Fun little things about Rwanda…

“Thank you too”
There is no phrase for “you're welcome” in Kinyarwanda so often Rwandans respond “thank you too” after we thank them. This especially happens with the guards at our school, and it makes me smile every time!

Motos
To get around town, we most often ride on the back of moto-taxis… small motorcycles that usually want to overcharge us since we’re white. It is pretty fun because usually they go quickly up and down the hilly roads of Rwanda! We can get most places by paying 700-800 francs. (592 francs = $1)

Airtime
Cell phones in Rwanda are all prepaid. You buy a scratch off card with “airtime” and type the number into the phone. It takes off a certain amount of money for each phone call, text message, and also when you use your phone number to pay for wireless internet. Also, once I figured out how to change my ringtone on my phone I set it to the Mission Impossible theme song!

Cash power
Electricity in our home is also prepaid. There’s a little box outside our front door that tells the amount of money we have left. Again, you have to go to the store, buy a card that has a code on it, and punch it into the box to get more power. So, when you don’t do this early enough (this happened to us in the second week), then the power goes out and there’s nothing you can do about it!
Also, sometimes, well often, the power goes out randomly for a minute or a few hours. On Thursday it was out for 8 hours. It doesn’t make much difference to me during school, but it does make things more difficult after dark. After dark means after 6:30.


This week was a great challenge, but it ended positively. My students are wonderful and full of energy! On Tuesdays we have devotions with our staff which is a peaceful way to begin the day. At the end of day I was so exhausted, then I realized that I started the school day worshipping with my staff and I finished the day praising God with songs with my students. It was an awesome reminder as to why I’m here! My roommate Emily reminded me that more importantly than teaching first grade, I am here to live like Christ and shine His light on others! It was a comforting and crucial for me to be thinking of that always!

Well, friends and family, thanks for reading this brief post!
I would really love to hear from more people via skype. Please look me up… my name is kerrydembowski. I’d love to set up a time to talk!

Thanks for the prayers and support!

Love, hugs, and beans & rice,
Kerry

Today I...

ran in a very high altitude, experienced a power outage, attended a new church that lasted 2 and a half hours and heard an annoucement in 5 languages, ate pizza, got a ride with a stranger, went to an orphanage, heard little kids try to copy my songs despite the fact the dont speak english, bought my first chocolate bar in rwanda, rode home on the back of a moto, sat on the curb to get free internet, and saw a cat.

I am a real teacher. EEEK!!

Saturday, August 21, 2010

12:00pm

The first week was a success!!
I am also pretty official because my picture is on the staff part of the school’s website: www.kicsrw.org. Thanks, Aunt Kathy, for letting us know! For those interested in what I eat every day, check out the school menu because I eat what the kids eat for lunch each day.

Everyone has been asking for picture… so here are a few….


This is my bedroom at my house! We got lucky and got the house with everything GREEN so it is perfect for me! They accidentally ordered us king sized beds so I sleep on about a quarter of my bed.


This is me and one of my roommates, Emily at the lake we went to for some orientation things the first week. It was beautiful and so was the drive! And, this is the place where I first tried goat.


It was also my first bus ride in Africa, where we went off the main roads into Kigali and onto unpaved roads with lots of potholes (kind of like Michigan! Haha).



Here I am in my first day of school outfit in my calendar corner of my classroom.

There is no carpet in this country, that I have seen, but last year in first grade they had this awesome blue shag carpet, so now I get it! The kids love it, although it is quite distracting because it is fun to play with. We spend a lot of time in this area, doing math meeting, reading stories, and singing songs. They LOVE singing and dancing so I’m glad I have so many children’s Cds on my computer (Thank you, Ingrid Schwab!)! So far their favorites are the chicken dance and the freeze.

My students are quite wonderful, but surprise: they act like a bunch of 6 year olds, so I am quite exhausted. We are getting into more of a routine and I’m pretty good at gauging enough time for everything. Eight hours is just a long day! We have about 25 minutes where the whole school has recess (chai break!), where I am on duty once a week. I have one or two 20 minute specials (P.E., Music, and Art) a day, except on Fridays, so those are really my only breaks. The kindergarteners and first graders eat lunch together first, and the teachers are the main supervisors at this point. Eventually Gerda (from the Netherlands) and I will take turns watching them at lunch, but until everyone is in the routine, we are both there.

Everybody here has such huge hearts!! I am so blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing people all the time. I have already made some great friends, especially my roommates, Emily and Kelly, and some of the other teachers. It is awesome because people are from nearby states (Micki and Doug are both from Indiana!) and then I have a friend named Hannah (second grade teacher) from England! I love it.

Last night I went over to a family’s house for dinner and we had HOT DOGS (with Heinz ketchup from Kenya!), potatoes, fruit salad and cupcakes. It was quite delicious. Tim Brubaker was the first person to contact me about this job, and he helped me set up my first interview with Trevor, the headmaster of KICS. Their family feels responsible for me being here, and had been praying for me for months and months. It is pretty awesome how God works, because I had been praying for this opportunity for so long and now here I am! Their family is so welcoming and Jessica is going to help out in my classroom (their son, Martin is a first grader), so I am grateful that I have them!

After dinner I watched a movie with some friends, fell asleep for part of it, then we sat around and one of our friends played guitar and we sang and hung out. It was comforting to me for the simple reason that I love that and it is so familiar to me-- just like home! God provides me with these types of friends in every stage of my life. What a blessing!

I will try to be more consistent about posting pictures and I’ll include some from school as soon as I take them.

Thanks for reading.

Love, peace, and delicious cupcakes,
Kerry

First day of school!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
10:36pm

The first day of school was a success! It was only a half day so school went from 8am until 12pm. Sixteen of my twenty students showed up and I just found out another girl will be here at the end of next week when she returns to the country. I have students from 5 continents and many countries including the U.S., Rwanda, Ghana, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, South Africa, and more!
We started the day with a meeting of the whole school, and I found all my first grade friends and we headed down to our room. Overall it was a great day going through procedures, playing get to know you games, and singing songs. It is a really great class! During morning prayer I asked for prayer requests from students, which were so precious. We prayed for one girl’s baby brother who has been crying a lot at night and keeping her mom up at night, another girl’s grandma, and several of the students wanted us to pray that we would have a good day at school and obey the teacher.

All in all, the students were very well behaved and we had a really great time! Tomorrow will be my first full day of teaching in my own classroom, so that should be exciting.

On Sunday I went with my roommate Emily to the Mother Theresa Orphanage in Kigali. It was beautiful, fun, and heartbreaking all in one. I had never actually been to an orphanage and it was an awesome experience. I would say there were about 50 children ranging in ages 2-4 and maybe ten younger than that. Mostly the kids were just excited we were there and they wanted to be held and played with. I plan on going back on Sundays whenever I can.

Mostly, I spend a lot of time at school, working in my classroom and doing lots of planning. Today I came home and took a long nap, and went back to school for a long time!

The best time on weekdays for me to skype is between 4pm and 9pm my time so between 10am and 3pm in Michigan! Please e-mail me and we can set something up!

Also… since I’ve been here I’ve tried sheep and goat!

Okay, it is getting late so I need to get to bed! I will try to put up some pictures this weekend

Love, hugs, and happy first days,
Kerry

Friday, August 13, 2010
11:30pm

Good news! I’ve made it through the first few days. Somehow I have experienced little to no jet lag and have been sleeping on a regular sleep schedule. Praise the Lord! I’m basically moved into my room, but mostly I spend my time at school setting up my classroom. We have lots of textbooks, mostly donated by American schools. It is nice to have so many resources, but the challenge will be to figure out how I’ll incorporate as much as I can into being hands on.

Tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon is the meet and greet at the school. This is just a time where the parents and some of the students come to meet the staff. I’m very excited and I’m just praying that it goes smoothly and I make a good impression! Eeek! I have already met several parents who are connected to the school. One is the daughter of the chair of the board of KICS (father) and a high school teacher (mother). I also have the librarian’s son and the little boy of the missionary family who first contacted me about this opportunity via mission teach. They are especially excited that I came, since they had a part in it, so they invited me over for dinner on Sunday evening.

Things have been very busy but overwhelming. First year of teaching and moving to a foreign country… yikes! I do think it is wonderful here and the staff and headmaster are nothing but supportive. It is a place of great love.

Please do keep in touch and let me know what is going on in all of your lives. (kerrydembowski@gmail.com) If you’d like to send mail I heard it takes about two weeks, and packages could take up to 3 months (but often a month). I would love to hear from you.

Love, hugs, and first moto rides,
Kerry

Oh! Fun fact we discovered today… I am the youngest member on the KICS staff!

I made it!

This is a sunset I saw on the plane on the way to Brussels.

And a few hours later... the sunrise! So beautiful!

This is the boy who sat in my empty seat for a few hours of the flight to Kigali. He is Jonathan and he's four. And adorable.

Wow! I really can hardly believe I actually made it here! I arrived last night into Kigali around 7:00, walking out of the baggage claim to a group of people calling out, “Kerry! Kerry!’ to every single white girl who passed by. They rushed me when they saw me and I was introduced to the headmaster, several teachers, and some families, including one of my students-- Grace! It was a wonderful welcome.

I was driven to my house with a family and one of my roommates, Emily. She is a second year KICS (Kigali International Community School) teacher from North Carolina and she has a great southern accent! Along with some years of teaching in the U.S., she also taught a year in Kenya before coming to Rwanda. Upon my arrival at my new house I also met my other roommate, Kelly, who has already been in this country for 6 months or so with the Bridge to Rwanda program. They are so nice, easy going, and fun and immediately made me feel comfortable here. We spent the evening unpacking and talking and then I was actually able to get a fairly good night of sleep!

Our house is very nice, with the three bedrooms upstairs, each with a king sized bed, which is kind of crazy. Most things are decorated in green, which is extra nice for me. We are at the top of a hill and my view is of the city! We have a bathroom upstairs with a shower/bathtub with hot water, which is exciting. It is a handheld shower head so that will take a little bit of getting used to. Downstairs we have a small kitchen, living room/dining room, a storage room, and another bathroom with a shower and a toilet. Right now we can only use the upstairs shower and the downstairs toilet.

I write this as I lie in bed, but we don’t have internet at our house so I’ll post it once I get to school. We’re meeting there at 10:00 for orientation. Tomorrow we are going to the genocide museum, and although it’ll be very sad, I’m anxious to go to learn about their history and how much this country has overcome.

I’m stoked to see what everything looks like in daylight since I arrived after dark last night.

Oh! My flights all went very smoothly. From Detroit to Washington D.C. was a quick and easy flight and I got to my next gate with fifteen minutes until we had to board. From D.C. to Brussels (7 hour flight) I sat next to an 80 year old Croatian man who had moved to the U.S. when he was 32 and started a family. He had 2 children (his daughter graduated from Harvard Law!) and 2 grandchildren. He spent most of the flight reading financial newspapers and shared articles with me that I would find of interest: one about recent college graduates and another about Africa. He had actually been to Rwanda (of course) so he could tell me a little about it. When he stood up he always asked me to hold his cup (he drank lots of tomato juice!) and then told me, “Old people are like old cars--they require lots of care.”

I had a few hours in Brussels where I met a Ugandan man named Peter who has been living in L.A. for several years but was traveling home for his brother’s wedding. I also met some pastors from a church in Nashville who were traveling to Uganda because their church is working with two orphanages there. When I told them what I was doing they prayed for me, my safety, and my trip.

Saturday is a meet and greet type night where I’ll meet all of my students and their parents, so it is my goal to have my classroom all set up by then. Tuesday is the first day of school-- a half day. Eeeek!!

Well, thanks for all of your support. I could not have made it here without the love and encouragement from all of you.

With love and hugs from Rwanda,
Kerry

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

Wow! In only a few hours I’ll be leaving with my family for the Detroit airport! Last night we drove up to Crystal Mountain, where the Dembowski family reunion is currently taking place. It was truly amazing to see all of those people in the same place one more time before I leave for so long, but also extremely hard to say good bye! I’ve gotten to see lots of friends and family, which is incredible because everything has happened so fast and I’ve barely had any free time!

My flights are as follows:

UA 7957: Depart Detroit Metro 2:36pm—Arrive Washington Dull 4:07pm

LH 9383: Depart Washington Dull 5:37pm—Arrive Brussels 7:30am

SN 465: Depart Brussels 10:40am—Arrive Kigali 6:50pm

So please be praying that everything goes smoothly! I will post as soon as I can when I get there, but just contact my parents if you want to hear that I’ve gotten there safely.

Thanks so much for all of the love and support. I could not do this without all of you!

Love, smiles, and long flights,
Kerry :)