Stories

I had the honor reading some excellent stories from the kids at the school. It is not only an honor because some of them have very sophisticated writing, but because I feel like I am getting to know kids in a way that would not be possible with verbal conversation, due to my lack of skills in Kinyarwanda and their lack of confidence in spoken English.

The kids were given the assignment of writing about “new beginnings” and “fresh starts. I have read a number of stories that were very disturbing, with women being raped and the rapists being forgiven, without any obvious punishments. I would not mention this if it was one or two specific students, but I have seen this a number of times, and mention it as a pattern. This was how they defined “new beginnings” and starting a new life. I am going to meet with all the students whose papers I corrected and will need to ask the teachers and social workers how to address this – if I am meant to give advice on how to improve writing, beyond just pure grammar and spelling, I don’t think I can quite ignore this. I don’t have a smidgen of psychological training to talk about or ask the obvious question at hand – why are the rapists forgiven? I do not know if the students will have the answer.

The stories were all typed up on the computer, not hand-written, which is great. Most of the stories have really large, thick, colorful gaudy borders – think clip-art style 1980s Macintosh but in color – and lots and lots of images pasted in throughout the story, usually blocking some text because it was placed in the center of the page. Most of the stories are romances and, as I was reading about romances in small Rwandan villages, I needed to move the photographs of the skinny white blond with her buff white boyfriend, who were meant to represent the Rwandan girl and boy who fall in love.

What is interesting in the stories, from a grammatical point of view, is the total almost lack of sentences. They can write six-page short stories, that are relatively coherent and even powerful – and major challenge in a language that one has only been learning for two or three years – yet most, if not all, do not quite what a sentence is. At all. I’m not talking about the poetic-license type of mistakes. Some of the stories do not have a single period. Which is a bit of a relief, because I feel like punctuation rules are more technical, but then again, it really is quite intuitive – at least the basics without too many mistakes. I thought one good suggestion for learning punctuation was having the kids read plays out-loud, so they get a feel for when periods and commas feel right. They are reading Romeo and Juliet soon. Maybe something easier first to learn punctuation.

There was one girl that wrote an absolutely beautiful story with very creative style. When I met with her, she barely opened her mouth the entire time we met, and I have no idea if she will improve her story – I do not quite know how to talk about their stories in a way that encourages them to continue writing. I hope to find some publication that could publish the stories, to give them that extra push. It is interesting – even with less-than-perfect English, and even with a very, very large number of spelling and grammar mistakes and a fair share of incomprehensible sentences – you can still see that some have a knack for writing. Thank goodness that there is a way for these kids to express themselves other than speaking out-loud, because many do not want to speak in English, at least to a newbie like myself.

But some of the kids surprise me. After walking back from the first English debate meeting that the head English teacher organized, a girl was walking along the same path. I said hello to her, and she very quietly said “hello” back. She stared ahead and did not make eye-contact and very quietly, in perfect English, with a very blank expressionless stare ahead, asked, “You taught a debate meeting today with the English teachers, right?” I told her that I did and asked – in a shamefully hesitant manner, because she was very quiet and expressionless – “Do you want to join?” She answered without a beat, “Yes, I really want to do debate.” We continued speaking, and talked about where my house in the village was, which I always get slightly lost while walking to if I take a slightly different rout. Her English was very good and I did not hear a single mistake. She did not look at me or smile or alter her expression the entire time we were walking until, at the end, when I finally realized where my house was, she looked at me and laughed, said she was happy I found my house, and ran off. I am happy my total lack of navigation skills (it is literally a seven minute walk from the school to the house) could make someone laugh. I wonder how many other quiet girls want to do English debating but have not run into me while I get lost on the way back to my house.

On to other news: The mix of public breast-feeding and sitting like sardines on the bus made for an interesting bus ride. I had the odd experience of having a baby rest his head on my arm as he breastfed from his mother who was sitting next to me. I suppose this was much safer for the baby.

Occasionally, I walk outside ASYV at the same time that school is out in Rubona or another surrounding village. At these regrettable moments, I am followed by over a hundred kids in their little blue dress (the girls) and beige uniforms (boys) that look like miniature UPS uniforms, all competing to get my attention. I use these moment to try to more efficiently spread the meme that “good mourning” is only said in the morning and “good afternoon” is said in the afternoon. This is especially important for the kids getting out at around 13:00, who inevitably have had a morning English class.