a daniel update

I tested Daniel's literacy level in English as well his numeracy level. He's actually pretty advanced when it comes to writing (he has great penmanship) and math (he can do basic quadratic equations). His listening comprehension needs to most improvement and he's getting that easily by just dealing with us every day. His reading comprehension needs to be improved--he's not at the level yet where I feel he can read a newspaper article without a lot of dictionary help.

But he likes getting homework and I think he'll be much more advanced by the end of the summer. I ended up spending about an hour with him on Wednesday night as well. The added difficulty that I think is common among all Rwandans above a certain age is that they have spent their education using three different languages as different stages--in primary school, it was all in Kinyarwanda, then in middle school, it was in French, then in 2008, all school switched to English, so some people went from the last year in middle school to the first year of high school and on in a totally different language.

daniel, our man friday

Daniel is our house guardien (angel)--his duties include everything from keeping up the exterior grounds, to fixing toilets, to chasing out bats (which, as it turns out, means killing them...). He's super nice and takes good care of us and the house. 

He's 23 and, as he was quick to note, single! Actually, it turns out that telling your marital status is a pretty common part of the self-introduction process in Rwanda. 

Bit by bit, we are learning more about Daniel. As with so many people we've met in Rwanda, Daniel's life was deeply affected by the 1994 genocide (sometimes referred to as simply "1994"). He was left orphaned when his mother and father were killed. He worked hard at school and won a national scholarship to a technical high school nearby our house in Nyamata, where he studied carpentry. 

He's actually pretty decent with his conversational English and, like many young Rwandese, understands some French--I speak to him using mostly English (with the aim of improving his English skills by the end of the summer), a little bit of French, and a lot of miming, charades, and hand gestures. 

The Rwandan education system used to be conducted entirely in French, but in 2008, with the intention of modernizing and further advancing its development, Rwanda switched to an Anglophone-based system. So, for people like Daniel, their education is a mixture of French and English. For example, things that one might especially learn when in primary school, like numbers, are easier in French than in English.

Daniel and I have had a couple of long talks since we moved into the house. Last night's was a quietly epic one that began with us talking about instructions for the woman who comes on Tuesdays to clean and do laundry (her name is Chantal, more on her later this summer as I get to know her better) and ended with us agreeing to do an English study lesson once or twice per week. 

Tonight will be our first English lesson and I'm planning to do a general assessment of his literacy, writing skills, reading comprehension, and numeracy. I'll write up a follow up soon!

P.S. It turns out the other girls I live with want a little French lesson, so I'll be covering numbers and greetings with them in French tonight too!