Our Daily Routine in Rwanda

So what do we actually do ? We just realized we don’t have a post that detailed our weekly schedule, so here it is :

Monday – Friday 8am-noon : volunteer at the preschool
Monday/Thursday from 2-4pm : teaching english to the adults
Tuesday/Friday 10:30 am-noon : go to the goat market to purchase 20-30 goats
Tuesday/Friday 2:30pm-3pm : hand out the goats to those selected

Saturday 9am-noon : soccer and feeding the street kids

We loved Wednesdays because we were free after lunch to wander, nap or head to Ste Anne's hotel for free (but slow) Wifi and cheap beer and food.

The schedule wasn't all that hectic, but teaching is tiring so it suited us fine. We were often in bed and asleep by 9:30pm and work up the next day around 6pm or whenever the imam decided to be particular energetic with his morning prayers.

While at the preschool, our duties consisted of

·         Feeding the kids

·         Helping teach numbers, counting, alphabets, writing

·         Play with them at recess (see our post on evaluating recess games)

·         Teach them songs

·         Escort them to the ‘nurse’ (Cathy) to address boo-boos (real or fake)

Teaching English to the adults was a different animal, but was an exercise in patience as they struggled with concepts that come so naturally to us. We usually started the class by getting the adults to stand up and read out sentences such as “ My name is __“, “I have __ children”, “My favourite colour is __”,  “My favourite animal is __” and “I would like to visit __ someday”.  Or we’d simply write the alphabet on the board and have adults stand up and tell which letter we were pointing to. This would allow us to assess who’s a beginner / intermediate /advanced. From there we’d break up the classes. The beginners would continue to work on the alphabet. The intermediate class would work on vocabulary and the advanced class would work on reading and conversation. This structure somewhat evolved over our 5 weeks there, but it seems to work really well and we noticed demonstrable improvement in many of the students.

One of the ways we were able to connect with the class was downloading a Kinyarwanda-English dictionary to our laptop. We brought out laptop to school and then would write out english words on the whiteboard. We divded the class in two teams and the team that was able to spell the word and give the meaning in Kinyarwanda would get a point. As it added a small element of competition and because it helped us learn more words in Kinyarwanda, it would up being one of the favourites exercises for everyone.

This adult class was also very interested in basic health and hygiene knowledge (how to treat a cut, how to cure a headache etc.) so Cathy has organized those types of sessions as well that other volunteers have led.

In retrospect, we really enjoyed the adult classes because so many of them were really engaged and desperately wanted to improve their English. On our second last day, we took a group photo which we showed the class on our last day. They were thrilled to see themselves in a photo and it’s now hanging up proudly in one of the classrooms.



Dal holding court



David using a whiteboard..some things never change.

Group photo with adult class -  now hanging up in the classroom