a house and a job

This last week, all of us were finally given our job assignments and locations! The big secret of where we are going to be for two years is finally over. After we found out where we were going to be living, we each traveled to our own site for a week to visit and meet co-workers, supervisors and other important people. Unfortunately, I was an exception because my house wasn’t quite ready so I hung out with another volunteer at her site for a couple of days. All in all, it was a very interesting and terrifying experience. To be honest, this past month has felt a little like summer camp with thirty-five twenty-somethings housed in a dormitory together studying during the day and playing volleyball and watching movies at night. And now, the real world hits us at last. Oh, are we actually here to do a job and live like Rwandans for two years?

Some volunteers were better prepared to handle reality than others but I think all of us were pretty surprised by our sites and jobs. Unfortunately for me, I also became sick during site visit so when I finally visited my site for an hour, I felt like crap during the whole visit and I did not expend much energy in investigating my town and meeting people. Still, when I think about it now, it is pretty exciting than I am going to be getting my own little town and health center to work with. I am very happy about the possibilities especially since there is so much work to do. I can hardly wait to jump in and start getting my hands dirty. I can’t wait till I know everybody in my town and I get trained and good at my job.

For those of you who are curious about my job, here are some excerpts from my lovely job description. I don’t know if I will actually be conducting all of these activities. I don’t want to replace someone’s job or do something above my capabilities. However, here it is:

I will be working in hygiene and sanitation activities. I will be monitoring utilization of mosquito nets; I will be helping in family planning activities. I will assist nurses in the vaccination program, the PMTCT program and the VCT program. (The PMTCT program seeks to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child and the VCT program stands for voluntary HIV counseling and testing) I will monitor children’s growth, help in the nutrition program, assist in activities related to prevention of common childhood diseases, conduct ‘behavior change activities’, and teach and assist clinic staff in technology and English.

As a side note, even though all of us are health volunteers, many of us will also be teaching English a large portion of our time. The reason being that the Rwandan government recently mandated a nationwide transition from French to English. The primary and secondary schools are especially affected by this because now all curricula are being taught in English rather than French. This becomes a problem when many of the teachers and most of the students don’t know any English. The Ministry of Education is running to keep up with this mandate and find English speaking teachers. Recently, they imported about twenty Ugandan teachers for the schools but that still fulfills only a small portion of the vast need for English teachers. The Peace Corps is actually going to help with this by sending in ESL (English as a Second Language) volunteers this October. It is very exciting and I hope a volunteer gets placed close to me. Rwanda is so small geographically that by next year, there will be many volunteers all over Rwanda and we will probably be close to each other. Right now, I am only 16 kilometers from the nearest volunteer and some volunteers are literally across the street from other volunteers.

Now, I know you want to know about my house and the amenities I will have. And no, I am not living in a grass hut. I have a very nice cement house complete with living room, outside kitchen, shower room and latrine. It’s got some prettying up to do but I am excited about the decoration possibilities. I have never had my own house before and now my first house is one in Africa. Who knew! Very cool and bragging rights when I get back to the U.S. Actually, I probably won’t have a house this big when I get back to the States. I will be lucky to get a two-bedroom apartment in the U.S. since I will be a poor grad student. Anyway, my house is very nice and I’m hoping to be able to do many things to it when I move in. Maybe, I’ll paint it a nice sea green color and make some cute curtains to match.