Spring is here in Rwanda too.

Friends in England tell me that Spring has arrived.  What a lovely time of year, – I think this is the first thing about England that I have really missed since arriving, other than friends and family, of course!  It is such a time of life and hope for the future after the bare earth of winter.

But there are signs of ‘spring’ here too.  Animals are giving birth to their young, birds are building nests and laying eggs, and everyone is frantically planting in the fields so as to catch the rains that come almost daily now.  Every piece of land is used for planting.  Some of the slopes are so steep you wouldn’t think it was possible to walk up the hill, let alone plant crops to grow there, but they do. Everything is done by hand, mostly by the women, many with babies on their backs.  I would love to take more pictures of these people, but generally, they don’t like to be photographed.

 

These pictures were taken last week while I was in the Musanze District.  We visited several State Primary schools there, interviewing children with special needs.  Where ever we go in the more remote villages, the children can’t believe their eyes!  ‘Muzungu’  is the constant cry.

The window ledge was about 4 feet from the ground, then the children climbed up the bars to watch us.

 

They will do anything to look at us!  These children climbed up onto the window bars to look into the classroom to see what we were doing.  The teachers seemed to think it was fine, and we conducted the interviews with a constant audience.  Privacy was not possible and seems to be an alien concept.

This was the school where I nearly lost my mobile down the school latrine!!  I had put it in my back trouser pocket.  Not a good plan!  A friend had warned me about this, but stupidly, I did not take his advice! I would NOT have got it back!

The rains are frequent and heavy.  You cannot move when it is torrential, so if it starts to rain before school time, then school does not start until the rains stop because no-body goes out.  Except at the Deaf School of course.  The children are already there because it is residential, and they are not bothered by the deafening din of rain pounding on the classroom’s corrugated iron roof. Signing is a good means of communication in these circumstances.

Rain pounding into my emergency water supply.

I was in my little house one morning when the storm started.  I could not even get to school 50 yards away, and was trapped for an hour and a half.  My small emergency water butt supply was filled within minutes!

The school only have one large water butt, and in the dry season this is not enough to provide the water they need for the school.  The butt is also joined to the mains water by a pipe, but in the dry season, the mains water is very unreliable and is often off for days if not weeks at a time.  When I told some of my work colleagues in England about this, they decided that they would try to raise the money to buy the school another tank, which would be the emergency supply during the dry season.  This will only collect water from the classroom rooves during the rains, so once it is set up, the water will be free.  The cost of the tank will be £1500.

SPLASH YOUR CASH!

Westgate School in Bury St Edmunds, which has a Hearing Impaired Unit which I visited frequently in my last job in England, and staff from the Sensory and Communication Team in Suffolk, have raised an amazing £500 in three weeks!!  But we need more, and as soon as possible because the rains will stop in about 6 weeks, and then we will be in the dry season.

The children in Umutara are already beginning to collect stones to build the base for the tank, in anticipation!  If you feel this is something that you would like to contribute to, then please contact me through the Blog, and I will give you the bank details of the account the school has set up.  Every pound will help!

In Umutara, Danniel, is making great progress.

Danniel continues to amaze me.

 

I would say he is now third in the class!  His handwriting and copying (which is an important skill to develop in the P1 curriculum) are really well co-ordinated, and we coloured the border together, he did the purple, and I did the blue.  He comes from a really poor rural area, is only 6 and had never been anywhere near a school or a pencil or a piece of paper until January.  He knows the signs for A, B and C, and the numbers 1 – 5 , and can match the numbers 1 -3 with the right number of objects. I am SO excited!  He has started using some signs to communicate with too. He looks very pleased with himself.  I have been away for two weeks, and will be away for another one week, so cant wait to get back to see what else he can do.

Memorial.

On April 7th, it will be the 20th  Anniversary of the Genocide, and there will be many events around the country to commemorate this.  Many people talk openly about their own experiences of this terrible stain on the country’s past.  It will be a very difficult time for all Rwandese.  The visit to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali is very difficult to deal with, but essential if you are to have some idea of what these people are continually living with.  One man I am working closely with, told me this week that his nine brothers and sisters and his parents were killed in the Genocide.  He and one brother were the sole survivors.  Their home was completely destroyed. Knowing this, made me see him in a different light and admire him hugely for his emotional strength and determination to make a positive contribution to the education of marginalised, desperately poor deaf children in his country.  We spoke about his two ‘new families’, he is married with three children, but also his ‘family’ of 57 deaf children for whom he cares deeply.

The view over Kigali from the Genocide Memorial

This year, the memorial date coincides with our Easter school holidays in England, and I have a friend coming out to stay for two weeks.  I am taking the opportunity to have time off from work,  having my first holiday since I arrived in early January. Considering that I was only working part time in England before I came to Rwanda, its not surprising that I am feeling a little tired, and am really looking forward to a rest!  I am taking this opportunity to travel around the country a little more, to see some of the ‘tourist sights’, so if anyone decides they would like to visit me in Rwanda, I will know of good places to take them.  If you want to see the Gorillas, start saving now!

Isobel

March 22nd 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks in Musanze

I have just returned to Kigali from two weeks in Musanze in the north west of Rwanda.

Life is quite different in the Musanze District from my village in the North East, on several fronts.

The landscape is dominated by volcanoes and the sky line changes continually with cloud formations.  Sometimes you can’t see them at all due to mist or heavy cloud, and at other times they are clear.

Everywhere in the region is dominated by the volcanoes.

This first picture was taken while on my Sunday morning walk.  The building on the right is part of a school, showing the classrooms. There is the school cow on the left in the enclosure.

 

Later in the week, we visited a school which was by the side of one of the lakes.  I took the first piture, which shows clouds gathering over the volcano.  Two hours later, I took the second picture.  We spent the two hours sheltering from the most amazing storm in one of the classrooms of the school.  We were trapped there with 60 children and two teachers while the rain and wind pounded us.  The rain hammering on the corrugated iron roof made talking impossible!  Nothing happens when it rains, teaching stops and everyone just waits for it to end.  My colleague Julie, and I found this really difficult!!  So I started ‘hangman’ on the board, while she did some keep fit exercises at the other end of the classroom.  The children joined in with great enthusiasm!

This was a novel idea for the teachers.  Who knows if they will follow our example the next time it rains.  I hope so.

Before the storm. There is a volcano behind that heavy cloud!

This was taken from almost the same position, after the worst of the storm was over. It was still raining, but now you can see where the volcano is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another difference is in the house construction.  Where I live, the village houses are built using mud bricks.  But here, the earth is not so good for making the bricks.  So they build a mesh of eucalyptus and bamboo branches, which they then cover in mud.   When the house is new, you can’t see the wooden structure, but the older houses have had to withstand the heavy rains and wind, which gradually washes away the mud.  This can of course be replaced.  This picture of a house shows the structure.  Also, notice how clean the yard is around the house.  Everyone spends time each morning sweeping the yards and making sure everything is as tidy as possible.  Keeping up with the Jones’s is the same the world over!

Wash day at the school for this residential 13 yr old Deaf girl. She has washed her sheet, which is now out to dry.

 

I wasn’t just travelling around observing the volcanoes, houses and weather!

I went again to the Deaf school near Musanze, in Nyange.  I think Deaf children at Residential schools in England could learn a bit or two about taking responsibility for the chores from this young lady!

 

 

 

While at the school, I wanted to see how this boy of 9 was getting on.  We met him last week at a normal Primary school where he was in a class of 60 children with no help.  He is profoundly deaf – I think, as I have no testing equipment.  He has no speech, and no sign system, yet he has managed to get to P3 in their education system.

The new boy.

He appeared very bright – you can see from his eyes – and did some very complex drawing, which showed that his powers of observation were very good.  We recommended that he go to the Deaf School, met his mother in the village, and  the next Monday he arrived at the school.  The project is funding his place for two years, as he is very poor.  I don’t know what will happen to him at the end of two years.  Lets hope he can get a ‘sponsor’.

This picture was taken on his first day.  I spent some time with him at lunch time, with some flash cards, showing him the signs.  We were soon surrounded by about 10 other children all wanting to join in!  So after about half an hour, he had learnt around 20 signs, and  was integrating well with his peers.  A good half hours work I think!

Here is another quite new boy.  He has been at the school about 5 weeks. He has CP, and is also profoundly deaf.  He was trying to copy a picture of a book, a table and door from the board into his exercise book, but the marks he was making were very uncontrolled and not at all like the objects.

So, drawing one dotted line at a time,I  showed him how to follow a dotted line with this pencil, which he quickly understood, and was able to do quite successfully.  He was so excited that the picture in his book now looked like the object that I had to keep giving him lines to follow!

 

You can see from his eyes that he too is a bright boy.

 

While in Musanze, I decided it was time to get my hair cut, so I asked another western volunteer, Christienne, where she got hers done, as most of the hairdressers here don’t know how to cut western hair.  Her hair looked very good, so along I went.  Abdullah, the hairdresser spoke only Kinyarwanda and French, but I sat down and he got to work.

I now look just like Christienne!  He has done it well, but I think there is only one style that he can do!

This morning, back in Kigali, I sat down on the veranda to write my first ‘monthly report’ for VSO.  I had a visitor helping me!  There was the most beautiful sound of a bird singing close by, and I looked up, and on the veranda fence was this amazing little bird.

My morning visitor

 

 

 

Rwanda is full of surprises.

 

 

 

Isobel