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
Co-ordinator of GIFO (Local
organisation in Rwanda) SABANA Alexis
sabanalexis1965@gmail.com
