It’s just the 7 train…wait a second!

Just two and half weeks left of training and then I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer. ..or I should be at least. Well it’s either that or a plane ticket home if they don’t think you should be recommended to be a volunteer. I’m banking on the first case scenario. They told us that we need to reach Advance Level in Kinyarwanda in our final oral language exam and I am a bit worried about that considering I don’t think we have received much language training since we have been back from our site visit. We originally had to reach High Intermediate Level, but apparently since most of us scored pretty well the first time around they upped it up a level…fantastic. I don’t even know what guidelines they use to measure our understanding of the language, but I am positive I will learn more while at site…especially since I am going to be in a rural setting.
This last week has been pretty awesome. As we get closer to finishing Training we have exams, practical activities we do with the community in Kinyarwanda and submit projects we worked on with our resource families (PACA tools)…so lots of things needed to be done this past week. First, it started with receiving two packages from my friends Marteenio and Stephanie Sunday night. I received Crystal Light (You are right Marteenio, the Fruit Punch flavor is amazing!), Propel packets (so good!), Twizzlers!, supermarket magazines for entertainment (which lots of people here fawn over), Lifesavers, Granola Bars! and letters. There wasn’t a better way to start a week packed with so many activities and assignments than getting all that. So some of the PACA tools we had to do with our resource families included doing a Seasonal Calendar, Community Map and Daily Schedule. Creating the Seasonal Calendar involved working with my resource mom and three other volunteers’ resource families. It included various Holidays celebrated here in Rwanda (ie Heroes’ Day on Feb 1st that celebrates national figures in Rwanda’s History, Week of Mourning April 7-14th that marks the end of the Genocide and remembers those who were lost and then the typical holidays like Easter and X-Mas.) I also created a Daily schedule for my resource mom and her teenage son. It listed the type of things they did on a normal day such as cultivating, shopping at their local market, going to fetch water since they do not have running water in their home and cooking. My host mom is her own boss basically. For the community map it included local points of interest around my resource family’s village, such as the local health center, market (isoko), schools, orphanage and of course their church. This was done with my resource mom’s help but it was better to just walk around the village and see things on my own.
We each have a Pre-Service Training Portfolio that includes the work we do and submit to our teachers. It includes a write up of Activities we have done with a target group we decided to work with and the activity needed to be done in Kinyarwanda when we present to that group. I signed up to work at an orphanage in Nyanza (about an hour away from where we are now) along with 6 other volunteers. I figured since I am at about the same Kinyarwanda level as children then its best I work with children, haha. I worked with a fellow trainee to talk about the importance of water hydration, hand washing (Gukaraba intoki) and nutrition. The other trainees talked about germs, hand washing, nutrition, and proper food preparation and then we all threw in various games so it’s not all talk. Sonia and I prepared posters regarding our topics and I must say it was pretty awesome! We drew four different scenarios of when hand washing is important, such as; before you eat, after you use the bathroom, before you cook (more for the parents) and being careful not to put your fingers in your mouth when they are dirty. They liked it so much that they kept our posters and hanged it up in the classroom so the children are reminded about it daily! Sonia and I created a script in Kinyarwanda but we definitely needed the script since the words are soooo long and hard to remember everything. Instead of relying on our memory and possibly giving them incorrect information it was best to just read it and made sure that at least we got the message out. Once I am at my site my language will improve faster but until then, I needed all the aid I can get. All in all, it was definitely one of my highlights while at training and it definitely reinforced my desire to teach English to school children as a secondary project at my site. Normally I am not a big fan of children, but these children were so much fun and they seemed eager to learn. After we presented to the classes we went out to play games with them. We played “Niba Umva Wishimye…” (Sung to the tune of ‘If you are happy and you know it…’), Hokey Pokey and finally Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (in English and Kinyarwanda). After we tried playing those games they wanted to just run around and have me pick them up and swing them from side to side. It was awesome! I doubt they learned the English speaking songs since they are so young but at least we tried. After playing with them and feeling completely drained we went to grab some lunch in town (buffet is really popular here and they ALL consist of the same kind of food; rice (umuceri), beans (ibishyimbo), French fries, sweet potatoes (ijumba), Salad (cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and sometimes lettuce), fried bananas and some type of meat (can be from a cow, goat or rabbit…rarely chicken and when it is chicken it is super skinny since they are mostly used for laying eggs). It cost about 1000 RwF (less than $2). It was good food, but I just don’t understand why the Buffets can’t be different from time to time (aside from limited resources). Once we finished eating we had to go back to the Orphanage to give out some survey questions we had translated regarding myths and facts about HIV and STDs. We gave the surveys to the teenagers and they had to respond True (Nibyo) or False (Sibyo) to the statements. We plan on going back to the orphanage this Thursday and talk with them about HIV/AIDS and STDs. It’s great to be out of the training site and talk to locals about various health topics but it’s also hard due to the language barrier. After we finished at the Orphanage we had to come back to take a Technical exam and I was too drained from working with the teens and kids to really focus on it. I’ll just skip over this, but I passed! Hahaha. I expect to really learn about it through working with the community and at site by reading all these books they gave us. The language exam is a bit more intense though so I will definitely be more focused on that! After that loooong day, we celebrated a volunteer’s birthday with drinks and dinner at ‘The Chineesee Restaurant’ (no I didn’t misspell the name of it) and as usual it took about two and a half hours to get food. After being here for two months now I am still not use to waiting a few hours to get food. I laugh when I think about how crazy people would get back at home in NYC when they wait 30-45 mins for food. The next day we attended the National University of Rwanda (NUR) Graduation Ceremony. Several of our teachers finished school several months ago but after they finish classes they apparently take a few months off to create a paper and have it graded before they officially graduate. Also some people have to wait a year before they find out that they have graduated but I am not sure why that is. Again, language barrier. While the Graduation was awesome to attend it’s very similar to a Graduation Ceremony back home…long. It was suppose to start around 9AM but it didn’t start till around 1030AM I believe. Lots of people packed the University’s soccer field and the intensity of the sun made it hard to stay there the entire length of the ceremony so a couple of us left to grab some food and drinks. Other than that not much has been going on here. We are all eagerly waiting to swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteer on April 15th, 2009. Then we are off to our site the 17th and begin our service! I am still hoping my housing situation (see previous blog entry) will change a couple months from now when I am more familiar with my community and people are more familiar with me. Living at the hospital with doctors is ok, but I’d rather have my own house and have a local neighbor. It’s just one of many things I will be working on while I am there.
Lastly, I should mention that last Wednesday while I was doing my weekly breakfast duties here at the convent (just putting out the plates, utensils, sugar, jam, coffee, etc…) and as people were starting to come for breakfast at 7am we heard rumbling and a bit of shaking. My initial thought was “Oh, it’s just the 7 train passing by…” but as I saw people leaving the dining room it hit me that there aren’t trains around here. It was an earthquake that lasted about 5 seconds and we found out the next day that it was a 6.1 earthquake centered at Cyangugu (About 4-5 hours west of us). We were told it didn’t cause any damage but it was crazy feeling one considering we don’t have earthquakes in NYC. It was the first earthquake I ever felt and I never would have guessed it would happen in Rwanda. I should have read up more about Rwanda because we are on a tectonic plate and earthquakes often occur around the west near Lake Kivu. Thanks again everyone for the comments and I hope you liked the pics I was able to upload (surprisingly rather fast) below.