Wow, its been 2 weeks since I last journaled about my adventures! Now, things are in full swing and I am pleasantly busy. I like being able to write more frequent updates, but I'd rather be doing things than writing about them, so I can't complain! Ok, here are the 5 points I will summarize for you:
- Patronage is getting more and more awesome.
- Went to do Patronage at Rubavu.
- Primary school English class is difficult. Secondary school English class is way fun.
- I am reading a novel with Fr. Antoine, and we rapped (yes, like ganstas) to the St. Francis of Assisi prayer.
- I have kept in touch with Amiral (see previous blog entitled "Made a friend") and we have gone on some great outings!
- I love the animators. They are hilarious.
I'm really starting to find my place at Patronage. The kids call me Jacqui, not Muzungu, and if they do call me muzungu I put on my fed-up face and correct them. They all like to give me high-fives, handshakes, fist-pounds, and even a few hugs. In general, people don't really hug each other here unless they're family or really close friends. I've been missing the comfort of a nice bear hug :( So its nice to have kids run up to you and hug you. I've also been learning the words to the Kinyarwanda songs/games that we play as a big group. I even participated as the "guesser" in a game where you need to pinpoint the person who everyone else is copying. This song is in French so it doesn't really count, but I've got some other Kinyarwanda favorites. I've found that I have less enthusiasm and less desire to run around with the kids in poorly organized games of "do whatever she does!" like I did at the beginning. I want to regain a bit of this energy enthusiasm, and participate more fully in the running and the romping. This is my goal for the week.
I also went with Sr. Charlotte and a few animators to Rubavu on Thursday mornings. We leave at 5:40am in order to go with a priest from Muhato (next door) to say Mass there at 6:15. He drives us, and fortunately for me he has also driven us home after Patronage these past 2 weeks. It was pretty great the first time I came…we sat right in the front for Mass, and as usual I can't understand more than a few words. But all of a sudden at the end, I hear interspersed within the Kinyarwanda the familiar sounds of "muzungu" and "Nitwa Miss Jacqueline." Come out of the mouth of holy and pious Fr. Antoine. Why on earth is he calling me muzungu in a church?! Its not a derogatory or insulting term, I remind myself. Then he starts speaking to me in English, still at the pulpit, saying that he would like me to come up to the front and introduce myself to the parishoners at Rubavu, and Sr. Charlotte can come up too and translate into Kinyarwanda.
So I go up there, say Mwaramutse (Good morning), and tell them my name and all that stuff. Then everybody clapped. Afterwards when we went to meet the kids for Patronage, they had assembled into a little semicircle where they were singing a welcome song and some of the older girls were doing a traditional Rwandan dance.
And it was very good to see some of the animators who live out here. Three of them who came to formation a few weeks ago can only help with Patronage at Rubavu, because making the trek to Muhato is a long journey. So it was good to see Honoline, Stany, and Liberata again! I also received a warm welcome from them, especially Stany, who is crazy. For now I'll just leave it at that.
I taught the primary school kids a 1-hour English class on Tuesday. Its very challenging because they basically only know Kinyarwanda. They learn some English in school, and I had planned to introduce conjugation of regular verbs in the present tense (not using such technical lingo though). Well, it seemed that about a third of the kids really knew this stuff perfectly and were obviously bored. But when I chose random members of the class to answer a question, I always ended up calling on one of those members of the elite third to help them out. So its really hard. But, good news, they love to sing. So we filled up the extra time with singing and reviewing greetings and the days of the week. I hope to be better planned for next week by using Kathryn's notes from when she was here this summer. Now with my secondary schoolers, I really enjoy every minute of it. They are very eager to talk, many of them try to strike up English conversations with me before or after class, and they laugh at my jokes even though they probably didn't understand them. The girls in this class are pretty quiet…I'm trying to be more aware of who answers my questions and to call on those who do not volunteer. We went through a paragraph from a Nancy Drew book, and that was challenging for them. I had them write an ending to the text, and in general they weren't bad, but they were super confused with what the instructions for this assignment were. Likewise, we went through vocabulary of things you find in a house, and then I tried explaining the game "20 Questions" in order that we would play the game using this vocab, and they did not understand me. It took like 3 rounds in order for us to really get it going. I've also busted out the mirrors! I brought 50 small mirrors to use during pronunciation activities. In Kinyarwanda there is no distinction between "r" and "l" so I planned an extensive practice session using the little mirrors so they could look at the shape of their mouths. I think it went well, and we will continue reviewing this and practicing saying words like "reflect" and "leisure" often.
We've discovered that Fr. Antoine is an auditory learner. I brought a novel that Joanne had lent me and I read a paragraph to him as a dictation (write down what you hear). He loved this method so so much and was praising it and thanking me for bringing this book and asking if we can continue to read it. In just one paragraph he could pick up almost all the words, but he did not know the meanings of many of them, so boom there you go, new vocab! And then he wanted to learn the song "Make me a channel of your peace." I thought this would be a perfect song because the melody is not to challenging, and Fr. Antoine has had some trouble picking up the melodies of other songs I've taught him. Well, I could not have been more wrong…this was the hardest song yet! I actually laughed so hard I cried, and I felt bad because I was kind of laughing at his inability to get it but his determination to get it. He was standing at the chalkboard pointing to each individual word, trying his best to sing it with the right rhythm, also kind of laughing, and just all-out trying with all his might to make the words flow nicely. But it just wasn't happening, and I had completely lost it and was cracking up. But within 2 or 3 days he had it. It just takes a little while for it to set in. We also rapped to this song. You can find more details in a previous post.
I have embraced the "beep." Just to say hello, you call someone and let it ring once and then hang up. Edouard beeps me at least once a day, sometimes more, and I love it! So I've started beeping other animators more frequently, its really fun. Today I spent at least 2 hours talking with Edouard and showing him and Dieu-Donné pictures from home. That was really nice. And last Sunday I went to Mass at Mbugangali, where Edouard and Félicien go. Félicien said he would walk me back to Muhato instead of me driving back with Fr. Antoine, and I was super pumped about this idea. But when I told him to explain to Fr. in Kinyarwanda, he said that he was just kidding and that I should drive back. What?! And today Fabrice said I could help him cook food for this party that was happening later, but again he was "just kidding." There must be some kind of cultural norm about how you can tell when someone is telling the truth and when their offer is apparently too much to take seriously. I just need to figure out what it is…nevertheless, I really love seeing the animators at Patronage and just being around them. They make me laugh a lot.
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