Is that your hair or a wig?

Nursery 'graduates' try on their outfits

Although the exams are over, the teachers are still coming to school each day, but they arrive very late.  They sit in the office writing up the exam results and filling in end of year report cards.  Over the week a gradually diminishing number of school children have come, still wearing uniform, in the hope of receiving their exam results.  These are being processed very slowly by the teachers.  This must be agonising for the students, who anxiously wait outside the office each day.  I have been told that there will be a graduation ceremony.  When I asked when this would take place, I was told that the date has not yet been set because the teachers have not finished the report cards yet.  A clear case of the tail wagging the dog if ever there was one.

As predicted in previous posts, my students have very poor grades, with the worst in Primary 4.  A third of my Primary 5 students passed.  Only 7 out of 58 passed in Primary 4.  I have discussed the situation with the headmistress and asked if I could divide these students by ability next year, so that I have three classes of roughly 30, a mix of Primary 4 and 5.  She has agreed to construct the timetable so that this is possible.

I have mentioned previously that schools here are insistent that pupils must have their heads shaved very closely.  The result is that up till now it has only been possible to distinguish boys from girls by their clothes.  I am now seeing how different things are in the holidays. 

A close shave for school

Here at the children’s home, the teenagers are doing what teenagers do everywhere: making the most of their out of school time.  Both boys and girls sleep later (devotions are now at dawn rather than starting in the pitch black and finishing at dawn) and in spite of the threat of punishment, fewer children attend. 

The girls are growing their hair.  They have taken large quantities of long plaited ‘hair’ and are holding long hairdressing sessions in which they attach the hair to their own heads using the new growth of genuine hair to hold it in position.  The false hair is made of wool.  The results are spectacular, but sometimes make it difficult to recognise them as the same girls I had got to know in a bald state.

My daily routine has changed so that I am available to teach additional English literacy lessons to individual children.  I am also teaching the recorder to the children.  One boy in particular has a real gift and is learning to play the recorder very competently.  I have also started a children’s Bible study class as from this weekend.

A new Repunzel

It is my intention to hold adult literacy classes over the holidays, but I am finding it very difficult to set these up.  I have been adamant that this should not be a westerner-led project, but one that is sustainable without me.  In practical terms it will be necessary to find other willing teachers because of the huge level of need for these classes.  I struggle to get any cooperation and am now re-thinking ways forward.

The end result