Secondary School Scholarship Recipients

My days were winding down fast toward the end of my time in Kiganza and it suddenly seemed like there was so much to do before leaving (which is rarely really the case, but it's amazing how much extra you can create for yourself when there's a deadline - I've always worked better that way as my parents and colleagues and friends and dogs and ... well, everyone knows!).

One of my big projects and the most important I'm sure, was wrapping up a little idea called the Kiganza Children's Education Fund. The idea came to me and Lucas once upon many of our hours together. It was always so disheartening to me to know how few children attended secondary school (relative to the number of children in the village) because their family simply could not afford it. For a child to attend Form 1 and 4, the cost is around $100USD per year because for the first and last years there are exam fees and other extra costs. For Form 2 and 3 the cost is only about $20USD per year, which is extremely manageable ... for me! For these people, it's still a steep expense in their life when their monthly income if they're lucky can reach $30, but often hovers much lower - especially for those who march great distances to sell fruit or vegetables in neighboring villages, often coming home with only a few hundred shillings profit (equivalent of a few dollars).

With Lucas, I talked about how easy it would be to donate the cost of a handful of Soy Vanilla Lattes (of course I didn't use that example for him, but in my head I was picturing myself paying $4 minimum (with ... or before tip) for a hot drink in the winter ... too often now that I think how far $4 can go in some places - Ahhh, remember the days with the blonde curly headed diva from All in the Family with Archie Bunker ... Sally Struthers, I believe ... "For just one cup of coffee a day, you too can change the life of a small child in Africa". Well now, thanks to the exorbitant prices of fancy coffees, you don't have to forgo one a day, just one a week!) I'm losing track of myself on this thought train...

So, I posed to Lucas that if we could find a handful of children who show promise and need assistance, I would be glad to help out (perhaps with a little plea for help from friends - they would expect nothing less from me). So, Lucas did a little digging in his file of families (he's a pro on knowing Kiganza village and the stories behind the families - although he often doesn't know their names, we only need homes and faces to get started).

The first girl was chosen by me. Her name is Hindu. She is a lovely 14 year old girl, attending secondary school already. School matters so much to her that she works in her family's farm on weekends to pay her own school fees. Why Hindu? She would show up out of nowhere to the Gazebo at GOSESO when I'd be having a song or dance circle with a group of local kids - and she would throw great questions at me - in English. I was delighted (my favorite adjective for this blog) with her English skills and finally asked if I could attend school with her one day. Back at GOSESO she seemed so tall because the usual suspects that I was spending my time with were between the ages of 2 and 10. But once I saw her in her uniform in her class, next to many boys and myself, she suddenly seemed so fragile and small. After school, she invited me into her home to meet her father. I was nervous.

She had already told me that her father was very sick. He had become very ill three years ago and can no longer sit, stand, talk or eat without assistance. I expected to see a grown man lying in a bed in a small room in the house. Instead, I stepped foot into the front door, and laying on a grass mat on the dirt floor in the front room was her father. He has wasted away, evidenced by his thighs - as small as my forearms. He was lying on the ground with a thin blanket over him, his eyes closed and I said "Jambo Baba. Nina rafiki Hindu" (Hello father, I'm Hindu's friend). I sat next to him on the ground and put my hand in his. Instantly, without opening his eyes, he starting squeezing and releasing my fingers, while rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb - no other part of his body showing any signs of life, not even his face. Hindu sat next to me, telling me how her father had been a fisherman before this happened - "this" that no one seems to be able to identify or explain. Behind us, five small neighborhood children came in and were squatting in absolute silence behind me in the light of the open front door. Also squatting, but leaning against the wall next to the back door was Hindu's mother - tired and overwhelmed by her responsibilities now, raising two young daughters and her husband. Her three older sons contribute as best they can, but each has moved on and married with his own children to support. Hindu tried to tell me that her father couldn't hear me, but I knew that wasn't true. I could feel him resisting my efforts to pull away and responding with squeezes when I addressed him. After a while, having visited with my frail new friend as long as I could stand without seriously losing it, I told Hindu I should go. That evening, I told Hindu and her family that she was the first of 5 that I would be sponsoring. I would pay her school fees until she finished and she had to promise me to study and remain committed to finishing secondary school. (Hindu below - the others to come) (**Update - her father passed away a couple of months after I left.)










The others stories aren't as intense as this one as they are about children that I don't know as well, but agreed with Lucas when he described their situations, that they certainly deserved help.

The second child we visited was Edina. Edina is a lovely girl of about 15 who just finished standard 7 and is ready to start secondary school. She passed her standard 7 exams, which is a challenge, but was resigned to pass on secondary school as her father, a very poor man, could not afford to send her. Her mother died a few years ago of a disease - another one touted to be witchcraft, thereby blurring the reality. When I met her, her energy and sweetness poured into me. I could visibly see her shoulders drop when Lucas and I told her that we want to help her go to secondary school. She said many thank you's and wished that we have God's blessings. She also agreed to keep up her studies and strive to finish so she can have more options later in life.






The third child was another girl, named Diana, who is a neighbor and friend of Edina. Her mother is so poor and has no husband. She walks such amazing distances daily to sell palm oil and bananas in Kigoma town, often coming home without a single sale as banana and palm oil are an oversaturated crop in the region. Diana was a little bit puzzled by the offer, not knowing why she had been chosen by this mzungu who didn't know her. She was shy and grateful and also wished many blessings for us.




Finally, we visited the family that we donated the mosquito nets to a while back. This family with of 6 children and a mother (deceased father) touched me when I visited them the first time. The elder daughter is so beautiful and has this grace about her. She has already passed on her chance to go to secondary school and seems resigned to never attend. However, she has two brothers, Ismail and France, who are simultaneously in standard 7 this year, planning to take their exams in October. Pending their successful completion of these exams and entrance into Form 1, I'll be helping both of them too. I told their beautiful sister, Beatrice, that if she changed her mind I would help her as well. She laughed, but I continued to prod and tease up until we parted with handshakes and smiles and at least I know I left her something to consider. Unfortunately, their mother was out in the farm when I told them so I was unable to share the news with her myself, but I know she'll be immensely relieved.




The only hitch on all these cases is that in the midst of their crazy lives - working before and after school to help their single parents - they have little opportunity to study and excel. I just hope they all stick with it. They know that the conditions of the 'scholarship' are that the money comes from me to Lucas and then directly to the headmaster of their schools. In cases like these, if you give the family money directly, the money will never reach the schools because there are too many other pressing needs. I see education as an essential ingredient to combatting the poverty that is crippling developing countries, so while money would be nice - it wouldn't have high returns. My new friend Barrett used a wise saying I'd heard before: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. So, I'm hoping this little investment will grow. Lucas and I are going to see how this works this year and add children if we have success in the fundraising department.

If anyone would like to contribute, most of you know how to reach me. If you randomly stumbled upon this blog and would like to help, visit the Project Wezesha website. Asante!

Watoto Watoto

(Kids at a local primary school - ready to perform for the mzungus and Yared)


Watoto is Swahili for children. Kiganza, a small village in the Kigoma region (not too far from Kigoma town) has no shortage of Watoto! The children are amazing and so beautiful, as I've said before. They are so independent and resilient. It is not uncommon at all to see a 10 year old carrying a load larger than herself on her head, walking the distance from Mwandiga to Kiganza (two villages connected by an hour on foot along a dusty dirt road). It's also not uncommon to find young girls (as young as 4 years of age) toting their kid sisters or brothers on their backs, slung in a kanga with a big knot tied at their chest, the toddler on their back almost half the size of the sibling that's carrying him/her - usually fast asleep - and all the while, the older sibling goes about with her actions: carrying a load, singing with the other children, walking to and from the market, or just sitting around, staring at the Mzungu (guess who that would be!).

After Tamrika and the gang left Kiganza, I had to find ways to fill my days. As I mentioned before, I came here to work with GOSESO, to offer workshops for local teachers, collaborate on English language curriculum, suss out my potential role here in this program ... but, lacking formalized direction and, oh yeah ... an existing school, I've been forced to forge my own way in Kiganza. One of my little adventures has involved attending a local secondary school in the village of Bitale (45 minutes on foot from Kiganza). There I attended English and Kiswahili classes with my friend, Kamilius, a young secondary student. As I sat in class, among the students, many thoughts ran through my head - thoughts of possible projects to undertake whether as separate entities or in conjunction with GOSESO - projects such as a girls' school (the number of boys to girls is way out of proportion, creating an environment that doesn't support the young girls - they sit quietly and uncomfortably in a sea of boys - at an age when just being an adolescent is hard, let alone being a young girl becoming a woman in a patriarchal society and having to be an uber-minority in the classroom when you know, that any year could be your last because your family will find that educating the young men might be more lucrative to the family...); projects such as teacher education to promote interactive, collaborative, communicative approaches to language and content learning and teaching - more similar to current approaches in areas where resources are not as limited ... but figuring ways in which these same approaches can work in the absence of pictures, realia, overhead projectors, powerpoints, and at times - paper and pencils; projects such as implementing Project "New Eyes" in Kiganza (a program from the University of Utah that I was involved with in the Czech Republic last year) to bring university students to the small village to engage in mutual learning and understanding of cultures and educational practices ... The ideas are endless and the feeling that a return to Kiganza for my dissertation is impossible is residing a bit.... you just never know and every day, I am more and more connected to this village, these children, this country - and the seeming ease with which I could have an impact on so many lives, with minimal support from home, is compelling.

Another way in which I am greatly involved with the children is through my daily "lessons" with the kids on-site at GOSESO. They know to come each evening at 6pm and I will be there to chat, teach, dance, sing, color and play games. It all started with one offer to a small group of 10 kids to come one evening and they could use the crayons and pens that Heather left behind. Heather and I had also bought each of them a daftali or notebook for writing ... Well, in a village the size of Kiganza where children outnumber adults by at least 4:1, the word of the mzungu giving out free daftali spread like the fires that scorch the hillside on a weekly basis around the village (good ole slash and burn). So, my group grew from 10 to 20 overnight... I made another run to the market. The next day, 30 kids came and I had to take names ... Meanwhile, Clemensia, one of my older gals tried to pass out pens and crayons and was chased like a football through the kasava fields, screaming with a great look of fear in her eyes as 15 small children tried to take her down for the pens she was carrying ... It got out of control, so my buddy Lucas came and released the Cracken (Rothman, 2001) on the kids - got them to sit still and listen while he delegated some instructions. The kids, now pushing 50 in number were broken into two groups - young and older. They would meet on alternating days.

I gave up on trying to supply daftali to everyone, because every day I came, another group showed up that I hadn't seen before and someone was always disappointed. We turned to other non-writing activities. I taught the children to play baseball, using a ball that the kids made with plastic bags and twine and a big stick from the palm tree as a bat. The bases were shirts and flip-flops. I abandoned all efforts at going into too much detail about foul balls and strikes, so this was our rudimentary version: Two teams of equal number; batter hits and runs (only one base per hit); you can get someone out by throwing the soft ball at them or tagging them with the ball in your hand (I learned the word 'rusha' for throw and they learned that they could toss to a baseman); once a runner was tagged, the teams switched places (from field to bat and vice versa); no points were discussed until the game had been underway without a hitch for several turnovers... and then we were all too tired anyway!

On another occasion, I discovered that only 3 girls could dance and all the other young ladies claimed they couldn't. So, with the help of my rock star dancers, Nema, Rozi and Esta, we held dance class. The girls would show us the steps and we would all take turns in small groups performing for each other. Shortly, the boys joined us and had a hayday with showing us their routines. For both, boys and girls, the basic format was similar to a line dance only it moved forward ... in other words, they start about 20 feet away and do steps that slowly progress toward the group... in the mix of their repertoire, I swear I identified the 'lawn mower' move and 'the sprinkler' and was thrilled to see something I could pull off without looking too much like a white girl! haha. The boys' moves seemed to resemble military marches and even included a salute for one go around. Of course, as with word of the daftali, word of the dance spread within the hour and in a little Gazebo behind the GOSESO house, I was suddenly in the presence of about 40 kids - dancing had to cease for the sake of space and we turned to singing. The children are amazing - they know so many great songs (from school and culture) and they would confidently belt them out in a 'hollah back' fashion - one would lead with a line or two and the others would respond with the same line or a fitting response, all clapping, smiling and occasionally subbing my name or 'mzungu' into the song. My name, by the way, when it's not Mzungu, is Rehema - Arabic, meaning peace, and commonly known to all - an easier name for them than Rai or Raichle and the name of a child I know and adore back in SLC (from Burundi). It's also a name I hold dear in Kiganza as now, when I walk in the village, I hear it sung in many sweet tones by the children who come to be with me in the evenings at GOSESO - so many of them and only one of me! If only I could know all their names - but I'm doing pretty well to remember those of the more outgoing ones or the ones whose faces just pop out and whose eyes don't let me off the hook without a flutter in my heart.