run along now

Just finished with my first ever run with my students. It was amazing.

The less good: Right at the end of the run, within a hundred yards of the school gate, we're sort of running "through town". Everyone in town naturally stops and stares at the sight of a hundred high school girls and their one muzungu teacher stampeding through the street. As I run by the side of the road, one twenty-something-year-old guy reaches out and grabs my arm and shakes it, hard. It nearly throws me off my balance. I shake him off and keep running, but I quickly start to see red as my arm stings more and more. After a few more paces, I turn around and walk quickly back to him. The students can see that I'm pissed. I get right up to him and tell him in French that he's never to touch me again, and then I point to my arm and tell him no and bad in Kinyarwanda. As I turn to walk away, he snickers to his friend a bit, so I turn around and stare the smile off his face. As I go to walk back towards the school, all the girls start cheering. I sprint the last fifty yards with the cheers of the girls to back me up.

The very good: These girls are amazing! They took off out of the school gates running with gusto, and kept a totally respectable pace up the giant half-mile hill right and the beginning of the run. They get tired easily, but the slightest encouragement makes them pick up the pace again. I was running my best to try to show them how it's done, but at least six of them kept up with me stride for stride the whole way. They're totally encouraging to each other; there's no one making fun of anyone else, and I am yet again surprised that body image doesn't (outwardly, at least) seem to factor into their actions at all. The thicker ones run just as hard as the thinner ones. Towards the back of the pack, where the most tired runners are, they clap and sing rhythmic songs to keep each other going. Once we were about a mile out of school, we stopped and waited for everyone else to catch up. I led them in stretches, counting down each stretch in a different language, which they find hugely entertaining. High fives and laughs were everywhere. When we were done stretching, we ran back the way we had come, again with enthusiasm and total mutual encouragement among the girls.

I don't want to sound like a cheeseball, and the fact is that these kids drive me crazy for a good 80% of the time. But that other 20% is golden indeed. Their total acceptance and love of each other, their willingness to see the good in others and in their own situations, their excitement over challenges and small privileges, their strength and hard work and intelligence and effort, make these girls a joy to be around. They're certainly teaching me more than I'm teaching them, and today I'm grateful for it.

Here's to Tuesday runs with the students! Hoping to make this a year-long tradition and a good start to the running week.

Wednesday

I'm in the staff room during our morning break from classes. The teachers get served tea every day during this break, and it was pretty good today, not too sweet and piping hot. Even as I write that, I can't quite believe I'm describing this tea as "good", because if I'm being honest, it actually falls under the general heading of "bilge". The whole room is in uproarious laughter right now, including me, as we're talking (in a lunatic mix of English, French and Kinyarwanda) about poor Peter teaching sex ed to his O-Level biology class. One year ago at this time, I had recently returned from France, was busy at work planning our lab's move to a new building, and was vaguely thinking about going to Africa at the end of the year. I am surprised to find myself now, chuckling over the menstrual cycle with Rwandan men.

With the free time I have in the evenings here, I've been catching up on all that delicious purposeless information seeking that I'd have loved to have done in San Francisco if there were more hours in the day. Here's what's been keeping me from going postal:

PODCASTS

Fresh Air from NPR - I never listened to this in the US, but now I love, love, LOVE to hate Terry Gross's smugness. Plus, sometimes she talks to interesting guests, although usually their smuggery is outclassed only by TG herself.
The Archers - I've revived my love affair with that gloriously mundane English village of my dreams. David Archer reigns supreme. Lillian can die.
This American Life - After being given a whole data CD full of episodes as an (excellent) gift, I've been listening to these would-be-sappy-if-they-weren't-so-damned-good hour-long awe-fests every week.
The BBC History Magazine Podcast and BBC's From Our Own Correspondent - Both really interesting romps through mainly useless brain fodder from olden times and the world today, respectively. I'm totally out of my depth with the first one, but I like to pretend, and sometimes I catch a brief idea of what they're talking about.
A History of the World in 100 Objects - Haven't started listening to this yet because I'm waiting for 100 consecutive days to do so, but I'm weirdly excited about it. I think I'm also going to give my English class an assignment to write the history of their lives in five objects. Thanks, BBC!

BOOKS

One Fifth - Complete and utter drivel, like the worst book I've ever read, and also the most amazingly satisfying when I arrived in a country where all of my norms and comforts were decidedly absent and I just wanted to bathe in a trashy novel and forget that I wasn't in the United States. One Fifth is pure awful, but it saw me through some dark times, and I'm grateful to it.
Table By the Window and Table Number Seven - Two halves of Terrance Rattigan's Separate Tables collection, and both awesome. His plays are all about the dramatic happening within the mundane, and for some reason his stuff really sits well with me.
Baking Cakes in Kigali - As I think I said before somewhere (this blog?), this was a little heavy on the folksy African wisdom for my taste, but it was nice to read, if only because you have to have been to Rwanda to understand what she's talking about half of the time.
Jurassic Park - UNFORGETTABLE AND AMAZING. Why hadn't I read this before?! Why did I throw Michael Crichton under the bus so? I don't care if it's not great literature, I don't care if it's infuriatingly unrealistic, this shit was GREAT. I think I might have skipped a class or two towards the end so that I could read more, and I don't even feel bad about it.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Oh Tess! This started out a tad slow, but became a total page-turner towards the end. As in, it took me about two weeks to read the first sixty pages, and three hours to read the last hundred and fifty. Hardy is my mum's favorite, and I've been meaning to tuck into some of his books for years, but it wasn't until I saw them on display at Nakumatt for just 2.500Frw that went for it. And now, thanks to John, I've got The Mayor of Castorbridge on its way!
The Road Taken - I've only read the back cover and introduction of this Michael Buerk autobiography, but based on those alone, I have high hopes.

And now, one more class before lunch. Wednesdays are the new Thursday. I love them.