Saturday, September 28, 2013

Pen Pals Needed


I checked with the head mistress and I have the green light to set up pen pals if I can find English or French speakers willing to communicate with a girl from the school.  Since my role here is to help the students improve their English, obviously I'd like to find lots of English-speaking pen pals, but the students also study French so they could benefit from writing to my French-speaking friends. 
Since getting the green light, I've also made some progress on the pen pal list and I currently have a list of 21 girls who would like to have a pen pal.  Like I wrote in an earlier post, I've stressed to them that I would not be setting up sponsorships between them and people in America so they are not to ask for money.  It's strictly to communicate with someone in another country so they can learn about that country and practice a foreign language and also you can learn more about the life of a Rwandan.
So far I have two family members who are willing to be pen pals, which means I still need at least 19 pen pals.  If you want to be one, can you post a comment here or send me an email with your interest and your preferred method of contact? 
 As some of you might know, when pen pals are arranged through a sponsorship organization, usually the Americans send the letters to the organization, which then distributes them to the children and when the children write, the letters go through the organization also so neither party has the other's address or email address. Here that can work for a little while because I can receive your letters and send the girl's without revealing mailing addresses, but a lot of the girls on the pen pal list are in senior 3, which means most of them will be transferred to a new school in January.
Do you want to communicate through mail, which means I could give you a student's home address (for when she is on vacation in November and December) and give the student your address?   Would you prefer email?  Skype?  Do you prefer to not be a pen pal unless your contact info remains hidden.  If that is the case, I can look for a student in senior 1, 2, 4, or 5, because he or she will be here next year and I can be the middle woman while I'm here.
On behalf of the students, thank you!

2 comments:

  1. I can't wait to start exchanging letters with my penpal! Why does it seem like I'm the only person to write comments on your blog Heather? Maybe they don't know that the "comment" button is down at the bottom of your posts. I'm going to mention it to your mom. I know she reads your posts! :)

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  2. Hi Aunt Maria,
    It's okay that people don't post. I get feedback in emails and when I put something on FB, people comment there. At least I can tell that people are reading the blog because Blogger keeps a record of how many page views there are a day. But I also like reading your comments so don't feel like you have to stop!

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