Umunsi Mwiza

Well, I'm 23! I had an awesome birthday. We took a field trip to Butare again so I got to have ice cream and it was just as magical as my first encounter with Butare ice cream. I will be dreaming about it every night at least until I go to Kigali for swearing-in, where ice cream can also be found. Supposedly. We shall see.

I'm starting my second week of model school and it's still going decently well, but it's not easy. We're actually losing students at an alarming rate because it's their vacation right now, so they're attending voluntarily (or their parents are making them attend) and our lessons haven't been interesting enough, relevant enough or comprehensible enough to maintain an audience. I reacted to this problem by reading through the national exam for S3 students and writing a lesson plan based on the content therein, namely social issues in Rwanda, summarizing passages and writing paragraphs. In theory it was a great idea, but despite my best efforts the discussion of social issues was awkward and the vast majority of my students have no idea what a paragraph is. I'm taking a day off teaching tomorrow to do a double lesson on Wednesday, and by then I hope to have some ideas for how to teach a lighter class on a similar topic.

On an entirely unrelated note, I had the opportunity to visit the Murambi Genocide Memorial last Sunday. It was my second trip to a genocide memorial - we visited one in Kigali but it was very different. I am willing to share any information of interest about either of them, but I'm reluctant to do a whole blog post about them because most of what Americans know about Rwanda involves the genocide. I also feel that the story of the genocide is not my story to tell, at least not in my blog. If any of you have any questions feel free to email me and I will tell you whatever you want to know.

I will say briefly - the Murambi Memorial is located in an old school building where Tutsis took refuge during the genocide and were slaughtered en masse by Interhamwe militia. The school grounds contain several mass graves and the old classrooms contain the preserved bodies of victims. The bodies have been mummified with limestone so they are pale and skeletal and not at all horrifying, just difficult to look at. Eventually there will also be an informational display like the one in the Gisenyi Memorial in Kigali, but it is still being constructed. I can't succinctly describe my thoughts on the memorial but I will say that I'm glad I went. I think it is important for us as educators to at least have some small awareness of what this country - and many of our students - have been through. Again, email me with questions if you have them.

One final bit of news - I got packages today! Thanks Mom and Dad - I'm so happy to have an advent calendar it's not even funny. Also, I got another letter from Grandpa - thanks to you too, I enjoy reading your letters very very much. They are a tiny oasis of peace in an otherwise overwhelming environment.

I'm still working on sending paper mail home. Ni hangane, everyone.