Robert picked us up after breakfast and we drove to Jeshini Primary School. On arrival we were met by Ernest the ICT teacher and Catherine, the new Head Teacher. We went straight to Catherine’s office where we explained to her about our Computer Loan project and the conditions of the loan. This was something we repeated at all the schools we visited today as they all have new Head Teachers since we visited last year, though the ICT teachers all remain the same. At present we have loaned Jeshini 7 desktop computers and a printer and today, because the school has performed well and have kept in good contact with us, we added a laptop and a projector which will help when teaching classes with large numbers of children. Once the paperwork was all completed we then met a few of the children and some teachers and also some student teachers.
I took a couple of photos that show what school life is like in Tanzania. The photo below shows the children queuing at the water tap to get a drink.
And this one shows children with the plastic containers and homemade brushes that they use to clean the school every day.
After leaving Jeshini we drove up the road to Kabangaja Primary School. The road was pretty dusty and we passed through a couple of villages on the way.
On arrival at Kabangaja we were met by Emmanual, the ICT teacher and Mr. Juma, the new Head Teacher. Whilst this school has kept adequate communication with us over the last year they have not performed as well as some of the other schools we support. For this reason we decided to renew the existing loan of 4 desktop computers and 1 printer but we did not feel we wanted to add anything further at the present time. We spent sometime with Emmanuel and Mr. Juma explaining this to them and explaining how they needed to improve over the next year if they want us to continue to support them.
Once we had finished the paperwork Emmanual then showed us that the school now has a new computer room where the computers now live permanently. This is a huge improvement from last year when the computers were being kept in a locked cupboard in the head teacher’s office and had to be brought out and set up everytime they wanted to use them.
Some Standard 7 pupils came in to chat with us and tell us what they had learnt in their ICT lessons and what ICT support they felt the school would need going forward. As in all Tanzanian classrooms the pupils were very polite and well behaved, raising their arm to ask or answer a question......there was no shouting out or talking over each other here.
We also called in on a rather crowded Standard 7 class, just to say hello.
On leaving the school we we were met by several other teachers who came over to say Hi. While we were chatting I noticed a huge pile of plastic containers, this is not rubbish, but is the plastic containers the children use to collect water to clean the school.
Having finished a Kabangaja school we had a bit of spare time before we were due at Bugogwa Primary School so Robert suggested we go for a drink. On the way we stopped on the shores of Lake Victoria and had a look at the large number of fishing boats all moored up. Fishing is a huge business in Mwanza but of course by midday most fisherman have returned and headed to the market to sell their catch so not many are still out fishing.
We stopped in Bugogwa for our drink. Robert pulled off the road and parked as the road through the village was too rough for the car. We then wandered down to a bar Robert knew. It quickly became clear that the local children do not see many Wazungu (Western visitors) and we soon had an audience. At first they kept their distance but gradually got braver, until eventually they got close enough to ask me to take their photo.
Whilst I was chatting with the children, Robert had been cornered by a local “religious” man who spent several minutes trying to convince Robert that he could “save us”. Luckily he assumed we couldn’t speak Swahili and didn’t attempt to talk to us. Anyway after about 5 minutes Robert, decided he had had enough of listening to the guy and it was time to move on.
So we walked back to the car and drove on to Bugogwa School. This was another interesting school visit but I think this blog entry is long enough so I will describe that in my next entry.
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