Red Pens and Paper Scraps

My desk continues to fill with papers pulled from notebooks. The teachers continue to brush chalk off their hands. My lesson planning book continues to fill. My students continue to entertain me with their learning. I now have four English clubs, three for students and one for teachers. Starting the club for students I was amazed when 300 students signed up. I was further surprised when the teachers asked for not just one but two days of English. The demand here is overwhelming – in the good sense. The result is that I find myself in a stuffy room as the evening approaches conducting groups of 100 teens. Though it sounds like it would be crazy, it is actually very organized. These students are so interested in learning they hang onto every word. They take my silly games so seriously I have to laugh. For one club I had a puzzle game. The students had to fill in the blanks of the sentences I wrote on the board, then take the first letter of each word in the blank, unscramble them and make a word from the category I gave (Food, Country, Number, Animal….). I made the prize for the winners a pack of 6 shortbread cookies, not even enough for a whole team to have one cookie each. By the end of the game most students were no longer sitting in chairs, rather jumping up and down with excitement. The cookies were all but forgotten and the pride of winning took over. The final showdown between two teams brought passersby to the dirty school windows, wondering what the commotion was about.


In my teacher’s club I told a story about Mauritania and showed some pictures from my computer. I told them about Sayid, and the time he became so sick with parasites and malnutrition. They loved learning about another country – and to see that some places have different, but still difficult problems. Sayid suffered because he didn’t get enough meat and vegetables (and that mouthful of dirty sand he ate… oh Sayid…). Here that really isn’t a problem. Rather than a rolling desert, there is rolling green. Most of the farmers here are subsistence farmers, meaning they grow just enough to feed their families. We also talked about traditional healing, and they were interested to hear about what rituals happened in Mauritania. They told me that in Rwanda traditional healers give you herbs and creams more than prayers and string (like Sayid’s traditional healer gave him).

In one of my clubs I plan to start a correspondence with a school in America. Students are working on writing a letter, it’s not a simple process for them. After the first draft, and lots of giggling at the questions and English mistakes, I had to talk to them about the taboo of asking for money. I can’t even count how many students said “Dear American students. I am poor and I have no means. Can you send me money for my family and for my education? Thank you.” I had to stress that the letters were going to 13 year olds. They asked me “But teacher… isn’t everyone rich in America??” Sighhh… Oh American image. Oh American ideology. Your expanse so vast people can see your golden arches from Rwanda….

Some letters made me stop and think. Like this one from Viateur:
**Note, I’ve corrected some English to make it more readable, but left many mistakes, as I think I would change the meaning by changing the English.
Dear American,
The first word – Hello.
I am Seventeen years old. I have one parent.
I am happy because I have a teacher from America.
I am happy to meet with you. I wish I was able to meet you because I love America’s people.
I wish you to be my best friend because I here in Rwanda. I live alone and haven’t friend.
My parent died in genocide. I’m studying in 3rd form Rugabano Secondary School. I wish you to be my advice-man and you will be my parent. I pray my God to help me to see correspondence from man from America.
I like music because it helps me forget the long ago, which lives in my life.
Let me tell you:
I like American language English and my language, Kinyarwanda.
I love my American teacher because she advises me well.
Ok. May God is protect you.
See you,
It’s your friend from Rwanda,
Viateur.
He joined the club after the first had already passed – the club in which we worked on our letters. He approached me in the teacher’s lounge and asked permission to be in the club. When I told him “of course” he handed me this letter. I was surprised he had taken the initiative to write it on his own. Though there are small grammar mistakes, it’s clear he put a lot of time into his work. I can also guess that he wasn’t really aware these letters would go to young students – so perhaps my dad wants to have a 17 year old penpal – be an advice-man and parent from overseas?? Haha.

In a breath, I continue to love this work. Everyday is filled with moments of laughter, frustration and excitement. And every once in a while, you come across things that touch your soul.

Abanyeshuri

The students looked down at their feet looking guilty, fidgeting and shuffling.  Jacqueline looks at them angrily and rattles off in Kinyarwanda as the rain falls onto the tin roof of the tiny office.  School has started and just as I suspected, teenagers are exactly the same across the world.  Minutes earlier as Jacqueline and I sat in the office organizing student reports and registering last minute slackers, we heard a commotion outside.  The cheering and angry yells shifted our gazes out the window where a large group of students in their blue and green uniforms stood packed together.  Jacquie shook her head and muttered, “Abanyeshuri…Nzabakubita.”  She already knew they were up to no good.  These abanyeshuri were about to get an abanye-whoopin’.  I watched with interest as she grabbed the office ‘student stick’ from the corner and marched outside.  The student stick is what I like to refer to as a teacher’s disciplinary and threatening tool.  Teachers usually carry some sort of student stick with them as they roam school grounds.  They don’t beat the teens with the sticks; the most I’ve seen is a little tap, so student sticks are primarily used for intimidation.  As I watched Jacquie tromp up the hill waving the stick around, I could see why.  The scene was quite comical, actually – students rushed into classrooms and formed tighter groups as she yelled, swirling the stick in the air.  Jacquie, who is sweet, quick to laugh, quicker to sing and enjoys small thrills in life like sneaking up on a baby cow and grabbing the tail, can bring a student to tears with her lectures.  Outside she stood in front of a group of 80 students firmly addressing them until, reluctantly, a few students stepped forward.  She turned and talked to a small boy I hadn’t noticed standing in the doorway of a classroom, rubbing his eyes.

They all came around to the office and as she asked questions, they answered softly.  When they glanced upward I could tell from their eyes they knew they had done something wrong.  Bits and pieces of the conversation poured into my brain and from what I understood there was some kind of fight, or at least one student hitting another.  Jacquie furiously wrote a letter, signed it and stamped it with the school seal.  I saw that a couple of students were to leave the school grounds for the weekend and return on Monday with their parents.  This was quite the punishment for these boarding school kids as the weekend is a time to relax from a hard week of classes, clubs and extra curricular activities.  As the students left, Jacquie explained the situation to me in detail.  Apparently the older students were initiating the new students by grouping around them and embarrassing them with little bops to the head as they stood there helpless.  “These poor new students,” Jacquie said. “They are so nervous being away from home and the big kids want to show who is boss.”  I tell her that this sounds like exactly something that would happen in high schools in the states and we both sighed at the psyches of young teens.  Later that day as we were walking up to our house a group of kids ran across the hill in front of us.  They all jumped over a small dip in the ground, except for one small guy who didn’t notice the dip.  My eyes went wide as his head disappeared and I saw his feet flip over his head.  He sat in the grass for a second and looked around, confused as to what just happened.  All around him students erupted in laughter.  The boy stood up, brushed himself off and slunk away, head down and hands in pockets.  Jacquie stood tall and told everyone to stop – the kid was just a new student trying to get by, embarrassed to his core about what just happened.  “Be nice!”  She said to the laughers, “Go see if he’s OK!!”

As she continued up the hill, back turned to the students, she giggled and admitted it was pretty funny.  I had been, on the other hand, stifling my laughter since that little guy’s feet flew over his head.

In a crazy connection teens unite in their awkward and angst-y mannerisms across the continents.  From the USA to Mauritania to Rwanda, adolescence and the consciousness that accompanies it stands true.  What am I going to do with my 500?  Better follow suite and grab my student stick.