Teaching at Cornerstone – a new year begin

All dressed and no lessons: keen
students

The new school year began in late January.  I use the imprecise date advisably.  It has felt like a large steam locomotive gradually gathering steam.  Before the school could open parents trickled in over the course of a fortnight to register their children, even those who had been on roll the previous year.  There was a scuffle between Fulaa, the charity which supports the school, and the teachers and Parent Teacher Association over how many children could be enrolled.  The teachers wanted large classes (60 plus) but Fulaa insisted on 30 – 35 maximum.  Unfortunately by the time this was agreed the nursery classes already had over 60 paid up children in each of the three classes.

The other issue Fulaa has been strong about is corporal punishment.  The teachers were made to agree, highly reluctantly, to stop caning the children.  They also promised not to carry canes (a promise they have not kept).  They blame me and are still very angry.  This is not justified as Fulaa had instructed them to stop caning long before I arrived.  I and other visitors have simply reported that corporal punishment was still taking place, even for very trivial reasons or lack of understanding of English.

Once the registration was complete, the teaching was officially due to start.  Teachers rolled up slowly.  Children came in very small numbers the first week and drifted around the compound with no lessons to attend.  Most teachers did not teach, although I got started at once.  It was lovely to teach small classes of the keenest children for a change.

We filled in a skeleton timetable with our agreed classes and preferred teaching times.  Based on last year’s experience of teaching an early morning class with low attendance because late comers were punished by hoeing the grass in lesson time, I made sure I put my teaching periods later in the morning and in the early afternoon.  I had been told I was to teach English to Primary 4 and Maths and Music to Primary 5.  I tried to get extra classes, but was firmly told that no one was allowed to teach more than two core subjects and one non-core subject.  The result is that I spend many hours each day sitting unoccupied like the rest of the teachers.

Two weeks into term time the ‘serious’ teaching began.  Each day the teachers and students arrived marginally earlier than the previous day.  Fortunately I had immediately diarised my teaching timetable, because the official version has only just been written up, three weeks into term time.  Even now, two months into term time, it is still not on the wall.

I have become much more knowledgeable about strategies to get into the classroom than last year.  Let me explain.  Last year I often found my classes busy with an exercise from another teacher at the timetabled period and got annoyed with the other teachers for using my period for their lessons.  I now know that the best approach is to watch for one of my classes to be unoccupied regardless of whether it is my official time to teach and then pounce. It is not possible to go in straight after another teacher, because they invariably set an exercise for the students to do.  The exercises are written on the blackboard as there are not enough textbooks.  The students do these exercises immediately, not as homework.  As their English writing skills are very poor, they take ages to copy from the board.  As you have by now realised, the timetable might as well not exist. 

The students have many periods when they are sitting in their classrooms unsupervised.  This leads to a lot of noise which disrupts the other classes.  There are many incidents of fighting and bad behaviour as a result.  When this issue was highlighted by Fulaa, teachers were outraged that they should be considered as supervisors as well as teachers.  This has not changed.

The corporal punishment issue has not gone away.  There is no more caning in the staff room and playground, however, class monitors are given canes to beat their fellow students.  At the weekly (farcical) debating session, the teacher uses a cane.  I talked recently to a Korean missionary who worked for many years as headmistress at a school in Uganda.  She found that it took 18 years to achieve a corporal punishment-free school.  Let us hope we can speed up the process here.  I strongly believe that in a country so beset by violence, this is one aspect that could produce change in the next generation to a more peaceful country which thinks of more thoughtful methods of resolving issues.

I have been reading Gordon Brown’s excellent report on Education in South Sudan.  Many of his concerns are evident in this school, for example, teachers with only primary level education, lack of text books, poverty of students leading to absenteeism, over-age students, very large classes, very limited (average 10 hours a week) teaching time.  This is therefore a fairly typical school in this country.  Fulaa tries to change things, but the resistance is huge.  

The visa experience

Since I arrived in South Sudan my passport has been filling up with large visa stamps, all of which have cost me dearly in US dollars.  My initial single entry visa, purchased in London, was the cheapest but only valid for a month. 

After one month I had to make a trip to the border to renew it.  I was hoping to get a longer term visa.  Alas no.  At the border I could also only get a visa for one month.  They told me that for longer term visas I had to go to Juba with a letter confirming that I was working as a long term volunteer at Cornerstone.  When I discussed this with Pastor Samuel over the phone he said that Pastor Juma should go with me as he had contacts in the Ministry which would make it easier to get a long term visa. 

So, as the expiry date for my visa approached, I reminded Pastor Juma.  He agreed and said that I should be the one to write the confirmation letter.  This seemed odd to me, but he was adamant that he had been told this on good authority by friends in the visa office.  Then, on the actual expiry date, he asked one of the teenage boys living at the home to go with me instead.  I ended up paying for the whole outing for both of us.  Tombe was able to get me to the Ministry, but was far too young to be taken seriously there.  It was a very difficult day involving queuing at every room in the Ministry.  The Ministry staff were extremely rude to both of us, him as a child, me as an ‘old woman’ as they called me.  However persistence got me a three month multiple entry visa. 

The visa expired on 6^th February, coinciding with the time for me to visit Uganda to remove my plaster.  I got an entry visa without any hassle as I came back into South Sudan, courtesy of a confirmation letter from Pastor Samuel, who was visiting at the time.  I gave assurances that I would go to Juba the following week to get a long term visa.

The next week, Pastor Abdullah was delegated to take me to Juba to look into getting me a longer term visa and a work permit, which would allow me to stay long term without the visa procedure taking up so much time and money.  Again, I found myself paying for both our meals and transport.  Juba is famous for expensive accommodation.  There is also the ‘situation’ to consider as there have been night-time shootings and lootings happening ever since the December coup attempt in Juba.  Fortunately Abdullah has a brother who lives in a spacious house in the suburbs of Juba, so we were able to stay with his family.  I thought it was a peaceful night until I was asked (next morning) if I’d heard the gun shots.  I am so glad that I am deaf and always sleep on my good ear and also that they didn’t tell me about it till the next day.  It is impossible to know if the gun was fired into the air or into somebody.  Let us hope it was the former. 

During the daytime, Juba shows no sign of its night-time horrors.  Everything is calm.  Everyone goes about their daily business.  The shops are open.  The streets are crowded with shoppers and public transport.  There is plenty of food in the markets.  I commented to Pastor Abdullah about the normality and how everyone kept going.  He told me that most foreigners have left, whether westerners or other Africans, but South Sudan has had conflict for so many years that people do just carry on.

In the morning we went to the Ministry for Internal Affairs to sort out my visa.  Since I had been there last, the place had changed much for the better.  There were no queues.  The staff seemed genuinely pleased that I still wanted to stay in South Sudan.  However, they were no longer able to issue more than one month visas without a work permit.  They were polite but adamant.  I suggested we start the work permit process that same day.  I was told that the application must come from Cornerstone together with their legal documentation.  We were given very detailed instructions on what was entailed to get a work permit so that Pastor Abdullah could put things in motion as soon as we returned to Nimule.

The next week Pastor Abdullah wrote the application letter to the Ministry of Labour. Taking advantage of two days of unexpected public holiday due to state mourning I made the trip back to Juba to get things moving.  Pastor Abdullah was unwilling to go with me, so I made the journey by myself for the first time.  I find it much easier being independent so this was no hardship. 

When I arrived in Juba I went straight to the Ministry of Labour, only to be told that my documentation was incomplete.  The Certificate of Registration from Cornerstone had expired and they also wanted copies of my qualifications. 

I then went to the British Embassy, which was difficult to find as they have moved to the European Union compound along with other European embassies.  I wanted to get additional pages for my passport because of the large number of visas I need.  I met the consul, who told me the bad news that it is no longer possible to get extra pages.  Instead I will need a new passport.  Embassies are no longer able to issue passports, so I will have to send my passport back to the UK for processing.  I asked if it was a good idea to be without my passport in South Sudan.  He agreed it was not a good idea.  I asked how to post it in South Sudan, and he agreed it was difficult although there is a DHL office in Juba.  I pointed out that there isn’t one in Nimule and I pass a checkpoint where I always have to show my passport on the road to Juba.

I had organised overnight accommodation with East Africa Ministries, who I already had contact with as they have recently established a secondary school in Nimule.  Their South Sudan headquarters are a long way out of town but safer for that reason.  No night-time shootings there!  I was made very welcome by the people who live there. EAM is very luxurious compared to my home at Cornerstone, so it felt like a real holiday.  First world features abounded.  WIFI was available.  The gardens have concrete paths to keep out of the dust.  My room had air conditioning and an en suite washroom. We ate a lovely Italian risotto for supper, cooked by the Italian wife of one of the Americans.  In the morning we ate a breakfast of eggs and bacon with American pancakes.  It was great to eat something other than posho and beans and to be able to turn a tap to get water.

The bush

As well as the lovely stay at East Africa Ministries, the other positive thing about travel to Juba is the actual journey.  The journey takes around four hours, on a good tarmacked road.  It is very scenic, passing through a dramatic mountain pass, through the Nimule National Park (I have yet to see any wild animals there), through the bush, which is like an African version of Dartmoor and past numerous small villages of round thatched huts.  The road is usually empty of traffic apart from the occasional lorry, jeep or bus.  I do the journey by minibus.  The minibuses only travel when at full capacity, so we are always crammed together like sardines.  The drivers are careful, particularly when compared with those in Nimule.  However there are many accidents and the remains of vehicles litter the edge of the road. Comfortingly, I have yet to see a minibus among the debris.

The road to Juba

One of the many villages next to the road to Juba

I am working on potential solutions to my passport quandary.  The best bet at the moment seems to be to go to Uganda and stay there for the period when I am passport-less.  This solution is good because Uganda is more stable than South Sudan and therefore safer without a passport.  Also, I am told that the South Sudanese Embassy in Kampala happily produces six month multiple entry visas, which I can take advantage of once my passport is returned.  There is the possibility of staying at an orphanage or mission and making myself useful in return for bed and board.  If I stay at an orphanage it will give me the opportunity to compare and look at ideas to help Cornerstone.  I am looking into this now.