“In two weeks this house will be your home”

December 19, 2012

 

The past few weeks have been a blur. Two weeks ago today, I was saying goodbye to my host family and packing up to head to the capital.  It was hard to leave the family that had given me so much love and support over the three strenuous months of training. With promises of visits to come and many tears (mostly from my end, let’s get real) I rode off in the PC car. We spent two days in Kigali, preparing for installation (the PC fancy term for us being dropped off at site), buying things we wouldn’t be able to get at site, olive oil and popcorn seeds being at the top of my list. Friday morning we all threw on our nicest clothes (just saying that for PCVs we were looking pretty wambeye neza, or looking smart, the highest of Rwandan compliments) and jetted off to the Ambassador’s residence (apparently when you live in a mansion, it’s no longer called a house. So fancy.)/ America (embassy property = America, let me have this) for Swear-In. This was the moment we had been working toward for three months, the moment I was looking forward to since I submitted my PC application 2.5 years ago. There was some traditional Rwandan dancing that you know I was all up on, speeches from trainees in English, French and Kinyarwanda and some speeches from the Ambassador and CD (country director). Then the moment: we all put up our hands, repeated the same words that the president says and voila! we were Peace Corps Volunteers. At that moment we transformer-style morphed into robots, ready to integrate into small Rwandan communities. Kinda. It was a really cool moment that I will never forget, that was followed by an incredible buffet (Mini. Pizzas. All that needs to be said about that) where we gorged ourselves on American food that we had been deprived of the last three months.

After swear in, we all were pumped for swear in night. After having a 6:30 curfew for all of training, we couldn’t wait to actually have a night out on the town. Shenanigans ensued. Everyone made it back to our lodgings eventually and no one died, so we all considered it a successful evening. Add to that that my dinner was a burrito and margarita and I was happy as a clam.

I realize now that prior to swear in, I hadn’t really put much thought into the day after swear in. I was unlucky enough to be in the first group to get installed at 7AM the morning following swear in. Trying to stay composed on two hours of sleep, an awful hangover and with the knowledge that I was about to leave everyone I knew in this country was impossible. I was “that girl”. You know, the over-emotional one that cried the entire morning, trying to gather up my belongings. Yeah, it was rough. After a round of hugs from everyone, promising that I was okay and that I would contact them once I was at site, Alex and I loaded up with our Deputy, Bryan and our Training Manager, JD. Alex and I took a good fifteen minutes to compose ourselves and eventually the tears stopped and the hangover kicked into over-drive from the lack of water in our systems. However, Bryan was the absolute best person to have to take us to our sites. His presence calmed us more than anything else could have. We stopped first at my site to unload and have the staff check to make sure that everything was up to PC standards. The staff had okayed me coming up to Alex’s site to move her in as they had to pass by my village on the way back to Kigali anyways. It was hard to say goodbye to Alex, but we knew that it would only be a matter of time before we would see each other again. Then it was my turn to be dropped off. Bryan walked me into my compound and told me something that really stuck with me. He said,  “In two weeks this house will be your home.” Feeling the tears coming again, I got one last hug and off he went.

And I was alone. And exhausted. And terrified. But oddly enough a liberating feeling was also there. No more curfew. No more having to account for my every move. No more regimented schedule of when to eat, when to sleep, when to bathe. Feeling great, I went and slept for the afternoon; trying to catch up on some much needed rest. I woke up in a blind panic. What the hell am I doing here? How in the world can I do this for two years? How can I survive without anyone else who understands my culture, jokes, witticisms? Trying to shake off the foreboding feeling, I decided to try and cook up some dinner. After melting an extension cord and fighting with my petrol stove for an hour it started pouring: both the rain outside and my tears. I was just so overwhelmed and scared and lonely. After basically living with 33 other American for training, it was startling to be all-alone. I called some great people in my training group and calmed down enough to make a PB&J for dinner (thanks Robertsons, I wouldn’t have made it through that first night without that) and passed out again, determined to wake up in the morning in a better mood.

The next days gradually got better and better. I figured out how to cook successfully and I was able to cook comfort dishes that I had missed during training. I also am now living in electricity (which I will never, ever, ever take for granted for again) so I can watch movies and check facebook to my heart’s content. I even have a light in my toilet, granted it is still outside and a latrine but SO FANCY A LIGHT IN MY LATRINE! My days are simple now. I wake up whenever I want, usually around 8, still trying to catch up on all that missed sleep from training. If it is a market day I walk the 30 minutes to my market town and get all my basic staples for the next few days (usually for under $1). If it isn’t a market day I lounge about, trying to do things to improve my house or cleaning. Currently I am making a stocking for every PCV in the north for our Christmas gathering (boredom leads me to sew apparently). I try and get out every day and walk around the community, introducing myself to anyone I encounter. Successful days are measured differently now: I took a hot shower today, I went to the market and bought carrots, I met two new people in my village etc. Until the school year starts at the beginning of January, life will be much slower. I am looking forward to getting together with the Northern Province for Christmas next week and gathering with everyone in our training class for a New Years Celebration on Lake Kivu. Until then, I will sew 🙂

Thanksgiving

November 26, 2012

So as we PCTs were busy with the final days of model school on Thanksgiving Day, we celebrated on the Saturday following. Instead of telling the stories of killing and butchering and cooking for 75 using only charcoal stove, I will say what I am thankful for this year.

1. My incredible family in the USA (and South Korea) who are so supportive and loving (and can pack a damn good care package).

2. My PCT family that listends when I need to vent, agrees and joins when I need a cold beer, splits and avocado when I can’t finish it or just give me a hug when I really need one. We left Atlanta with 34 trainees, and to this day (and I am typing this up on December 3) we still have 34 trainees. From what people have said, this is pretty unusual, which I think shows how wonderful our group is as a whole.

3. My Rwandan host family (an entire blog to come on them) who are so supportive and wonderful even when we can’t fully understand each other or when my Mama makes me re-wash my jeans because they didn’t get clean enough the first time I tried (and trust that there is nothing worse than hand washing jeans in the rainy season).

4. The wonderful LCFs (Rwandan teachers who teach us the language and culture) that make sure I can communicate and live in this country.

5. That my laptop can last for a week if used properly.

6. That in a week and a half I will be living with electricity and a water pump in my courtyard.

7. That I know one drink mix-in can actually make double what is says on the package.

8. That I’ve lost three belt loops since coming to this country.

9. The great community of volunteers in this country who are so supportive of the trainees.

10. That M23 has stayed on the Congo side of the border

11. That the moon here can actually be used as a light when it is full. And that the stars here are unrivaled by anything I have ever seen.

12. That in a week and a half I can make my favorite pasta with garlic salt and Parmesan cheese again (thanks KC for forever making me obsessed with that dish, that I will even be making it in Rwanda).

13. That I made it through my first big holiday away from home and loved ones. To everyone out there reading this, thank you for everything. You are loved and you are missed, especially during this holiday season. I won’t pretend that it was easy, but it makes it easier knowing what an incredible support system I have.

Model School

November 26, 2012

 

For the past two weeks of training my hands, and most likely my skirt, have been covered in chalk dust. For this time, all PCTs lives have been consumed by Model School. Model School is one of the first, last big hurdles to get over before we are allowed to swear in (the others being the final language exam and the finals tests for Safety and Security, Cross Culture and Medical). For many PCTs, it was the first time we had ever taught in an official classroom capacity, including myself. Since the Rwandan school term finished up a few weeks ago, PC has been signing up local kids to come to our school (basically a voluntary, two-week summer school so kids can get extra practice). Mostly we had pretty small classes, which helped to ease everyone’s anxieties. This will not be the same at site as most of us will have class sizes from anywhere between 40-65.

As I stood in front of fifteen 12-14 year olds attempting to discern the difference between a countable and uncountable noun, I realized something: I really like teaching. I love standing in front of those children, giving them a push in the right direction when they are wrong or encouraging them when they are right. I love the moment when I see it “click” in their minds, or when the shy girl in the back raises her hand to finally answer a question.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is INCREDIBLY difficult to teach and my respect has grown by leaps and bounds for every teacher I have ever had. Teaching in an environment where “classroom resources” consist of a blackboard, chalk, my own creativity and maybe a pre-made rice sack (used for longer readings, diagrams, pictures, etc, you can buy a blank rice sack for around 15 cents) is incredibly difficult. Not to mention that we are teaching in a culture where positive reinforcement is a unique experience for students, rote memorization of notes is the only way to learn and creativity and critical thinking are rarely used by students or teachers. This is why it is so exciting to be here. I get to use the years of wonderful teaching I have witnessed and change the ways Rwandan students understand learning.

This was most poignant on the second to last day of Model School. I was teaching a double period (100 minutes without stopping) of S3 (rough equivalent of 9^th grade) the active and passive Voice. Unable to contain my glee when my students understood how to use both, I couldn’t help but remember my year-long struggle with passive voice during Mr. Campbell’s IB English 2 class and out mutual joy when I finally wrote an essay without any passive voice. (Oh and Mr. Campbell if you are reading this, one of my students corrected me during the lesson, so trust that this did not go straight to my head). After I finished the lesson, we played a variation of Alge-ball, the game I played in my 9^th grade Algebra 2 class, giddy when the students really got into it.

Now I am more exited than ever to have my own class at my site. I am excited to form relationships with my students, to have a curriculum to follow, and to test how creative I can get with them. Hopefully my love of teaching will balance out my fear and loathing of lesson planning, which is sure to be the bane of my existence these next two years.