Friday, May 14, 2010

Around Musanze Town

I'm madly in love with Musanze, the district in which I live. On clear days, I can see five volcanoes from my house. The weather is temperate year-round, and the town has a perfect mixture of "rustic charm" and modern conveniences (hotel wireless, for instance).


I've been itching to wander around snapping pics with my digital slr for ages, but I didn't feel comfortable taking pics of the townspeople. Eventually, my friend Pascal and I took a Saturday afternoon off to stroll about snapping pics. As I suspected, reactions to a muzungu (white person, rich person) photographing the poor inhabitants of the town was not readily accepted. People shied away from me and my camera before I even lifted the camera from where it hung around my neck.


Then Pascal had an idea.


He took my camera in hand and began photographing people right and left, with nary a complaint. The following are some of the pics that survived the transfer from my broken laptop:


Pascal




A girl on the road with a load to tote





Gathering firewood to cook the day's meals




Those are enormous bags of potatoes on their heads




Transporting plantains to market







Musanze foot traffic




Ah, the ol' wheel and stick!















Classic.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Student Pics

The following are some pics of one of my four Senior 6 English classes. My students are amazing. Now if only I could get them all to smile for pictures!






Check out my ridiculous lab space: Roughly 50 Senior 5 students crammed around six tables. What a recipe for chaos! However,we are getting a lot of use out of the microscopes donated by Millersville University. Thanks MU!