First Days In The Mist

I arrived safely on Monday along with two other volunteers from the UK. We reached the accommodation about 8.30am and started reading some of the in-country material. Throughout the day new volunteers arrived from the Netherlands, Kenya, Uganda and India. Our group is up to a total of 11 people, all with education skills. The weather here is lovely - I feel like I'm back in the Caribbean, minus the beaches of course! Kigali is the capital city of Rwanda, so far it’s the cleanest capital I’ve seen bar Singapore. No plastic bags are allowed here, you get a brown paper bag at the shop and people don’t smoke or eat/drink on the street either. It is a mixture of high rise offices, malls and banks, low rise accommodation and shops and green areas with trees, bushes and flowers. Beautiful! I feel really safe - so don't worry about me!

There are lovely gardens here at the Centre Christus where we are all staying, which attract birds and even some cheeky little monkeys! One came into our training session, stole a pen and proceeded to tumble in forward rolls down the embankment to amuse himself whilst we were learning all about our placements. I spoke to my programme manager who advised that I will be based in a Teacher Training Centre in the north of Rwanda near the Uganda border. I found out that most student teachers are between  16 and 19 years old as teaching is chosen as an upper secondary school option. I will also be teaching mentors and in-service teachers.

On Tuesday we began by heading over to the VSO office to log online and meeting the Country Manager for VSO. We learnt about the particulars of our accommodation in our various locations around Rwanda. I am lucky to be sharing a house with two people who have arrived at the same time as me, one lady from Kenya and one from Uganda. Our house has intermittent electricity and water supply inside which is very reassuring!  This afternoon we finished a little early and headed to the local bar/nightclub called “Cosmic” with a volunteer who has been here a while. The music was very loud and the soft drinks are always warm here unless you ask for a cold one!

Its Wednesday today and we had our first Kinyarwanda lesson this morning – all very confusing, but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it soon. We then had a cultural briefing which was very informative. The most interesting thing happened to me this morning when I put my trousers on. I felt a prickly sensation down my leg and thought the seam may be irritating me but when i removed my trousers to check, a spiky caterpillar dropped out. I screamed and stamped on it immediately – not the best thing to do but it gave me a shock and I saw the nasty centipede bites in the Caribbean! My leg’s been a bit sore all day but it seems to have subsided now so I learnt a valuable lesson – shake your clothes before you put them on!  We shopped all afternoon for our new place and I just enjoyed a lovely chicken, potato and beans dinner, topped off with banana and tangerine. The food here is excellent, I can’t wait to start visiting the market and cooking for myself. We head of to our placements tomorrow after another intensive language session – who knows what the internet connection will be like there.