National University of Rwanda Graduation Ceremony

 

One of my first tasks as a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine was to attend the graduation of our students and postgraduates who finished their medical training last year. It is a major event for the country, with about 3500 students graduating from NUR, and thus last Friday the roads to NUR were packed (we walked there from the hospital!). There was a real sense of occasion with everyone in suits and academic gowns with silly hats and many thousands of people thronging the streets.

As a (newly appointed) member of Faculty, I got to wear my own silly hat, hang out in the Cloisters pre-ceremony and then be part of the grand entrance procession, complete with marching brass band:

The guests of honour were the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, the former Head of the East African Community, and the Rwandan Minister of Education.

With such a distinguished guest list, the paparazzi were out in force, and were especially keen to get my photo*:

* possible slight exaggeration

At the end of the six hour ceremony, which included the National Anthem, speeches, Intore dancers and a full roll call of the 3500 graduands, the new doctors assembled to say their Hippocratic oath, with the doctors present serving as witnesses:

It was a really exciting day to be part of, and great to see so many students who I have taught over the last 12 months cerebrating their success and taking the next step in their careers.

 

I’ll leave you with a few shots of our munchkins, fence climbing, painting and modelling the latest in wearable avocado tree fashion:

William Starts School

On Monday William and Gideon had their first day at the local Ecole Internationale des Parent de Butare (French International School). He was primed and excited.

William and Gideon excitedly sat down with all the other children and got out the pencil cases I had made for them. Hannah settled in. The teacher was as disappointed as she was that she was too young to stay. Parents hung around to talk to the teacher and get the book list (I had thought it was strange one needed printing out for me when I went and asked for it the week before – obviously not the done thing). 1 hour and 15 minutes later, when the teacher had not yet started doing anything with the kids and nearly half the class was crying, including William and Gideon, I took them home. What a stressful environment! I suppose culturally it is necessary for the teacher to pay attention to the parents while they are present, rather than the children (it’s the same at kids birthday parties where entertainment is more focused on the parents). But many of the kids, aged three, were scared and bored and quite upset.

Clementine, the kids and I spent the rest of the morning in quite a different context. We visited the Iwacu centre for street kids, run by an English man named David. Interestingly, it was next door to the house where Clementine and her family lived during the genocide.

 

 

Clementine, who worked for years with street kids (as did her husband), said you could really tell the boys were fresh off the streets. There were signs on their faces of smoking and malnutrition. They were very excited when David walked through the gate, greeting him with a hug and big smiles, and then greeted us very politely. Hannah got cuddles, we played hangman, and the boys told us a bit about themselves. They LOVED their drumming lesson from the local university’s head of drumming, and I was very impressed at their skill! They were just kids. Who have it tough. The centre does a fantastic job of trying to meet their needs.

Tim and I were rather impressed in the afternoon when William walked in with this butterfly he had made for us, all of his own creation!

I spent the evening reflecting on William and school, trying to work out what to do. Tim told me to stop whining and be proactive – good advice. So on Tuesday morning I made a big batch of playdough, and bought enough tubs to make it easy to distribute to the class. Then Clementine and I wrote a guide for ways to use playdough in the classroom. Clementine translated it into Kinyarwanda (and when Caroline and her family came for running club that night she translated it into French too). I delivered the playdough to the teacher after she had farewelled her class, and asked if we could have a chat. She was very reassuring, saying that she tries to love the kids as her own, because that’s what she wants for her kids (who attend the school), and that it is helpful if parents can trust the teacher (very true). She has a different approach to settling kids in – they cry for the first week, then they’re OK. It’s easier if they all attend the first week so that they finish crying at the same time (also true, especially in this approach). I asked if she’d mind letting the kids play with the playdough when they arrived because I thought it would help Will and Gideon settle faster. Her first reaction was to say no. However…

When Tim and I dropped Will off this morning the teacher had playdough out for some of the kids, and quickly gave some to the screaming William. We said goodbye quickly and left, as we figured he would settle faster once the farewells were over. And the teacher was right – the class, three days in, was already much more settled and not many children were upset. She took William into her arms, told him gently, “Now I am your mother too”, and walked into the class with him.

That was 7.45am. At 12.45pm we will pick him up and hear how the day went!

A mending day to end my holidays

 

I’m back to work at the hospital on Monday. And after two weeks off, I’m feeling much more relaxed and grateful for the opportunity to be working here. To be honest, by the end of last year, I was feeling more and more tired and like I deserved special treatment because of the work I was doing. Now that I’m better rested I’ve got things back into some perspective: it’s my privilege to be here, to do the work and teaching that I love. It’s great to be called somewhere by God and to be able to put the skills he’s given my to use.

Inevitably there’s a bunch of little jobs around the house that need doing over the holidays. And equally inevitably, I don’t get around to most of them until the holiday is almost over. We’ve got leaking taps, towel rails lying on the bathroom floor, and a non-functional washing machine because of an electrical fault. Those were all relatively easily fixed: even the washing machine, which miraculously decided to start working again of its own accord three months after it last worked, and in spite of all my attempts to open and clean it, reseat electronics and so forth.

But the job that I’ve been thinking about most was the annoying fact that our computer and anything connected to it (iPod, speakers, Kindles etc) gives any barefoot person who touches it a nasty shock. I thought initially it was an electrical fault, but on testing, it seemed to be a problem caused by our voltage regulator, which all electronics here have to be connected to in order to avoid damage. It lacked an earth pin, which meant everything connected to it could not be earthed and any small ground leak from the computer built up on the case. It’s very painful and annoying and potentially quite dangerous for the children.

So here’s the solution I sorted out, running a piece of house wiring cable from the PC case:

across the room to the (filed down) steel cap on an old water pipe in the corner of our room, just opposite the meter box on the external wall:

Now effectively I’ve wired my own earth from the computer (and anything else connected on that side of the voltage regulator) to the house earth. It’s working a treat, which means no more taking my foot off the floor as I connect the camera to post these photos!

In other news, Will starts school on Monday (at age 3 1/2, in French at a local school where Catherine will also be helping with curriculum development for the teachers), and we’ve just got back from 5 days at Kumbya. We spent the first two (wet) days camping, and then moved into a cabin for the last 3 nights. We also had a New Year’s Eve bonfire! Here’s a pic of the kids “playing with fire” at our campsite.

Happy New year and blessings from all of us,

Tim

Christmas

We were surprised to wake up before the kids on Christmas morning. We found them cuddled up together in their bed as usual, and watched with delight as they woke and wandered out into the lounge room to see the tree with presents underneath.

William was excited to receive a top with numbers on it (so he can be on a ‘team’ he said – every morning he asks to wear a top with numbers), and Hannah felt very pretty in her new dress from Aunty Miriam and Uncle Mason.

After church, which included lots of singing and some dancing, we returned to orchestrate the rest of the lunch cooking, with help from our guests. 4 Australians (that’s us), 3 Germans, 3 Belgians, 1 Canadians, 1 Canadian/Britt and 1 Rwandan made up the party. It was good fun.

In case you’re wondering how we know these people, 3 of them (2 German, 1 Rwandan) are in the running club we’re part of on Tuesdays, 4 are Belgian/Canadian medical students doing a few weeks at the hospital with Tim, 1 (German) works for the Anglican diocese next door for the year, and 1 (Canadian/Britt) is the brother of a good friend who returned to the UK for Christmas leaving his visitor behind for a short time. They were a friendly bunch.

The kids thought eating their Christmas lunch in the tree house was pretty special. We finished the afternoon by playing cricket and board games into the evening. It was a good day: a memorable way to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

Some Recent Pics

 

ABOVE: William emerged from his room dressed ready for crocodile hunting.
BELOW: What a weird egg! It only had one yolk too. The one in the centre is a normal size, for comparison. The one on the right is from our chooks.

ABOVE: We babysat two of the Portal kids overnight, which really stretched my almost non-existent French! Now the weather has warmed up the kids are frequently enjoying their farewell present from Lisa: a paddling pool.

BELOW: We had our first Christmas celebration at our friend Nick’s house. We all enjoyed the time together, the pass the parcel game, and the great food. I was so pleased to find Hannah’s hair is finally long enough to braid!

ABOVE: Nick, his visiting brother Tim and colleague Nicola, me and the kids.

Visit to a Catholic Community & Chapel

 

Butare is known as The Little Vatican because it has about 100 communities of Catholic Nuns and Brothers. We visited one with our friends the Portals; the only other missionary family we know of in Butare.

After a lovely (as far as we could tell) service in French in the little chapel, we explored the beautiful garden and new brick making project on the grounds. Afterwards we shared a really delicious lunch with the community.