Way to Use Your Head!

My main responsibility here in Rwanda is to teach English to some of the greatest kids in the world.  I try to cram their heads full of useful information.  Sometimes I think their heads might explode.  Like this week, for example:  exams started yesterday, and they will be finished next Thursday.  My children have SEVENTEEN exams in six days.  Count them:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 exams.  Their heads are filled with little tidbits of chemistry, math, Christian religious education, entrepreneurship, physics, English, French, Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda, leadership skills, literature, biology, fine arts, political education, history, geography, and computers.  Can you even begin to fathom the stress they feel in their little heads? 

While some of my students take such a great institution as Sonrise High School for granted, most of them are quite grateful for their educations. I hope to instill in all of them an appreciation for the blessing of a good education and to enable them to rely on their own heads to succeed in life.  I pray they will utilize their heads and their education to become things like teachers, doctors, pilots, and business people who will use their heads everyday to better themselves and their country.

On my two-mile walk to school this morning, I snapped a few pictures of the locals.  Some were children on their way to school.  Some were children who work rather than going to school.  Some were grown-ups doing their daily chores.  Some were grown-ups headed to work. While they may or may not have had the blessing of a good education, they all had one thing in common:  they all knew how to use their heads.

So whether these people use their heads to solve the development problems of their third-world country or to carry their well-toiled-after goods to market or to come up with major medical breakthroughs or to eke out a living to feed their families, I admire each and every hard-working Rwandan person I run across in my daily life.  I’d like to propose a toast in honor of each and every one of these beautiful people.  If you will all please raise your glasses with me…. 

"To using your head!"

“To using your head!”

“To using your head!”

“To using your heads!”