No Teachers? Well, very few


This has been a trying week for me.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, I serve in a boarding school where prospective primary and secondary teachers are being trained.  There are over 400 kids (Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3) at the school, and I live in the apartment that is adjacent to the girls' dorm.  There are three terms during the school year and we are coming to the end of the first in a couple of weeks.  I have yet to meet the Year 3 students as they have been doing their practicum at schools throughout Rwanda.




This past week all of the teachers were assigned a number of Year 3 students to observe.  This meant that none of them were in school.  There are still about five student teachers on campus, but for the most part, other than a class here and there, they just sit in the staff room streaming music and talking loudly in Kinyarwanda.  Hence no substitutes and kids left alone in classes. Interestingly, some of the teachers left assignments and the “class monitors” would work through the assignments.  But for other classes, it was bedlam.  And trying to teach in a classroom with no structure going on around was nearly impossible for me.  I tried, but it truly wasn’t worth the effort for most of the classes.  I have a couple of dynamic classes and I had no trouble spending time teaching English to them, but with absolutely no other teacher around, I was a bit of an anomaly.  

Water continues to be a struggle.  From what I am told over and over again, the tank outside my living space is supposed to be fed with rainwater but despite two very heavy rains, there is no water in the tank. Or at least there is no faucet that allows for it to flow out.  There are other tanks that are supplied with water from the city/county???, but recently they have been empty.  There is a HUGE tank right outside my window and I have heard the water being fed to it through a pipe, yet I have no idea where that water goes.  Funny that it is right outside my window and I cannot access its contents.  I am bewildered about the whole H2O infrastructure here and I cannot get anyone to clarify things for me.  So, I live bucket-to-bucket, if, of course, I can find a source to fill the bucket.




I have been overly preoccupied with following the situation of COVID-19 because of my living situation.  If one of the more than 200 girls gets it, my chances of contracting it are quite high.  Should I be worried?  I don’t know.  Peace Corps assures me that I will have everything I need to be safe and healthy.  And I would not be here now if I hadn’t been through a battery of medical tests ensuring that I do not have any preexisting conditions.  What I find amazing is that to date,  there are very few cases in Subsaharan Africa, especially since there are so very many Chinese building so much of the infrastructure here.  Keeping fingers crossed.



On a more exciting note, I have been invited to a wedding this weekend.  It will be my first, and perhaps only, wedding experience here in Rwanda.  I have no idea what to wear nor what to do, but I am definitely going.  Updates to follow...

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