The Road to Work

This morning I set off with Cathy for my second day of shadowing her.  We visited GS Kibara in Mutendera Sector.  It was about 45mins on a moto over some quite bumpy roads, but I hardly noticed as the scenery was absolutely stunning.  We were driving around the top of the valley.  This place is full of them and it seems like I am always driving along a road with a fabulous view.  At 7:30 this morning, rather than my old commute (a crafty 20min nap on the train between Beckenham and Victoria) I was staying well awake as I was on the back of the moto.  Below us, the valley was filled with cloud.  It looked so beautiful to be up above the clouds in this majestic place.  What was above the clouds was lush and green.  We passed lots of villages where people were busy collecting bananas, coffee, cassava...all sorts (but no – not the liquorice kind!).  It was easy to be completely consumed by the beauty of the morning and think about how lucky the people of Rwanda were to live somewhere so beautiful, but towards the end of the journey I was reminded of the reality of life for some people.  We went past a man who was busy filling up his jerry cans from a large puddle at the side of the road.  And then you are reminded that most of these places away from the main roads (and there aren’t many main roads) do not have any running water or electricity yet.  It is certainly noticeable in the schools I have visited so far that they do not have these luxuries.  When it rains, as it really did this afternoon, shutters are pulled across windows in the older classrooms and children must sit in the dark.  In the newer buildings which are popping up at many schools, there is glass in the windows and the rooms are bright and airy, but this is not yet the case everywhere.

And yet, despite the challenges that people here may face, the children are so full of life and seem to love their lessons.  We walked into a P1 (first year of primary) class this morning and there was no teacher there, but the students had got some textbooks out and were chanting parts of the textbook together.  They were so excited to see visitors and looked with such curiosity.  We went outside to play a game with them and they left the room so quietly.  They lined up outside without talking and followed every instruction given by their teacher without a single complaint – even when he moved some of them away from their friends.  We then marched out to the grassy area at the top of the school and did lots of warm up activities.  Next the children played a game of cat and mouse.  They were so excitable and clearly loved it.  We were watched by a small crowd of local people who had been passing and stopped to view the commotion.  The game involved lots of running and I was amazed to see all the children kick off their shoes before they ran – the ground was bumpy and stony – my feet would have been cut to shreds.  At the end of the lesson, they lined up in silence again before marching back to their classroom and being dismissed for the day (it was the end of the morning shift).  But they didn’t go – in fact, all the children just gathered around Cathy and myself and so we decided to go to the staff room to get out of their sight to encourage them to leave, but they just followed and were standing on top of each other in order to peer through the windows and look at us.  They eventually went home, but the curiosity continued with the afternoon shift of children.  And when we left...pretty much every child in the school came to wave us goodbye.