Serwanda: Heroes Day

Tuesday was Heroes Day so I had the day off. Heroes Day is a day to remember Rwanda’s heroes. I would say that it is most like Memorial Day for the US. From what I understand they have a list of heroes made up by the government. I think that everyone on the list has already died. The night before we tried to bake a cake in an oven made of a smaller pot in a larger pot that we learned how to build in training. We have also baked bread in this oven the week before that turned out really good. While we were mixing the ingredients I started calling it hero’s cake. After I got the charcoal lit on the first try for the first time we baked it for two hours. The hero’s cake although delicious wasn’t finished, but we didn’t want to wait for it any longer. Devin said that it was appropriate because it was a lot like a hero that was taken away before finishing the fight. I responded by calling it an anti-hero cake. Irene didn’t like the cake too much. She said it was too sweet. I think that it might have been the syrup we poured on it as a sort of frosting.

On Heroes Day I went looking for any kind of celebration because earlier that week the Peace Corps Country Director said that there would be local celebrations. Irene told us that they only celebrate in Kigali though and she was right. At least they don’t throw a celebration in Mulindi which is a little strange because Mulindi’s nick name is the land of heroes because here is where Paul Kagame’s forces base was during the genocide. I did stumble upon a meeting/fundraiser being held about what the town’s next service project should be. I contributed a little and met the head of the village which may change pretty soon because today is elections for the local government throughout the country which means I get another day off. I haven’t had to work much this week. If nothing else talking about the next service project for the town is pretty heroic so after that I was pretty satisfied. Later, Tito, one of the teachers from training came and visited me and we went out to a restaurant where he tutored me in Kinyarwanda a little. He is still looking for a new job. It was great seeing a familiar face. It was pretty heroic of him to come.

Some other hero stories from this week include one where Irene had a Spiderman bag and I told her that Spiderman is a hero and she disagreed with that completely. Spiderman in Kinyarwanda is Igitagangurirwa-umugabo. I learned that word because our house is infested with spiders and they still scare me daily. Another story I have is about yesterday where in my English class we talked about heroes. I asked them to tell me who one of the heroes was then what they did and finally we transformed the two or three sentences into one connecting the clauses using who. For example: King Muhata III (probably not really his name because I can’t remember what his name was) who gave away cows and fought against the colonists expanded the kingdom of Rwanda. This lesson elicited excellent participation and was a lot of fun. The last hero story I have is about how Devin goes to Bgomba secondary school which is between four and five miles away for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays for English Club to try help the senior 3 students there. I went with her on Wednesday to help out. Bgomba is in much worse shape than the school where I teach. I don’t think that the student’s English ability is worse in comparison to my students, but they are one year closer to taking the national exam and they are definitely not ready for that. My school has nicer classrooms and more resources, but Mulindi is a boarding school and Bgomba is a public school. I think the administration at Bgomba from what I saw is trying to improve their facilities as well so that is pretty heroic too.