African Meatballs

February 7, 2011

Today was my first full Monday teaching at the village school. My morning opened with two math classes; the teacher, Francoise, is one tough cookie. We’re talking tapping the chalkboard with erasers until she creates a solid layer of white dust on the floor. But her students show her complete respect, and their math skills are, for the most part, excellent. A few, including my new friend Grace, asked me for some extra help with the topic they started this morning: simplifying complex fractions with square roots. Francoise called Grace to the black board to do an example problem in front of the class, and I could see the poor girl was shaking. Not only is she very shy about standing before 30 of her peers, she’s also very nervous about her English. She took the chalk and began to quiver, so I went to stand next to her. I saw her examine the problem quizzically, not sure where to start, so I decided to try speaking to her in French. As soon as I did, her eyes lit up. She smiled at me, and followed as we went step-by-step, sign by sign, numerator, denominator, cross-multiplying and crossing out common terms. Five minutes later, as Francoise watched like a hawk, Grace boxed her answer and gave me a huge hug. Sure enough, her answer was correct. We have set a time to practice her math, and her English, later in the week.

I had a short break and then moved on to English with Aimable. He is truly a character; he literally ran into class today, three minutes late, and commanded (nicely, of course) me to retrieve tape and scissors. He had made his students a “scale” of frequency and quality adverbs (many, always, sometimes, rarely, etc.) and wanted me to hang it up and explain it. I did, and many were confused. So, I said that one side of the room was “never” and the other was “always.” I made up phrases (“I eat rice,” “I like to go to school,” “I do my homework”) and had them move to the side of the room with which they agreed. This finally sent the message home, I think. After, we worked on tenses; Aimable wanted them to match grammar rules he had written on the board with sentence examples. Once again, they looked lost. I split them into groups, with Aimable’s help, and we both went around and explained it to the smaller groups and helped them create examples that fit each rule. At the end, Aimable had them write their examples on the board and asked me to correct their grammar mistakes. Instead, we did it all together and I watched as 32 pairs of eyes followed me across the room as I examined the black board, correcting minor errors and making some suggestions. I think they wrote down every other word I said.

Right after English was French; Vincent, their teacher, came 30 minutes into class time, so Talya (another Young Judaea volunteer) and I began teaching, asking them to talk about “l’avenir” (the future). This forced them to conjugate verbs in the future tenses, and to talk about something they all dream of: becoming doctors, teachers; one girl said she wants to the be Minister of Education of Rwanda because she thinks learning is the most important thing for young people. Eventually, Vincent came to class (he was making photocopies of verb sheets) and thanked us for encouraging his class to speak French.

The highlight of my day came this afternoon during Enrichment Programs (EPs). We were all assigned an EP, and my friend Hannah and I go to Kitchen Skills. Well, this is actually cooking class. We met outside the dining hall, sitting in a circle with a bunch of house mothers and about 20 students. They began the lesson in Kinyarwanda, so we were utterly lost, but luckily, Emme (ay-may) came to sit next to me and he started to translate. When the house mothers heard that I speak French, they switched to explaining what we would be making in French, and I translated for Hannah. We were making a dish called melange (may-lan-jay), essentially African meatballs. One of the mothers told me there are two ways to make it: one with dough, like a dumpling, and the second, the way we made it, is to mix ground meat with peppers, onions, garlic and magi cubes, roll them into balls and cook them in hot oil. Once she was finished explaining, a tray was brought from the kitchen to the outside area where we were all seated; on it was a package of ground meat and all the necessary ingredients. Immediately, I was handed a knife and began chopping peppers and green onion. The kids mixed everything in a huge bowl and soon a huge metal pot with a lid, full of hot coals, was brought to the middle of the circle. A bunch of the guys got used cardboard and began fanning the coals to start a small fire and they put a metal pot on the fire, heating the oil. Everyone else made the meatballs, rolled them in flour, and dropped them in the heating pot. In another sauté pan, someone mixed the remaining onion, water and tomato paste to create a sauce for the meatballs; once they were done cooking, they were transferred to the sauce and then to a plate. Hannah and I were handed forks and told to eat. Honestly, this was one of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever tasted.

As we were eating and talking, one of the house mothers noticed my flip-flops; they have the Star of David on them. She told me, in French, that she recognized the Israeli flag and has one hanging in her house because she loves the people of Israel. She promised she would bring me a Rwandan flag so I can have one in my house and think of Rwanda and its people always. Then, she noticed the rings on my hands and asked if I’m engaged. When I said no, she looked surprised, so I asked why. In Rwanda, women wear engagement rings on their left middle finger and only when they’re married do they wear rings on their ring fingers. I’ve always worn a ring on my left middle finger, so now I understand this question. She told me not to worry, that I’ll be engaged one day. Let’s hope (not that I’m in any rush).

It’s now about 8:00, our running water is back (no Internet, though. We can’t have everything at once) so I showered and now will most likely open up a can of tuna and some saltines for dinner. I have a whole new appreciation for water. It’s unbelievable to appreciate the smallest things once they’re gone.

Bedtime soon – tomorrow I work at our warehouse site beginning at 8 AM until about 2:00 in the afternoon, so I’ll be exhausted. But I love it. I love being here, learning from the kids, living in a way and a place I never thought I’d find myself. Sometimes I wonder if it’s real. Then, I look up at my mosquito net and realize it sure is.

Love from the mountains of ASYV,
Elana