All in a day's work - from earquake to inspections

Feb 14th

Another strong earthquake this morning; 5 point something, so less strong than the previous. It came at ten past four. The bed suddenly became a trampoline. It was short – I didn’t have time to get out and hide under the bed. A very different experience from the first one: the metalwork of the house wasn’t so noisy, but this time there was a very definite up and down motion and it definitely felt stronger than last time. Everything in my wardrobe rattled around, the broom behind my bedroom door fell over; plates and cutlery clanking in the kitchen. And then it was all over.

Two schools to inspect today. The first is at Nyabisindu, on the outskirts of Gitarama. We walk down a steep dirt road through eucalyptus groves and then suddenly we’re on the site. It’s in a deep valley (every other school so far has been perched on a hilltop). And it’s big, well over a thousand children. Florent, the Head, is one of the gang from last Wednesday’s jolly, so we know we’re with friends. He’s got plenty of new buildings, with concrete floors, and water cisterns, but he’s also got some dreadful old rooms. One has a massive crack running vertically under the main roof beam. His PTA is building a new block to replace it, but in England you’d think twice before using it as a cowshed, never mind a classroom for about 60 kids. And on site there’s just one toilet block, smack in the middle of the “playground” for a total of 1125 pupils at the last count. Eight cubicles; no running water. You can smell it from twenty paces.

However, we’re getting used to all this. Unusually Florent has no maternelle on his site (there’s a private one just up the hill which the majority of his pupils use), but he has a “centre de ratrappage”, or catch-up centre. This is where people who have dropped out of education – be it through poverty, the need to work, or just boredom with ordinary school – have a second chance to learn. It’s one of MINEDUC’s recent big ideas. There are about 125 on its books but barely a hundred on site today. The age range is enormous. The unit works at three levels according to where its clients had reached before they dropped out. So that means that, even at the lowest level, you have children as young as nine and men of nineteen and twenty in the same class. At level three it feels like walking into a room of university students until you realise the work they’re doing is upper primary level. They’re genuinely pleased that two muzungus want to talk to them and are actively interested in what they’re doing, and we spend some time with them. We do our level best to praise them for having the guts to go back to education and encourage them to stick with it, but it remains to be seen how successful these places will be.

In the afternoon we roar off on motos to Mushubati school. This is the one we went to yesterday, only to discover that the Head was at a meeting. Today we get there to discover it’s not Mushubati school at all that we’ve come to, but Gitongati. Once again the Rwandan vagueness about maps and directions has caught us out. So the Head at Mushubati, wherever it is, must be wondering what he’s done to make us desert him. We’ve put Mushubati on the list because its success rate is very low; it needs a lot of help.

Gitongati’s another thing altogether. Jeanne, the Head is a formidable woman. She’s efficient. Her school has turned up this year with the best results in the district, beating even Gitarama primary. And boy, does she run a good school. Her French is so fractured and her accent so thick that I’m really struggling during the “Inspection Administratif”. I decide to change tack and ask her the secret of her success. It’s what she’s been waiting for me to ask, and we spend a fascinating half hour. She inspects all her teachers’ classes, regularly. The staff eats together, and her office is their staffroom. She sets great store on solidarity. She creates an ethos of success where her students expect to pass and go to secondary. She makes opportunities for children to receive remedial help where possible. She provides “études de matinale”, extra morning sessions, starting at 7.00, and run voluntarily by the regular teaching staff. (They do get some sort of incentive bonus, called a “prime”, but it’s too complicated and I understand it too little to attempt to describe it).

Almost her first words to Cathy and I are “what things could we do to improve?”

I observe a lesson; Cathy does too and then she gives a “model lesson”. Every single teacher in the school except the one I’m observing come in and sit in on Cathy’s lesson. They all want to see and learn. Afterwards, at the end of the school day, we have half an hour debrief with every single teacher in the Head’s office. Not one person is missing. They listen to everything, attentively. Then there’s a fierce discussion.

It’s a long time since I’ve been in a school where there’s such a real feeling of collegiality and such a determination to do well. If only there were more people like Jeanne.

In the evening I’m writing my Gitongati report when the phone rings. Gerard, the chatelain at Petit Séminaire, wants me to come over and talk to the priest from Rongi. The fellow is staying at the seminary overnight and wants to talk to me about our plans for Cathy and I to stay with him while we inspect.

So I brave my way along the pitch dark roads, managing to avoid falling into treacherous rainwater gulleys across the pavement. The priest is pleasant, but looks just like a gangster in a 50’s film noir. Plastic leather jacket, hatchet face, and no dog collar – I’d keep a wide berth if I passed him on the street. We agree vague principles but can’t go any further until I know more details of when we’re coming. And that depends on getting info from Claude, who’s ever so slightly preoccupied at the moment….. I make sure the priest understands that Cathy and I aren’t husband and wife , but just work colleagues. This might sound blindingly obvious to anyone reading this blog, but in Rwanda it’s pretty avant garde for a man (Elson) to let his wife (Cathy) go off for a week with another married man (me) and staying in the house of yet another man (the priest). He asks me if we’re Catholics. I explain that no, we’re not, but that I’m a Christian and that I’m the organist at my parish church in England. This works like a passport and we’re in.

High point of the day – going into a really good school; hearing the priest of Ntrarabana describe some of the Rongi schools as too dangerous to attempt to visit in wet weather: the roads there are extremely steep. Also gives us a “get out” strategy.
Low point of the day – nothing. This is entirely the kind of day I dreamed I might be having in Rwanda. You see – dreams really do come true!