Umuganda, photos and training teachers

Feb 23rd

Up early, creep around so as not to wake Marion who wants to lie in. But three little kittens have heard me all right, and set up such a wailing that Marion has to see to them. Now today is the last Saturday in the month and so is umuganda day – public service day. I’m supposed to be doing good works and if a policeman is so inclined he can stop me and force me to labour all morning. Can’t allow that; it would upset my cunning plan to get on the internet.

Nip off as inconspicuously as I can to the VSO office, and Peter the guard meets me and lets me in. Joy of joys, the computer is free and nobody else is likely to appear. I enjoy a blissful three hours where I can upload all my pictures, read leisurely all my emails, send letters to all sorts of colleague abroad, and generally catch up on myself electronically. It’s feels so good after so many weeks of frustrations!

And after using ICT for years it nevertheless still seems a miracle that within ten minutes I can have sent letters (and know that they will have arrived) to Cambodia, Zanzibar, Australia, England, Pakistan, Cameroon. Such is the miracle of the internet.

There’s email letters awaiting me from Bola in England, from Talya in Malawi and others in far flung places.

Go back to Marion’s; no need to dodge the police now because umuganda is finishing and it’s OK to be on the street. We have to wait an hour or so until the local buses start running again, then I get back to Mu Muji (the town centre) and dive into the UTC centre to buy a cake for us at Gitarama.

What I haven’t realised is that the local buses may start running at around 12, but none of the long distance stuff starts before 1.30 or 2. And I’ve promised Cathie I’ll be back to help her with the teacher training course by mid afternoon at the latest. It turns into a blistering hot day; I would guess one of the two or three hottest so far. It’s the middle of the day and there’s minimal shade. The Atraco bus office is closed and is being repainted, so I can’t buy a ticket in advance like we usually do. (Atraco is the cheapest long-distance bus company and is ideal for the Kigali-Gitarama run. It is a co-operative of matata drivers (Association de TRAvailleurs en COmun) and is very tightly organised and remarkably efficient in a Rwandan sort of way).

At one o’clock a matata pulls in; it’s an Atraco one but an unofficial one. He’s running express all the way to Butare and charges me over the odds because I’m taking up a seat which he might not be able to fill after Gitarama. By this time I’m so hot and bothered and anxious to get back that I don’t mind. I’m in the prime front passenger seat once more, but we wait half an hour for the bus to fill with passengers and by that time my left arm is burnt to a cinder because there’s no shade to hide it. (My rucksack with my sun cream and water has been stashed away in the boot).

Back in Gitarama I hastily dump my shopping at the flat, drink pints of water to rehydrate and set off for the Centre St Charles where Cathie’s training course is taking place. Turns out my arrival is just at the right time; she’s had other people (including Tom, bless him) helping in the morning and they’re just about to split the teachers (24 or so) into groups where they need all the native English speakers they can lay hands on.

This Centre St Charles is perfect for a training course. Its midway between my house and Cathie’s; it’s comfortable for those teachers who are residential (double rooms with en-suite and extra showers as well); reasonably priced; the food is simply brilliant. We’ll definitely aim to use it again.

The teachers are such a pleasant lot, too. All ages from mid twenties to late forties; about a third men and two thirds women. One of them is Jasmine, the Islamic teacher from Gitongati primary; she makes a fuss of me when I come in. And there’s a teacher from Nyabisindu primary too, but I didn’t really speak to her when we inspected so she doesn’t feel confident enough to approach me.

In general the level of English, especially spoken English, from these experts is frighteningly poor. Their vocabulary is terribly limited. But they’re desperate to learn, and the chance to practise their English with a whole bunch of native speakers is so rare they’re working hard all the time. It gets exhausting after a while.

I’m put to teach them all some nursery rhymes and children’s songs, especially counting songs. So I get cracking on “One, two, buckle my shoe” and “Counting, counting, one two three”, not to mention “five little monkeys, jumping on a bed”. I do my best to change their pronunciation from “seex” to “six” etc, but they invariably revert when they feel stressed. I try to get them standing and moving around to get the kinaesthetic side of learning under way. In doing this we make an interesting discovery. Our stereotype African always has a sense of rhythm, and can dance or sing perfectly if you can just reduce things to a regular pulse.

Forget it. Nearly half this group of educated Africans has less sense of rhythm than the average English teenager! I’m prancing round the courtyard clapping and stamping my feet and looking a total berk. As long as I do that, they can all follow and it looks as if things are taking off. But when I sit down and tell them to get on without me they come out with the most wishy-washy half-hearted performance imaginable. Even the average desperate Rwandan seven year old would find it confusing. But practise, practise and we eventually get there. (By next morning they’ve decided these counting songs are the ones they’re going to use, because they’re easier to memorise than stuff like “pat a cake, pat a cake, baker’s man”).

By the time we’ve finished our evening meal at the St Charles we realise everyone’s too tired to do justice to an evening session as planned. It’s been so hot during the afternoon, and they’ve been going hard at it since eight in the morning. We leave them to it and repair down the hill to Cathie’s, where Elson has got in the Fantas and beers. A couple of pints of Mützig later, the world seems a much more mellow place and I stagger off through a warm night back home. It’s only about half past nine and yet I’m tired out. I must be slipping!

Best part of today – the feeling that at long last I’ve caught up on myself with the blog
Worst part of today – slowly melting while waiting for a matata and resolving that perhaps taking advantage of umuganda wasn’t my best idea. (Stop whingeing – of course it was. Just don’t get yourself so double-booked)! Ed