First week of school

School officially started January 9^th, which is of course when I learned what I’m teaching. No time for lesson planning. I’m to teach all “promotions” as they say, instead of levels, of S5, which is roughly equivalent to 11^th grade in the states. There are only four levels and they have English class twice a week, 50 minutes each time, about 50 students in each class. I’m still confused about being involved in teacher training, but we’ll cross that bridge at a later time. I’m also going to be involved in an English club, start a running club, and maybe some other things too.

Not all teachers are actually here yet so nothing is certain and everything is changing. Every time a new teacher gets here he/she has a say in what they want to teach and when so the whole schedule needs to be rearranged to accommodate the new input. Once, it changed and no one told me about it. I was preparing to teach at 11am. Well, that class got bumped up to 9am. I found out at 10am, therefore missed it, which was my only class that day, my second day of teaching. My first day I made it to both of my classes but the second one was interrupted 10 minutes into it for a teachers meeting where I and the other male teachers subsequently got drunk.

Friday a student from S6 came up to me and asked if we could talk after school. It ended up being that he wanted to talk about getting me involved with the English club, what it’s about, what they do, etc. We talked for almost two hours. By the end of it there were maybe 20 students around me with three or four actively participating, the rest just gawking. We talked about how to find an American girlfriend, religion, starting underground bands, starting a running club and maybe being able to bring a student or two with me to Kigali, having them help me start my garden, teaching them how to use facebook, etc. It was great to talk with students, who aren’t even mine, about things outside of the classroom. They were really excited about working with me and really want me to be fully immersed in the school system and culture. Moments like this make it almost tangible being a PCV and rewarding to have so many future prospects lined out for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the first week of teaching.

A few things I have learned this week:

§  My tolerance for alcohol has dramatically decreased. I only had two beers and was quite giddy afterwards and had a hard time sitting still.

§  I need to wake up at 7am to check and see if a new schedule has been posted.

§  The white lab coats we have to wear when we teach conceal stains very nicely.

§  If I want to know what’s going on in my teacher’s meetings I need to learn more Kinyarwanda or learn French.

§  Day dreaming can accomplish more than you know when you don’t know what’s going on around you and you’re well buzzed.

§  The novelty of having a white teacher apparently never wears off. I replaced a volunteer and students are still dumbstruck at seeing a white person, which leads me to my new segment:

Things my students say…

Introducing slang to one class…

Me: What’s up?

Student: Big up!

A student asked for differences between Americans and Rwandans…

Me: Well, where I live most people have skin like mine, not like yours.

Student: Yes, my skin is good.

I gave students the opportunity to ask me anything…

“Where can I find a white woman? I want to marry her.”

“Can you tell us about the anti-Christ?”

“Is 2 Pac alive?”

“What news of Lady Gaga?”