Another long day full of new experiences!! This morning we headed out bright and early to observe and help at Green Hills Academy, which is a school in Kigali. They have nursery, primary and secondary at their school. The headmistress is a woman from Canada. She and her husband came to Rwanda in 1999 (only five years after the genocide). The school is so prestigious that if students transfer to the U.S., most of them jump up a grade. In 10-12 grade they have a program called the International Baccalaureate or IB. This has different components, but it gives schools an international system that put students on the same level with others internationally. They are also the only school that accepts special needs students and they have two students with Downs Syndrome and one Autistic child. They have over 1,300 students and their class sizes are usually around 25-30. They found out about this school through a friend. He told them that a little school in Rwanda was looking for a principal. They decided to come here and have never felt insecure about their safety even once in the past nine years. The majority of the students are primary students. Teachers get better pay than other teachers and they also get great benefits. International students pay twice as much as Rwandese, but most of these parents work for places that pay for schooling. This greatly benefits the school in terms of income. They also rent out their cafeteria for weddings on the weekends for extra income. I was very impressed to find out that they have an afterschool program! After our tour we split up and I went with Teacher Paul who is the P.E. teacher and the advisor for the CAS program. CAS is a component of the IB program where students are required to do service in order to graduate. CAS stands for Creativity, Action, and Service which are the facets of service that they can perform. I was thoroughly impressed with this program, and they were rather surprised that we don't have anything like that in the States- I'm a little disappointed now as well! We also talked about improvements that the education system has made and I was just so impressed. I then joined a student who will be graduating in January, named Ester. She talked with me some more about the program. We had a great conversation about her experience and also about Rwanda and America in general. She is doing her essay on the Millenium Development Goals in Rwanda specifically, so we talked about that. She also explained some of Rwanda's own Vision 2020 which are high goals, but the country is very passionate about them and are working hard to meet them. She is considering going to school in the U.S. and I made sure she had a good impression of our ISU! Their work so challenging and I was very excited about their program and how hard they're working. We then went to a 7th grade classroom and observed. It turned out that the teacher we were observing with was Ester's mom! She was teaching literature, but she also teaches grammar. Her teaching style was very interactive. She should have been complemented because she kept Kenzie and I awake, which was a real challenge at that point! The kids were so involved in the classroom and were actually excited about their reading. I was also happy to see that each child had a copy of the book they were reading.
After Green Hills we headed to the orphanage. As we arrived the patron was outside with a little boy. He explained that this boy had just been dropped off by the police about 15 minutes before. They had found him on the street. They have no way of knowing his name or age. They guessed he was about 2-3. He hadn't made a sound and the patron was concerned that he had trouble hearing. He was very wary of us, although he did explore a little. By the time we left he was smiling, which was so rewarding to see! We sat down with the patron and explained our idea of how to spend our time with them. He was very excited and encouraging. He said that they had been wanting to get a website launched, but hadn't had the resources. He gave us some information and we planned times over the next week to sit down and get as much information as we can. Also, Dominic is going to translate for us to be able to get stories and profiles from some of the children. We really think that this will be a helpful resource for the orphanage and will make information easily accessable to others wanting to visit the center. After our meeting we got to be with the kids again. On the first night I had a girl very fascinated by my pink toenail polish and I had told Teresa who had brought some. She brought it with tonight and they went CRAZY! I got mauled even more than with the camera! I painted well over 50 pairs of hands...boys and girls alike. Everyone loved it. At the end we even had our new boy with one hand of pink nails! He even smiled for us! That was our last day there for the week, and I can't wait to get back there again right away next week! While here they at least say we have internet, I don't think we have it at all for the next three days, so I will write but they probably won't be posted until Monday or Tuesday. : )
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