Just call me Miss Rice...

For Christmas, I went to Medie, Katy's village--our friend Amanda came down for Rwanda for the holidays. It was a wonderful holiday vacation, spent with wonderful friends-good conversation-lots of laughs and a few tears. It took me most of the day to get to Medie, on a hot cramped bus rides and an even more cramped hitch on a bumpy dirty road to get to Medie. But worth the journey! We made our Christmas tree--from tree branches in Katy's yard and decorated it with popcorn, flowers, local berries and topped it with a star!

 

We thought it would be a wonderful idea to kill our own chicken for Christmas dinner. We set out wandering around Medie to buy a "Setwsana Chicken" instead we got a "white chicken" which are tastier! On Christmas morning, Matilda was brought to our door step by village children! In typical IYFD fashion, we said good-bye to Matilda before her slaughter and thanked her for her sacrifice. 

Katy and Amanda saying thanks. We even fed her a wonderful last meal of dried fruit!

Warning...graphic image. Katy held Matilda down, and I had the honor of....making the cut and Amanda was in charge of documentation. Truthfully, its a little traumatic to make that cut. Matilda finally went limp and Katy let go....the next thing we know--Matilda jumps up, wings flapping and started to run around Katy's yard--with her neck half cut off! We were all in shock and little bit of panic...and yes, I think we each had tears in our eyes. Finally, we chased her down and well...had to do the deed again. 

After your chicken is dead, you then put the body in hot water then pull the feathers off, then proceed to de-bone said chicken. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to say...why are we single? Look at us, we can kill a chicken and we are educated (and very smart women) 

We, went even further and cooked over a fire! Motswana style! Most of the Motswana I encounter, don't think that Americans can light a fire--none the less cook over the fire.

I am a the Junior Secondary School in Lehututu, which is a boarding school that houses about 300 students. Our classrooms are large open rooms, with a chalk board and small desks; there are about 50 kids per class. The kids use a pit latrine and go to a stand pipe for water (when we have water). 

Three days a week, kids line up for assembly. This would never happen in America! They line up in rows, like little sardines, sing a religious song and say the Lords Prayer.

The Form 1 students are from Lehututu and from the settlements of Ukwi, Ncaang, Monong and Make. There are 101 Form 1 students, 60 of them are failing--receiving Ds and Es, possible grades are 0-100 (with 100 being the highest). Most of the Form 1 students have little English skills, or Setswana, students from the settlements speak primarily Sekgalagadi (there are many dialects of Sekgalagadi). There are not enough class rooms or teachers in school, so the Form 1s are stuck in the school hall for lessons. I have been teaching Guidance and Counseling classes to all three forms. The kids call me Miss Rice, also when I am walking through the village I hear Miss Rice over and over again.