Living in Mulindi

I have been living in Mulindi for over a month now and everything is going great. I have made a lot of friends and I just got a cat yesterday that Lucy picked up in Kigali. Devin and I named the cat KOBOYI Wigwam. Its like the Rwandan names. Devin came up with both parts of the name and asked for my approval. Lucy got one too but hasn’t named it yet. We didn’t check with our landlord. I hope its not a problem.

At School I feel like I have hit a stride with teaching. Although I know that they do not understand a lot of what I say planning lessons has become easy. At least for math class. English class takes a little more creativity. My favorite lesson I have done so far is when I taught the Star Spangled Banner last week. After I finished singing it I had them sing Rwanda Nziza for me. I feel like I hit all three of the Peace Corps’ goals in that class. I hope they try to learn the Star Spangled Banner because I’m gonna try to learn Rwanda Nziza. Another thing that worked great for the most part is something that I’m sure English trainer Allison would have never taught us, but thanks to Math trainer John I had them grade each others tests. It was obvious they had never done this before because it was pretty chaotic. After class the class chief told me how he thought it was a bad way to grade because he was concerned about the points. I care a lot more about whether they are learning the material than what they score on their test though so I explained to him how I saw that there was 100% participation and for the problems the students had gotten right or wrong they had no other choice but to see what it should be because they have to grade the other person’s test. If this leads to grade inflation and cheating I will deal with that later. What they score in my class isn’t going to matter really when they take the national exam. I also told him that if there is a problem with the grading they can come to me with it and I will correct it, which I feel is another benefit because they have to take responsibility for their grades. The most obvious benefit that I didn’t mention to him though is that it saves me a lot time. I hate grading.

At home everything is going great as well. I still love my roommates and I’m getting to know them pretty well. We play games, watch movies, and cook together. Last week we baked a pineapple upside down cake when Lucy came over that was dericious. I have gotten a bookshelf and a table for my room so my stuff is no longer all over the floor. We started a garden. At least we dug up an area where a garden will go. We still need plants. Devin and Irene are both doing well and we all love our new cat.

Another thing I love about here is the views. This is definitely the most beautiful place I have ever lived. I wake up many days and descend into the mist filled valley where my school is built.

Not everything is perfect though I am still struggling with learning Kinyarwanda, I am not too discouraged because I’m only one month out of training. What is frustrating is the extra language here. All of Rwanda speaks Kinyarwanda, but in my region they also speak Igikiga. When I say all of Rwanda I do not mean all Rwandans either. There are a lot here who may know less Kinyarwanda than I do, but that’s really not too likely. Kinyarwanda and Igikiga sound similar as well so when people are speaking a lot of the time I don’t know if it is in Kinyarwanda or Igikia. Except this one woman who works at a shop near my house who always says hello to me in Igikiga. Another thing is that the Kinyarwanda they taught us in training sounds different that what they speak here probably because of the Igikiga so I have had to relearn a lot of words I thought I had down. In the whole world Kinyarwanda is only spoken in Rwanda and it is not the most localized language that they speak in Mulindi. Also in the region they speak French and Swahili. So if I am diligent in studying I have the chance to come out of this experience pentilingual. I am not expecting this of myself of course, and the day that I can consider myself bilingual will call for a celebration. BYAAA!! There are a lot of other things I’d rather learn than Igikiga, but it could help me when traveling in Uganda even though I hear they speak English there. And I’m here so I might as well give it a shot. At school they speak Kinyarwanda though.

At Church today I was sitting there thinking while trying my best to listen to the sermon while a kind man next to me translates everything for me. The translating was really great when I first got here, but now its kind of annoying because I want to try and make out what they are saying on my own. I let him translate the sermon, but I told him to stop translating the songs. While I was sitting there with this guy talking my ear off I started making more comparisons with this church and the American church. Churches like this one in America have always seemed fake to me. The feel like such a performance. They are like that scene in Borat. He goes to the large megachurch and they are all running up and down the aisles, dancing and screaming. I think that scene in Borat is very funny, but it also makes me extremely sad and upset. Here it seems so much more genuine because they have so little. I know that there isn’t really a correlation between a persons possessions and their behavior and the problems in that we experience in America are just as real as they are here, but when Rwandans cry out for God’s help and love it is easier for me to believe they are earnestly want it. I say want also because I believe that everyone needs it and all that we have to do is want it. It is very important for a Christian to be genuine. Christians need to be transparent to the rest of the world. It is very hard to be that honest, but that is what Jesus calls us to be. I miss my church North Way back in Pittsburgh a lot as well as my bible study and discipleship group, and now that I have offended everyone who wasn’t in one of those and probably some of them who were let me end this bog with a picture of kittens.

KOBOYI Wigwam is on the right and the grey one is his brother.

These are my own opinions and do not represent those of the Peace Corps.