Enthusiastic children, inspiring stories and learning Rwandan sign language!

“Muraho” = Hello

“Mwaramutse” = Good Morning

“Murakoze” = Thank you

“Amakuru?” = How are you?

“M’Neza” = I’m fine

“Mzungu”= White person

“Oya Amata” = No milk!

Kinyarwandan vocabulary is slowly growing! I am still completely in the dark if I am listening to a conversation though! It’s been just over a week now and I really shouldn’t wait that long because there is always so much to tell! But I have been quite busy, after all I am working out here as well :) I have mainly been spending my time getting to know the FCYF schools, sitting in on classes at Wisdom and spending time with the children at the Deaf Children’s Centre, as well as speaking to the extremely friendly and welcoming staff and teachers of the organization, whom I am interviewing in order to try and make teacher profiles for the website.

A really interesting class I sat in on last week was a P3 SST, which is like Social Studies…which I am sure we did not learn in primary school in the UK! The class was reviewing what they had learned in the previous lesson about their "Our Responsibilities" : “Things we should do to be good in our sector”! Some the answers included: “Respect one another”, “attend sector meetings”, “working hard at school” and “taking care of the environment”. The fact that the children were learning these things and that this is part of their curriculum was a welcome surprise to me…I guess it just shows how important a part of life one’s community is here. This is something English children might benefit from… though I don’t even know if we really have the same concept of community and interconnectedness as they do here. The children seemed really enthusiastic to answer whenever the teacher raised a question, almost leaping out of their seats, waving their hands and shouting “teacher please, teacher please”. It is like that in all the classes I have visited. I have never seen children so excited to learn!

Teacher Geofrey's P3 Mathematics class

Despite my increasing vocabulary I cannot seem to avoid being overcharged by the moto-taxis here! This is the most convenient mode of transport to get from A to B and there are hundreds in Musanze. It’s literally just an old motorbike, you jump on the back, and the driver gives you a helmet and takes you where you want to go. However they also assume because I am a “mzungu”, I won’t mind paying a couple hundred francs extra…and it is very hard to argue with them with the language barrier! I took one yesterday to the deaf centre and the driver was speeding the whole way. I realized why when he stopped about halfway up the hill, and apologetically told me “he had a problem”, which I think was that he had run out of fuel! I paid him, deciding it wouldn’t be too far to walk and to top it off he claimed he had no change! Turns out the remaining walk was quite a bit further than I expected and I ended up walking about half an hour uphill! At least I provided some entertainment for locals who stopped what they were doing to watch as I walked past and little children who ran after me, shouting and asking my name, clearly proud to show off their English skills :) I have gotten the bus a few times also (when it comes, or isn’t full!), which is another interesting experience. They are little minibuses that zoom up and down the hill and squish as many people in as possible. (But at least they don’t overcharge!)

When I finally did reach the deaf centre after my uphill trek in the rain, I was warmly greeted by Louis, the wonderful director there and some of the older children who remembered me from before. I proudly signed hello, and how are you, which they had taught me before. The children are very good teachers, and would not let me leave until I could sign the whole alphabet by heart! I managed it eventually but it took quite a bit of patience (on behalf of the children!) as well as some help from Teacher Noella, who is also deaf but can lip read in Kinyarwandan and English! I see how important the centre really is to these children. As they arrive back from their break, the joy and elation of their faces when they are reunited with their friends and teachers says it all. As Louis says, this really is a family and a home for them.

With some of the students at the Deaf Centre

I also had the chance to have a long conversation with Louis. He was very happy to tell me about his life, his past jobs working with street children, acting as an interpreter for deaf students in normal schools and how he eventually came to found the Deaf Children’s centre with Elie. His story is nothing short of amazing! I was really inspired by it, and especially how he had the courage to give up a stable and comfortable job in the South to move back to the North where he grew up simply because he knew there were so many disadvantaged children that needed help here and he wanted to do something for them. Fortunately he met Elie, who enabled him to put his dream into practice! I am going to write up his story, and hopefully it can be featured on the FCYF website as I think it’s definitely something that people should hear!

There is plenty more to tell but I have already written another rather long post (sorry mum) so I will try to break it down a bit to make them more digestible! I also wanted to mention my first experience of Sabbath, which they celebrate every Saturday (from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday). First of all it was confusing to me that Saturday was the day of rest, rather than Sunday (but apparently that’s a secular thing!) “Rest” involves getting up at 7am to go to a three hour church service at the school! This was a really interesting experience for me, as it was very different to any church I have ever been to.  Elie and the school chaplain hold a service every Saturday for all the children who are boarding (about 250!) There are of course many hymns and readings from the bible, but a really nice element was that the children take turns in standing at the front in groups and making contributions, like choosing a hymn, or leading a prayer, even the really little ones! There is also a question and answer session where children are allowed to ask questions about the bible and their peers are then asked to try and answer. So the 3 hours is broken down quite nicely, although the little P1 and nursery children at the front were asleep on their desks by the end of it! After the service all (maybe 300) people including staff and teachers filed out of the chapel, and lined up to wish each person “Happy Sabbath”, with a handshake and a hug as we passed each other, which I thought was really nice (event though it took quite a while!).

Children gather to sing in preparation for Sabbath

That’s all for now!

I am still shocked by how much people seem to be able to carry on their heads here…I actually saw a man carrying a whole tree on his head (with ease) on my walk to school the other day!

More soon x