Miss Lamborn on a moto

On my way to Zaza with my driver Theogeme

I love visiting schools on the back of a motorbike! It is the most fantastic way to see the beautiful Rwandan countryside (especially now we are starting to get a short but heavy rain shower most days). You can be speeding down the road, then suddenly twist onto a bright red dust dirt track, wind through a ‘plantain jungle’ and then have a bumpy ride down to the green rice paddies. Wherever you are, you always hear cries of ‘Muzungu!’ (which means a person with white skin) which become louder and louder as people come running out of their houses to see you. If I am closer to home, I sometimes receive happy cries of ‘Louise’, which makes me feel even more special! When I wave to greet them, people give me the most lovely smiles, wave back happily and often groups children chase behind you until they are too tired to run anymore.

When you arrive at a school, you are quickly surrounded by curious faces that turn into smiling faces when you say “good morning”. This, in fact, is not only true of moto-rides, but of going anywhere. The other day, I was walking home from the office, when a group of about seven children, aged between about 6 and 10, began running to catch up with me, tell me their names, shake my hand and walk all the way to my front door with me. On market days, the women walking with bananas, pineapples and tomatoes piled high on their heads laugh happily when I try to greet them in Kinyarwanda and walk with me, asking questions I usually don’t understand! (I am having Kinyarwanda lessons twice a week, which is helping). I feel very lucky to receive such attention and feel very welcome here.

I have now visited 9 primary schools and today I went to Zaza ‘Teacher Training College’, which is where older children and young adults study to become teachers. I helped teach an English lesson in a class where some of the students were nearly as old as me! It was a new experience for me, but I really enjoyed it. The students were wonderful, so enthusiastic and eager to welcome me to their school and keen to make the most of having someone from England, who might be able to help them improve their English. They all live at the school and I enjoyed looking round, seeing the classrooms, kitchens and where the students sleep.

The students at Zaza using my camera

Next week I am going to be doing two days of training for the 65 headteachers who work in the same area as me. I think it will be quite scary to have to talk to that many people, but I am looking forward to it because it will help me work out how I can best help the children here to learn.