About Ryan Hirons

Ryan Hirons I am a 34 year old Canadian man that just read too many books on Africa! History, politics and most importantly why Africa is the way it is today. I spent 12 years in the publishing industry making very good money, bought a poshy condo in Toronto, but still found myself eager to do more. So... I quit the job and sold the condo and I will find myself in Rwanda for 3 months teaching. We will see where it will go from there!

Ryan's Posts:

The end is near…

June 2nd, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

Well not that end, but the end of my teaching position @ St. Patrick’s. I will be doing my last lesson on June 11. I started with verbs, nouns and opposites, the usual stuff at the beginning, but after a few weeks I realized that most of the students knew how to say the words in English, but no idea what some of the words mean. So it was back to basic English vocabulary. I had all of them suggest words for me to define. This has been the last 4 weeks or so.
I would also like to thank Jack [...]

Posted in Rwanda

Murambi

May 18th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

Well, where to start. Ok, so on May 16, a volunteer and myself got up pretty early and got one of the first buses out of Kigali to Butare. From Butare we took another short ride to Murambi Memorial via moto. There we met a guide that took us and explained the site.
We first went to the mass grave of 55,000 men, women and children and we had a moment of silence for the dead. The buildings that we were walking through used to be a technical school. The mayors of surrounding towns, religious leaders and other high ranking members of [...]

Posted in Rwanda

General questions about Rwanda

May 8th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

I have had some emails from some of you about the current state of Rwanda and its people;
So, what’s it really like there?
-Well in short it’s absolutely beautiful here. There’s great scenery but just like any place on Earth, it’s the people that make the country. It smells like dust and gas most of the time. We eat bread and fruit for breakfast and for dinner we can have anything from spaghetti to fish and there is almost always chips (fries). It’s impossible to describe everything about Rwanda, but I hope this helps.
Are the people happy?
-Yes. For the most part [...]

Posted in Rwanda

May 3, 2010

May 3rd, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

Sorry again for not updating this more frequently. I am officially at my half way mark in Rwanda and I am quiet impressed with the country as a whole. I have sponsored two more children (for two years) and hope to have some pics of Amie and Emanuel (both 7 years old) as soon as I get my replacement cord for my powerbook this weekend. Emanuel’s mother and father are HIV positive and getting him started in school will surely help in his family’s future. FVA is in the middle of getting a collection of children that need to be sponsored. This [...]

Posted in Rwanda

April 17, 2010

April 16th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

Sorry it’s been so long. I’m having some good days and some not so good days. Rwanda is not easy and there are many adjustments that must be made that I did not account for in the beginning. Still positive, the kids keep me that way.
Yesterday was a good day though. I have now, or I should say ‘we’ (those friends and family that donated money) have sponsored 6 children for the rest of this school year. I will have pictures soon and I got to meet every one of them. 3 are in primary school and the other 3 [...]

Posted in Rwanda

April 5th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

April 5, 2010
Last Friday I went with Ian, another volunteer, to his placement working with street kids or more specifically street boys. I had a great time and the boys were very respectful and happy to see us. I brought a volleyball from home and they really enjoyed hitting the ball around. Got some really good pics as well. I gave my point and shoot camera to the boys to take pictures and movies for the day and I let some of them use my iPhone. For some reason I wasn’t surprised that they knew the entire capabilities of my [...]

Posted in Rwanda

March 24, 2010

March 24th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

I had my first senior 1 English class on Monday this week. It went very well and the kids actually wanted me to teach them?! Little did they know that I have never really taught before. It was simple lesson of teaching them how to tell time. I bought a few English text books on the weekend and found some useful lessons and tests. I actually had to think about some of the answers to some of the questions. Right now St. Patrick’s is gearing up for exams for the end of this term. I will not be playing a [...]

Posted in Rwanda

Memorial

March 16th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

March 16, 2010 3:30pm
Yesterday was orientation and the Kigali Memorial. Orientation was great, had a lot questions answered. Clair is amazing and so is Willy, my bosses
The Memorial was really, really well put togethe. The main memory that I have is at the end of the tour there was a section for Rwandas Lost future Hero’s (or something along that line), a memorial to the murdered children that were lost. There were several Rwandan children and facts on how they lived, likes, favourite person and at the end how each one was killed. The on that hit home [...]

Posted in Rwanda

First Day

March 13th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

The plane wasn’t as bad as I thought almost 40 hours in the air/airports and only my sleep got messed up. I think so far the smell of Rwanda is the most surprising, not that it is bad at all, just such a scent that is so foreign and different. I’ll try to describe it later on. This place is beyond beautiful!
The internet is pretty unstable so far so. I will post as many entries as I can. Tomorrow I meet with everybody I’m working with and get settled in at FVA. Walked around some of the local streets last [...]

Posted in Rwanda

Two more weeks…

February 25th, 2010 by Ryan Hirons

Still lots to do. Work is done and one condo to move… This is just more of a test for my journal.

Posted in Rwanda

A Global Volunteer Network Initiative: http://www.volunteer.org.nz