Gitarama

So I have been in Gitarama for over a week now and things are good. It was a rough beginning I must admit. Getting used to the pase of life here is the challenging thing. Everything is so slow. We are finally getting started with our work. We are going to be teaching English at a primary school in the village of Byimana.
On Tuesday we got to visit the school. Wow! There are 1600 students and only 24 teachers! Here some of the children go to school in the morning and some in the afternoon. Some go all day but I have not figured out the system yet. Theresa and I will be teaching the children in the sixth grade because they have to take national exams in November and there isan Englis component to the test. Here in Rwanda, national exams are a HUGE deals to the kids. If they pass they can go to secondary school (which is like 7th, 8th, and 9th grades). So we will try to help them be prepared.
It is going to be a huge challenge for us. It seems like they can do really complex grammer but they really don't know what they are readingor saying they have just learned the formula and the rules. How do you teach English to someone who can make a direct statement into an indirect statement but has no clue what that statement really means? Interesting....

We had quite an experience when we first arrived at the school on Tuesday morning. Hundreds of children running toward us and surrounding us to the point that we could barely walk! They were so excited to see Wazungu (white people)! Most of them had never seen so many white people before. There were ten of us counting Theresa and I and a team that is here from Florida State University. What an experience. Some of the children couldn't wait to touch us and others would touch us and then scream and giggle.