It’s officially one month since arriving in Rwanda and it has flown by because everyday has been busy with Pre-Service Training (PST). Before we’re officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers, we go through a rigorous three month training session where we’re learning how to be volunteers. Everyday from 7:45a – 5p is packed with Kinyarwanda language lessons, cultural lessons, technical training, medical sessions and so much more.
We have language class with 3-5 other volunteers every morning, six days per week, roughly estimating to twelve hours of language every week. Once PST is over in early December, we’re off to our sites for the next two years and our language lessons cease. The goal is to be mid-intermediate by then so we can navigate our sites on our own. Learning Kinyarwanda is incredibly rigorous because they’re expecting a high level of fluency within three months. When was the last time you had to become mid-intermediate in a completely new language in three months? It’s also difficult because there aren’t many online resources to learn it, neither Google Translate nor Duolingo has it.
Rwanda has four national languages – French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, and English – however, President Paul Kagame speculates that Kinyarwanda will become extinct in 10 years because it’s only spoken in Rwanda and has little use anywhere else. Wrap your head around that. We’re learning a language that could become extinct – beautifully tragic, isn’t it?
The rest of the day we’re learning how to be health educators. We’ve had a refresher on how the Rwandan government wants to address the first 1,000 days to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates. We’ve learned about the public health system, medical insurance, and how to distinguish between malnourishment and stunting. As such, we’ve also learned how the Rwandan government is tackling those problems through growth/weight data collection, family planning, health, hygiene and nutritional education. We’ve visited a few regional health centers to get familiarized with how they’re organized since we’ll be working with our site’s health centers in our service.
Speaking of which, we’ll be visiting our sites this week. It’s only from 10.19-10.25 to meet our supervisors, health center staff, and to see where I’ll be living for the next two years. Exciting!! In addition to meeting my community, I’m super amped to meet the other volunteers in the Southern Province. My cohort is Health 11, while the volunteers who are currently there are from Health 10 and Education 9/10. They’re going to show us around the region – markets, stores, where to get “x, y, and z.” By the time we get back from our site visit, we’ll be halfway through PST and just in time for Halloween ~~
Rwandering around with Joanna 