IST

IST- Interim Service Training…what exactly does that mean?  Well, it means a week in Kibuye at the Centre Bethanie on Lake Kivu.  Which, as you’ll see in pictures below, is absolutely gorgeous.  Of course, that also comes with full days of sessions to see how all of our first 3 months have been going, how integration into site is going, learning about things like secondary projects, etc. etc.  So it by no means has been all fun and games, during the day we’ve been very “busy” (sitting and listening mostly) but luckily we’ve had the nights off.  And I’ve been here since Sunday.  And in the more typical Caroline reasoning, that means I’ve had electricity, running water (which is HOT mostly), free wireless (kind of since everyone is mooching) and oh right, we’re on a beautiful lake.  It’s the little things in life, right?

It’s been really nice to see all of the volunteers from my education group, we haven’t all been together in one place since PST three months ago.  Along with that, I’m not going to lie, it was overwhelming at first to be surrounded by so many Americans and volunteers at one time.  I didn’t realize how accustomed I was to being the only American, actual English speaker and all of that jazz until all of a sudden there were 60+ Americans all in one place.  But it’s been nice to speak English…without any alterations for Rwandan speak and being able to use slang and just relax American style for a little bit.

School starts up again on Monday…or Tuesday, maybe not even next week at all.  That’s the beauty of the Rwandan school system, I never really know what’s going on.  I guess I’ll show up and maybe I’ll start teaching but who really knows.  Ihangane (patience).  If you ask me what I’ve been doing all break, I honestly don’t know.  I’ve been doing something to keep me busy in the 2 weeks of break I spent at site.  But I really don’t remember what I did.  I think I gutembera-ed (wandered) a bit, probably visited some families, hung out at home, went to the market, played cards…I lead a very exciting life.  But the nice thing about staying at site for vacation was to see how happy it made the residents.  They all kept asking “When will you leave? Where will you go? When will you go to America?” and were completely astounded when I told them that, no, I was not going anywhere, I was hanging out in the village until I had to go to training.  And, I would not return to America for 2 whole years because it costs lots and lots of money which I don’t have.  Then, once they got past the astonishment that I wasn’t leaving they were pretty happy with the fact I was hanging around.  I guess that’s good.

I really don’t have that much to blog on unfortunately.  Only other new, exciting things happening right now…my furniture (chairs/table) are finally finished and will soon be arriving at my house, I have to get back there first though.  And then following that delivery I’ll eventually buy the cushions and finally my house will look more like a home.  For me, it’s all about buhoro buhoro and taking my time with things.  Things will get done, they’ll just get done eventually.

Checked the mail last Friday, thank you Grandmommy and Grandaddy for the letter (sent around February I think) with the Lemon green tea, I’m excited to try it out.  I do have 2 packages (maybe more now since a week, has passed) but I did not pick them up because I was heading to Kigali and then to Kibuye and I did not want to lug more stuff around.  Now, when I leave tomorrow, Brittany and I are stopping through Gitarama and hopefully the Post will be open.  But it’s Good Friday…so maybe not.  We’ll see I guess.  If I don’t pick them up tomorrow, I’ll get there again in a couple weeks and pick stuff up then.  Thank you to everyone who has sent things, I really do appreciate it and it’s so nice to see how much people care.

I’ve also decided that my village now is ready to handle my digital camera, after 3 months.  So I will start taking pictures of my site and the surrounding area so that everyone can see the beautiful area I live in.

And now, I will share with you some pictures from my nice week of paradise on Lake Kivu in Kibuye, Rwanda:

Sunset on Lake Kivu

Panorama of Kivu from Centre Bethanie

Fishing Boats!  They row in and out singing and fish for Tilapia all night.

A blurry picture, but this is the fishing boats at night.  They just sit on the lake with their lights fishing.  A very serene and peaceful setting.
The Island we went to on Thursday for some relaxation.  So beautiful.

That’s all for now, enjoy!

Thank You to…

Carol Brown- For the nail polish and awesome Burt’s Bee’s Hand/Foot kit.  Super excited about the pumis stone!!

Linda Fox- For the “makeup” aka hard candies, hot chocolate, instant STARBUCKS(!!) and various teas

Grandmommy & Granddaddy- for the entertaining article, travel toothbrush head and the 2 instant soups.  They look delicious, I can’t wait to try them!

Mom & Dad- For the Birthday card and the package with mini cliff bars, fruit bars, hot chocolate, nail brush, toothbrush holder (w/ toothbrush), velveeta mac & cheese..you get the idea.  AND for the family pictures.  I can’t believe you brought the cat.  She looks absolutely terrified and, just so you know, she’ll never replace me!

To all of you wondering, yes, we finally did family photos.  Mom and I did them as a surprise/gift for Dad before I left in October, and then Dad and Greg had some done as well.  And then the actual family photo…minus the daughter in Rwanda but it’s okay because instead they brought Cleo…our cat. Let your imaginations run wild and I’m sure Mom would love to show that picture off.

Also, all of these were sent in mailing envelopes between Feb 8-Feb 11.  Last time we checked the mail was March 11th.  Granted, they could’ve come the next week but just remember, time is very variable in Rwanda.  If I could find the receipts…I would tell you how long the took but, go figure, I can’t find them and think I left them at the Post so I’ll try and do better next time.  Also, price depends on weight, the varied from about $4-11.  There you have it, thank you very much again to all.  I have 2 letters waiting for me in Kigali…I’ll pick those up before IST and that’s probably when I’ll check the mail again too.

Murakoze cyane!! (Thank you very much!)

Trimester, Finished

So, I am sitting here at an internet cafe in Gitarama, enjoying their free internet and the fact that….IT’S BREAK!  I had the joy of proctoring/monitoring exams 2 weeks ago for the entire week and then spent last weekend grading all my exams.  That totals over 200 exams of messy student hand writing.  That also means more entertaining notes…so here are some tidbits that I remember because I forgot the paper where I had written them all down!

When asked “What country is the teacher from?” (supposed to be an automatic point question) I got quite a few unintelligible answers, but I also got these…
-“Teacher, you are from America. Calorine, you are from America!”
-“The teacher is from Rwanda. The teacher is from America.”
-“Yes.”
-“The teacher is from South America”
and my personal favorite: “The Teacher is from Ameliqwa”

I wish I was from “Ameliqwa” that just sounds cool.  But yes, and then when asked “What is peristalsis?” [the movement of food in the esophagus/small intestine” I got:
-“Peristalsis is Calorine” and
-“Peristalsis is Barack Obama.”

Now, because in Kinyarwanda there is no pronunciation difference between “r” and “l” those letters tend to get confused. So words like “rice” and “lice” are pronounced exactly the same.  Thus, my name tends to get spelled “Calorine/Kaloline…etc” different mutations of the sort.  Oh well.

And, of course, my students left me notes again.  Here are some good ones:
-“Very difficult!!”
-“Thank you teacher!  but some was difficult”
-“Oh my God Yawe, help me!!!”
-“Very easy!!!”
-“Thank you so much teacher, you write easy questions and easy test, so thank you!!!”
-“Thank you teacher!  But you write difficult questions”

And then, after they had finished their Biology exam I had students running up to me going “It was very difficult!!” and “It was very easy!!!” so there was a pretty good balance.  Then, like I said, I had the pleasure of grading all said exams.  It could have been a lot worse…I only had about a 50% fail rate for the classes overall…which is pretty good considering Physics had a 100% fail rate…ohlala.

In other news…I’ve started running with one of the village residents, Twa.  Which is basically a love/hate relationship.  It’s good because I’m running, in the land of many hills and getting a good workout.  The bad, he makes me wake up a 5:30am to run, hills suck to put it blatantly and Twa can run forever…he will never stop.  So we’re going on week 2 of running and now I’m able to scale roughly 4 of the 1000 hills of Rwanda.  I think it’ll be a good goal to say by the end of this I can run the Boston Marathon/Bay to Breakers or some other ridiculous race in the states.  Which means I am hopefully successfully combating the Rwandan diet of starch, starch starch.  It’s also a really good way to entertain the villagers.  They are so amused that I’m going out for “siporo” [sport] and usually just cheer me on and tell me “Komera” [be strong].  So yeah, I’m still an amusement to my town, which I guess is good.

I have not checked the mail yet…but I will later today, so do not worry.  And then, I will let everyone know how long things took, who I received packages from and all that good stuff.  Let’s just say I hope there are some good goodies waiting for me!

And now it is officially break.  I’ve got 3 weeks off until the next trimester begins.  So today I am in Gitarama, will possibly stay the night with my host sisters but I’m not sure, it’s still up in the air.  Otherwise, I’m planning on hanging out  in my village for most of break.  Might wander into Buhanda/Gitwe for a day or two to visit with one of the Health PCVs who lives out there.  I think it’s now an acceptable time to become a good neighbor and start to visit the PCVs that actually live pretty close.  And then in the last week of break I’ll be enjoying a nice week in Kibuye for training with all the other Group 2 Ed PCVs.  That will be fun and nice and am totally stoked for that.

Other than that, just going day by day at site. The rainy season has begun…which means rain, at least once a day.  Most days I have enough sun to charge my phone but if not, it’s okay.  I apparently have some sort of “executive” status so I get to charge my phone in the village Executive Secretary’s office which has bigger and more powerful solar panels.  That’s nice, because now either way I don’t have to pay to charge my phone…which is good, because even in Rwanda I’m cheap and don’t like to spend money.  And that about wraps it up here, I’m going to go meet up with Gelsey, Brittany and hopefully Jed for lunch in town and then we’ll see what’s going on in the Post box and then who knows what the day will bring!