Today on the human
rights project we visited a private pre-school in Morombo to discuss
with the director how his school, one of very few in the area, had
come about and to gauge how we could help as volunteers. It was
extremely interesting for me having come from the teaching project at
Gohechi to another school in a very poor area. The class, for there
was only one, consisted of around twenty students with a wide variety
of ages and abilities. There are two classrooms, with three teachers,
and the classrooms are extremely basic. Unfortunately, I did not take
my camera this time so was unable to take photos of the conditions
they were in but it was still better than the makeshift shack a few
hundred yards away that served as a classroom for less fortunate
children who could not afford to pay for the established schools. The
price of three months at this school was 100,000TSH but many could
not afford to pay that and were charged a discounted 60,000TSH
instead. The price included porridge but as they could not afford to
buy lunch for the children, much like Gohechi, they were unable to
keep the children there for lunch and afternoon lessons. However, the
director told me that many of the children stayed anyway because
their parents worked until 4 or 5pm. There will generally be someone
there to look after them, the director told us, because the school
doubles up as his house.
The director outlined
his plan to expand the schools classes into class one, two and three
in time and gave us a detailed description of his vision to build a
separate building, in which he could live, so the main building could
have an extra classroom, as well as his idea to buy the land adjacent
to the school as either a plot for a new building or as a dedicated
playground for the children. He also showed us his little vegetable
garden in which he had grown some spinach, which he fed to the
children, and some chilli, which he fed to us (and occasionally
sold). I took a small bite and it was hot enough to make my eyes
water but not unbearable. I still needed a swig from my bottle of
water though. He seemed like a good man, wanting the best for his
children but he also told us why he was unwilling to accept a lot of
students for free, even though he had the space, suggesting that the
paying parents would be unhappy if they had to pay while others get
free education.
After we left the
school we stopped by a funeral to pay our respects to a man, with
whom HIMS was close to agreeing a deal to use his land to grow
vegetables, who had recently lost his father. It was a sombre event
and the first funeral that I have ever been to. Of course, we did not
stay for long, stopping only to say pole sana to
the man and his family but the pain was evident on their faces. Death
and hardship are facts of life in Tanzania and this was evident when
we then visited the site of a half-completed house, that had been
repossessed by one of the banks in Arusha after the prospective owner
had been unable to pay back his loan, before visiting the home of a
man living in another half-built house with AIDS. Seeing people
coping with things that I have absolutely no experience in is in
itself a difficult situation. I just can not relate to any of these
people. I've lost an uncle that, regrettably, I was not close to but
no one extremely close to me; I've always had somewhere to live; the
worst affliction I have is being insufferable to the average human
being. I am really, really fortunate. Something I must appreciate.
For
the majority of you who read this will know me personally, I have
posted two new albums on my Facebook page, one regarding the Lake
Duluti trip the other a bunch of pictures from International Women's
Day that seems so long ago. I hope you enjoy them.
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