3/24/2018 1 Comment Chez WatkinsAs promised, a blog about the house. It took us a long time to get this house but we have been living here now for nearly two months so let me show you around! A large (very large!) four bedroomed house in a stunning location overlooking Lake Kivu We have a very large garden with two avocado trees laden with avocado and a papaya tree with lots of fruit ripening. And banana trees and three guava trees which have loads of fruits on them. The garden is too big for us so we have just taken over a part of it for growing vegetables with the help of our delightful day guard, Gilbert, who has dug over the land and sowed cabbage, onion and carrot seeds for us. We have a rainwater harvesting tank (that is usually overflowing as we have soooo much rain). Our tap water is supplied from a large storage tank filled from the metered supply. This seems to be off most of the time and as it isn't very easy to see how much is in the tank, water in the house can be an issue. But we have a very helpful landlady who will ring someone from the water company who will get the water flowing again (not sure how! ) Inside the house - four large bedrooms all ensuite- two of them empty but nice views. One room currently used as a store room for work stuff and the other our bedroom We have four ensuite bathrooms plus an extra toilet. We have four hot water boilers for the showers but none of them works. Electrical wiring and plumbing is an interesting puzzle. In one bathroom if you turn on the water from the boiler (cold as it doesn't actually heat the water) the water doesn't come out of the shower head it comes out of a hole in the opposite wall under the sink! When we were living in Rwanda last time we didn't have a kitchen so this year we are really being spoiled with a large kitchen with tiled work surfaces and a sink - double drainer!! The tap is only over one sink and the drainage is a bit dodgy and sometimes the water ends up on the floor. But we didn't have a sink last time so we are loving it. Spot the Vim - I remember my mum using it to clean! We cook using a small electric two ring hob. And we boil and filter water for drinking. We don't use the cupboards under the work surface but we have plenty of room on the top. We also have a store cupboard and a utility room! Our living room is also big and the furniture we have is dwarfed by the space. But plenty of room for some of my team to come and work with me. And the dining room has nothing in it - but Glyn uses it to keep his bike overnight! So there you have it - a beautiful house in Rwanda!
I hope I have answered the question, "Will you be living in a mud hut?" and also hopefully squash the stereotypical view of life in Africa.
1 Comment
3/18/2018 0 Comments Doing the job I came to do!The team and I spent two days training teachers and headteachers this week. It was very full on and we had many 'challenges' but I have an excellent team and at the end of both days we were all very tired but happy that things had gone well. On Wednesday we welcomed 11 schools with around 80 teachers / headteachers to be trained in the new maths 'toolkit'. This is a resource to help lower primary school teachers improve their skills of teaching maths. I was concerned that teachers would be sceptical about the toolkits as the idea is that the teachers study in their own time. Primary teachers in Rwanda work very hard. School starts at 7:20 and they run a double shift system so half of the pupils attend in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. This means teachers teach until after 4:30 every day. However my fears were unfounded and the toolkits were well received. Part of the kit is a smart phone which contains preloaded video and audio material. Thee were two teachers who had never touched a smartphone before and needed a lot of extra support to learn how to use it. As the maths training is all delivered in Kinyarwanda I wasn't much use to the team apart from wandering around encouraging, doing a couple of 'energisers', smiling and practising my very poor kinyarwanda to the great amusement of everyone there! Hats off to my fab team of SLF (sector learning facilitators) who did a great job! Then on Friday we had a different group of schools who were attending the training for the English toolkit. As this training was delivered in English with some translation I was able to contribute a bit more. We had plenty of logistical issues to deal with. Having spent Thursday afternoon setting up the room, laying out tables and chairs and putting all of our display charts on the walls I arrived at the hotel feeling confident we were ready to go. Then the hotel manager came and told me we had to change rooms because he had taken a booking for the big room. I think he realised I wasn't best pleased and helped with the shifting of tables and chairs so we would be ready in time for the teachers when they arrived. And actually this second room had a lovely outside area overlooking the lake. We were also fortunate that it didn't rain (at least not during the training - just when we were on motos going home - we all got soaked then!) Overall we had a good couple of days. It is quite daunting to think we have 30 of these trainings to deliver all over the district and we won't always be at a well resourced hotel. Sometimes our training venue will be a school, church or small hall in a very remote area that will take a few hours to reach.
Probably my favourite picture of the two days is this one. We had several very cute - and very well behaved - babies attend the trainings with their mums. Here a primary school teacher is studying in order to improve her teaching skills in order to help the children of Rwanda - ie the baby on her back! 3/12/2018 0 Comments A busy week and weekendLast week the Nyayamsheke team was busy preparing for the pilot training we will be delivering next week to over 120 teachers and headteachers about the new toolkits we are going to be working with to help teachers in lower primary develop their English and maths teaching. I am part of a team - I am the District Teaching Advisor and I work with 7 Sector Learning Facilitators. These are a group of very hardworking Rwandans (who fortunately have very good English) and who have been very busy over the past few weeks visiting all 139 schools in our district collecting information and informing the schools about our project. Last week we joined with the Rusizi team (our neighbouring district) to finalise plans for our trainings. On Saturday our rugby team Resilience RFC had their first game of the 2018 National league and we were really looking forward to it. Since Resilience formed three years ago we haven't actually watched them play a league match (only friendlies) although I have always followed every game and kept their website (www.rusiziresilience.weebly.com ) up to date it was great to be able to go and support from the pitchside. They were playing Muhanga Thunders, a team coached by our very good friend Laurien. It is a long way from Muhanga to Rusizi and Laurien's team had left home at 4am. This is always the challenge that Resilience face as the nearest team is many hours' journey away on the other side of the Nyungwe rainforest. But this was a home game. The team were there early preparing the pitch and making a try line in the long grass. It was due to kick off at 1pm, and it did! Resilience play on the sportsground at TTC Mururu which is the teacher training college I worked at in 2013 - 2014 and where Glyn started rugby off in 2014. Many of the TTC students (both former and current) play for Resilience RFC, it is great to see Glyn's legacy! Although the Principal of the college has changed, the new one, Brother Augustin is a great supporter and came and sat with us to watch the game. We were also with Emmanuel, a local headteacher and president of Resilience RFC. Over the years we have brought many team shirts, balls, boots and other equipment out with us to Rwanda. It was good to see that all players had decent playing gear. Resilience was playing in shirts from RTB (Ebbw Vale) and Muhanga in New Tredegar RFC shirts so it was a welsh valleys derby. The final score was 15 - 10 to Resilience so we were very happy to witness a win! Great celebrations and the cap for Man of the Match was presented to Frederick by Br Augustin We had a chat to Donatien the team captain at the end of the game and Glyn and I were also interviewed for the local radio about the progress of rugby in Rusizi. Me with the captain and president of Resilience RFC As I was back at the TTC I took the opportunity to visit the Teacher Resource Centre (my old classroom) with Dieudonne, the tutor I had worked with for the year. It was great to see it still full of exciting resources and to know that Dieudonne is continuing to do a good job! We travelled back home on Glyn's bike with no problems at all and enjoyed Sunday. Gilbert, our guard, didn't want to wait for the last of the avocados to fall from the tree in our garden and climbed up to pick them. The good news is - we have another avocado tree with lots of young ones growing! Zachee, my former student, came to visit us on Sunday with some furniture he had had made for us. He had travelled for several hours to get to us. It was great to see him as he had been ill for nearly two weeks with malaria. Fortunately he has made a full recovery. 3/12/2018 0 Comments The motorbike!Glyn has been given a motorbike to travel around on. It is great because it gives us freedom but there have been a few issues with it. The cable that attaches to the spark plug is missing a cap to hold it in place. This means it regularly comes off. It is currently held on with a piece of tin can that Glyn has cut out and bent around the cable. My dad would be very proud of such improvisation. Last week we were on our way home from Kamembe ( a journey of about an hour) and the bike ground to a halt. Assuming it was the cable again Glyn poked at it with a stick as did a helpful Rwandan who stopped by to help. But it wasn't the cable - it was fuel. (There isn't a fuel gauge by the way) (or a speedometer for that matter) I have regularly been on a moto in Rwanda and it has run out of fuel (moto drivers here regularly drive around on fumes). The solution is to jump off and the driver lies the bike down and gives it a shake. It is surprising how you can go on a good shake. But we were still 45 minutes from home so the 'tip and shake' wasn't going to be enough to get us home! Two moto drivers stopped to help. One of them gave Glyn a lift back to the petrol station (he happened to have an empty can that Glyn could use. (I hope it wasn't to be used for water). I stayed with the bike. So many people stopped to see if I needed help - lots of chances to use my kinyarwanda 'Ntakibazo murakoze cyane' (no problem thanks) Topped up with fuel and we were back on our way. It is very useful to have a bike that we can pop to the shops on!
And we have a big house so there is plenty of room to keep the bike! And did you realise that Apple made bikes?! We just need a name for it now- any suggestions anyone? 3/3/2018 0 Comments An experience with the policeOn Monday 26th February I went along with Glyn who was doing a training at Ntendezi Primary school with the teachers. This is one of the schools that I will be working with so it was a good opportunity for me to meet the Headteacher and teachers and as this school has a special class for children with additional needs (a first for the district of Nyamasheke) I was keen to see how this works and meet the special needs teacher. We had great fun as usual with the training session with 15 teachers and the headteacher. The training ended at 12 and after the rain stopped we got ready to leave. Glyn gave a lift to one of his RwandaAid colleagues, Jean Nipo, to the main road and I started to walk. Glyn came back for me and I jumped on the back of the moto and we went back home (about 30mins)
When we got home I realised I had lost my phone. With the benefit of technology (and Glyn!) we tracked the phone and worked out it was where I got on the bike, just down the road from the school and it was still there. So, back on the bike! We got there but no sign of the phone but according to the 'Find my phone' app it was near. We were right next to the District Police Headquarters so i wandered in and after speaking (lots of sign language) to several very helpful policemen I found one who spoke good English and explained the situation. When they realised the phone could be tracked this caused great interest. Several policemen gathered around Glyn's phone and decided it wasn't far away. They had no transport available so one very burly policeman jumped on the back of Glyn's moto and left with Glyn's phone in his hand. He directed Glyn for over an hour and they went all over the place and even reached the edge of the rainforest. They always seemed to be close. At one point they enlisted another moto. The policeman jumped on the back of the moto and the moto's passenger joined Glyn. Sadly no photos - we didn't think it would be appropriate. In the meantime I was sitting in the grounds of the police station. They wouldn't let me sit in a covered area that had benches (I think it may have been some sort of holding area) but brought me a chair to sit on. I had dozens of 'conversations' with various policemen and locals all very interested in hearing about my 'problem'. Eventually Glyn and Frodoire the burly policeman returned. Despite best efforts they hadn't been able to locate the phone. I didn't realise it but I had been chatting to the Director of the police for the district. (He wasn't in uniform). He came and introduced himself to Glyn and was so determined that he would find the phone. He gave us his contact details and asked to call in with further details about it the following day as they were not going to give up. When we finally got home we had another look to see where the phone was but the battery had died so the signal had stopped. But looking at the last recorded location it was still near the school and the police HQ. It hadn't moved. The 'Find my phone' app showed where my lost phone is and also the location of Glyn's phone. We realised that the police were actually following Glyn's phone which is why they were always so close. My phone had not moved! So I rang the headteacher at the school and asked if she could mention it to the children in the school and also ask around the neighbourhood as it was there somewhere. I know what you are thinking - no chance! But remember this is Rwanda. The following day we had a call from the school. The grandmother of one of the children had picked up the phone. It was in her house. She brought the phone to the school and gave it back to Glyn. She is very poor and didn't have a phone. We had an old simple phone that we gave her as a reward for returning my phone. So a huge thank you to the police for all their time and effort, the school for helping us to locate the phone and most of all to the lady for handing it back. And also to Glyn for the technical stuff and for 'agreeing' to take the large burly copper on a wild phone chase! (And sorry you missed your meeting) And for me - I am very happy to get my phone back and will not be putting it in my back pocket when on the moto again. Yet another heart warming story from the land of a thousand hills. |
Archives
December 2018
Preparing to go back to our second home
|