Vocational Training

One of the volunteers lost his English-French-Kinyarwanda dictionary. He was looking all over for it. It was nowhere. This particular dictionary, as far as I know, is not available in Rwanda. I have checked two different bookstores in Kigali in a country where bookstores are few and far between. So this dictionary is a rare, valuable item.

As I was walking to get some milk, a boy stopped me on the road to Rubona and asked if I could help him pronounce some words on his English-French-Kinyarwanda dictionary. The volunteer who had lost his dictionary mentioned that, as long as someone was using the dictionary to learn something, he was less concerned about its whereabouts. “I just don’t want it to be collecting dust in some closed cabinet somewhere,” he said. So, as I made my way into the living room of this boy, and saw a dictionary that was the exact same title, publisher, and date published as the dictionary this volunteer had lost, I decided to only ask, off-handedly, “Um, where did you get this dictionary? Out of curiosity.” He answered, “From my sister” and showed the name of his sister's name written on the side. “Where did she buy it?” He did not seem to understand the question. “From Kigali?” I suggested. “Ah, yes, um, from Kigali” he said. Then we sat down and he read words out loud and I corrected him.

I imagine the dictionary was passed from hand to hand until nobody really knew who owned it. It could be from his sister who bought it in Kigali. Which means I can buy it somewhere. But his English isn't good enough to explain to me where.

This boy is a very fast learner, and if there is someone who will utilize the dictionary, it is him.

His house is in the center of down-“town” Rubona. It is a very nice-looking house, with just the right combination of bricks, mud, and stone to give it this eclectic yet French-country-side cottage-house vibe. The inside of their house is painted in this turquoise color that is the only alternative to white and brown paint and seems to be an indication of, at the very least, moderate relative prosperity. Inside, the coffee tables and small television are covered with embroidered blue cloth. I say, “coffee-tables” but in a country with close to no drinking coffee, perhaps “tea tables” is more appropriate. The center pieces on the coffee tables are My Little Pony figurines carefully placed in the center of the embroidery, the way you might put a crystal vase. The wall decorations include a David Beckham poster and a poster of babies dressed up as a professional judge, police, and academic. The boy lives with his sisters and “adults who take care us”, as they are orphans. The one book they own is displayed on the table with the television.

They are, for Rubona standards, pretty well-off. The boy is currently in Senior 2. After Senior 3 he will either work, go onto upper secondary school at a boarding school as there are no local upper secondary schools, or go onto vocational training.

His house is not far from the Vocational Training Center (VTC). The girl I met who is studying masonry at VTC is progressing. She showed me her sketches which demonstrate “elevation.” I met two boys who are studying catering, one of whom had very good English – perhaps the best English I have heard so far from someone who was not an English teacher, and better than many of the English teachers in Rubona. He told me that his class had just finished learning about salads, and next term was all about sauces. The teacher lives “on the black road” which means the paved road that includes Ntunga, the town that the buses pass through from when I want to go to Kigali, around 9 kilometers from Agahozo-Shalom. She has an assistant, to, who took over when she was “three months at home for getting married.” There are exactly 88 kids in their class and they hope to find work in Gisenyi, which is more or less a resort town.

“What is your favorite food?” I asked them. “Meat,” they said. I asked, “Any particular meat?” “No,” they said, “Just all kinds of meat.”

Most meat is goat meat, sold in brochettes. Occasionally you hear a “baaaaaaaak!” from a chicken being hacked and then you see boys with dead chickens tied to the handle bars of their bikes which they push home. I was told there was a pork industry, but I was also told that pigs are not walked, so I rarely see them. I saw one pig being walked, once. The pig was very, very angry and everyone was staring at the pig walker like, “why are you walking a pig?”

The teacher-student ratio for primary school and vocational training, whether it be catering or masonry, seems to be around 40-50 students per teacher, which is really not bad for this part of the world, and not so far off from the 40 kids that exist in some Israeli classrooms. Though, when the teacher was off for her marriage, it became a ratio of one to 88 students. This is not entirely different than when my history teacher in grade 9 took maternity leave and no one replaced her, only that three months off for a marriage seems a bit long.

It seems that nearly everyone in Rubona goes into vocational training, or working, rather than secondary school. According to UNESCO, as of 2006 Rwanda had a Percentage of Vocational/Technical Enrollment (PVTE) of 36%, which was the highest in the world as of that year. At the time, the Rwandan government had a goal of reaching 50% PVTE enrollment by 2015, which perhaps can explain the cuts in university scholarships and greater investment in primary education, which is necessary to go into technical or vocational training.

It is not clear of the 50% goal of the government will come at the expense of those studying in secondary school. The percentage enrolled in secondary school - which is at least lower secondary school - was around 22% between 2005-2009, so presumably not.

Agahozo-Shalom offers "professional training" once a week. The only area I can help out in is perhaps the least practical of the professional training: art. Art is not particularly popular, with only three students choosing this option, with one seriously wanting to become an artist. The one who seriously wants to become an artist, though, is very serious: he comes into the art room every day, it seems, and practices all the time. He is improving tremendously. In Kigali there are the painted advertisements widespread in the cities of the developing world. However, in the rural areas, store-owners display their goods by creating a tiny little tent-like stick framework which little samples of their products are hung from. Though in down "town" Rubona I noticed one store owner paint cell phones to indicate that phones were repaired in his shop. I met an animator in Kigali, once. In a country where advertising is becoming more wide-spread, the very serious student, who really wants to become an artist, may make it in a field that is tough to break into in any country.