INSET, Rwanda style

April 1st

Yay, we have electricity back again at last, so a hot shower and two cups of tea to celebrate! Spend the day working in the District Office and get all the maternelle census sheets put onto my database. It’s Tuesday and one of these funny days when it’s not quite a Gacaca standstill, nor yet a normal working day. The reason becomes clear around mid-day. Claude, Innocent and Venantie all go off to Shyogwe School where the Government INSET for teachers is starting. Nobody asks me to go, so I’m left in the dark and only find out later (typical Rwandan).

This INSET gets more and more farcical. We hear from the south that Han, who is a teacher, has been told that everyone, including muzungu teachers, has to take part in the training. Three weeks of lectures about genocide……. And will they be translated from Kinya-rwanda into English? It’s crazy. Most of the Volunteers who are teachers have made travel plans – Han and Mans are going to Kampala in a few days, for goodness sake. So I text Tiga to warn her (she’s supposed to be off to Ethiopia) and tell her to make sure she’s out of contact with her school! Some of the volunteers have already left Rwanda. The Government is threatening to suspend the jobs of anybody who doesn’t take part. And this news for our volunteers has come at about 24 hours’ notice! What a way to run a country!

We hear that all across the country teachers are complaining that it’s unfair that they are required to give up their holidays, and that they will have no chance to prepare work for the summer term. Another rumour (this place thrives on rumours, and the wackiest of them seem to be the true ones) says that the Government is considering extending the Easter school holidays by an extra week to give the teachers time to recuperate and prepare lessons after the INSET.

Poor old Cathie is an INSET widow – Elson is required to attend. Despite living only a couple of miles from the course (it’s being held locally at the school where he teaches), he’s not allowed home at nights – they’re kept working until late and with an early start. And, final insult, the food at these courses is supposed to be appalling – rice and beans if you’re lucky.

So, folks, aren’t I glad I’m working at “County Hall” and therefore exempt from all this stuff. I can (and will) come and go as I please and take the odd day off either to go to Kigali to blog or to visit friends across the country. I’m assuming I won’t have my visa and that I’ll be confined to Rwanda rather than gadding off to Uganda with Geert.

Call in at the Post Office on the way home and hit the jackpot – two parcels for Tom and belated birthday cards and parcel for me! Nice card from Mary Martin and goodies from Catherine and John. So another opportunity to send texts back home on my old SIM card! And write a letter to Mary Martin on one of the notelets I watched being made at the Gighemb refugee camp.

Cook up massive peanut soup while I wait for Tom to come home, and just as it’s starting to get too dark to type, we have another power cut….

Tiga texts later to say she’s been told she needn’t attend because all the training will be in Kinya-rwanda. So that means different volunteers are being told different things according to which area they’re working in.