Our school is on one of the thousand Rwandan hills, but lovely!















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All 20 of us teacher share this "teachers' lounge": we keep our books, papers, and supplies in the cupboards on the left. This is our only space so we share benches and tables to plan lessons, grade papers, eat our meals, EVERYTHING. See the white lab coats we have to wear?!


This is our 80's reject computer in our lounge. I just deleted some back-up files for some German company to try to clear up the mess. We have no internet and no printer (not that they know how to use either one...) so we use it to watch music videos (over and over and over again...they put it on repeat for like an hour at a time!): usually a religious one with cheesy effects or a pop video with a woman in a leotard, shaking around, trying to be sexy, and singing "oh, la, la! ma cherie!"




Our school has pigs! Just next to the 4th year students' classrooms. There are apparently some cows and fields the next hill over.






March 8th was International Woman's Day! All of the student clubs (and there are MANY) prepared something, so these are girls doing traditional Rwandan dances. Their arms are up to represent the cow--Rwandan (and it seems African) symbol of wealth.

This is my neighbor's house, one of the best made homes in the area: rocks, read bricks, roofing tiles! A veritable palace!









Typical Rwandan hills. You can see the early morning fog, all the little houses made of mud bricks, and banana trees.









This is my kitchen: home made mud bricks, eucalyptus branches for the frame, and zinc roofing.









Inside our very typical kitchen: we have 2 cement based stoves used for cooking with fire wood, 2 portable metal stoves for cooking with charcoal, our fire wood in the corner, and a bench for sitting on. Since everyone stays in their homes at night, I spend most of my evenings (after 6:30 pm when it gets dark) in the kitchen with my host mom peeling, chopping, cutting, washing, stoking the fire, talking and laughing. I love it!









My friend's host mom and I are eating the food of our labor: ubugali (say it: oo0boo-garr-ee), a totally Rwandan dish made of flour and water, traditionally eaten with your finger. You dip a bit in a tomato-meat sauce and enjoy! Most westerners don't really like it, but I absolutely LOVE it. Maybe because it reminds me Mauritania (eating with the hands) AND Latin America (like masa or tortillas!)