Primary School Opening 10-21-13

I've mentioned in previous posts the building of a new Youth for Christ primary school.  Youth for Christ opened their second primary school, Future Hope School in Cibitoke.  I was able to attend the opening ceremony along with other YFC staff.  At the ceremony, there were drummers.  Burundi is famous for their drumming, and this was my first real opportunity to see them! 

Youth for Christ rented tents for guests to sit under during the presentation.  All the children were all lined up neatly outside their classrooms.  I attempted to run by the kids and give them high fives, but the kids didn't know how to give high fives!  Whoops.

JR with some of the local children outside the school's gate.

For the occasion, YFC rented special outfits for female staff.

The new computer lab at the school!

During the ceremony, the classes did different presentations.  The kids learn primarily in French, like other schools in Burundi.  The kids also learn the local language, Kirundi, and English.  English is taught by two women from Uganda, and one from South Carolina.  The primary supporter of the children's home and school is a group in Australia called Villages of Life.  About six people from Australia came for the opening ceremony.  The second kid in the video is shouting, "My name is Nicole Ninziza.  I am in grade 2.  My school is Future Hope School.  I appreciate your support for my future.  Thank you very much."

So, thank you!  With your help, I was able to give colored pencils to each classroom, some pencils, sharpeners and staplers to the school and children's home.

Body Language 10-21-13

If you come to Burundi, there are a couple of things you should know before you come.

When I first got here, I noticed how friendly the people were.  I would wave and them, and sometimes they would run up to greet me or run to the car I was in!  I found out later, some of that may have been because I was asking them to come.  If you hold your hand up like your waving, and bend your fingers, it literally means, "Come."  So, before you come, you may want to practice the princess wave...wave without bending your fingers.

Although people were friendly and happy to meet you, sometimes I would get frustrated when I asked questions, and a person didn't respond.  In America, we may nod our head to say "Yes" or shake our head to say "No."  In Burundi, someone may have said, "Yes" to a question you asked, you just didn't see it.  Here, if someone raises their eyebrows then drops them, it means "Yes."

When you greet someone, you often shake hands when you first see them and shake hands when you depart.  It's common in Burundi and probably other parts of Africa to brace the elbow of your shaking had with the hand of your left elbow.  This shows respect to the person you are greeting.  Also, don't be surprised if the person you talk to wants to hold your hand for awhile.

Soccer Match 10-15-13

Occasionally, we play matches against the students.  Since most of the staff enjoys playing soccer, we started this school year with a soccer match.


I played a fullback, near the goal.  JR, our headmaster, was the goalie.  Unfortunately, I didn't do the best job, and we lost.  But, I guess it's better to have 20 unhappy staff than 180 unhappy kids!  The kids had fun, and posed for some pictures after the match.

Our French teacher.

Students watching from the steps that go down to the field.

Looking over the wall for a lost ball.

Preparing for the game.

Yoga 10/14/13

Sometimes, the other missionaries I live with do Yoga.  Sometimes they do Insanity.  Last night, a couple of our visitors joined in...and so did the orphan kids!  They copied the movements of the people on the porch.  It was pretty cute.

 

Student Behavior 10/08/2013

So, what are the differences between students in Burundi and American students?  I was thinking about this recently, and I've come up with a list of ten things.

1) Enthusiasm
The kids often want to learn, especially on lab days.  One day this past week, after lecture, several of the boys came up to my desk and asked questions during break. 
One boy came up to me after class and gave me a homework assignment!  He wants me to look up the temperature of lava in volcanos.  His friend later told me that he spends a lot of time afterschool in the library looking at science books.
I did a lab last week where students played with cornstarch and water.  When you hit it or try to move quickly, it's hard like it's solid.  But, when you move slowly, it acts like goo.  One student was sick when we did the lab.  They asked if they could do the lab, even though they were excused from it.

2) Experiences

I often take too many things I know for granted.  I sometimes forget that at some point, I learned how to do certain things.

One lab I did with some of the older students.  We used an eye dropper.  Several students have never used one!  They would put the end of the eye dropper in the bottle, then squeeze the end, and then lift it up expecting the dropper to be full.

I started Arts and Crafts this week and did a needlework craft.  I probably threaded 60 needles.  I don't think sewing or needlework is something many of the kids have done.  I have not seen large needles in the market.

I knew from my experiences the 2nd term last year that I should probably start at the beginning with science for the new 7th graders.  We are now finishing up their first labs based on measurements.  They learned to measure length, volume, mass and temperature.

3) Love of Music

A large majority of the students love to sing--boys and girls alike.  For chapel, there might be 30 girls that come up to sing a song.  On field trips, the students will sing on the bus.

Often during class, at least one student will receive a dirty look from me for tapping their pen on their desk.  One day during labs, one of the new 7th grade classes finished early.  The different lab stations started drumming rhythms on their tables in unison.  Unfortunately, the video I tried to sneak while this was happening was corrupted.  Burundi is famous for their drummers, and the love for drumming must seems to start early.

The kids here would love to learn musical instruments, but unfortunately, we don't have much.  We have two guitars, a couple of keyboards, and a drum set.  We struggle keeping them in working order.
 
4) Respect

When I correct a student or a student gets in trouble, they generally don't respond negatively.  Students don't yell at me and generally don't argue.  When I ask for something, I will hear the response, "Yes, teacher."  That doesn't mean they always do what I ask, but I appreciate the polite response.

5) Hanging Out

Outside of class, the students genuinely want to hangout with you, and they want to see pictures from America.  They will ask you to join them playing cards or eating lunch.  On Fridays, I will sometimes manage supplies for activities like badminton, chess, cards, jumpropes and a puzzle.  The kids have started to play chess, and I would like to find some more time to teach them some strategies.

6) PDA - Physical Displays of Affection

I've never seen two kids making out at my school, and we have had very few problems between boys and girls.  Our kids are between 11 years old and 22.  The boys spend most of their time with boys, and the girls spend most of their time with girls. At lunches and in classes, the boys and girls generally prefer to sit separately.  Burundi culture is different than America as far as boys and girls.  It probably makes my job a lot easier! On the other hand, my last class ended by me calling a boy back into my classroom so he would return a stolen shoe back to the owner (a girl).

7) Auditory Learning

The majority of the education in Burundi is done by teachers talking in the front of a room filled with students, and students being tested on what the teacher said.  Some schools the students take notes and write, other schools the students can't afford notebooks.  I think this does two things: the kids are pretty good at paying attention during class and they are good auditory learners.  But...it also means that students struggle with reading assignments, hands on activities like labs, creative thinking, and sometimes critical thinking.

8) Vocabulary and Humor

Most of my students are learning English as their third language.  So, as a result sometimes their learning and sense of humor is restricted by their English vocabulary.  Sometimes I struggle finding a way to make students laugh or enjoy lectures.

I'm learning to be more animated while teaching.  Today I used basketballs to demonstrate heat and particle motion.  I threw one basketball into another one on the floor to demonstration how heat goes from one moving particle to another.  When one of the 7th graders was talking when he shouldn't have been, I acted like I was going to throw the ball toward him.  I didn't expect him and everyone surrounding him to jump back so far!  It was pretty funny.  They were definitely paying attention afterwards, but it probably wasn't the best thing to do as a teacher.

9) Stealing

Sometimes, things disappear.  Generally, they are small things that students know they can get away with.  I have to keep track of everything that is on my desk, and make sure I'm near my backpack.  Hanna's 32GB flash drive recently went "missing" when we were setting up the computer lab's machines.  So far, either I've done pretty good job this semester keeping track of things, or the students are doing better at not taking things.  Perhaps we are succeeding in teaching them integrity.

10) Gifts and Sharing

Occasionally a student will give me a nice note or a gift.  We are at a boarding school, so they can't buy anything except what we have in the small school store.  Students and Burundians share a lot and give a lot to each other.  The girls exchange shirts and shoes often.  One time, Hanna came to school and complimented a lady at school on her shirt.  The next day, the lady came in and handed that shirt to Hanna.

Gas Station 10/8/2013

The people from Burundi are mainly from two tribes--the Hutu and Tutsi.  In 1993, the Hutu president was killed by the Tutsi.  This sparked a civil war in Burundi between the tribes, and contributed to the genocide in Rwanda.  An unbelievable amount of people were killed in both countries.

During my time here, I was able to talk to one of the Youth For Christ leaders in my town, Peter.  He shared the events his family went through during that time.

During the war, Peter's older sister was at a boarding school a few miles west of the town of Gitega, where we live.  Peter's sister was about 22 at the time, and was attending high school at a school named Kibimba.  The headmaster of the school was Hutu, while either the majority or all of the students were Tutsi.  Hutus, including the school's headmaster, marched the students and other local Tutsis to a gas station.  They forced the
m inside, and burned the gas station.  The rest of the students were rounded up and killed, but I don't remember how.  Peter's sister was among the students that were rounded up.

When the evening came, locals came to the gas station and searched for survivers.  Peter's sister was found unconcious and breathing beneath others that were killed.  She had survived with only an injury to her wrist or her arm.  The local people hid her, and she was able to notify her family that she survived a couple days after the massacre.


 
The massacre happened 20 years ago in October 1993.  A memorial has been built next to the gas station and I was finally able to see it this past weekend while traveling to the capital, Bujumbura.  The sign on the memorial says, "Never Again."  Indeed, I pray nothing like the genocide happens in Burundi again.

 

A couple of months ago, Peter's sister got married, and Peter attending her wedding.

Below are a couple of websites with better pictures.  Unfortunately, like many events during the war, it's not well documented.  One site doesn't mention the students killed outside the gas station.  The websites say between 70 and 100 people were killed.  Most sites don't say that local people were killed.  One says the memorial is in the town of Gitega, when the truth is that it's in the province of Gitega (not the town).  Another site says, "Gilbert Tuhabonye was the sole survivor of the school massacre. He managed to use the charred bone of a schoolmate to break a window and run to freedom." He might be the only survivor of the gas station, but not of the massacre.

I think I may ask Peter for some more information.  I would like to post this on the blog...but I will probably have to make changes to this post later.  :)

http://www.war-memorial.net/Memorial-to-the-Kibimba-School-Massacre-1.283
http://fortuneofafrica.com/burundi/index.php/2012-10-22-13-19-30/kibimba-memorial-site
http://unvisitedplaces.com/Burundi/07.jpg.html

Kombucha 10/2/2013

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jacque and Hanna.  They can be a lot of fun. 

When Jacque came, she brought a mixture with her called Kombucha.  Kombucha is a solution that is supposed to have probiotics--or bacteria that is good for your body.  It works kinda like friendship bread.  You take some from a friends batch, add things to it, let it sit for a few days, then drink the majority of it.  Then do it again.  It's not sanitized, and I have no idea how you know you're not raising bad bacteria or other things.  So, I haven't touched kombucha.  I've decided that the next batch that is ready I should look at under the microscope.

A couple weeks ago, I did get sick for a day.  I think it was related to something I ate, but I don't know what.  No one else got sick.  Thankfully, I wasn't sick for long.  But I have to say...my stomach sounded like a rain stick and at least that was interesting.

The kitchen staff at school and the lady that cooks for us at home have done a good job.  I have been healthy.  The kids at school are washing their hands with soap more, and drinking tap water less.  Almost everything here is boiled, peeled or cooked.  I eat a lot of beans, rice, potatoes, pasta, and vegis.  Dishes are washed with soap.  We don't have a refrigerator where I live or at school, so I avoid leftovers.  The leftovers from school feed the pigs.

But...having a Mom who was a health inspector and being one of two people with a B.S. degree at school, sometimes things aren't easy.  I have been told things like:

• Eating boiled eggs two days later is ok.
• Meat [or anything] reheated a day later is still good.
• "I don't believe in germs."
• "Don't say your going to get sick or it will come true."

It's not a surprise that the volunteers and people here have had a variety of different food borne illnesses.  I do love Burundi, but sometimes abiding by basic food sanitation rules is impossible, and my encouragement to do so can be viewed as a nuisance. Que sera, sera! TIA (This is Africa.) :)

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha
Kombucha is a lightly effervescent fermented drink of sweetened black tea that is used as a functional food. It is produced by fermenting the tea using a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, or "SCOBY". Although kombucha is claimed to have several beneficial effects on health, these claims are not supported by scientific evidence. Drinking kombucha can cause serious side effects or even death, especially if the tea has become contaminated through improper preparation.[1]