Milo Update!

I realized I haven’t posted any recent pictures of Milo aka my crazy but awesome kitten.  So here are some updated photos of him being cute and, of course, not being a pain.

Playtime

“Hiding” in the “Jungle” of my backyard

Obviously NOT doing anything wrong or inhibiting my solar panels charging ability…

And also, I’m doing this for my Mom and her friends.  I bragged to Mom a while ago that I found a Coach purse at the GIsenyi market so here’s the picture.  YES, it’s real and I got it for like $5.  Win.

HIV/AIDs PEPF AR Conference

For the past 5 days, I got to enjoy myself on the lovely shores of Lake Kivu at the Centre Bethanie in Kibuye.  After spending school vacation in my village (slash Brittany’s village dogsitting) after an extremely long trimester…it was really nice to get out for a paid vacation.

Purpose of this one, to train the Education Group 2 volunteers and their invited counterparts (headmasters, teachers, students, nurses, best friend in the village…) in HIV/AIDs: what it is, prevention, problems in Rwanda, things infected persons face, how we can do training and awareness in our village, etc. etc…  So you know, it was full of stuff.  We had three days crammed full of sessions which were pretty dry but with occasional tidbits of informative information.  Overall, I think it’s fair to say the conference was good in that it connected counterparts with other counterparts, counterparts with their PCV and other PCVs and was just a good time had by all.

However, nothing can ever go smoothly though, right? Right.  So, we were scheduled to leave kibuye on Sunday…the day of the mass return of students to boarding school.  Which means, moving around the country is hard and a pain.  We were all able to get out of kibuye and to major cities, but me, I got stuck in Kigali because it’s impossible to get to my site on those days.  And now currently I am sitting at Simba Supermarket enjoying their free internet, food until my bus at 11:30, which I somehow got a ticket for when there were none left (score!) Eventually I’ll get home…and the first day of school doesn’t count anyways so there’s not really an issue with me missing today.

And here’s a “Holy wow” moment everyone: I have been in Rwanda for 10 months.  That means in 2 months I’ll have been here for 1 year, 1 WHOLE year.  Yes, I can do math and that is kind of crazy!  The time has been flying by, yet going so slowly sometimes, and I cannot believe for the life of me that I am almost done with one school year and half of my service! Wow.  If you think that blows your mind…it’s blowing mine even more.

And in other news, I am slowly gearing up for November and December when people finally start to come to visit me!!! We’ve got Dawson making the trek to Africa in November and I’ll show him how it is completely possible for me to live in the bush!  And then the parents are coming in December and we’ll spend some nice time in South Africa before gallavanting around Rwanda for a week.  So that is exciting and slightly stressful since that means I have to plan things and actually leave my village and stuff but it’s exciting nonetheless because I get to show people what my life is like currently!

As usual, life is just moving right along.  I don’t think it’s all that interesting but I do this for all my fans back in the states who want to know “What’s it like living in Africa?!?!” Well…it’s just, different.  I can try to explain my life all I want to you all but really, just come out and visit and you’ll see for yourself! I think that’s all for now, I’ve got to start packing up and making my way down to catch my bus…til next time!

Delayed Posting

Hey all, so the 2 blog posts I just put up...yeah they were written like 2 weeks ago and I forgot to post them. Oh well, I'd say I was busy...but I wasn't, just lazy.

Currently in the middle of school vacation, enjoying just sitting around, having no expectations or things to do.  Sometimes it's nice to be bored.  HIV/AIDs conference from the 18th-20th so that should be fun and around the next time I update.  Enjoy!

A Beautiful Disaster

And by beautiful disaster, I mean when it normally takes me 2.5 hours to get to Kigali from my site…this time it took 8 hours.  At first it was entertaining and fun and spontaneous trying to figure things out…then it hit hour 5 and I was not a happy camper.

This past weekend we had a meeting for another secondary project which teaches English to the Rwandan Judiciary.  It was a short orientation from Friday-Saturday, but was just a series of unfortunate events.  First, because school is now on break, Friday was the mass exodus of boarding school students making the trek from school to home for the holiday.  Which means…buses/taxis/etc are FULL and travel is really really hard.  The boarding schools over in Birambo (where all the taxis which pass my village start) bought out all of the taxis…all of them…going to Kigali…where I needed to go.  Long and short, I somehow got to Birambo, ended up in the wrong K-town (Kibuye), used the muzungu in me to force mine and Brittany’s butts onto an Express bus and finally at 6:45pm we arrived at Peace Corps in Kigali.  Keep in mind, I started trying to get to town at like, 7:30am.  Needless to say, long day.  But, again, good food, good company made everything better and the orientation went well and then, lo and behold, there were no such shenanigans getting back to site on Saturday afternoon.  Go figure, only in Rwanda.

On Wednesday I finished marking my students exams…and I have to say, this term was not pretty for a combination of reasons.  First off, this term is long, way.too.long.  It’s 14 weeks!  1st term was “12” and last term will be “9” (quotations because we all know classes won’t actually happen for the whole time, another joy of the Rwandan school system).  So, by the end of this trimester, the kids were just exhausted, pooped out and ready for a break.  Plus, they didn’t remember anything from the beginning of the trimester!  Which did not bode well for their exams…even though they were given warnings about what topics the exam would cover.  Also, some classes had a hard time because we had to deal with the cheating topic again this term…this time the solution to fix the problem was punish everyone.  It worked, but also hurt some grades, which they also had ample opportunity to fix.  Ohhhhhhh wellll….just another learning experience for me and them.  But, like I said, I finished marking on Wednesdays, turned in those grades, came home and let out a big sigh of “ahhhhh.”  You don’t realize how long the term really is until it’s over.

So now we’re on holiday, for about 3 weeks.  Lots of other volunteers are going off on vacations.  Me, I’m hanging around site (when I’m actually in site and not leaving for the silly amount of meetings I have), watching Brittany’s puppy Ishu for a couple nights and then we have an HIV/AIDs training at the end of the break.  So it should be a busy, but relaxing break.  Ideally, I would’ve liked to get up to the vet so Milo could get his vaccinations (and then get neutered) but I think that’ll have to wait until school starts up again, either way, that will get done!  As for how Milo is doing, he’s an energetic ball of hyperactive kitten.  Always sprinting around, pouncing on legs and feet every chance he gets and trying to catch lizards/bugs/anything that moves and could possibly taste good.  I gave him his first bath on Thursday…he was not a fan, but I was because then afterwards he smelled nice and clean!

And that’s just a quick update on life, I know I’ve been slacking on the blog updates but sometimes I just don’t feel like what’s happening is all that interesting to blog about.  So, I wait for something entertaining or important to happen and then share it with all of you!

And to close out this blog update…I just want to fill everyone in on a realization a bunch of us made Friday night:

-You know you’re close with a bunch of people when you have a long, entertaining, but continuous conversation about different gastro-intestinal issues you are having/have had/heard about.  You know, things like amoebas, explosive diarrhea, usual bowel movements…and all the stories that go along with those fun things.

Only in Peace Corps…Dr. Laurent warned us this would happen!  That’s all for now, take care!

Muzabimenya!

Or, in English, “You all will know it!”  Also the title of the secondary project myself and a few other science volunteers are kicking off and getting rolling.  This blog post is actually from a week ago but, 1) I was too lazy to write it and 2) Ihangane…be patient, everything gets done…eventually.

So, last week a meeting was held between myself and 3 other science teachers- Lucy, Mason and Scott.  We met up in Kigali (mostly for the free housing of the Case de Passage, the Peace Corps owned hostel for PCVs) to grade our bajillion exams and have what Scott so dutifully calls our “Kick-Off Meeting” to brainstorm ideas and set a foundation for the project.  We accomplished many things over the weekend; exams were graded (but not finished by any means), good food was cooked by all and Project Muzabimenya took form.  And of course, like any project, it had to have a cool name.  We decided on Muzabimenya because the whole idea of the secondary project is, well, so that students will know.

Allow me to explain the basis of our brainstorm.  Originally, we had the idea to translate all sorts of Rwandan Science National Exams from many different years.  So physics, chemistry, biology, maybe maths.  We thought this would be a good idea because Rwanda just switched to English and previous years everything was in French…French past exams are not helpful to study, they’re in the wrong language!  Ideally, we wanted to create a good, edited resource of past exams for students to study, take practice tests, see what the exams look like, etc.  Unfortunately, that idea got vetoed for a number of reasons, the main thing having to do with MINEDUC, the hierarchy and not wanting to piss any of the wrong people off.

Onto Plan B…which we didn’t really have at the beginning but ended up becoming a great new plan.  After discussing many ideas, we decided that Project Muzabimenya would be to create a resource (or two) for students and teachers to help students learn and practice test taking skills.  It was determined that a big problem is purely from the students difficulty in English.  Thus, this resource will be to aid and prepare students for taking an exam in English and succeeding.  We want to focus on things like understanding questions, answering what the question asks and not something else, knowing common vocabulary, how to properly write an neat and organized answer key, etc.  Things like that.  And, right now at least, it will focus on succeeding on the National Exams for Chemistry and Biology.  This is with the idea that later on down the road, it will be possible to develop other guides for other subjects.

All in all, we were happy with the results we came up with and are looking excited to get working on it.

And, like I said, the weekend was full of great successes…another being food.  Friday, Lucy and I made delicious tuna melts, with REAL (albeit mild) cheddar cheese and tomatoes with a salad full of the colors of the rainbow.  The boys came back to the hostel a little later and made a beef roast that smoked everywhere but smelled delicious.  Saturday lunch resulted in mozzarella, basil, tomato panini’s with another pretty looking salad.  We topped it off with a celebratory dinner at Zen, an Asian fusion restaurant that was actually more Thai but…whatever it was still good.