Butaro and Kidaho

Yesterday I was able to travel to the two schools where the Denhams and I will be teaching English. All classes except 12th grade are to be taught completely in English this year. The government has provided some training to teachers during the school vacation times and most teacher's studied some English during their schooling. However, many still need a lot of help with pronunciation, content specific vocab., and becoming more proficient in reading and writing. This year's seniors will be the last class to take their national exams in French. In 2011 all teachers will be given an exam in English which will determine if they are competent enough in the language to continue teaching. Here's some brief information about both schools.

KIDAHO: ESEK
20 - 25 teachers
600 students with plans to increase enrollment to 700
The school offers three majors: Two are in the sciences (Physics, Chemistry & Math and Math, Chemistry & Biology) and the third is Human Science (History, Economics & Geography)

This is the school that the Denhams will be at. They will be living in a guest house attached to the headmaster's house.

This school is about 2.5 hours drive from Kigali on fairly good roads.

BUTARO: CGFB (College of George Fox Butaro)
25 staff -- 11 teachers, 2 watchmen, 7 administrators (principles, dorm parents, etc.), 4 cooks, 1 cowboy (yes, they have their own cows)

500 students from grades 9-12. (They used to have 7th and 8th graders also, but the government recently decided to move these grades to the primary schools so that they would also be considered part of free public education. Next year 9th grade will also move to the primary schools.) Students come from every province of Rwanda. Their families are usually poor farmers so the tuition at this school is lower than some.

The school offers two majors: Human Science (History, Economics & Geography) and Accounting. For the accounting program they use a computer lab, but due to the age of the computers only seven are still working. Computer Science is a class that is offered to most students. They do theory in the classroom during the day and then actually use the computers in the evening when the generator is running.

Butaro does not currently have electricity, but the school has a generator that is turned on every evening from 6:30 to 9:30. This provides electricity to the school, the local Friends church, the pastor's house and a few other locations.

This is the school that I will be working at. I'll have a room in the headmaster's house. Here is a picture of me with his wife and six children.

After reaching Kidaho, this school is another 45 minutes on a somewhat bumpy dirt road. Busses only travel back and forth on market days (Wednesday and Thursday), so people who need to travel other days pay a moto about $6 for a ride. However, we have a small car that we'll be using to go back and forth.