Early Learning

 

It really is about time that I learned to read... in Kinyarwanda.

Last Thursday I had my second Kinyarwanda lesson. One of the most popular forms of public transport in Rwanda is the moto, or public motorbike. You can hail them just about anywhere, and when I lived here between 2007-09, I learned to haggle with them over price fairly well. To the point where moto drivers generally assume I can speak far more Kinyarwanda than I actually can. 

It's like that Family Guy episode:

Brian: Hola, mi nombre es brian.  

Immigrant: Thats pretty good, but you don't need the es in there. It's just hola, mi nombre brian.  

Brian: Oh, thank God you speak English! 

Immigrant: Nope, just that sentence and this sentence explaining it.  

Brian: You're kidding, right?  

Immigrant: Que?

So, I decided to do something about that. I now have a Kinyarwanda teacher, Jacques Mutabazi, and the other day whilst browsing through Nakumatt (where I bought The Pinhoe Egg) I discovered some early learning books. So I now have Maguru ni Ingagi (Maguru and the Gorilla) and Imirwano Hagati y'Umuriro n'Amazi (The Battle Between Fire and Water). Published by Fountain Publishers.

It's going to take some time before I'm able to read at an elementary level, but with Jacques' help, and armed with the online Kinyarwanda dictionary, I'm hoping to get there eventually.