“Our school motto, Ntaruka Fisher schoolSchool, we are proud of you. A school with a difference…...”, thatThat was it. The motto was confusing to us as kids, but reciting it every morning was a moment no one ever wanted to miss.

When I was young, my family resided in the capital city, so my parents did not have to worry about the quality of education we would receive, until we moved to the countryside. They took us to the verymost expensive school around, “Ntaruka Fisher school”School”. The termlyterm fees were approximately $3 and, with its ugandanUgandan teachers, our English would be better than those being taught by Rwandan teachers in public schools. At first sight, there seemed to be no school. We studied from a church that was under construction. which hadThere was no cement yet, so we always had injury cases. The school could not afford benches, so we could just put timber onacross two separate stones and sitsat on them for studies. We got used to losing our pens toin the holes between the stones on the ground and more.

It is from this uncompleted building that I learnt and did my first debate. On our way home no one was supposed to talk in the vernacular “kinyarwanda” to avoid morning beatings. We created bonds over the lunch we packed to school,packed lunches and over the little games we played, etc.” The school fees also went on increasingincreased each year, so by grade 5 it was $16. We watched the school develop from the unpaved church to five classes with benches. I was their whenthere when the school was able to afford chalkschalk and no longer used stones inon certain occasions.