Monday 19 May 2014

Gasundwe Village School links with Bowlee Primary School in England

Hello to all our friends at Bowlee Primary School, Middleton, England, UK

First of all, thank you for your lovely letters and photos and drawings for the children in Rwanda. When I took your letters to Rwanda I asked my friend to translate them into Kinyarwanda and then I took them to school. The children wrote their replies in Kinyarwanda and then I asked my friend to translate their replies into English. They were very excited to receive greetings and communication with children in England. They have replied to your letters and although some of the replies are very short you have to remember that they do not speak English. They have their own language called Kinyarwanda. Even the teachers don’t speak a lot of English because until 2010 the main language for teaching was French and then in 2010 the Rwandan Government told all the teachers that they had to start teaching in English from then on. It was a very big challenge for them.


Why do you think the language of instruction used to be French?


All the children that you wrote letters to have now left the village school and moved onto the local Primary School. There are two schools that they can go to and most of them go to Viro Primary School. It takes about one hour and half to walk to school with their friends. A few of the children go to a school called Rusuzimiro. This school is closer to the village of Gasundwe but to get there the children have to cross a river and there is no bridge. In the rainy season it is very dangerous so many parents choose to send their children to Viro which is further away but the children can walk there quite safely.

The photograph above shows you where the children have to cross the river without a bridge to get to Rusuzimiro School. In the rainy season it is very dangerous.
In Rwanda there is a shortage of teachers and many children to teach so, in the Primary Schools, they have a ‘Double Shift’ system. This means that some children go to school in the morning and others go in the afternoon. The teachers teach all day. The morning shift starts at 7am and finishes at 11.40am. The teachers have a break for one hour then the afternoon shift starts at 12.40 and finishes at 5pm. The teachers then walk home and many of them also cultivate the land and grow food for their families. They have very low wages and are often hungry.

How long does it take the children to walk to school?
How long is the morning shift?
How long is the afternoon shift?
How long is the teacher’s day?
Add on the time taken to get to and from school.


In Rwanda, the school year starts in January and ends at the end of October. This is the main reason why I visit the school in January because I want to meet the new children and families as well as to visit the children who have moved up to the Primary School.

These are two of the teachers from Viro Primary School. They are very happy to receive the children from Gasundwe Village School.


Some of the children have sent you their last school report from our school in Gasundwe. You will see that they study five subjects – English, Mathematics, Social Studies, Kinyarwanda and Religious Education.  A lot of the teaching is done through games and songs. Remember that the children are only 4-6years old when they come to our school and many of them come from very poor families. Before we opened Gasundwe Village School most of the children didn’t go to school at all because it was too far for them to walk and they were tired and hungry. But now we feed the children every day and they grow strong and healthy enough to walk to the local Primary school. Eventually we want to have our own Primary School in Gasundwe.  The children love coming to school and they love their teacher, Gabriel, and their Teaching Assistant, Esperance.
Here is our teacher at Gasundwe Village School. His name is Gabriel. He lives in the village from Sunday to Friday but at weekend he travels to see his wife in Kibuye town for the weekend.

 This is Esperance. She is our Teaching Assistant at Gasundwe Village School. She is helping the new children to make marks on the small blackboards. She lives in the village most of the time but her husband and children live in Kigali which is the capital city of Rwanda.

In Rwanda it is considered bad manners to eat food in front of other people unless there is enough for everyone. When I visit schools I usually take a sandwich to eat in the middle of the day and I ask the headteacher if there is somewhere I can go to eat my lunch. He usually takes me into his office and closes the door and the shutters at the window so that I can eat in private, the teachers often don’t eat at lunchtime, they probably only eat once every day.

Lines of enquiry:
Think carefully – why do you think it is bad manners to eat in front of other people? (Clue – it is connected to historical poverty) Compare this to eating habits in England. How would you manage with only one meal each day?

Most of the food that is eaten is grown by the families themselves. Rwanda is a very fertile country and the fresh fruit and vegetables are very tasty and healthy. A basic food crop is Cassava which is a leafy green plant which grows everywhere. The green leaves are rich in nutrients and make a delicious soup and the roots are often used in the way we use potatoes. There are also potatoes, cabbage, carrots, green runner beans, tomatoes, onions and corn cob. Rice is grown in the valley bottoms where the ground is wet and is usually eaten with beans – not green beans but beans which are more like haricot or broad beans or pinto beans. The main food crop is Cassava.

Go to the supermarket and explore all the many different types of beans in the Dried Food department. Make a meal with beans and rice. You could make a soup or a sauce to eat with your beans and rice. Spinach is a good substitute for Cassava.


Bananas are also plentiful and there are many different types. Savoury bananas are cooked and eaten a bit like we eat potatoes, sweet bananas are small and very sweet. Then there are bananas that are used to make beer. The bananas are harvested when they are still green and they are carried by the ladies to the local market to be sold. When the ladies who live in Gasundwe go to the market they go on the boat to the nearest small town. The journey is about 30 minutes away by boat and it is a happy social occasion.
Investigate the journey of a banana from tree to your fruit bowl.

In the village you can pick fruit straight from the trees when that fruit is in season. I ate a lot of mangoes when I was there in February. Also avocado, passion fruit, pineapple. It would be wrong to just pick fruit from a tree unless the farmer gave you permission or you offered to buy it because the farmers are totally dependent on what they grow for their survival. Another favourite of mine is peanuts (or groundnuts) which you can often see laid out on matting drying in the sun. They are very tasty when they have been roasted and salted. On market day you can see lots of little boys selling small packets of these nuts. They make little packets from paper shaped like a cone.
Try some exotic fruits. Make a fruit salad.
Can you make a packet for peanuts out of paper?

The village of Gasundwe is by Lake Kivu and some of the men who have fishing boats go out every day to catch fish to sell. The fish are small and silver in colour. When the fish are landed they are put out in the sun to dry and then later they are cooked in a sauce made from tomatoes. This is a source of protein for families who can afford to buy the fish from the fishermen. The fish are taken to the market to sell and I must say that the smell of drying fish in the market is very powerful!

Another source of protein which is much more easily available is Soya. Our children at the Gasundwe Nursery School are given a big cup of porridge every day and this is a mixture of soya, sorghum and maize. This porridge contains proteins and nutrients for health. The children love it and thrive on it.
Meat is only eaten on very special occasions, maybe on Christmas Day, weddings or on other days of celebration when the village will get together for a party and everyone will contribute the food. Meats that are available include goat, rabbit, beef, pork and chicken.
Why do the children need protein in their diet? What protein do you have in your diet?

There are some chickens in the village and they produce eggs which the children enjoy when they are available. All the children have jobs to do at home to help the family. One of the tasks is to look after the chickens and goats. The children also help to carry water. When they are young they carry a small container and as they grow they carry bigger and bigger containers.


Another source of protein is milk. There are some cows in the village and the people who own them can sell milk to their neighbours. Rwandans love drinking milk when they can get it. There is a tradition in Rwanda that when a couple gets married the groom gives a cow to the bride’s family. When that cow has babies one of the babies is given back to the married couple. If you own a cow in Rwanda it is a sign of wealth. The more cows you own, the wealthier you are. The goats provide a source of meat.

 This is the end of this short presentation. I hope you can learn more about Rwanda from your studies. I look forward to looking at your work. Thank you again and enjoy your learning. Tricia

Lines of enquiry:
Why do you think the language of instruction used to be French?
How long does it take the children to walk to school?
How long is the morning shift?
How long is the afternoon shift?
How long is the teacher’s day?
Add on the time taken to get to and from school.
Think carefully – why do you think it is bad manners to eat in front of other people? Compare this to eating habits in England. How would you manage with only one meal each day?
Go to the supermarket and explore all the many different types of beans in the Dried Food department. Make a meal with beans and rice. You could make a soup or a sauce to eat with your beans and rice. Spinach is a good substitute for Cassava.
Try some exotic fruits
Investigate the journey of a banana from tree to your fruit bowl.
Can you make a packet for peanuts out of paper?
Why do the children need protein in their diet? What protein do you have in your diet?
In Rwanda, if you own a cow you are wealthy. Think about our country, what are the signs of wealth here?

To clarify:
Our school is called Gasundwe Village School and is located in Gasundwe Village by Lake Kivu. At the moment we have a full time teacher called Gabriel and two teaching assistants. Esperance is the name of one teaching assistant and she also cooks the porridge. The other teaching assistant is called Acquiline and she is one of the mothers, she is training to be a teacher.
Gasundwe Village School meets in the old church building on top of the hill so we don’t yet have a proper school room where we can set up a quality learning environment. We take children aged from 3-6years old, then they transfer to either Viro Primary School or Rusuzimiro Primary School across the river. All the children that you have written letters to have now transferred to Primary School. The teachers and children there are benefitting from our project as well.
The Village Rwanda Project, which I am responsible for, concentrates on the school and education in the local sector named Gihombo Sector. My expertise is in teacher training and development of skills rather than on building schools.  Rochdale 2 Rwanda (R2R) and Ottawa 2 Rwanda (O2R) are two groups that I work alongside. They are responsible for other areas of the project such as the provision of water, cows, machinery etc. The local organisation is called ‘Gihombo Forward’ (GIFO).We work closely together to alleviate poverty in the village and our aim is that the village should be self-sustaining by 2020.
In the next few years we aim to build at least one classroom per year and then gradually extend the school upwards to Year 6. We are also going to build a Training School for youth and adults to learn skills such as carpentry, sewing, knitting and electrics.

Contacts are as follows:
Village Rwanda: Tricia Atherton villagerwanda.blogspot.co.uk (e mail and telephone below)
Rochdale 2 Rwanda (R2R) (Paul Cockcroft) www.Rochdale2Rwanda.wix.com/info
Ottawa 2 Rwanda (O2R) (Fidele Bolton)     www.ottawa2rwanda.org
Teacher at Gasundwe Village School: NTEZIRYAYO Gabriel     gabrielnteziryayo@yahoo.fr
Co-ordinator of GIFO (Local organisation in Rwanda) SABANA Alexis    sabanalexis1965@gmail.com