Off to Work I Go

If I am not visiting a school a typical day in my job, as Education Management Advisor to the District of Ngoma in SE Rwanda, might begin as follows. I will load my backpack with educational paperwork, my laptop, complicated adaptors and surge protector and a sunhat, and then forget my bottle of water. I take a deep breath before crossing the threshold into the public arena knowing that I am about to go on show. In the morning I am fresh and full of energy so quite enjoy the barrage of greetings in Kinyarwanda and sometimes French (adults), and English (children mostly) as I make my way up the hill on the dirt path next to the bitumen road which joins the main town of Kibungo to what is called the Rompway (a distortion of Rond Point in French). It is actually not a roundabout at all but a three-way intersection with the main road from the north continuing southwards into Tanzania.

Outside, with Jehovah on the left

I quickly pass the evangelical and Jehovah's church signs on my left and the police prison on my right about which I have already explained how much I enjoy their morning and weekend medleys. I pass a shop where I sometimes buy a Fanta Coca (Coca Cola) with the promise to return the empty bottle. A couple of old men spend time in that shop and I chinwag with them in my fractured Kinyarwanda before lapsing into French. Fewer ordinary people speak the colonial language than I had imagined. Later in the day I will return the bottle, leaving it outside if the shop is closed whereupon the kind lady owner will thank me next time we meet for returning it. This country is an environmental beacon when it comes to bottle returns and use of paper bags instead of plastic ones which, like public smoking, have been banned. The beer shop lady in the other direction actually runs after me in the street to remind me if I have forgotten to return a bottle of Primus or Mutzig, the two main brands.

Fanta coca lady  shop

Progressing steadily up the hill I cross over to the right hand side of the road to avoid the possibility of being pulverised by careering bicycles, either groaning with produce (frequently six or eight huge bunches of bananas) - pushbikes are the donkeys of Rwanda - or with a passenger behind on the extended seat. If a male passenger, he sits legs astride tight behind the cyclist; a woman sits, legs neatly together facing sideways, seemingly calm and balanced despite the velocity. The cyclist himself often has a wide-eyed look of exhilaration combined with intense concentration. This is bungy jumping Kibungo style but without the safety features as neither cyclist nor passenger wears a helmet. (In a way this is odd as Rwanda is very safety conscious when it comes to motorbikes where driver and passenger must wear helmets and drivers always carry a spare.)

A wee skirl doon the brae

There is, frankly, another reason I cross the street and it is to avoid the Bicycle Bully Boys who hang out at the top of the hill, touting for business and who love to tease the plodding muzungu. "Fancy a ride". "C'mon, you know you want to". "Ha, ha, ha". And so on, I half imagine. It is only 'half' because I was offered a trial by one of the Bike Boys for 100 francs (or less than 20 cents) and was severely tempted but common sense, and knowledge of VSO's insurance policy, put a stop to the dreaming. The boys can be fine on their own but just gang up in a crowd. Same all over.

Bully Bike Boy hangout

Very soon, I am at the entrance to the Ngoma District building where I have a desk in the education office. I shake a lot of hands with 'mwaramutse' (good morning) and 'amakuru' (how are you) before settling down to some paperwork or to make phone calls. I use a dongle (USB modem), which is very slow, to access the Internet. I am currently helping some of the district's Head Teachers (school principals) with their School Action Plans for 2011 and may send some draft suggestions by email to those in the Kibungo area that I have consulted with. Rural HTs won't have access to regular email due to lack of electricity and/or computers so the best way of making, and staying in, contact is by mobile phone. Most people seem to have two of them, one for each of the two main telephone networks. The coverage is better (valleys and mountains pose no obstacle here) and calls much cheaper than those in western countries. One network charges 500 francs (less than $1) for half an hour to the US. Rwanda at the moment is investing heavily in laying Broadband cables throughout the country and wants to be at the cutting edge of new technologies in Africa.

District HQ

What might I have to offer? Well, until 2009, French was the medium of instruction in Rwandan schools. Then the government made the decision to switch to English to fall in line with the other three main countries of the East African Community (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda). The fifth EAC country, Burundi, retains a French curriculum. (This was the same time that Rwanda applied for and was accepted to join the Commonwealth, only the second country - Mozambique is the other - to become a member outside the former British  Empire.) Naturally moving to English has been tough on the teachers who had to, almost overnight, teach in a language which most don't speak and in which they did not study. Many of the Head Teachers suffer the most because they don't even have the opportunity to practise their English through the delivery of subjects in it. I, therefore, talk to most of the HTs in French about their Action Plans, help with French to English translations of curriculum documents and will present training sessions in French and English on practical ways to improve the delivery of course work. I may also do in-school training sessions for staff although that is, strictly speaking, not part of my brief.

Then it's back down the hill to a chorus of 'good mornings' - although it is the afternoon - many more muttered 'muzungus' (it's like seeing an elephant pass and saying 'elephant' except that we are not as rare as elephants in Kibungo) and, finally, the pleasant peace on the other side of the gate.