It really is a small world.

Now, I know Rwanda is a small country....but as it turns out, the world is pretty small too.

So my old roommate, Emily, and I would go out in Edmonton and I would run into people I know. Or she would introduce me to someone she met and we'd chat and it would turn out that we knew a bunch of people in common. It used to drive her crazy and she'd start to never been surprised that I'd meet someone who knew someone I knew. That's the reality of moving around a lot as a kid, I guess. It's like a real life facebook. So, when we walked into the tourist office in Dawson City and I knew the girl working there, her response was "Of course you do!" I was even at a bridal shower in Halifax, NS and we went to a bar where I ran into a guy who, as it turned out after many "Don't I know you from somewhere?"s from him and a  number of "Mmm, I don't think so"s from me, WAS infact a guy that I knew in Grande Prairie, AB. So yes, it's a small world. You really do just have to look at facebook to realize it, I guess. (Although it's a bit exaggerated in that NOBODY really has 337 friends .... well, unless you're Piket....but that's another story). Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, small world, facebook and all that. 

Well, last night was the VSO Family Dinner in Kigali. A new intake of volunteers arrived last week and the family dinner is a sort of "welcome to the family". I'd been in touch with an incoming volunteer from Calgary who was about my parents' age and finally got to meet her. But here's not where the world gets small. So we're from the same city but that's not the crazy part. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "So, have you always lived in Calgary?"

S: "No I lived in north also."

Me: "Oh where? I used to live in the north"

S: "Oh Inuvik, Fort something or other, Fort something else or other"

Me: "I lived in Inuvik in 1981."

S: "I was there in the seventies." (no link yet)

Me: "My parents taught all over the north. In...what's it called? It's Iqaluit now but it was call....Oh....Frobisher Bay."

S: Staring at me...."You're not J's daughter are you?"

Me: "Yes!"

S: "And is your mom A?"

Me: "Yes!"

S: "So he did marry her then?? (Me thinking: Thankfully or this could be awkward.) Oh he used to talk about her all the time!"

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As it turns out, Shala taught with my dad in the north in the early seventies and now, here she is in Rwanda, and we'd been emailing the few weeks leading up to this. Now THAT is a small world.

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The rest of the weekend was a stress free Kigali trip. I chose to do no errands and buy nothing (save for the bread and yogurt on my way to catch the bus home). Friday the Global Schools Partnership meeting we discussed how to better link Rwandan schools with UK schools though the Global Gateway website. Sarah and I agreed to work on the Rwandan national "General Paper" curriculum which includes a meeting on the 2nd with VSO and then a meeting on the 3rd with the National Curriculum Development Centre. Basically, we want to work with this national body to improve the curriculum, generally, and integrate Global Education into it specifically. Of course when we realized we had to attend the NCDC meeting my first response was "But I don't have any grown up clothes!" (I spend most of my days in rural schools and on motorbikes and so my teaching clothes are all at home.....) I'm excited about working with the curriculum because I really believe that the success of the education program here depends, first, on having a workable and teacher-friendly curriculum that helps teachers and gives them something to start from. 

After this was our bookswap which was good and then a rain storm that lasted so long I was sure I wasn't going to wear my new fancy Zanzibar dress to the family dinner. We had coffees at Shockolat and then grabbed a taxi for the accommodation. The family dinner was good and the dancers much better than when we came in August. Amy did an icebreaker which simulated cramming people into a mini-taxi bus seven people across. She did a good job and I took away some ideas to take into schools. Dinner was good even if the power surges meant that the florescent lights kept going on and off! There is a good group of people who just arrived. Jeremy comes to Kibungo on Wednesday and we'll be working closely together. 

I'm home and STILL trying to deal with bed bug issue, although upon consultation with a number of volunteers, we're not sure they are bed bugs. It's something. So today I've taken their advice. I'm putting all my sheets and blankets in boiling water, pouring boiling water on my furniture, spraying my mattress and sitting it in the sun and....HOPEFULLY this works. Rumor has it that volunteers are all getting new mattresses so this might save me the task of doing it myself. Here's hoping.....

Anyway, this weekend is another moto-filled week, with Jeremy's arrival on Wednesday and the conclusion of the English training on Friday. Monday is the first day of school for the little ones and.....rumor has it that it might be a holiday. Go figure.