Mbidi Students Welcome the Rotary Group
Francis Hoffman
Today was the first day of work; and work we did–after meeting the students of Mbidi School and receiving a magnificent welcome, and touring the facilities.
Getting off the bus, the day began quite overwhelmingly. Pulling into the school area was also quite emotional watching the children run after the bus. Once off the bus, the students came in swarms, crowding around to say hello and get their pictures taken.
They absolutely LOVED seeing their pictures after. They would giggle, and crowd around the camera, giggle some more and ask for another picture.
We saw the 4 classrooms, one storage room, the teachers’ office, and the latrines. Now let me say something about the latrines. As first time users of a latrine, Rhonda and I had a fun experience. It was literally a brick room with a cement floor and hole in the ground that you do your business in. Not as smelly as I was expecting, though. There is one girl and one boy latrine and 700 students at the school; hence our building the school another set.
The welcome was very well organized. Many of the kids had prepared songs and dances to welcome us. There was a poem, the choir sang a couple songs, and there was a theatrical performance with costumes and stilts. One of the most spectacular parts was a song and dance that the “All mighty Flame of Africa” (which is the name the school’s standard 5 teacher goes by) choreographed. All of these were focused on thanking the Rotary for their great support.
Time to talk about the classrooms. There are four of them, and their sizes were too small for the classes—all of them, sitting on the floor. Two of the classrooms were not even classrooms at all. They were outdoors, under a tree. As well, the teachers’ office *see below was too small for any type of productivity.
So then we began. As part of the building process, a couple of inches of sand is left on the cement floors to help it cure. The group had to remove the sand before anything else in the rooms could be done. We also prepped the walls for painting, cleaned up the area surrounding the building, assisted with laying bricks, and put in a couple skylights.
The children were great workers! Every one was eager to help; so eager, in fact, my shovel, or my mop, or my broom or whatever I was using would be confiscated by either a student or school worker to use to help out. The extra help made it quick work, and it added to the atmosphere. Rhonda even had a line up of kids passing bricks one by one from one brick pile to a brick pile closer to the worksite.
Agnass cooked us lunch. That was delicious, and I look forward to her cooking all next week. Traditional method of eating in Africa is to use your hands as utensils. The headmaster, Andrew, was interesting to watch because he would roll the rice, etc. in his hands into a ball and then eat it like that.
When lunch was all said and done, and the children had gone home for the day, the team was done too. We hopped back on the bus and headed for Annie’s Lodge for some R&R. Now we’re at Paul’s place writing this blog and getting in contact with all of our loved ones.
Great to hear from you! Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you, but what a wonderful experience. Looking forward to your next installment.