Today, after one month in Rwanda, we got our site placements for our two years of service! I requested a site near an ecotourism location (since I am interested in getting involved in some environmental work as a secondary project, and as some of you might know I wrote my B.A. thesis on conditions necessary for successful ecotourism) and luckily Peace Corps took my request into account. I have been placed at a science-tracked highschool in the Southern Province of Rwanda which specializes in conservation and environmental management. I imagine I am going to be teaching Environmental English to students who will go on to work in Rwanda’s ecotourism and conservation mangement sectors, but I won’t know for sure until I get to site. The school is located just outside of Nyungewe Forest, which is home to the Nyungwe National Park.
Speaking of getting to site- my training class has our first site visit next week. From what I know about my site, it will be at a somewhat higher elevation (and therefore colder) and probably gets a fair amount of rain. The education program manager also told me this afternoon that “if I leave bread outside, the monkeys will come and take it.” So there’s that. I am also on a main paved road, which means my site will be fairly accessible, and I should have electricity at my house. Even better, a lot of my close friends from training are placed right nearby, so I will be able to visit them fairly frequently. I’m trying not to get my expectations up, but I am very excited to have a little more concrete information about the next two years of my life.
Otherwise life is good, although consistantly very busy. I’m getting along well with my host family, and getting closer to them all the time now that I can actually express some of my own ideas and thoughts in Kinyarwanda. I’m going to try to make banana bread for them this weekend using a make-shift convection oven using two pots and some tomato paste tins. I’ll post the results next time I have internet- and if I can, I’ll even take pictures!
well Nick you could start a new cooking blog or show, cooking in the outback. Do you have the makings for solar ovens? that might be good as well. as I remember they are not very involved as per needed materials. I will be interested in seeing the banana bread results. Happy baking
Mom
nick that sounds so nice! we all miss you and i hope you’re really enjoying africa. i owe you a letter, sometime soon. don’t forget about us little people who aren’t giving two years of our lives to service work
lovelovelove,
nicole
Wow, Nick. That all sounds so exciting. I hadn’t seen an update since your account of the Tucson airport, and here you are, all the way up up to concocting convection ovens from this-n-that. Looking forward to the photos and the next post.