication Technology. It was difficult in the
beginning to simply communicate with the students – while they did speak
English, everyone was at different levels and it was more of an accent barrier
than a language barrier. We couldn’t understand each other’s accents much at
all in the beginning and so there was lots of slow talking, repeated sentences,
and laughter as we struggled to understand the same language together.
After a few days though we got used to it and were able to
communicate much better. And let me tell you, once we started, you could really
see the fire and motivation behind these students. They asked detailed,
thought-out questions and surprisingly paid attention. In the United States,
students often dread going to class, but here students have worked so hard to
get where they are that they truly want to learn everything they possibly can.
It was really refreshing to see that.
Some students were more outgoing than others (probably
partly due to English proficiency), but by the end of our two weeks with them
we got most of them talking. We did some small group activities, like mock
interviews, and it was just so great to sit down with them and get to know them
better and to learn more about their culture. After all, we are the same age
with much of the same interests.
I know those students are going to do great things and are
hopefully able to use some of the information we presented them to better their
future. I already miss being in class with them, but we’ve all friended each
other on Facebook and will hopefully stay in touch.
One of our classes at IPRC
Other than teaching, when we had free time, Steve would take
us around the city. We went shopping – lots of shopping since our group was all
girls – I bought so much fabric! We also went to the pool, the movie theater, the biggest Rwandan football match of the season, a
birthday party for Steve’s friend, bars on the weekend, and church on Sunday
(so unlike me I know, but I wanted to experience church in Rwanda…it turned out
to be a contemporary non-denominational English church though). We would always
go to this café called Bourbon Coffee for drinks, ice cream, and wifi and it’s
cool because they also have 3 locations in the States, including Washington,
DC.
Two teams from Kigali - Rayon v. APR
Fruit market in the mall
During these first two weeks we also learned about the
Rwandan rain. We are here for the rainy season and it basically rains everyday
in the afternoon. The first downpour we experienced was when we were on our way
to class (we take public buses and walk) and the rain started coming down.
Without saying anything, Steve just starts running away and we just quickly
followed in confusion. At home, rain stops nothing, but in Rwanda it stops
everything. We ran under an awning outside a market and waited there with every
other single person on the street for the rain to pass. On one occasion we were
in class when it started pouring and we had to stop teaching for 20 minutes
because no one could hear anything over the water banging on the tin roofs. Steve
said that when he was in university students would often not even come to class
when it rained because the professors wouldn’t show up. I like that concept
though, that you can always rely on a little break in the middle of the day to
stop, relax, and wait for the rain to pass.
An incoming storm
We also visited a few genocide memorials, which was
difficult for me, but also a valuable experience. We went to two churches where
large massacres had occurred during the genocide. I was expecting maybe a
statue, a plaque, a list of the names of those who lost their lives there, something
solemn and modest. But damn, I was way off. I couldn’t even enter the
churches…they had preserved the remains of the victims, stacked the bones, the
piles of clothes, everything that was in that church on the day of the massacre
stayed there for us to view 20 years later. The memorial guide brought us
around and explained the ashes where people were burned, the bloodstains where
children had been thrown against a wall. It was all very real and very hard to
handle. I felt so guilty because here I am, some little foreigner, unable to
handle myself having to be comforted and handed tissues by someone who actually
went through this nightmare. It was a good experience though, like Dachau, I
think it is good for to be able to see things like this firsthand so that we can
stop them from ever happening again.
My loves goes out to of all those who lost their lives or
their loved ones.
There was some culture shock during these first few weeks of
adjusting – got sick of eating potatoes, got overwhelmed by the crowded buses,
got heartbroken by the limbless beggars on the streets, got confused by the
subtle eyebrow raise and soft grunt, which means “yes,” but really the biggest
shock was how much I wasn’t shocked. Kigali is a large city – look up pictures
on google and you’ll see skyscrapers and the works. It’s not totally at the
same level, but give it a few years and I’m sure it will be closely comparable
to some cities in the United States. I’m not a huge fan of cities (even though
I grew up right outside of one), but I enjoyed my time spent in Kigali.
No comments:
Post a Comment