For two weeks about two hundred Rwandan secondary students came to school during their long Christmas vacation with the incentive of pens and notebooks. To practice teaching, all of us trainees, planned English lessons about things such as informal letter writing, prepositions, action verbs etc. We learned about the necessity of long explanations, adjusting for different levels, and speaking slow, simple English. I also learned that I enjoy teaching and get excited to do lesson planning. In the classroom I love to hear what the students thought about their heroes, health, and development in Rwanda. My two weeks of teaching taught me a lot. I have written more about the experience below if you want all the details.
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(This is for you Sophie Blum)
Morning- I drink milk tea with one scoop of sugar and eat a bun that mostly resembles a hot dog bun every morning. Sometimes this is varied with some porridge to drink and recently my host family invested in peanut butter, which was fantastic. At the beginning of my homestay, I got omelets almost every morning, which sounds great but in reality it was just eggs cooked with two much oil, some onions, and normally cold by the time I got to eat it…so I’m happy about the peanut butter development. Lunch: There are a variety of different options for lunch because we are responsible for our own lunch. I will sometimes go to a restaurant to eat a mélange plate. A mélange plate usually has rice, potatoes, fries, sweet potato, beans, coleslaw, and meat. If you just counted that was four different types of starches…way too many for one meal, but it’s cheap and filling. For a healthier meal, I’ll go to the market and buy some avocadoes, tomatoes, onions, maybe cucumber or garlic and make a sort of guacamole or avocado salad. This meal can often be accompanied by chapatti, a flat bread/crepe, and sambusa, those little square fried envelopes with either meat or potatoes in side (although the meat is usually not the tastiest). Afternoon snack: My host family doesn’t eat dinner until around nine o’clock which drives me absolutely crazy, because that’s my bed time. Due to the late dinner I usually try to find some type of snack in the late afternoon, otherwise I get real hungry around six o’clock and have to wait three more hours until dinner. The best snack is fries with mayonnaise. I know mayonnaise and French fries sounds gross at first, but wait until you have lived in Rwanda for a month and it becomes the best thing ever. These accompanied with a cold beer is the perfect snack. They also have delicious brochette, which is normally goat meat on a grilled kabob. And if fries and beer don’t work out there are the super cheap biscuit/crackers that hit the spot. I’ll often drink a cup of milk tea at home too just to fill my stomach until dinner comes around. Dinner: At my family we cook primarily on a charcoal stove and a gas stove that are both located outside the main house. For dinner there is always rice and some type of sauce at my house. I think this varies but because my host family is more upper middle class they can afford to have meat and sauce at pretty much every meal. I started off by eating the meat, but now I generally avoid it. First off because I think I ate intestines a couple times and they were not tasty. Second, I watched Leonidansi chop up the head of a goat for dinner and I’m not a fan of tongue either. Third, I avoid meat because there is generally so much fat on it, that it’s difficult to chew. For protein I usually go for the beans that are often served. Occasionally instead of tomato/meat sauce we will have isombe which is a dish of warmly chopped greens mixed with peanut powder it’s quite good. Actually anything that they mix with peanut powder is really delicious, Leonidanci will often put it in the sauce. In addition to the rice there is a couple other starches also served because people in Rwanda love their starches. This may be deep-fried potato halves, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, cassava, or ugali (the mashed up flour that resembles the consistency of mashed potatoes-it’s not good) as our second and third starch for the meal. Recently we have been eating peas and mushroom sauce with dinner, which have added a nice variety. Every so often we will also have avocado, passion fruit, and bananas to eat with dinner. They always offer tea after dinner, but I’m already on my way to bed by then. I have acquired a taste for Rwandan food and normally enjoy the food served at dinner, but I look forward to cooking for myself at site. It will take more time than in the states because I will be using a charcoal stove but I see many Mexican rice bowls, stir fries, and pastas in my future. There is also a variety of delicious food in Kigali for the special occasions. They have some great coffee shops, a burrito place, Indian food, Italian food, Chinese food, and cheeseburgers. So rest assured my next two years will not be filled entirely with starches. :) |
AuthorMy name is Tara, and I am from Whitefish Montana. I graduated from the University of Oregon in 2014 with a degree in International Studies with minors in French and African Studies. I studied abroad in Tanzania in 2012. I volunteered in Rwanda from September 2014-November 2016. These are my personal experiences and not reflected by the US Peace Corps. Archives
November 2016
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