i visited a health center today and these are the results i found:
over 2,500 people in the community
8 nurses
1 social worker
1 doctor visit, once a month.
people walk almost 4 hours just to get to this health center!
there was one room that hosted sick patients; one room that mothers could give birth, 2 at a time, and four beds for post pardom (sp) mothers to rest! but one positive thing is that 85-90 percent of rwandans have health insurance!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
africa stole my heart
the past week and a half has gone by so fast! everytime i slow down i realize the week is almost over! i have been so focused on learning the language and a few things about heath that i forget where the time has gone! the language is coming very well, but can be very tiring too! its almost like a summer class! ive met a lot of friends in the community that quiz me in my language knowlege. Last week we were introduced to the 16 noun classes (i dont think english has them). here is a paragraph i found from a blog to best explain the language:
"as far as I can tell there are three chief difficulties with Kinyarwandan. First, is just the unfamiliarity and strangeness of the words themselves. There are lots of ‘m’s and ‘w’s’ and ‘mw’s which aren’t particularly common in either English or Chinese. These words are so different (and quite long) it’s hard to remember them. Second is the fact that there are ‘noun classes’ which don’t really exist in English. Noun classes like ‘objects’, ‘people’, ‘animals’ mean that verbs and adjectives need to change to reflect the type of noun and with something like 16 noun classes. Finally, Kinyarwandan is a ‘tonal’ language – I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what this means yet, because it’s not tonal in the same way Chinese is, but emphasis is clearly more important than in English." http://rwandanchopsuey.blogspot.com/
i have very good teachers and great friends to help in this and its really fun when i get to go out in the community and say "miriwe" (good afternoon) + other conversational words and i get crazy stares because a umunzungu can speak their languagae! i love it!
People from USAID, CDC, PEPFAR, and other organizations have been giving us presentations on programs we might be working with and everytime they come i get really excited about the fruits of after training! Which reminds me that in a little over a week and a half we will all be going to our sites for a week, by ourselves, to scope out our communities! eeek!!! im excited!
"as far as I can tell there are three chief difficulties with Kinyarwandan. First, is just the unfamiliarity and strangeness of the words themselves. There are lots of ‘m’s and ‘w’s’ and ‘mw’s which aren’t particularly common in either English or Chinese. These words are so different (and quite long) it’s hard to remember them. Second is the fact that there are ‘noun classes’ which don’t really exist in English. Noun classes like ‘objects’, ‘people’, ‘animals’ mean that verbs and adjectives need to change to reflect the type of noun and with something like 16 noun classes. Finally, Kinyarwandan is a ‘tonal’ language – I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what this means yet, because it’s not tonal in the same way Chinese is, but emphasis is clearly more important than in English." http://rwandanchopsuey.blogspot.com/
i have very good teachers and great friends to help in this and its really fun when i get to go out in the community and say "miriwe" (good afternoon) + other conversational words and i get crazy stares because a umunzungu can speak their languagae! i love it!
People from USAID, CDC, PEPFAR, and other organizations have been giving us presentations on programs we might be working with and everytime they come i get really excited about the fruits of after training! Which reminds me that in a little over a week and a half we will all be going to our sites for a week, by ourselves, to scope out our communities! eeek!!! im excited!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Its friday already!
Wow! time has flown by this week! I can definitely say that i am so much more adjusted than i was a week ago! (I can say that i am genuinely in love with this place and realize that people would give anything to do my job) Im actually seeing progress, well some, in my language and cultural skills! Last weekend i met my resource family, the mom is a student at the university studying sociology and her husband is an umuganga (nurse)! they have a 3 year old daughter named Amahoro (which means peace)! she is afraid of me! i dont think she has seen an umunzungu (white person). They are here to help me learn the language and to show me the culture. I went to her house and we played this fun board game; even though i had NO clue what they were saying, i still understood what was going on and how to play.
besides the crazy amounts of language classes, guest speakers, and technical classes, i also play volleyball with a bunch of people almost everyday and hangout with friends telling stories of our past; which is such a stress reliever!
last Saturday, we went to a Rwandan history museum! i was good, but i had just walked 4 kilometers in the hot sun without water and still needed to go to the bathroom! i survived and realized i had the rest of the evening off to relax!
Tomorrow, Valentines day: I have a huge Kinyarwanda placement test and we are going to one of the more graphic genocide memorials! if you would like to know more about that topic, i can explain somethings in more detail through e-mail! Feel free to ask me about it! brittanyinafrica@gmail.com
Visitors would be great in about a year!
amahoro na nkunda (peace and love)
Brittany
besides the crazy amounts of language classes, guest speakers, and technical classes, i also play volleyball with a bunch of people almost everyday and hangout with friends telling stories of our past; which is such a stress reliever!
last Saturday, we went to a Rwandan history museum! i was good, but i had just walked 4 kilometers in the hot sun without water and still needed to go to the bathroom! i survived and realized i had the rest of the evening off to relax!
Tomorrow, Valentines day: I have a huge Kinyarwanda placement test and we are going to one of the more graphic genocide memorials! if you would like to know more about that topic, i can explain somethings in more detail through e-mail! Feel free to ask me about it! brittanyinafrica@gmail.com
Visitors would be great in about a year!
amahoro na nkunda (peace and love)
Brittany
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
arrived!
Muraho! (Hello)
i arrived in africa last thursday night! the moment i stepped off the airplane, i knew it was a beautiful place!
i stayed two nightsin a nunnery in Kigali...just long enough to get shots, take a tour of the Peace Corps (PC) office/ mansion! visit a genocide memorial and take care of other business!
on saturaday, we drove 2.5 hours away to the second largest city, Butare. the veiw was breathtakeing green hills and lushious crops growing everywhere... we arrived at the second nunnery where we will be living for 11ish weeks! everything is so green here and the sky is so blue, except the part of the day when it rains. the weather goes from being super hot and dry to freezing cold and wet..all whitin one day!
so far i have been learning kinyarwanda about 5 hours a day...which entails sitting outside in cute little huts being lectured by a trained rwandan, going out in the community and practicing/ being laughed at and called umunzungu (white person), sitting a dinner learning fun words, and studying at night before i go to bed! also we have technical training, which describes what type of work we will be doing. after class a 5pm we either go play sports or run/walk...the altitude is so high that its sometimes hard to breathe!
this job definately is not an easy task! some days i want to go home, but then realize that as soon as i got there i would want to be back here!
the Phone network here is going through some changes so i am unable to call people on my phone, but i can revieve calls. im trying to get my parents to set up skype b/c its only .19 cents a minute versus 2.50 a min for computer via phone.
i do not know what organization i will be working for or what part of the country i will be living , but should find that out in about 7ish weeks!
sorry for the typing errors, this is a french keyboard and time is limited! if you have any questions please ask because i probably left out some things.
Thanks for everything! much love!
brittany
i arrived in africa last thursday night! the moment i stepped off the airplane, i knew it was a beautiful place!
i stayed two nightsin a nunnery in Kigali...just long enough to get shots, take a tour of the Peace Corps (PC) office/ mansion! visit a genocide memorial and take care of other business!
on saturaday, we drove 2.5 hours away to the second largest city, Butare. the veiw was breathtakeing green hills and lushious crops growing everywhere... we arrived at the second nunnery where we will be living for 11ish weeks! everything is so green here and the sky is so blue, except the part of the day when it rains. the weather goes from being super hot and dry to freezing cold and wet..all whitin one day!
so far i have been learning kinyarwanda about 5 hours a day...which entails sitting outside in cute little huts being lectured by a trained rwandan, going out in the community and practicing/ being laughed at and called umunzungu (white person), sitting a dinner learning fun words, and studying at night before i go to bed! also we have technical training, which describes what type of work we will be doing. after class a 5pm we either go play sports or run/walk...the altitude is so high that its sometimes hard to breathe!
this job definately is not an easy task! some days i want to go home, but then realize that as soon as i got there i would want to be back here!
the Phone network here is going through some changes so i am unable to call people on my phone, but i can revieve calls. im trying to get my parents to set up skype b/c its only .19 cents a minute versus 2.50 a min for computer via phone.
i do not know what organization i will be working for or what part of the country i will be living , but should find that out in about 7ish weeks!
sorry for the typing errors, this is a french keyboard and time is limited! if you have any questions please ask because i probably left out some things.
Thanks for everything! much love!
brittany
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