Friday was such a busy day on
the campus! Observing classes, meetings with teachers and having two guests who
spoke to the S-5s about careers for women in the STEM disciplines. We also
began planning for an Open House for the Maker Space. Sister Juvenal is planning
an Open House for Sunday. She has invited the parents’ committee, some
dignitaries from the district and others. Sara as been working with groups of
students who will demonstrate the technologies and materials that are now a
special part of the Maker Space in the Library and STEM Learning Center.
I was too tired for blogging about Friday!
Saturday began with a 6:00 AM
Zumba Class in the courtyard of the Learning Center. Daphne was out in the
crowd right at 6:00. I tried to quietly observe from the porch of the
Residence. But Sister Yvonne would have none of that! She told me to get my
sneakers and my “play clothes” and get in the action. Since I do not want any
demerits from Sister Yvonne, I obeyed. And had a wonderful time. It is great to
see the girls exercising with a skilled Zumba leader whom Dean Audace knows
from Nyamata. (I made sure I got Sister Yvonne to try a few moves with me!) By
the way, Sara and Luladey chose to sleep in on Saturday…
After breakfast, we had our first trip into Kigali this week.
Sister and Kathy Kantengwa wanted us to see the Robotics Program that takes place
on Saturday mornings at the new and stunning Public Library in Kigali. Sara,
Daphne and I were accompanied by Dean Audace in the MGS van.
The library is an impressive
building. (I could not take pictures inside.) I had toured the building with
Maureen Reutggers when it was being built. I was happy to see this impressive
space with so many people of all ages using computers, reading magazines and a book, relaxing and enjoying a café. The company that offered the classes
for young children upstairs and for older children downstairs was a technology
education company whose parent company is in Dubai. They are called Futurite. They
are working with the Ministry of Education to develop training programs for children,
teachers, families in schools across Rwanda.
After visiting the Library,
we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. As many Maranyundo supporters know, it is a quiet place of contemplation
that focuses on educating visitors about the unspeakable tragedy of the
Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 and other such tragedies in our modern
history.
But my favorite part of the
day (other than my survival of Zumba) was the Reunion of the students who had
been with me in my May mini-course, Novel Engineering. We read A Long Walk
to Water, by Linda Sue Park. It is a story based in the true odyssey of
Salva Dut. As a young boy, he escaped Sudan in 1985 and eventually came to the United States to
be educated as an engineer. He eventually finds a way to get clean water to the
village of Nya’s family so she and other girls in her Sudanese village can go
to school instead of making the daily day-long walk to a water source that is
not always clean.
Teacher Esther joined us for
the meeting. I brought a new class set of the novel to give to her. I wanted her
to meet with girls who had already read the book to hear what they had learned
from the novel engineering approach. I wanted to hear what they remembered from
our lessons.
We met in the space
overlooking the courtyard in the Library. Teacher Esther joined us for the
meeting. I was delighted to learn that they remembered how we began our study of
the text by looking at the cover, predicting what the story might be about by
noting what the designers wanted to include to interest the reader. They
remember studying the map on the first page, looking at the details, what it
means to “read a map.” They remembered the frontispiece page and the
information a reader can find even before reading. Then the girls talked about
how much they enjoyed the class when the teams presented the different projects
they had chosen to solve as an engineering problem taken from the text. They were delighted
to see how creative and thoughtful each of their classmates were in finding a
challenge.
Teacher Esther thanked the
girls for expressing so many interesting ideas from A Long Walk to Water. She encouraged them to always remember that “reading
literature can put you in touch with other lives so that you learn about people
and places throughout the world. She told them challenges are not always going
to be solved by “super powers.” Some of the most interesting and helpful solutions
will be found by people like them, "women who care about others." The girls want
to stay together and talk about the issues raised in a long walk to water. I
will give them the Novel Engineering website so they can see other texts they
can read and ways to use the stories to find engineering solutions to challenges
in the text. Esther asked them to appoint a leader, which they did. I am
eager to hear the progress of these novel learners!
Listening to the students
talking about what they had earned from the story, I thought about a quote from
Teresa Perry in her essay on Freedom for
Literacy, Literacy for Freedom.
In the chapter she talks about the history of slavery in which it was illegal
for African Americans to learn to read. But some slaves persisted . She wrote
“…While
learning to read was an individual achievement, it was fundamentally a communal
act.…Literacy was not something you kept for yourself; it was to be passed on
to others, to the community. Literacy was something to share.”
These students
with whom Esther and I spoke today, expressed the essence of this quote in their
appreciation for their education. It is how the Rwandan culture approaches
education: a way to rise from the depths of the genocide and become a strong,
unified people. An educated person actively serves the community. Literacy is an essential part of that education. What we learn
from literature and one another, as we encounter new ideas and challenges in the
narratives we read, is a literacy that helps to solve problems and ensure a
freedom that always keeps us together.
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