Art Day with Kibe

Market scene

Strolling down the street one day in Kigali I got talking to an artist and finding a kindred spirit I went back to his studio to look at his work. 


He works with other artists and they have students, so here you see a wide variety of styles.

Village Life

In Rwanda there are no opportunities for training in art, no art schools, hardly any art in ordinary schools and no possibility of buying art materials. 


Kibe is from DR Congo and has lived in Rwanda for about 10 years. His family still live in Bukavu (DRC) near the border with Rwanda.

Traditional village life

Intelligence

untitled

Another advantage of meeting Kibe is that he is able to supply me with canvas for my own painting - and to make a frame for me to stretch it on!!
He has to travel to Kampala to get his materials, so it works out very expensive for him.

The Hacienda was turned into an art gallery for the day and we had our very own Artist in Residence - (no , not me!)








We made rice and beans and invited friends round to view the paintings and to have a go at making a community picture.

We had a really fun day and want to do it again soon!  
hope you can have fun making art too... just do it! 
Go to http://www.facebook.com/artworkscoop
Love Tx

Easter Time in Rwanda

Judy, Tricia and Mary Odette

This year in Rwanda Easter time coincided with the Genocide Memorial week which begins on April 7th and continues for one week. It marks the start of the 100 days of mourning to remember the genocide of the Tutsi and moderate Hutus. These ethnic groups no longer exist in Rwanda because of the deliberate government policy to ban these titles and 'We are all Rwandans' is the common phrase. 




So, on Easter Sunday we invited friends over to the Hacienda to watch films and to eat a meal together. We were a mixed group, with some new people who haven't been to the house before. This is another time of year when there are volunteers coming and going. People who we have shared our lives with are finishing their placements and returning to their home country and new people are arriving to take their places. It is a time for mixed feelings because you want to make new friends feel welcome and yet you are also sad to lose those 'old' friends.  


We watched two films. The first was called 'Sometimes in April'and is about Rwanda and the second was called 'Magdalene' which was about the life of Jesus. Somehow they seemed to be linked but it is difficult for me to explain why.So it was a thoughtful evening and I think appropriate for this time of year.


I did not get a holiday at Easter because there is so much work to do at the moment. So the following morning I was on the bus to Kigali to do some work for VSO. As a volunteer you have your specific placement but also you are expected to get involved in the work that needs doing on a national level.My task was to work with the other volunteers who are doing the same job as me across the country (Education Leadership Advisors)and to review our work in the light of a new relationship with the Rwanda Education Board. We were based in Kigali for 5 days working on the new model and designing training modules.

Working life

As you can see from the photo some people really enjoy their work!!!


We managed to get a great deal achieved that week and it is wonderful working with a small team of professionals who are doing it because they care and not just because they have to.


One of the brilliant things about working for VSO is that you meet people who like minded and who just want to do something useful with their skills. Nobody comes here thinking they are going to change the world, they come just offering whatever they have for as long as they can- from 3 months to two years.


Once again, if anyone who is reading this blog is undecided about working for VSO I have no hesitation in encouraging you to make enquiries on the website www.vso.co.uk 


Lots of love to everyone and I hope you had a Happy and Blessed Easter, Tricia

Developments in the Village - YAY!!

Sun Rise over the bus park

The closest market

Walking the last 45 mins of the journey

I took the first bus out of Git and caught the last bus back to Git. I left at 6am and returned home at 8pm having been on a bus for 3 hours and a moto ride for 5 hours and walked for an hour and half!!! - but it was worth it to see how well the village is developing. I could only spare one day away from work so it had to be done.




Just to remind you- Gasundwe Village is in Nyamasheke District next to the beautiful Lake Kivu. It is far easier to get to the village by lake and it is my preferred mode of travel. The area is stunningly beautiful but the life is very hard. There is no paid employment here so the people live a subsistence living by growing crops to eat and coffee to sell and by fishing in the lake. There is no water in the village and of course no electricity for miles around. 


The nearest school is one hours walk away, the nearest clinic is about 3 hours walk away. This is not unusual here in Rwanda, but what is unusual is that my friend from Rochdale used to live here before he had to escape in the early nineties. Fortunately that time is over and some of the family have returned to their home village. The Project was started last August and you can find more information on: 
http://rochdale2rwanda.webs.com/

Home

rochdale2rwanda.webs.com

By the way, if you buy Rwandan coffee which says it comes from the shores of Lake Kivu you will be buying Mama's coffee! She sends it with the other coffee growers to the co-operative in the nearest market town.


Also if you look carefully at Photo 2 you will see a small white dot on the hillside - that is the shiny new roof of Mama's house which, when it is finished will be a guesthouse for people wanting to experience a different way of life for  while. 


The project is intended to improve health, living conditions, education and life chances for all the villagers in Gasundwe. This will have a 'knock on' effect on the rest of the area (Gihombo Sector)The school is a Nursery school  - up to age 6/7years and we hope to extend to P1 next year. The villagers themselves are the driving force for change.

Such fat faced children!!

When I came to visit in December these children were skinny little things with hollow cheekbones - now look at them- full healthy cheeks! It's amazing what eating food every day will do for your body. 


If you want more information on the project please leave a comment or e-mail me tricia.atherton@gmail.com or message me on Facebook

Have you ever seen such a happy teacher in the UK?

The villagers have so many more plans, dreams and visions for their community, it is inspiring to be with them and I thank God every day for their survival. 




During the next few weeks beginning on April 7th (Easter Saturday) the country will commemorate the Genocide of the Abatutsi so this is a specially difficult time of year for many families. The  families of the victims and the remaining families of the perpetrators all suffer.


This Easter time lease pray for these wonderful people and their amazing country. I will be thinking of all my friends and family at home and around the world. 


Love and blessings to you, Tricia

The most remote school so far...

The headteachers sets off on his way to work

err we'll wait here for you...

 This week we visited the most difficult to access school so far - even people from the District and Sector Office have not visited this one. All the local headteachers said 'ooohhh you're going to Jandari? It is very far, very far.' The headteacher was concerned that we would have to walk, and wasn't sure that we were capable of walking.

Where is the school?

Lets go then, warrior queens do it like this..

First thing in the morning we had a one and half hour moto journey from home to Kanyanza , dropped our stuff off at the priests house, changed moto drivers to our local guys who know the tracks very well and are brilliant drivers. We had a  further moto ride for an hour over very rough terrain - going over a rocky mountain pass. Then we had to leave the motos and walk the rest of the way.


At this point we were at the top of the mountain range where the headteacher met us to show us the way. The school is in the valley by the river where the people can draw water. There is no road or even track into this valley but there is a small lovely community living there. When the guys saaw where we were heading they changed their minds about coming with us!


But we Warrior Queens don't give up that easily- downhill all the way for about 45minutes is tough on the knees, hips and front muscles at the top of the legs. But we kept going and in any case it is a change from aching bums, backs and abs from being on the moto.

Down, down, down following the headteacher

Yay and there it is at last!

The school is next to the river

A beautiful walk and a lovely setting - but everyday? 


The school was built as a satellite school to another one which is at the top of this mountain. It was situated where the people live to encourage parents to send their children to school.

A lovely school community of only 250 children

I stand in awe and admiration for this wonderful country and its amazing people.


The people are so determined to help in the development of their country. education is highly prized and hard won. sadly it comes as a huge contrast to my experience in the last few years of teaching in the UK, where many students just weren't interested in learning.


And here are those beautiful children. They never have visitors in their valley and yet three visitors in one day!! Add to that, that two of them have a strange skin colour and straight hair and blue eyes. They sang and played games with us and were just delightful.  

A great staff Team 

The school building

This small team of teachers work really well together, each taking on extra duties. Everyone of them managed to get to the training that we carried out at the Sector base and they really valued it. They have had no training before.We were delighted to observe the lessons and see some of the ideas being used by teachers.




The school building is in good condition and this shot shows the school bell which is rung at the beginning and end of school and at breaktimes. A child uses a rock to bang on the wheel and the sound rings out around the valley. Remember that these teachers run a double shift system where one set of children come in the morning and a different set come in the afternoon. The teachers start work at 7am and finish at 5pm.

Parents meeting

On the day of our visit the headteacher had arranged a Parents Meeting to discuss attendance and arrangements for the school year. We could see people coming to the school from miles around - they were dotted about the hillside and along the river bank, coming to support their children and take an interest in an education that they never had themselves.




At the end of the day of course there was the walk back up the hill and by this time the sun was beginning to go down.We had the scarey prospect of riding the rough roads in the dark. The moto drivers were waiting for us and we hit the road, but he night was clear and a bright moon assisted us on our way. There were the two planets, Venus and Jupiter lighting up the sky for us. 


It was a long drive home to the priests house but I have to say I really enjoyed it and felt blessed that I was able to have such experiences and to get to know such an environment and the people who live in it everyday.


Love to you all. Tricia

music and culture in Rwanda

Now take a good look at this guy's homemade guitar and never never complain that your instrument just isn't good enough. This guy makes his living by singing on the streets!




There's another instrument that I can't remember the name of but if I can I will get a photo to show you - it seems to have maybe one string or two and is played with a piece of metal - anyway maybe I can find a piccy and more info....


This week I went to my first film evening in a proper Cultural Centre in Kigali (I took a couple of days off work )there were four short films by young Rwandan directors and they were all really interesting. One was about 'Mama' and the life she had of looking after her children after her husband was killed , another about a boy who was attracted to the bright lights of Kigali. My favourite was about two street musicians struggling to make a living.


Enjoy all the cultural activities on offer in the UK. For some reason I really want to read Will shakespeare's 'Much ado about Nothing' - what's that about?? So ifanyone has a copy they can send meI would appreciate it = I just love the banter between Benedick and Beatrice!!!


Lots and lots of love Miss you allxxxx 

A beautiful Wedding

 Last week one of our beautiful volunteers got married to a lovely Rwandan man. It was such a beautiful day and the ceremony  was wonderful.








We are dressed in Mushananas which is the traditional costume for celebrations.....




....and here is the lovely bride and groom.

There are three parts to a marriage ceremony in Rwanda. The first part is the Civil Ceremony which is held at the local (umurenge) office and is the legally binding part of the marriage. This was held in the morning. 


Later on, in the afternoon the traditional dowry ceremony was held. This is a beautiful event and very fascinating in its traditions. The (extended) family is very important in Rwandan society and both families have to agree on the conditions of the marriage. The bride's family has to be assured that the grooms family are going to welcome his new wife and love her as much as they do their own daughters. Then there are traditions connected with cows and the giving of gifts. The bride is protected by her 'princes' until the groom comes to claim his Queen and prove his love. The whole ceremony is colourful and exciting - with dancing and drumming. It was a wonderful day. 


The third part of the wedding ceremony is where the couple are married by God in the church wedding. This part of the marriage will take place in Brigid's home church in Ireland.


They are a lovely couple and we all wish them a long and happy married life together.

Collecting water

The Dry Season is almost at an end. Until this week it hadn't rained at all since John and Cat were here in December. 


In my last blog I wrote about the red dust covering the roads and surrounding vegetation. The dust got deeper and deeper until it was inches thick. Everything turns brown and it is very difficult to keep things clean. We are lucky, we have running water most of the time in our house but during the dry season the water goes off frequently and so when the water is available I have to fill up the jerry cans and the big water butt so that we have water for all our daily needs. 


In the countryside it is not so easy because as the water sources dry up the women and children have to walk further and further down the hill to collect water and carry it back to their homes. When water is scarce you have to prioritise - so water for drinking and cooking comes before water for washing clothes.

cleaning the dust off my shoes

Shoes and feet turn orange with the dust and have to be cleaned regularly - I clean my shoes everyday - my Dad would be proud of me!!


To some-one who comes from the UK the Dry season is wonderful but to the farmers here it is very worrying if the dry season goes on too long. So last week I joined them in praying for rain and on Saturday it rained for the first time. There was great rejoicing. I must say the  world felt refreshed afterwards, the air was cleaner. But the season changes slowly and so far we have had rain on 3 out of the 7 days. This will increase as the days go by. It means that the road conditions vary now - sometimes there are still piles of dust everywhere and sometimes the roads are slippery because the earth cannot soak up the sudden rain.


Next blog I will show you photos of roads in Rwanda - no motorways but excellent tarmac roads (A roads) in urban areas or from big town to big town, then B roads, C roads and totally unclassifiable roads!!


Your Spring will be coming soon I'm sure the daffodils will be showing through - don't forget to let me know when you spot those gorgeous spring flowers.


Lots of love to everyone
Tricia

The Dry Season has returned

Well, the dry season is here with a vengeance and Judy and I are off on the road again! The tarmac roads in Rwanda are amazing and are kept in much better condition than the roads at home, but as soon as you leave the tarmac and hit the dirt tracks it's a different story. The one in the photo has been upgraded since last year and it's now wide and with a fairly smooth surface. But as you can see when a vehicle passes by the dirt flies and you get covered in a fine red dust. In the next photo you can see Judy on the bike in front - sorry about the wing mirror in the middle of the picture. When you leave these roads the travelling gets really tricky because the earth is so dry and the small rocks and stones move about under the wheels of the bike. At home we would call it a goat track.

This term we are up in another of the Northern sectors, carrying out training on Methodology and Lesson Observation skills. We stay at the Priests house for two or three nights every week because the journey is too long to do daily. Even when you get to the sector some of the schools are a really long way out. We can't wait to go and visit one particular school which is a long moto journey and then a walk up and down a mountain for almost one hour. I haven't found anyone who has visited it yet!Judy and I think of it as a mythical school where a headteacher invents the names of pupils and submits examination papers etc. Anyway, I'll let you know if we make it up there and back.

 Rongi Sector is one of the most remote parts of the district. There is no electricity at all, even in the Sector offices - only a few solar panels with enough energy to charge everyones mobile phones (lifesavers, here and very essential)The Education officer and the headteachers have to travel down to the next sector or to Muhanga to charge their laptops. It isn't possible to use  a desktop.

From our viewpoint on the back of the bikes we see this amazing project. As you will know Rwanda has many many steep hills and in the heavy rains the soil gets washed away so there are many projects to create terraces to retain the soil. But I have never seen a project as big as this one. All done by hand and everyone working together in the heat of the sun. Apparently the dry season will last until April when the rains will start again. I don't remember it being as dry as this last year, but I had only just arrived, so maybe I didn't notice.

Anyway, a cheery goodbye from the guys and thinking of you all in the cold dark winter, but spring is coming soon.


Lots love, Tricia

Keeping in Touch- PO Box 207, Gitarama, Rwanda

A word about the postal system…. Not quite pigeon post but sometimes it is very slow, then other times amazingly fast! The photo shows me at the Post Office collecting my mail on January 13^th. The Christmas card that I am holding was posted by my friends on December 1^st and they collected it from the box with me, so they arrived before the Christmas card! Ha ha.

I am trying to catch up with my blog posts, so I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch but hopefully the weekly messages will begin again soon.

Meanwhile, thank you to all those wonderful friends who sent greetings, messages, cards, presents, calendars and Year Planners. I can tell you that each and every one was most appreciated. The calendars have all been distributed to colleagues and were snapped up – thank you Jan!! The Year Planners are being distributed as I visit schools. There is one in our District Office and when the Director of Education told the Vice Mayor how useful it is she wanted one too!  I went up to the top floor armed with blu-tak and we stuck it up on the wall together.  I explained how to use it and she was delighted. I was particularly pleased because she is quite a formidable lady, being very tall and elegant, and I was happy to make this contribution – so thanks to Sara, Wendy and Ann.

 The work continues and some friends ask ‘But when you do these ‘trainings’ what do you actually do?’  The answer is that the trainings vary dependant on the needs of the school. But just recently I carried out a training session for a school community where some parents couldn’t see the point of children going to school when they could be out collecting firewood or doing something else useful. The school and the community were divided. Also, for the last three years the headteacher  has had to concentrate on new buildings and he needed  to re-focus on Teaching and Learning.

So we held a ‘Vision day’ with all the stakeholders, ie all the people connected to the school.  I used to do this once a year when I was headteacher of my school in Oldham.

The aim of the day is: To establish the purpose and future direction of the school.

Objectives/aims:

·         Consulting all the stakeholders

·         Gathering information about their community

·         Finding out what we want from our community and especially our school – What is our vision?

·         How are we going to make our vision happen

Firstly we played a game called ‘Crossing the River’ which helps the participants to understand that we have to work together as team to get safely across the river. This was followed by a drawing activity where each representative had to draw what was important to them in their community – so parents drew their fields and homes, teachers drew the school and the sector officers drew buildings, water tanks, electricity (there isn’t any!) etc. we collected the drawings together to show the varied interests.

The main part of the session was focused around a series of photos showing what was possible to achieve in a community with the school at the centre of learning. I have collected these photos over the past year whenever I have been to schools and seen good practice / new initiatives etc.  So they are all real situations that happen in schools in our district.

The photos provided a stimulus for the vision – they showed what is possible for the future. Having decided what we wanted the  school to be like in three years’ time we began to work out how we were going to get there – how were we going to ‘cross the river?’ We had a great time allocating tasks – including the serious suggestion that the headteacher should cook a mid-day meal for the teachers every day!! That one didn’t get through. But the serious issue behind that is that teachers are hungry – they often go a whole day without eating – and remember their working day is 7am-5pm with a long walk to school and home again. The children also need feeding during the day – these are serious problems which I can’t begin to solve without local knowledge. But a plan for the next three years is now in place, and the community is working with the school to make it happen.

Much of the practical work that needs doing, e.g. digging holes for new pit latrines or making a playground for playing football, making bricks for the toilet block, will be done by the community during ‘Umuganda’ which happens on the last Saturday of every month. On this day, throughout Rwanda, all other work stops – there are no buses running, no shops open, no banks open because everyone does community work in their local area.  It is a brilliant scheme and in the past many primary schools have been built during these times. Holes in the roads are filled, the rainwater drains are cleared of weeds and debris to keep the water flowing and avoid the laying of mosquito eggs and many other tasks. 

Anyway , that's enough for now. Lots love Tricia xx

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year 2012!!!

My resolutions are:

• To finish my placement to my satisfaction by limiting my focus to 3 main areas and 2 subsidiary areas
• To travel more within Rwanda to visit all the people I haven't yet visited because I have had my head in my work.
• To visit Zanzibar and Ethiopia
• To make the most of the rest of my time here
• To come home where I belong!

This weekend I celebrate the completion of 12 months in Rwanda and how exciting they have been. I look back on the photos of those first few days and can hardly believe my naivety!! Ha ha!

However, I am glad of that quality because it helped me to take the step of coming here and I’m so glad I did. I have made many new friends, both Rwandan and not Rwandan! And, the friendships that I left behind at home have become deeper and more important as the months have gone by. In addition,  I have had so many lovely visitors – if anyone else wants to come – take the opportunity whilst you can – I won’t be here forever!

I cannot begin to itemise all the wonderful experiences I have had nor even highlight special times, so we will have to wait until the book comes out!!

Add caption

The ending of an old year and the beginning of a new year always focuses the mind and it’s the same for me. 

My approach this year will take on a different aspect because now I have done as much as I can to build relationships with schools and headteachers and I need to work with the people and systems that it has taken me so long to understand. Also I have realised that I must focus down onto smaller ‘targets’ (hate that word!).

Then I have to maintain the work life balance and so I’ve made resolutions about travelling and enjoying the experience of living in Africa whilst I can. 

Amazing fabrics

Wonderful skills and a personal dressmaker

The variety and multiplicity of beans