Week Seven: Thinking about the Future by Working in the Present and Overcoming the Past

            Often when I dream, I return to scenes I have already experienced and create an alternative outcome. Favorable or not, I have little control over the new outcome, at least not consciously. Most recently, I “returned” to Rwanda, and as is so often with dreams of this kind, I had to confront one of my travel companions in a way that I never got to in real life. Although I’ve talked about her before on my blog, I have tired to suppress any and all thoughts of her. Even so, memories of her asking “how’s your English?” to those she identified as non-white continue to haunt me, perhaps precisely because I did nothing about it. It was a lesson to me then not to be like her, but now looking back, I can see that I am now doing something about it. I am learning Kinyarwanda, perhaps in unnecessary anticipation of the question “how’s your Kinyarwanda?,” but more likely so I never make anyone feel embarrassed by their language skills in English. I was able to write about this experience for another class, and I believe it acted as some kind of catharsis for me, but for this class, it was further encouragement to keep going.

            To that end, this week, I continued devising my own lessons in Kinyarwanda on Memrise. As mentioned in my last entry, I wanted to borrow a few words/phrases from other people’s courses, and I discovered that there was no “easy” way to do it beyond manually copying them. It’s time-consuming but not arduous labor by any means.

            I also constructed a lesson for my language-learning website, which was also quite time-consuming. In it, I discussed one of the ten noun classes, Noun Class One, which deals with people. For whatever reason, I anticipated that it would be an easy task, but as I proceeded throughout the lesson, I kept thinking of more information attached to the noun class, and it proved to be quite lengthy. It’s great, insofar as it’s pretty comprehensive (though I am sure I excluded important information), and it forced me to review this concepts as well as provide examples (though, again, I am sure I will have to study other important information). However, I am concerned that, because I am already familiar with the various components of the noun class, that I may have overwhelmed my audience with too much information. Accordingly, I am trying to think of an alternative way to make the language more accessible and less about rules! As I continue to think about it though, I am compelled to wonder if making a textbook would be possible. I mean, I am sure it is, but perhaps if I start approaching the website as a potential textbook, it might help me presently, as well as professionally (in the future).

            Murakoze, kandi muramuke!