Starting Work and Getting Around

This week has been another shock to the system. I started work full time. From Monday to Wednesday I was in the Kamonyi District Office, meeting the people I’ll be working with, being shown around and learning the job. It’s in a very different context, but very familiar from a skills perspective.

Travelling to and from work is complicated – at 6.45am, I take a 5 minute moto-taxi ride from the Hacienda to the express bus stop in Muhanga (Gitarama) and buy a ticket for the Horizon bus. That’s a more expensive bus but faster and less crowded, with mostly professionals heading for work in the capital, Kigali, which is an hour away.  In half an hour I arrive at Kamonyi village and get another moto-taxi 7km along a gravel road up into the higher hills to the office.

 

Coming home at 4pm, I do the reverse, but use a local smaller minibus (a matatu) which come by regularly. These vehicles have a conductor as well as a driver, who collects as many passengers with their various pieces of luggage and equipment as he can. The matatu is stopped by banging on the window or ceiling. Sometimes you are almost on the lap of your fellow passengers or may even have a local child on your own lap. With a computer rucksack and my own moto helmet, it can be rather complicated. It’s good if the windows are open for fresh air as the well-worn vehicles draw in exhaust fumes to mingle with those of the passengers.

 

On Thursday and Friday, I shadowed Hetty and Ingrid on visits to schools and to deliver teacher training. The school we visited in Musambira was a Belgian and EU funded project led by an enthusiastic former head teacher. It’s a school delivering the primary curriculum for those pupils (mostly teenagers) who’ve missed out on their education so far. It’s all very encouraging as there will be training opportunities for us in that school in the future. Friday’s training course was for 30 teachers at Buye Group Scholaire (mixed primary and secondary) on the New English Curriculum. It was heartening to see the teachers engaged in the interactive tasks which had been prepared – as an example of how not just sitting and listening – to make the learning more enjoyable and effective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend is a quiet one. We began with a brunch at a new local restaurant with other volunteers from other volunteer groups, followed by shopping in the local market for meals for the coming week.

 

Now I need to stop, take stock of my journey so far and absorb all my new experiences.

Moving on.........

During the second week of the In Country Training we went, en masse, to a very large Chinese supermarket to buy items for our new homes. With 22 volunteers arriving all at once, it was a bit of a trolley dash, getting items ranging from bedding, towels and curtains to cutlery, pans and scrubbing brushes.

Moving on from the comfort of the Amani Guest house and packing up was challenging. It was also sad that the extended family of the volunteer group was going their separate ways, even though we'll see each other from time to time. For everyone, it felt like a step into the unknown, once again.

Moving on........

On Friday, I travelled with all my luggage and household items from Kigali to Muhanga, a one hour drive up into the hills.

I now live in a spacious cosy house, known as the 'Hacienda'with three volunteers who've been here for a year already. It's a temporary arrangement until the new house in my district of Kamonyi is finished. So I'm still living out of suitcases. 

 

 

Kitchen and emerency water supply under table

However, there are definite advantages........ being shown around the locality, opening a Rwandan bank account, shopping in the market using my newly learnt Kinyarwanda language, negotiating the cost of a moto taxi ride and how to cook using local ingredients (the wide range of fruit and vegetables available make for a really healthy diet!).

Moto taxi is a part of daily life for getting around

    How to get it home now I've bought it?

 

 

Tomorrow the real reason for my being here begins - I'm starting work at the district office and preparing to work with the local teachers.

 

 

Adrift in Africa

From the plane, with first the Alps and the Mediterranean, and then the endless Sahara Desert below, I reflected how it felt to be leaving home for a year in Rwanda.

Adrift, like the clouds.

Now, after only one week, I'm readily absorbing the sounds, smells and rhythms of Africa.
The 24 volunteers have come together from Kenya, Canada and the UK to learn the Kinyarwanda language, to train for work placements and to acquire the practical skills for life in rural Rwanda. Today it was filtering water, fixing up a mosqito net and lighting the kerosene stove. That was after learning to tell the time in Kinyarwanda and preparing a workshop on inclusive teaching methods for  teachers in our districts.

In only 3 days time, everyone will find themselves transported to their placements, far and wide throughout Rwanda. Once more, adrift, from this guest house compound 'haven' in Kigali to, as yet, unknown challenges and delights.