Global intern from Rwanda reads books to children

Claudine Ukubereyimfura interacts with a child during a storytelling session in the Oil Tank Culture Center, western Seoul, Tuesday./ Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

By Kim Se-jeong

Claudine Ukubereyimfura, 22, a student at Yonsei University from Rwanda, is a storyteller who reads books in English to children in Seoul.

A Seoul Metropolitan Government's global intern, Ukubereyimfura reads stories to children at the Oil Tank Culture Park in western Seoul every morning at 10 a.m. from Tuesday to Saturday. The session will run until Feb. 20.

"Today, I will read 'Snowy Day' and I will make paper snowmen with the children," Ukubereyimfura said during an interview with The Korea Times before the reading session Tuesday.

About an hour later, the native Rwandan read the book out loud and invited the children to participate in an arts and craft activity during a one-hour session.

"The hardest part is phrasing the question so that children can understand," the storyteller said. "The happiest moment, of course, is when children understand the questions and get the answers right."

She learned English at school in Rwanda. "English is one of the official languages in Rwanda and is primarily spoken at schools." She also speaks French and Kinyarwanda which are also official languages.

It's almost two months since she started the session. After three weeks of adjustment, she now feels confident with the sessions and dealing with the children.

"The program was not fully developed when we began," her Korean supervisor said. "Instead, we developed together, making changes after each session." She and her supervisor chose books together and came up with arts and crafts activities to go along with the readings.

The storytelling program was an initiative by the culture park. "We had Claudine and we knew there were many parents out there who wanted English education for their children. We thought by running the storytelling sessions, we could make everyone happy," Claudine's supervisor said.

The experience is not so relevant to her field of study but still very valuable.

"I didn't have a chance to spend time with children. I have a brother but he is much older than them. This is a good experience because I learn many things from them, like being humble," she said. "Also, I learned when they want to draw a monster on the yellow paper, that means they want the yellow paper," she said.

Beside the storytelling session, she runs an English tour of the park in the afternoon and is fascinated by the transformation that the site has gone through. "I invite my friends to visit the park. The first thing I tell them is to imagine an office in a tank."

The park with five gigantic tanks used to be an emergency oil reserve site. After the oil tanks were relocated several years ago, the site was turned into a public park.

The park consists of six tanks ― a further tank was added to the existing five when redevelopment commenced. Most of them are used for culture-related projects, like exhibitions, performances and film screenings. Of the six, one tank is kept intact and unused. "That tank is actually my favorite. They didn't change anything and it's huge. And whenever people come here, they see how deep it is."

Hallyu taking her to Asia

At her university, Ukubereyimfura is a student of international studies. On track to graduate in February, she hopes to continue her studies at Peking University, Beijing, for which she has already applied.

Whatever the next step in her journey may be, she said Asia will be part of her future career choices. The seed for her Asian connection was planted through Hallyu, the wave of Korean culture that has captured the attention of teenagers and young adults from outside Korea.

"When I was in high school, I came across a Korean drama and I fell in love," she said. The drama she watched was "Boys over Flowers," a 2009 Korean drama series featuring Lee Min-ho and Ku Hye-sun. Her interest in the drama extended to K-pop music. "Because the soundtrack for 'Boys over Flowers' was sung by EXO and Shinee."

Her interest in Hallyu saw her compete in the K-pop contest organized by KBS in her high school years. "I won the second place and was sure I wanted to go to Korea for my studies."

Coming to Korea in 2016, she was excited that she finally arrived at the birth place of K-pop and that she had a chance to learn the culture. She came to enjoy a variety of Korean cuisines, karaoke, drinking culture and other things Korea has to offer.

But, she also had some hard lessons in reality. "People I came across in my classroom or my dormitory didn't necessarily become my friends. It was just how it is here and different (from what I knew)," she said.

She also said she learned that she was one of many young non-Koreans who came to Korea because of K-pop but was saddened to discover that most of these people pretended to know everything about Korea even though all they knew was a couple of words and the names of some K-pop artists.

Ending her stay in Korea soon, she is heading home to reunite with her family.

"They didn't get to visit me here and I only visited my family twice in the last four years. Also, I want to sleep more which I couldn't do in Korea," she said.

Those who want to participate in the storytelling session, please visit http://parks.seoul.go.kr/template/sub/culturetank.do and make a reservation. Those who cannot speak Korean, please call (02) 376-8734 for the reservation.