One week in...

I've still not sat down properly with the director to discuss my role but am keeping him informed on the project that I'll be doing with Amy which looks like being pretty big. Basically World Vision have given us funds to conduct some methodology training for every sector in the district- all in all we'll be looking to train about 250 teachers! It's all budgets and proposals and therefore quite alien to me but am slowly getting my head round it. I think my director's just happy that I'm keeping him informed. Really want to find out about my bike, I'm not sure I make the best pillion rider and after last Monday...

...Despite rumours of a holiday- a common occurrence here- everyone was back at work. Amy had a couple of schools she’d arranged to see and invited me to go along. Without a moto it’s a bit frustrating not being able to go out on my own to schools but this sounded like a good opportunity to say ‘hi’ and introduce myself. Little did I know what a death-defying ride it would be. It started off well, we took the main road out of Gikongoro and up towards Kigeme, the sun was shining - it felt great to be on a bike again. However, as we turned off towards the schools ,I began to feel a little anxious and memories of Kickstart no longer seemed so distant...

The night before, it had rained heavily leaving the dirt tracks up to the schools feel like mud baths as we desperately tried to stay on- I say ‘we’ but of course I had it easy. Poor Amy meanwhile had to negotiate the treacherous route and all this on only the third time on her bike...Information which was only shared when we were half way up the mountain! ...

...Still, we got to the first school on time and it was really good to speak with the head who seemed enthusiastic about the methodology training and was genuinely wanting to make positive changes to the school for the benefit of the children-really nice to see. We continued our journey and were making good time for the next school when we found ourselves literally stuck in the mud! I lost count of the number of times I hopped off to run behind the bike but this one time I guess we thought we could make it- ha ha and so we took the first tumble. Throughout the ride, it was hilarious to see the look of shock on the faces of men, women and children as we tore through their village so it was only right that we offered them some entertainment. To be honest, I was grateful for the audience especially when we needed to be helped up or the bike restarted. Anyway, despite the eventful journey, we made our next appointment with half an hour to spare. So, before the head teacher turned up, we decided to give an impromptu rendition of head, shoulders, knees and toes to the 100 or so children who had crowded around the bike- A real highlight of the day- I’m just glad we made it back with all our body parts intact...

My director is still ‘busy’ so we’re communicating by email. I say communicating but to be honest, I’m the only one writing. So, without any direction from him, I’m concentrating on the World Vision project which sounds very exciting. Me and Amy will be working with the schools in 10 sectors (kind of like boroughs) in the district and delivering training in PACE methodology. This is basically active/participative learning which is all part of normal teaching in UK but is still very rarely used here, compared to chalk and talk. To be honest, with the lack of resources and the large class sizes, I have every sympathy with the teachers here and I don’t think it will be easy but I do think there are some small changes which can be made. Anyway, today World Vision approved the proposal and budget so we’re all good to go. Of course, nothing here happens very quickly and before any letters are sent out to the heads we still need to get a final approval from my director so we could be waiting a while...

Today was a good day. Have made friends with the two most important people in the district office! The first is Claudine who holds the key to the flushing toilet with loo roll, the second is Ice-T (not his real name) who is a genius with ICT (you see?..) and has managed to fix the internet connection in my office, great! Wireless is available but just doesn’t reach my desk. Yesterday, I spent most of my time piggy backing this from Claudine’s office and despite easy access to the loo, it did have its drawbacks. But today I was connected...

Was speaking with the boy last night which is always lovely... and we then managed to skype today- can’t believe how good this is. Of course, it does have its limits, especially in an office but was such fun!

Looking forward to tomorrow as Charlotte’s coming over. She’s part of my VSO group and based in Gitarama, about an hour away. We’re meeting in Butare for some lunch and there’s a good market there too. Looking forward to chatting about the first week and might even chance a beer in my local...