Day 5, A School and Village Home Visit (Sept. 12, 2011)

Instead of going on a game drive this morning, we went to a small village and a public school to learn a little about the culture. Schools have the same issues everywhere, not enough money, teachers are under paid, etc. etc. Our kids/schools have no idea how good they have it. There are as many of these young kids that go to school without shoes that have shoes; in 8 rooms (I think) there are over 300 students. Teaching aids are probably from the turn of the century (OK, maybe a little bit of an exaggeration).  The school is surrounded by consentine (sp) wire and has a locked gate. I guess as much to keep the kids in as to keep unwanted people out.  (I tried to put more than one picture on a line, but can't figure out how this blogger deal works!  Sorry, I was trying to not have it be so long.)

African women in the town we stopped at to purchase things for the old woman whose home we visited.  And just how DOOO they balance 40+ pounds on top of their head????

This is the school.  Kids enter school when they are big enough that when they reach their hand over their head they can touch their ear lobe.  They receive an English name from their teacher; native language is used in school until the first day of 3rd grade when they instantly switch to English.  Once they leave this primary school, uniforms are required to keep everything "even" on the learning level.

I'm not sure what the two small buildings are the left are (probably latrines), small building on the right is the office JAM packed with school supplies and teaching aids, the two long buildings house the classrooms, 4 in each building.



A typical classroom.  These kids are old enough that they are dressed "semi"-uniformly.  The garage door (I believe) separates the classrooms.

And school is out for the day.

A typical homestead.  The rectangle building is the family house where family meetings are held, finances are discussed, or sick family members are brought prior to going on to the spirit world. The square buildings are sleeping rooms. Matriarch/patriarch have one building, kids have their own. The small round hut is used as a storage building and the larger one is used for cooking.

This is the old woman whose home we visited.  At an age over 80, she is raising her grandkids on her pension as they lost their parents both to disease and accidents. 

The fire pit in the old woman's cooking building that was still smoldering.  There is no ventilation in the roof so the smoke has no where to escape accept through the doorway and a small window.  It was very difficult to be in this room.

This is the inside of the roof in the family building. Goats are offered as sacrifices as a vehicle to transfer the spirit to the spirit world if a person dies prior to being brought to this building. These are the jaw bones of the goats that have been offered over the years.

These are the pots that the men drink beer from while the women are cooking, cleaning, gathering wood for the cooking fire, tending to the kids...you know....handling things.  The older the man, the larger pot he gets to drink more beer.  I don't remember what the basket is used for.  This tradition is also done in the family building.

This post has probably been the most difficult to cut the number of pictues down on.  I'm glad we did this extra excurtion, but truthfully would not recommend it to others unless they revamp how it is done.  I would have enjoyed the school visit much more had we been able to truly observe a classroom being taught versus the kids being told sit down and be quiet while the white people pass out pieces of candy for them.  I did appreciate being able to take pictures of the kids once school was let out as I think that was true everyday life.