The more things are different, the more things stay the same. I wanted to start things off with this quote, but the fact is that it's just not true. Two weeks ago, I landed in Kigali (under somewhat questionable conditions), and while not everything is different, many things have changed. Already, I have experienced crushing homesickness, and learned the hard way that while it's healthy to let those feelings out, self pity is entirely and utterly useless. Last Saturday morning, I was making a cup of coffee. And I was overtired, because I don't sleep much here, and feeling incredibly, horribly anxious about the start of school. I can't really say what tipped it off. I was staring at the counter, which I hate because it looks perpetually dirty, and stirring my coffee, and then I just slipped into this ridiculous exhaustive crying. It was all very dramatic. At that point in time, everyone in Canada was just heading to sleep, and my roommate was sleeping in that morning. So there I was, stuck all by myself, with this stupid cup of coffee and a perpetually dirty looking counter and this nasty bubble of homesickness that would not be let go with a few crocodile tears, but with the sort of large body-heaving sobs you simultaneously feel ridiculous for having and which you inexplicably require to get the sad bits out. Somewhat pathetically, I laid there for an hour and then it eventually trailed into the normal sad cry and then I just stared at the sunlight on the walls thinking, "It's so nice outside and here you are. Weeping. The breeze is even nice, like a fall afternoon. And yet here you are." Eventually I decided that was enough of that and went off to do some sort of mundane task. I was nearly weepy all the rest of the day, but I decided that I wasn't going to go to that place anymore, and eventually I had an alright evening. I made it through my first week of full time teaching. Teaching IB (unqualified for it), teaching IGCSE (unqualified for it), and feeling all the pressure in the world on me to help these kids be successful so they had a shot of opportunity at this world made me feel pretty rough. In the staff meetings the week before, I was repeatedly told by one teacher all the planning I'd done was wrong, and soon, by another teacher, all the planning I did was just fine. Magically, I also became the person to write a written curriculum for Grade 7 English. Not unit plans based on objectives already in place, but the actual document teachers could base their teaching on and assess their students against. Until this point, the school had no such thing for grade 7 and 8. They wanted a first draft overnight and I delivered but it wasn't pretty and I rage cried a lot, but kept working because that's what you do when you're a grown up. I have the fortune of having a very compatible roommate. We both like the same level of cleanliness, the same foods, and we've divided things up nicely. Lately, we've been making dinners together and talking over dinner for an hour or more. We found these two oven safe glass bowls in our apartment recently, so we've been making large meals in each for both of us to just eat directly out of. There's a lot of melted cheese happening. We come back from the markets on Saturdays and we're both wayyyyyy excited about all the food. The market is truly a treasure. The first time Michelle and I went, her mentor teacher, Lance, took us there. He took us to the fabrics first. There's really no easy way to describe it. The market is covered and the lighting inside is a bit dim, but you wouldn't even notice once you caught sight of all the patterns and bright colors. Rows and rows of tiny booths are filled top to bottom with carefully selected patterns and colors. A piece of fabric runs about 5000 franc. From that you can make shirts, skirts or pants. From three pieces you can make a dress. Each fabric vendor has a tailor he/she prefers. The moment you've picked a pattern, they call their tailor up. You can have clothing made in any design or style you want - just bring a photo or draw a picture. The tailor takes your measurements, and for 5000 franc and a week's worth wait, you have new clothing! We have since made friends with Lilyose, a vibrant lady who stays at the market 7AM-10PM, selling her fabrics. The market is organized in sections. After the fabric section, there is a section for toiletries and cosmetics, electronics, purses, a very large section dedicated to shoes (new and used), a significant section dedicated to clothing rejects from thrift shops (worth much more here than they were in North America), a hardware section, a handicrafts section, and most significantly, all the fresh food you could ever hope to see. The area for food is so large and so full that you can't see the whole room in one glance. There's a specific place for fruits, lentils, potatoes and vegetables. I think there's even a flower section. On our first day at the market, Michelle and I came home with the North American equivalent of likely $75 of fresh food, purchased for about 14 000 franc. We ate dinner for less than $3 last night: potatoes fried with tomato sauce, wrapped in lettuce, and fresh pineapple for dessert. During our first day exploring the market, Lance also took us on a drive around the city. We had been stuck in this little pocket of Kigali, and while it is beautiful, so was the rest of the city too. There is a million people living in Kigali's rolling hills, but there is so much greenery you don't feel claustrophobic. Everywhere has a breathtaking view. I feel so much love for this city and its people and its ways of life. The first week of school was hectic. Green Hills doesn't finalize its timetables for students until .... today. Or maybe tomorrow. Who knows. Class lists were also not finalized, so there was no way to tell students whether they were in your class or not. Also, the school started a new system to get rid of the problem of people who just never paid tuition, and of parents who dumped their kid at Green Hills for a few weeks of babysitting before shipping them off to an American school. That system was to verify that the student's first term fees had been paid. Okay, fine. The problem was that Finance had not kept records of who paid when, and so as the administration tried to sort out which students could walk into our halls and which students could not, homeroom teachers sat around waiting for their homerooms to trickle in for almost two hours. I am a homeroom teacher, so I had to help my grade 11 students, new to the IB program, figure out why their timetables looked like seven levels of hell, and where they were really supposed to go (for every period of every day, every possible option/course for IB running during that period was listed). The rest of the week was spent doing that. I met my 11 IB class (different from my homeroom), but there was only 10 students. The next time I met them, there was 30, and my principal happened to walk in on my lesson and it was not that organized because none of us knew where who was supposed to be. I met 9C, which has a few big, but manageable personalities. I met my 7s, who I had the most fun with. I must have spent a half hour trying to learn their names, because they were so foreign to my tongue. We had a lot of good laughs about it (and still do a week later), and it really set the tone for our class. We're pretty silly, but I think I might've scared them on the first day because when I need them to crack down to work, they snap to it pretty quickly. The second day of school, I also met my 9A class. There's one more student in that class than my other 9 class, but they are a whole other level of wild. Most everyone in that class is a big personality, and really, they're good kids. I've slowly, slowly been trying to mold their behaviour so that not everyone is talking over each other without hearing what others are saying. It's slow going. Today I gave them a seating plan and that sobered them quite a bit (my other classes are responsible enough to sit with their friends without much monitoring from me). My grade 11 IB hardly talk, but I think they're starting to warm to my humor. The rest of my classes are full of laughs. I think that, while it will be hard for me to keep up with the demands of these weird curricula, it will be a good year. I have some pretty amazing teacher colleagues here. I think all of us are wearing too many hats to see each other much, and there is no staff room at the school, but I suppose they're there if they need me. The English department has another two new teachers, Leith and Kristine. The original English department has Judith (I would say she's mid 30s, and has a whole lot of sass - and love - in her), Josephine (the IB guru), Rachael (due to have a baby yesterday, or two weeks ago - you know how it gets when ladies are nearing the 9 month pregnant mark), Anna (the vice principal, and - I think - to both our surprise, my mentor - more on that later), and also some guy named Dan who is in Europe until October? I also have the privelege of working under a fabulous administrator, Alan Shanks. He came from Columbia and Venezeula before. All the staff love him. He has probably about one million things happening in his head at once as he tries to get Green Hills up to a much better standard. He is very supportive of his staff and their needs. He is a strong leader - he makes you work hard, but you want to work for him. And all the teachers said that they never felt threatened if he happened to wander into their class. He supports growth and mistakes. On the day before I started teaching, I was in my class getting a few things ready. He came in and gave me the best pep talk. He told me that Green Hills was hard to be a new teacher at, let alone a first year teacher. He made himself available for any questions I had. He told me to toss out my planning this first week and just do something I loved and was interested in. And I did, and it calmed my nerves a bit, and of course I think it was good for the kids. He asked me if I had had any meetings with my mentor. I didn't even know I had one! Right that moment he dropped everything he was doing and got my mentor teacher in touch with me, and also blocked our timetables so that we met on Fridays without being worried about covering another teacher's lessons. He has been checking in frequently with me. I also discovered he shares my assessment philosophy, which was quite a relief, especially after discovering all other teachers submit all their marks as one monthly grade. Also this week I was sort of voluntold to be the badminton couch for my House (Mandela House) team. And you are now reading from the extracurricular options teacher in Japanese Language and Creative Writing. Wayyyy busy. In my most recent adventures, Michelle and I took a moto-taxi for the first time. It's exactly what it sounds like - a taxi that is a motorcycle. They have helmets for you with straps that usually don't buckle, and it's a bit much to get over thinking how many other heads have been in those helmets. While I don't mind motorcycles (obviously), traffic in Rwanda is a bit alarming. Though there are road signs and painted lines, it would be a far stretch to even call those guidelines. There is very little required for someone to get their license. Traffic jams happen routinely, people pass into oncoming traffic all the time, and the moto-taxis weave through it all, into the tiniest of spaces. At one point, I was definitely touch another car and another motorcycle. Residents are used to this of course, and you can see them sitting nonchalantly on the back carrying such things as a toilet, or texting with their phone in both hands. I'm not sure I'll ever be that blase about the whole experience. So there's over two weeks passed in Rwanda. I suck at blogging, so you get another long post. Also I have a mailing address now: Meagan Fullerton-Lee, c/o Green Hills Academy PO Box 6419 Nyarutarama Kigali, Rwanda Mostly right now I miss hot chocolate. And a washer and dryer (hand washing clothes sucks!)
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Meagan Fullerton-LeeMeagan is an aspiring teacher, voracious reader, tentative motorcyclist, and passionate gardener. In all things she sees education. Here she shares her passions. Archives
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