...It's off to work we go! Well, not exactly. Work visas and government ID cards for living and working in Rwanda require CVs, diplomas, stateside police clearance reports, marriage certificate, birth certificates, the Fulbright contract, a letter from sponsoring host organization, photos...and time. Are all of our ducks in a row now? As our Human Resources contact in the College of Education was scrupulously examining our documents, she murmured to our dismay, "Hmmmmm...I don't know if Immigration will accept copies of your police clearance reports. They ask for originals and they need them in color. Hmmmm." We did have the originals but must have left them at home in the States! Our bad!! Copies would have to do.
Off the documents went to the Rwanda Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration via a College of Education driver. A week later, the work visas were issued and a few weeks after that, our ID cards were in hand.
Teaching Together
Although only one of us - Mark - is on the Fulbright Grant to teach in the College of Education at the University of Rwanda, Sheila has been given permission to assist and has applied for and received a spousal work visa. So, much to Mark's delight, he now has a Teaching Assistant!! This sharing of teaching responsibilities lightens the load, of course, but also provides our students with the opportunity to experience male and female native English language speakers with somewhat contrasting dialects of American English (New York City and Midland), different though complementary teaching styles, and a teaching couple with years (decades!!) of classroom experience. A win-win situation!
S & M's EDC 202 ENG English Teaching Methods Class
In mid-September, two-and-a-half weeks after our arrival, EDC 202 ENG, the English teaching methods course (module), started and, we were informed, students were slowly showing up for class. This module includes mostly second-year university students who had been teaching in primary schools after finishing secondary school. They were now on government scholarship (sponsorship) to earn university degrees. After completing three years of university studies, they will spend a year of internship teaching in primary schools and then will graduate. With their degrees, they will be qualified not only to continue working in primary schools but also to train primary school teachers in one of the Sixteen Teacher Training Colleges in the country.
With only a few hours to prepare for our first meeting with our class and lacking a formal curriculum description (module description), we met our students. Colleagues had informed us that we should show up to let them know that classes were starting.
Our classroom is located on the fourth floor of the main teaching building at the College of Education site in eastern Kigali. Half of our fifty-five students were present and we spent the first class introducing ourselves, eliciting information from them, and asking them to ask us questions.
A sampling of questions that students asked us on this first day of class:
Why did you want to come to Rwanda to teach?
How old are you? (not going there....sorry!)
What is your favorite food?
Where do you come from?
At the university level, what are the similarities and differences in teaching between Rwanda and the U.S.?
Some info we learned during the first week of class:
All of our students come from rural areas outside of Kigali.
After their first year at university, our students were issued laptops.
Public education is not free in this country. New students pay 65,000 RWF (or about $80) in fees: application fee, registration fee, medical insurance, life insurance, and a student union contribution. Tuition for the 2016-2017 academic year was raised by 50% with science majors paying the most and is now 900,000 RWF, or about $1,100. There are government sponsorships for those who cannot afford this, and most students cannot.
Enough desks for students in our classroom is a logistical problem. Most times, there are just a few desks in our assigned classroom. Students then search for and find ones in other unoccupied classrooms and carry them into the room.
Exit Card feedback: Irish potatoes is a favorite dish with many of our students (Why Irish potatoes? We will have to investigate this a bit more?). In general, chips (French fries) are a choice at every meal and the preferred condiment is mayonnaise.
Initial observations at the College of Education:
There is a "walk through" metal detector at the entrance to the university, and the uniformed security guards check backpacks, handbags, and other items carried by persons entering the campus grounds. Students, professors, and staff wear ID badges around their necks.
No one, including students and faculty, seems too concerned that the semester has begun while some classes have yet to be scheduled.
Obtaining a copy of the course description for the methods course we are teaching has been as challenging as finding that obscure item on a scavenger hunt list. Finally, a colleague located a copy of the Module Description and although it is from 2011 and the target course students are not primary school teachers, as ours are, we are happy campers. Learning objectives were never so attractive! Click here to read the Module Description for EDC 202 ENG English Language Methods.
Our course focuses on covering the learning objectives and we plan to do this by integrating mini-lectures with as many student-centered activities as appropriate. We carry to each class a laptop on which we have developed a PowerPoint presentation; a projector; a portable speaker; and, various connecting wires. Each of the two classes in which the class has been held have only one working electrical outlet so we place the projector in the front of the rooms and project above the white boards. This seems to work well.
Here are our first five weeks of lessons as driven by our PowerPoints:
Week 1 (Introductions; few students)
The University's WiFi is intermittent, but we have been told the wired setup is more reliable. We download all materials so that they are embedded in our PowerPoints and, therefore, we do not have to rely on WiFi connectivity.
Our perception is that most students do not like afternoon classes but prefer morning ones. They would rather be finished before noon so that they can head home for lunch. The university offers meals but at 500 RWF ($.60), they are too expensive. Local restaurants across the street from the college offer meals at almost half the price but home meals are free.
Fall registration officially closed in mid-September but was extended to the second week in October. Year 1 students are still registering after which we assume classes will be added to accommodate them. We were originally notified that we would have two more courses: English for Academic Purposes and English for Specific Purposes. We will see!
We are eager to investigate other teaching opportunities here in Kigali - at the U.S. Embassy, clubs on campus - but are hesitant to do so until we know our full teaching load. Again, patience...that sometimes elusive virtue...is necessary!
The Office & Fellow Faculty Members
Shortly after our first couple of days on campus, we were shown an office on the second floor of a building near the main gate where some of our fellow colleagues have their offices. Walking down a dark corridor (light switch not functioning), we arrived at Room 60. Inside the office were three desks, drawers full of old exams and student assignments, two chairs, two desktop computers that probably were put there when the university opened in 1999, and shelves full of completed final exam blue books. A janitor soon arrived, the light bulb was replaced, the floor and desks were cleaned, and the computers were dusted.
Ready to rock and roll! A home on campus for the next 10 months.
We were warmly welcomed by Dr. Emmanuel, the Chair of the Department of Humanities and Language Education and our colleagues Dr. Cyprian and Dr. Antoni. We have spent hours in Antoni's office and he has kindly informed us on the programs, the curriculum, the university culture, Rwandan views of U.S. politics ... and more! Antoni is a soulmate whom we will get to know better.
Observations on University Culture in Rwanda:
We have not yet learned the ins and outs of the communication system here at the CE. We understand clearly that this is an important learning curve event for us and we are determined to find out how it works. We have received only a few communications regarding CE business and we can only rarely contact those who might be able to assist us.
Class Representatives, individuals in each module chosen by the class to be intermediaries between the teacher and students, are integral to an effective working environment. For example, if the electrical outlet is not working in the classroom, the CR will contact the building superintendent; if handouts are to be given to students, the CR will arrange the printing; if desk organization is required prior to class, the CR will make sure all is in order.
Students look after their needs and wants, particularly when it comes to course scheduling. They arrange with their professors to change their classrooms, their timetables, the way they receive class materials, and the way they communicate with one another. The registrar and the department secretaries do not seem to get involved.
If a request is made to the administration, we have found that patience is a virtue and necessary tool in one's survival kit. For example, if we would like a particular document or a module description for a course, we ask once, maybe twice, wait, and mention it when meeting face-to-face. Eventually, persistence wins.
Flexibility is key to surviving and thriving at the University, in Rwanda...elsewhere?!?
Rwandan university students, like American university students, love their mobile phones and want to be on them all the time (Yes, even during class!). Although only a few have smartphones, most have some sort of cellphone. We have set up a class group in WhatsApp (www.whatsapp.com), upload our weekly lesson Study Sheets to it, and we all communicate to each other in English.
Trip to Kigali Genocide Memorial Center
Although we knew that a visit to Kigali's Genocide Memorial Center was going to be an emotional one, we decided that it was something we needed to experience, especially after all the summer reading we had done in preparation for coming to this beautiful country. The experience did not disappoint us.
A bit of background...The Center was opened on April 7, 2004 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda which between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed - often brutally - in a 100 day period from April 7, 1994 to mid-July. The Memorial honors the estimated 250,000 people buried there in mass graves and, among other important functions, explains how the world stood by and did nothing. Admission is free to the public if one does not take the guided audio tour or take photographs inside the museum.
The indoor museum consists of three main exhibit halls. The main exhibit provides a comprehensive history of the years leading up to the genocide and the events of the massacres. There are displays, photographs, video clips, artifacts, and personal accounts.
The second exhibit, entitled Tommorow's Lost commemorates the lives of the children that were murdered in the genocide and movingly depicts this tragedy with photographs and short biographies of some young victims.
The third exhibit is called Wasted Lives and gives brief histories of the genocides in Armenia, Nambia, Bosnia, Cambodia, and The Holocaust.
Outdoors is a garden, the mass graves of the estimated 250,000 people, and a Wall of Names. One does not leave this place of remembrance and education dry-eyed.
For more information, go to the Genocide Memorial Center website.
By clicking on the photo below, a link will open in a separate window in which the 2008 twenty-five-minute, award-winning documentary titled, Flowers of Rwanda: Making Peace with Genocide, describes in emotionally-moving detail events and personal stories of those who survived the 1994 genocide. Please be forewarned that it presents often vivid video coverage of these events.
Recommended Reads
This post focuses on a few articles related to teaching and one controversial book on the genocide era.
Articles
(All of these are worthwhile reading for an understanding of higher education in Rwanda)
Blumenstock, J., & Eagle, N. (2007, January 19). Mobile divides. Retrieved from
Kagwesage, A. M. (2012). "Higher Education Students’ Reflections on Learning" by Anne
Marie Kagwesage. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol6/iss2/18/
Kagwesage, A. M. (2013, March 7). Coping with English as Language of Instruction in Higher
Education in Rwanda | Marie | International Journal of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.sciedu.ca/journal/index.php/ijhe/article/view/2543
Samuelson, B. L., & Freedman, S. W. (2010, June 8). Language policy, multilingual education,
and power in Rwanda | SpringerLink. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-010-9170-7
Book
This is a controversial, counter-histoire, alternative interpretation of events leading up to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the genocide itself, and the ensuing years of the Kigame regime. The authors set out to destroy many of the 'myths' that have been presented as facts regarding this sad period.
However, click on the following link to read one investigator's counter allegations to claims made by the authors:
All Africa: http://allafrica.com/stories/201502131435.html
Have you visited a memorial of a human tragedy somewhere in your travels? How was the experience? Suggestions to offer about any information in this post? Please comment and click here to contact us directly and/or receive future posts.