Let´s bulid a school in Africa – education and rubbish

I´m in Africa already three weeks now and  first time I´m writing  about my feeling from school in City of Hope. Except, my not a popular secretary at work, which include opening every classrooms in school, it´s mean being the earliest to come in and also the last to leave, I´m an assistant in Grade 1. It takes all of my energy.

            Today we got a new  schoolgirl and we have an unbelievable forty children in one classroom. Although we are two teachers in one class it is really difficult to keep their attention. They are always shouting, fighting, chatting, taking stuffs away from other children, throwing  objects which they have at other children, pulling at hair and taking off their plastic´s school shoes, which are not really good for African climate.

            Sometimes I teach a lesson, but although English is the official language in school they  also use another lanuage out of seven accepting Zamia´s languages and children can speak only this one. I try to use all teaching methods –  for example poetry, songs, games, fairytales, but it´ s not working, because they don´t understand me. It is difficult to say they don´t undrestend me or they only pretend not to understand, because when  I threaten to take them to director (Sr. Prisca) they know very well.

            The biggest problem is acute shortage of teaching materials. Desperately missing school books – the few copies we have are really good, but unfortunately it is only this book which can provide the inspiration for teachers to work with children. For writing they use only pencils which are really often too small for sharpening. Anyway sharpener is big luxury and no everybody has it, but everybody is fighting for it. Pupils carry in their backs packs  something – sharp blade – which they use for sharpening their pencils. Invention is not lacking in different ways to sharpen their pencils, example to bite. They do everything during class time, such as sharping their pencils everzwhere because there is no bin. And why in Zambia there doesn´t exist any waste incineration plant or some company for it. You can buy  everything here, everywhere you can see  foundations for future mountains of rubbish. But here there are places, including City of Hope, which  take care of their rubbish. Everybody has to burn their rubbish…. including me! Me a big ecologist activist, I have to burn all my rubbish including plastic bottles, empty cartons of milk, plastic bags, aluminium and cans. When the red wheel of the Sun touches the horizon from everywhere you can smell smoke from the burning rubbish.

            Deficient  school materials make my evenings funny. I draw school posters – types of transports, shapes, food, materials etc. –  to hang in my classroom. My teaching influence is good, because my teacher has started to do some posters too, and other volunteers also. Step by step classrooms are getting more colourfull.

            Before I thought about sending some school materials to Africa, it is not important. Every year I want to buy a cow or a goat for African people, but now every year I will send some school materials here.