Ms. Terry's Blog

I made it back to Rwanda! Well, for twenty days. We had already booked the ticket for Christmas, so I will be flying back next Friday. But anyway, the flights back were very smooth with no major issues. I cleaned my house from top to bottom, went to a little pre-Christmas gathering with some of my site mate's cohort, and checked in with the med team in Kigali. Other than that, I've just been hanging out (and working out). Yesterday marked one year from our swear in day, and so we only have one year left in-country! I'm excited to get some work done! Here's just a few pictures. There were no sprouts at this airport. Back to my regular lunch view. Cleaning makes me happy.

So, here's what up. I've been home since the end of September. I had an orthopedic appointment and then twelve physical therapy appointments. About halfway through my physical therapy, I sent in my request to be reinstated to my Peace Corps position since I assumed it would take a while for Peace Corps to process the request and paperwork. I was right, considering it's four weeks later and my request was finally approved. I now have to get cleared by the Peace Corps Medical Office. My orthopedist cleared me two weeks ago and my last physical therapy appointment was on Friday. I'm am extremely grateful to all of the lovely people at the Campbell Clinic in Collierville, especially their physical therapy department. If I hadn't done the physical therapy, I'm not sure my ankle would have ever recovered in terms of flexibility and strength.  And they did their best to get my appointments done as quickly as possible so I could get back to my service. In the meanti...

As I already posted on Facebook, I am currently home in Memphis for the time being. I have technically been medically separated from the Peace Corps with the intention to reinstate. The reason it's a medical separation, not the less permanent sounding medical evacuation, is because medical evacuations have time limits of 45 days. And, well, I already spent three weeks at the infirmary in Kigali. Because it is technically a separation, there was the issue of my grant. Since we hadn't had the chance to really get started and it appeared (on paper) that I wasn't coming back, there was the possibility of Peace Corps taking the money I had raised. However, after clarifying the situation, the funds are now just on hold. I hope to be back before national exams in November, and the plan is to get the project underway when the new school year starts. Throughout everything, the Peace Corps Rwanda Medical staff, and the drivers, guards, and cleaning staff who work at...

So, I've had an interesting week and a half. Let's go day by day: Tuesday, August 28th- I'm sitting in English Club (about 4:00 PM) when I decide to make a late afternoon/early evening trip to Kibuye. I've never really gone that late before, but I needed to go to the bank and make some copies for Wednesday morning's teacher training. So I go in, stop by the bank, make my copies, and head to my usual hotel for dinner. I get up to leave the hotel at about 6:30, 7:00 PM, and I have the the hotel call me a car to take me home since it was storming. I didn't have the cash to pay the driver on me, so when we get to my house (in the rain) I tell him to wait while I go get it. The nuns have been doing some reorganizing/refurbishing so the door I usually use is locked and I don't have my keys (stupid, I know, but I never need them since someone is always there). The driver is getting impatient while I, Sister Emmanuel, and Sophie (one of the girls who works at th...

Hello everyone! We are almost done with August, how crazy is that? Anyway, I'm currently at site and we just started term three. Not a ton of students have shown up this week, but hopefully that changes. And as far as my grant project, I am waiting on the funds to be transferred from my personal living allowance account into a separate bank account I set up. Hopefully that will happen soon and we can really get the ball rolling. However, I've only been back at site for about a week. Up until then, I spent eleven days in Tanzania! I met my mom and we spent six days on safari and four days in Zanzibar. For our safari portion, we started in Tarangire National Park before going to the Ngorongero Crater, and then spent three days in the Northern Serengeti. These parks are huge, and we had a fabulous driver, Amani, who took us around in our 4x4 truck with a top that opened up. We stayed in one lodge, and two "tented camps" that still had hot running water. All the pla...

Well, term two is over. The kids have taken their exams and we're just finishing up marking. In five days, I'm off to Tanzania with my mom to go on safari and spend some time on the beach in Zanzibar. Compared to term one, we covered a lot more units in term two. I think that's because the curriculum repeats a lot. It asks you to teach past tense in unit one, but then again in units three and six. It's sort of redundant, but it did allow us to go a lot quicker. In other news, my grant was fully funded and Peace Corps has officially released the funds! Yay! I'm setting up a separate account for the money this week and we'll get started with everything when we get back from break! Thanks to everyone who donated! And finally, I went to Kigali this weekend and I saw Ant Man and the Wasp . I really enjoyed it and can't wait to see where Marvel goes now after Infinity Wars. I also got the chance to weigh myself and I've lost about 40 pounds total since b...

So, we are nearing the end of Term 2. It has been incredibly long, even with two holidays last week for Rwandan Independence Day and Liberation Day. Luckily, we are in the home stretch with exams and break right around the corner. To break up the long term, i went kayaking on Lake Kivu with some other volunteers. Now, I have never been kayaking before, but it was really fun! And exhausting. We started in Kibuye at Hotel Bethany and then kayaked to Napoleon Island (named because it's shaped like Napoleon's hat). Along the way, we passed an island with a friendly, solitary monkey. One of our guides gave him a banana. On the island, which is home to thousands of bats, we went on a rigorous hike to the top before eating lunch and kayaking back. I'm glad to say we only had one person fall in, and everyone made it back in one piece. I was very tired and sore for several days though. On another note, please continue to donate to our grant! We're doing very well! https://w...

My grant has been up for about two weeks now, and we have raised an AMAZING $1120. With my community's contribution, that puts us at $2800.23, with $2141.63 left to go. Every little bit helps and so I thought I would use this opportunity to share what change the grant could bring. 1. The student computer lab Part of the grant would go towards refurbishing and rewiring the student computer lab. Right now, the wiring does not allow each student to work on a computer individually, and the space is in need of reorganization. My school has committed to cleaning the space in preparation for the new furniture. With an updated space, more students could work individually on laptops, and we would also be at an advantage for more government assistant (they have certain space requirements before they will provide more equipment). The computer lab 2. Equipment for teachers The secondary teachers have access to to desktop computers. So do the teachers at the local boarding schoo...