Placed!

I found out my placement yesterday!

I'll be teaching at Stella Matutina Secondary School in the town of Shyorongi (I think...), situated in the lower part of Rwanda's Northern Province, just 30-45 minutes north of Kigali. Stella (I can call it Stella now because I'm soooo there) is an all-girls Catholic boarding school with about 440 students and 22 teachers/staff. According to my field director, they've requested a teacher for math and science, but may use me for other subjects as well.

Score: I have my own little apartment! It's right across the street from the school, and it seems like the other teachers (/nuns? I can't tell if the other teachers are all nuns) will live nearby, possibly sharing a dining room with me. From what I can tell, I'll have a bedroom, kitchen, and guest room. I won't have running water (hooray for adjustment!) but the apartment and the school are tricked out with electricity and internet! This is big news for me, as I'm guessing it'll make things far easier both for teaching and for communicating with home. The other teachers at the school speak limited English, so this'll be a great opportunity for me to finally speak that fluent French I've been after since 6th grade.

Random little things I think I know about Stella/Shyorongi: The town is somewhat spread out along a main road. It's way up at nearly 6000 ft. elevation, so I'm going to have horse lungs by the end of this. Stella has guard dogs (...what?) with newly-built guard dog kennels. The electricity rarely goes out, but when it does, I can head down to a little shop called La Bonne Addresse and get some tea or milk and bread. The whole school compound has a brand new wall/gate scenario, which locks at 9pm nightly, so if I want to go out after that I have to jump the fence. Fresh fruits and veggies seem hard to come by in Shyorongi, so I'll have to trek into Kigali for those. My cooking setup consists of a hotplate with one functioning burner. Eating lunch with the nuns (if they are, in fact, nuns) is feasible but is likely to result in massive weight gain.

So, obviously, I'm still in the dark about a lot of things. As usual, I've got to just get there and find out. All of us WT vols received our placements yesterday, and everyone seems as excited as I am. Can't wait for meeting everyone, orientation, getting to know Kigali, all leading up to meeting my new little home in Shyorongi!

My family is savage and strong and cool and I wouldn't have it any other way.

If Ross wasn't trekking about, falling into amazing opportunities, and going where life took him, he wouldn't be Ross (it's 4pm in Edinburgh!).

If Ben wasn't doing something ridiculously dangerous, slightly stupid, and so heavily reliant on mad skills, he wouldn't be Ben (it's 5pm in Kabul!).

If I weren't being alarmingly over-laid back about preparations for a life-altering third-world move, I wouldn't be me (it's 6pm in Kigali!).

Cheers to our parents for creating, ever improving, and always holding down the fort in California. And for keeping us in our places by loving the dogs slightly more than us. And for advocating hard for the Devil.

I have high hopes for Christmas 2010.