Equal opportunities

Private, city school look

 

Rural, public school pupils

This boy alreday has a good command English and French

Nice buildings, nice school grounds

 

Classrooms in need of a clean up and light

Equal opportunities

I have been in Kigali for the last couple of days and, among other things, it has helped me put my life at and around Rugerero Primary into perspective. Coming to this capital city after leaving behind a carless, road-less, electricity-less, jobless, cashless, running water-less, shop-less world is an eye opener. A couple of hundred kilometres can translate into a couple of centuries’ differences on the road to ‘modernisation’. It is a bit like having Middle-Ages lifestyle right next to twenty-first century icons. It is much more than a ‘city’ vs.’ country’ dichotomy... it is more like ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Full stop!’
- ‘So, what’s new? Get on with it! Why do you think you are here in Rwanda???
- Ok, I’ll try, but...
As I watch this woman driving her children to school in her brand new Porsche four-wheel drive, I can’t help thinking of the hundreds of children walking a few kilometres to school, barefoot to a bare classroom, shivering when it has been raining. I can’t help juxtaposing the picture of the bureaucrats at the Ministry of Immigration, sitting in their nice offices, trying to look important but without having much to do and the picture of those subsistence farmers who start tilling their land at 5:00 AM every day of the week...
- So...? How do you feel about this? Surprised? Angry?
- ‘Surprised’, no. ‘angry’, a little bit. Mostly confused, yeah, ‘confused’ a lot!
- Get over it! What is, is and what ain’t, ain’t! Tell us about your day, this blog aion’t the wailing wall!
Ok, then... today, I spent half an hour talking to a bureaucrat comfortably sitting in his office at the Ministry of Immigration to have Abana registered in Rwanda and then spent the rest of the morning looking at and selecting teaching ads and books for the brave teachers from the Middle-Ages.
In the afternoon, I conducted a workshop on the topic of ‘bilingual education’ at a Jesuit-run-primary school from the twenty first century. Computer room, very neat classrooms, children working with textbooks, notebooks, pencils in front of them, children, who, after the final bell of the day, come and greet me warmly and confidently in English and in French, beautiful grounds, very thoughtfully designed school yard with plenty of space to build a secondary school, in due course. Teachers are actually teaching, children are clearly enjoying learning. All the things we take for granted in a school, clean toilets, staffroom, admin. office, spacious headmistress office with computers, filing cabinet are there, there is even a Visitor’s book, which I am asked to sign...
I had almost forgotten what a ‘proper’ place of learning does offer. I was about to forget what the eyes of a child whose brain and sensitivity have been stimulated looked like. I will need to prepare- myself to travel back to the Middle-Ages tomorrow. That’s where I want to be!