Familia

This past Monday, Ned and Alex Houston arrived!
How great it is to share our time here with them. We were lucky enough to be able to get the week off from teaching next week, and are able to travel around with them while they are here.
This afternoon we are leaving for Ruhengeri, to spend a few days and go see the gorillas, however expensive it may be. We have heard it's an amazing experience and are very excited.
From there we will held to the west to Gisenyi which is on Lake Kivu. We hope to just see the town and lake and enjoy a relaxing day or two there.
We will return for a short day to Kigali and then head down south to Nyungwe Forest. Here we will take some short hikes and walks through the rainforest to see the chimps, birds, other wildlife, and enjoy being away from the city.
So far it has been very fun to have the Houston's around. They have attended both a KHS and Girimpuwhe class and seemed to enjoy them both very much, and said they were extremely impressed.
Alex had brought some CBMS student artwork with an "artist bio" attached and for our Senior 2 students, which they couldn't have been more thrilled about. American parents and students all in one day, they were exstatic.
So, they have written letters in return and drawn their own pictures for Alex to bring back to the U.S.

On the down side of things, our Senior 1 class was proving to be more than we could handle. The class consists of about 40, rowdy, unattentive and seemingly unmotivated students. We tried everything. We brought in books, we played games, we went on walks outside, however, they told us that what they want to learn is grammar, and they want us to write it on the board so they can copy it down. No fun, no interaction, just traditional Rwandan-style teaching. After many long talks with eachother, out parents, Glenn Hawkes, and the headmaster, Vincent, we decided that the class was not worth our time and energy. We are here to offer what we can, our energy and native language. The students do not seem to want to learn from us so we are longer going to be teaching the class. Although it was hard to come to terms that we weren't able to connect with all the students, we did connect with one or two who we are now working with outside of class. Giving them small extra assignments to do on their own so they can continue to work with us.
Now we are looking into working with little children at a primary school. Plans are not set, but we have a school in mind and shall be meeting with the principal in the upcoming week.

So we are figuring it out. Each day is a new day full of many surprises, ups and downs, many laughs, challenges and triumphs. We are still having fun and enjoying the warm weather, and especially our students. Our Senior 2 students are better than great, and the Girimpuwhe class couldn't be more fun. New students arrive to the Girimpuwhe class everyday, excited to learn and help eachother. It's a give-and-take relationship. We bring what we can and they always want to add input. A song, another word, or phrase, it's so great to not be the only teachers in the room. Our students are teachers too...


For those who know Troy Sooter, he has also arrived safely and currently trying to find a place to stay. We are not sure where he is staying now, but he pops in and out of the compound to say hello and what not. It was great to recieve such enthusiasm from Troy, he was so thrilled to be back in Rwanda.

So we are off into the mountains, to the land of gorillas, to connect with our closest relatives...


p.s. We have been trying to upload pictures for a post about our S2s. However the internet is being grossly slow and will not upload one picture within the hour. So bare/bear(?) with us, we're trying to get them up as soon as possible!