This week in Kigali

New hangouts and even more new friends

My new favorite place to do my work!
Shokola Cafe (I think they're on Facebook)

This week I discovered a great place to setup my laptop and do work. I'm lucky that my co-worker is very flexible and welcomes the change of scenery every now and then. He told me about a cool little ex-pat haven called Shokola, which I never would've noticed even though it's only two blocks from my house. It's basically a large tent with couches and tables - very cozy. The conversations I overhear there are great. Last time the table next to me was planning to film a documentary of Rwandan families for an NGO, and the girls behind me were American and British university-aged volunteers.

On Monday the people sitting next to me, two guys with a lot of backpacking gear, asked what I was doing in Kigali. They both live in Holland and are space engineers who are visiting friends in Rwanda. They'd just gotten back from Akagera National Park (where I'm going this weekend). Since they didn't know much about Kigali and seemed really nice, I invited them to trivia that night, which takes place every Monday at a local pizza restaurant. I'd also told the American volunteers with Hope Shines about it (the people staying at my guest house), so we ended up with quite a large trivia team and came in fourth overall! The trivia was actually kind of brain-teasing: for example, what is the only mobile national landmark in the U.S.? Answer: trolley cards in San Fran. Who knew?

Last night I had dinner with the German girl I met last week who works for a catholic aid organization. She has been living in Africa for 6 years and told me a story about when she had to hide in her house for several days. This was another country - not Rwanda - by the way. Stories like that add to my amazement by the people who are lifetime ex-pat aid workers. She said she never wants to return to Germany and actually really loves living in the Congo.

Jean de Dieu
At Rwanda Orphans Project I've been tutoring a high school boy named Jean de Dieu, which literally means "John of God." He's the same boy I mentioned in my last post. Since I was having trouble remembering economics, the subject he needs help in, I dove into the internet and tried to pull-up some formulas and such for us to go over today. I think he is probably getting the impression that I am not good at economics :) But we got through a lot of his exam today.

He walked me back to the place where I could get motos and asked about 100 questions about America. He asked me how America was able to have an industrial revolution. He wanted to know how my city compared to Kigali. He wanted to know how Virginia compared to Kigali. We had one conversation where he said that all Americans have good standards of living. I was starting to tell him that in fact many Americans live below the poverty level before he qualified his statement. By good standards of living he meant food, water, healthcare, etc. Then he told me, "For example, I know a family who only has food for every other day. So they jump a day then they get to eat the next. Then they jump another day." At the very least, every American has clean drinking water and homeless shelters, etc. So I decided not to explain to him what it means to be poor in America. I've heard a couple of people try to do that here and it gets dismissed pretty quickly.

B/c of no textbooks, I scoured the internet to put this
little cheat sheet of formulas together

Jean de Dieu continues to impress me with how studious and eager to learn he is! He told me the entire history of colonization in Africa and then how the U.S. was founded. He always has a million questions, which is fun. It's interesting though, you might assume that he's working so hard because he wants to go to college or has a career goal. Today he told me that he doesn't think he can go to university because his grades won't be high enough for a scholarship. He was first in his class last semester he told me proudly. But, even that, he said, isn't enough. He works hard at school purely because he seeks to do well in school; not because he sees it leading to a future. I find that interesting, a little hard to digest, and something that I want to research. Surely a boy who's top of his class and super motivated can get a scholarship, right?

A school in Kigali

I thought you might find some pictures of a local school interesting. Notice that they advertise how important English is because it only just became the 2nd official language in 2008. You can imagine that this was probably a difficult transition for teachers who were used to teaching in French!

Signs promoting English all over the school

Weekend plans
Tomorrow I'm going to work a half day (everyone has half days on Fridays in Kigali) and then volunteer with the Hope Shines Camp! I'm excited for that! Then Saturday I'm going with their volunteers to Akagera, as I mentioned. Akagera has a lot of animals, so I should come back with some fun pictures from that. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! As always, I love and miss you all!

Always,
Meredith