The welcoming continued as we met Sister Juvenal and Company after customs and drove through the night to the school. The Sisters had prepared a supper for us and it was delightful to catch up with the news of the school and the congregation. Equally delightful was settling into our rooms and falling asleep to the lullabies provided by the croaking frogs in the garden pond.
Sunday morning began with the opportunity to hear the girls’ choir sing at the Mass in the local Nyamata church. There are so many schools in the area now that the church has added a special Mass for young people as the second service on Sundays. The church was filled. As neighbors arrived after all of the seats were filled, a custodian came with extra seats…a frame like a bench with a plank to lay across to accommodate several parishioners. I am reminded of the resourcefulness of the Rwandan people even in the church! The MGS choir was impressive. From the first sounds of their voices welcoming the worshipers, it was literally divine to hear them. They offered up their Kyrie with grace. I was so pleased that this was the first glimpse that Sara had of the MGS students. Their clear voices raised to bring joy and meaning to the community.
Returning to campus we toured the campus to give Sara her first look (in daylight) of the site. It is impressive to tour the campus with someone who is seeing the construction, the planning, the plantings for the first time. There is something enduring about a place where young people are engaged in learning. Of course, one hopes the resources and pedagogy of a school are always being updated to keep up with the needs of the community. But there should also be something that stays the course. When Sara set up the Maker Space in the majestic Library and STEM Learning Center this quiet Sunday afternoon, I saw what is certainly essential at Maranyundo Girls School.
Seven girls that Sister asked the Academic Prefect (an S6 student) to ask, helped Sara lug tables, open boxes of STEM stuff, and set some materials in place in a space in the first floor of the STEM building. It did not take long to the girls to start exploring the stuff and working together. Sara gave them basic instructions and the girls worked together to explore what the COZMO robot could do, what story the LEGOS could be fashioned to tell, how the Stop Action camera could record the story of the forest that turned into a sea. All throughout the exploring, building, creating, re-fashioning there were the sound of creators talking, questioning, negotiating. There was laughter, wows of surprise, even singing as the work progressed. The relationships that were evident in this enterprise…the I, Thou and It of David Hawkins, the Wild Triangle of McDonald…is what I see as enduring in this place. Students and teacher in relationship, students relating to one another over interesting stuff and ideas, and students relating to the content embedded in these materials. The sense of community and helping one another to achieve their ideas that Sister Juvenal has so clearly embraced as the purpose of learning at this school is clearly evident in the Maker Space today. The first day.
(I just heard Sara ask her helpers, “If I had some drop-in hours in this space do you think your friends would come? “ “O yes,” responded the group.” “And if I asked your teachers to come?” “O, yes; please” was the response.)
My goodness…I guess this Sunday is a day of beginnings as well as a day to identify the enduring. A productive first day!
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