RACHAEL IN RWANDA FCYF is grateful to Rachael Shopland and all the other volunteers who, over recent years, have allowed us to share some of their blog entries on our website. Their words bring to vivid life the day-to-day activities and experiences of these intrepid adventurers, who come to Musanze in their quest to learn more about another culture than their own, and to be of service to people less fortunate than them, for a few weeks or a few months. Rachael was FCYF's final volunteer to arrive in 2011 and the first to join us via our new volunteer placement partner, Accountants for International Development. A highly experienced accountant, she arrived in August for six weeks, and very quickly decided to extend her stay to three months. Although Rachael's role was to work with FCYF and Wisdom School staff to upgrade financial and management systems, you will see as you read the blog entries for her final month in Musanze that her days were far more varied than such a job description might suggest. As a result, Rachael can now legitimately add house rebuilding and hearing testing experience to her many other accomplishments on her CV! She also wins a gold star for fund-raising for FCYF. FCYF thanks Rachael for her contribution to the foundation which will live on after her. She earned high praise from our leadership: A STRONG WOMAN! As you read her blog entries (with the most recent first) you will surely get a sense of why people in Musanze so enjoyed working with Rachael and hope to see her back among us very soon. Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Farewell Rwanda
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| My walk to work |
So sadly, today is my last day
(for now!) in Rwanda. Tonight I am getting the bus to Uganda and in
less than 2 weeks I’ll be home in London. School term finished just
over a week ago at all the schools and the CHH have a short break from
their training but there is still much work going on. At Wisdom
Primary, the school is getting enquiries from new parents about bringing
their children to the school next year and the handful of teachers who
have not yet left for holidays are conducting interviews and tests to
place the children in the correct class. Construction of the new
school building is nearly complete. The accountants have been creating
files for next term while I am still around to advise if necessary and
so that they are prepared before they also get to take a short holiday.
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| Dressed for success |
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| With the head chef and another member of the team |
My favourite holiday work that I
have seen is that two of the older deaf children from school are
spending 2 months of their school holidays doing cookery training at one
of, if not the most, exclusive lodges in Rwanda, based near the
Volcanoes National Park. The managers of the lodge have become good
friends of the Deaf School. Firstly, they have been bringing guests,
who have expressed an interest in visiting local community projects, to
visit the children. The children love to have visitors and almost
fight over who will go to the front of the class to write the name of
the visitors on the blackboard once Louis or one of the other teachers
has spelt it for them in sign language. Then the children will come up
with a sign name for the visitor, which is always fun. Sometimes there
is dancing too. The children pick up the vibrations from the drum and
are great dancers. The visitors often bring gifts for the school,
varying from crayons, pens and footballs to soap and toothpaste and
nearly always buy handicrafts that the children have made from the shop
onsite. I still can’t believe the lodge came up with the idea of
cookery training. They could literally be changing lives. Such a
fabulous way for 2 children to get vocational skills training to an
incredibly high standard, plus so generous of them to donate the time of
their staff to coach them, particularly given that the staff can’t just
yell instructions across the room to a deaf child – they have to face
them and make sure they speak clearly so that they children can lip
read. The 2 that went were the perfect choice by Louis to pilot this
training – not only do they both love to cook and help at school, but
they are strong lip readers and also both have a little speech. On
day 1, Becky and I went to the lodge with the children. The lodge sent a
car to collect us as the lodge is several kilometres out of Kinigi at
the base of the Sabyinyo volcano. Before training started, we were all
invited to have tea and biscuits on the terrace. The children are both
outgoing, but were a little shy and nervous being served tea by waiting
staff, fiddling round with their tea bags, not quite sure what to do
with them. The lodge staff were warm and friendly and I am sure they
will make friends here. Next stop was the kitchen, where they met the
head chef and got their uniforms. Cue for me to get watery eyes
(again!) as I was just so proud of them that there they were at this
5-star lodge, dressed like professional chefs and would be helping
prepare meals for guests. I know they will both work hard and make the
most of the opportunity. I heard afterwards that one member of the
kitchen team in particular had taken them under his wing, making sure
that they understood what they were expected to do. The lodge also
used donated money to buy trainers for them, because for safety reasons
in the kitchen, they need to have shoes with a grip. To me, this
exercise is community-based tourism at its very best. The lodge already
has a record of making sure that tourism from the gorillas / national
park benefits the local community, but putting the extra effort in to
help local deaf children, who still face stigma in Rwanda, in such a
practical way is just amazing. My experience while I have been in
Rwanda is that people here don’t want to be given things for nothing;
they want to be helped so that they can work and become
self-sufficient. There are also some smaller projects planned by the
lodge to help the school. I hope it is the start of a long, rewarding
2-way relationship.
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| Still smiling at the deaf school, even in the rain! |
So now my 3 months has passed,
and I’m leaving. This country is amazing in so many ways. Its history
is dark and tragic but its future is so positive and optimistic. I
have learnt so much from the wonderful people who live here, who have
made me so welcome. At the primary, there are small signs scattered
around the grounds with messages for the chidren and I always think
about one that says, “What you have is enough”. People here have so
little but manage to find so much joy and laughter in their lives. They
have invited me to their homes to meet their families and shared their
food and their stories. I will always remember the daily walk from
home to Wisdom, 15 minutes up a dirt track road overlooked by the
volcanoes, where children run over for a hug and to say good morning;
where the parents watch their child chatting in English with the muzungu
with pride and swap a smile and a “mwaramutse”. So much community
spirit here too – I hope that never changes. I want to thank my family
and friends for being so supportive and interested in my adventures and
especially for being so generous donating funds to FCYF (work has
started today preparing the school playing field!). But mostly, I want
to thank Elie and Bernadette for giving me this opportunity and
welcoming me into their home and their family and all my Rwandan friends
and colleagues for making this an experience I will always remember.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Visitors, Graduation and the first Goodbyes
It's been a very busy 2
weeks. Firstly, the prime minister visited Musanze as part of the
national celebration of World Food Day. Then it was Nursery Graduation
to celebrate the achievements of the Top Class of Nursery who have
passed their exams and are moving onto Primary. We also had visitors
from the UK, who came loaded with audiology equipment to test and fit
hearing aids for deaf children at the school and from surrounding
villages. Finally, and sadly for me, it was the end of the school term
and time to say good-bye to the children.
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| Prime Minister meets the deaf children |
The World Food
Day celebration was focused on good farm prices and increased
productivity. The event was held in Nyange sector, where the Deaf
School and CHH programmes are based. All the children were invited to
the event to hear the prime minister speak (Louis stood at the front to
sign the speeches for the deaf children). The speeches were in
Kinya-rwanda, altho I was lucky that Teacher Noel translated much of the
proceedings for me. At one point, the prime minister presented cows to
3 vulnerable women in the community. You could see how happy the
women were - one of them was dancing round, even tho she was quite
elderly! The highlight of the event for me tho was when the prime
minster called out the deaf children in his speech, encouraging the
community to greet them - at which point all the children (fortunately
wearing bright yellow T-shirts!) stood up and waved at the crowds!
After he had finished, he went over to the children to shake hands with
them and to greet Louis. Considering how many people attended the event
from both Musanze and out of town, it was pretty powerful to see him
make such an important gesture of support. I was so happy for the
children and for Louis and the teachers to get such public recognition.
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| Bernadette leads the procession |
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| Boys from the deaf school in "intore" costume |
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| Children from the school checking out the testing room! |
I know that Jane felt like she had not helped
enough children, but she was completely amazing and could not have done
more in her week here. One of the things I loved about the way she
worked was that she did not assume that the children would want a
hearing aid as the children from the school, at least, are able to
communicate via sign language and lip reading. So once a test confirmed
that a hearing aid would be beneficial, Louis asked the child if he/she
wanted a hearing aid. They all did! One of my jobs when helping with
the testing was to help “condition” the younger children for testing.
The older children could press a button on the equipment but the younger
children had to be taught that when they heard a sound, they had to
drop a coloured counter into a bag.
Most of them got it quite
quickly. I found that I desperately wanted them to hear the beeps when
testing so that they could have a hearing aid but of course, many were
profoundly deaf or had no hearing at all so couldn’t. When a hearing aid
wouldn’t help, Louis would explain to the child that they weren’t going
to have a hearing aid and it would break my heart.
The children from the
school took the testing in their strides but it was a different story
with some of the village children. FCYF had done a radio broadcast a
couple of weeks before to find parents with deaf children and many came
to the centre, prepared to sit round all day waiting for their turn.
Several of the children were nervous and many had other problems. One
profoundly deaf child had severe scarring on his eyes and Jane was
worried that he might go blind also. We were able to get the doctor
husband of a volunteer helper to come to school and he advised that the
scarring was the result of the boy being too close to the charcoal fire
his mother cooked on, so Louis had to explain to the mother that she
must keep her son away from the fire or there was a risk of blindness.
Another child was severely traumatized and Jane found out that she
wasn’t deaf at all. When her family was questioned by Louis, he found
out that the girl had had tonsillitis several years ago and a
traditional healer (witch doctor) had put his hands down her throat and
literally pulled out the tonsils, and the girl hadn’t spoken since, not
thru physical damage but from fear. Her family had assumed that she
become deaf. FCYF is planning to expand the number of children at the
deaf school next year, and the good news from this week is that several
of the village children who came to be tested are likely to be able to
come to school.
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It was also time to say
goodbye to the primary school children. Friday was school report day,
so parents came to school with their children to see the teachers. The
children had done really well in their exams but for some it was not
enough. One boy was inconsolable for only coming 7th out of
his class of 40+ ! His mum was really happy and proud of him but
couldn't cheer him up. The two girls I sponsor did very well in their
exams, which I was very excited about! I went to talk to their teacher
like a proud parent!! I have some books for them that I bought in
Kigali as a treat and am looking forward to seeing them this week before
I head home.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Rebuilding a Home
Per my earlier post, you'll recall that the home of one of our CHH
girls, was recently washed away pretty much leaving her and her younger
siblings with no shelter. Short term, they have been staying with their
community mentor but yesterday, work started rebuilding their house.
This involved taking apart what was left of the old house and rebuilding
using old materials where possible together with some new iron roof
sheets, wood and materials. I didn't realise but the rebuilding was
going to be done by the other CHH children and the older boys from the
deaf school, together with some of the teachers / vocational skills
trainers. Becky and I also went along to help!
There was the most amazing feeling of community spirit I
have seen! Not that that was a surprise as Rwandans are very community
minded, but it was so special to watch the children work so well
together. We walked down from the deaf school together after morning
lessons, and all picked up some stones at the road side to carry to the
home. I carried a rather pathetic smallish rock. Some of the CHH girls
could carry 2 large rocks on their heads at the same time!!! They
used wrapped banana leaves to make holders for them. Then others
carried wood. In less than 4 hours, the frame of the house had been
built. There were no arguments / debates over how to do things - the
children just got on with it. No breaks either!! Plus it was one of the
hottest days since I'd been in Rwanda.
Here are some more pictures from our rebuilding. There are also more houses that need urgent repairs (plus many more urgent needs across the organisation), so sorry for the plug again, but if anyone has not yet donated and would like to, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you so, so much!
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| CHH girls chat away whilst carrying rocks on their heads! |
Here are some more pictures from our rebuilding. There are also more houses that need urgent repairs (plus many more urgent needs across the organisation), so sorry for the plug again, but if anyone has not yet donated and would like to, please visit my fundraising page. Thank you so, so much!
