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.

It’s so hot!

In my posts so far I have been most un-British.  There is a complete absence of comment on the weather.  Today I’ll put that right.

View of the home during the rainy season.

When I first arrived it was the rainy season.  During the rainy season it is hot, but not unbearable.  The nights are cool enough to sometimes need a light cover.  Rain is not continuous, just very heavy showers. It came as a surprise to me that it doesn’t rain every day.  It is easy to know when it is about to rain because first there is always a strong wind blowing the clouds towards us.  Minutes later the rain pelts down.  The rain pours off the roof of the home and the younger children rush to shower under the eaves fully dressed.  Their clothes are dry within minutes of the rain stopping.  There are several large water butts at Cornerstone.  When they contain rainwater they are very popular for clothes washing.  Grass grows quickly and everywhere is green.  Mosquitoes are a real hazard in the rainy season.  Malaria is rife.  To balance the negative insects, at night beautiful fire flies hover around the ceiling of my room.

We are fortunate that the children’s home is on a mountainside so the rain drains down towards the town which is on lower ground.  I have been told that people’s mud built homes are frequently destroyed by flood water.  I have also heard that when there is flooding the road on the Uganda side of the border becomes impassable and the views from our compound are of flooded land.  This can create food shortages as most produce comes from Uganda.

View of the mountainside during the dry season.

In December the rain stopped very suddenly.  The grass died very quickly although trees are still beacons of green.  Cattle and goats are noticeably thinner.  I have found that as soon as the dry season started I ceased to suffer from mosquito bites.  It has become progressively hotter.  I find that the plastic seats which are used here are to be avoided because I sweat so profusely that the sweat puddles in the seat, making it look as though I’ve had an ‘accident’. 

One of my fears coming to Nimule was what would happen to the water supply during the dry season.  We are fortunate to have a really good bore hole (a type of water pump) in the compound.  The water is good enough to drink.  The bore hole is fully functioning at all times of year, regardless of rainfall.  This in spite of the fact that it is in constant use every day by the wider community as well as ourselves.

How do I cope?  Bear in mind that there is only limited electricity here and no modern conveniences.  I have to resist the urge to swim in the Nile as it is full of crocodiles and hippos.  I can’t just switch on a fan or air-conditioning.  So I have had to find other ways to cope with the swelteringly hot nights.  Before my arm was in plaster I took to drenching my nightdress before sleeping.  This is no longer possible because the plaster must be kept dry.  Instead I soak my hair and lay my head on a towel.  This is very effective.  It also creates a use for my towel!  Even during the rainy season I developed a strategy of dressing straight after bathing, while still wet, to keep cooler for longer, making my towel redundant.  Whatever the season, applying factor 50 sunblock is a regular routine.  Going out I use either a hat or umbrella for shade.

Today there was a brief shower.  I have been told that it will soon be the rainy season again.  I can’t wait.

A difficult week

As mentioned in my last post, I had an accident to my wrist.  After several days in which it remained swollen and painful, the pastors suggested I get an x-ray done in a local private clinic to check for a fracture.  To my surprise there was an actual fracture.  It was decided that my colleague Christine would take me to a town in Uganda called Gulu which has better facilities than Nimule can offer.  By this stage I had developed a secondary infection in my mouth for which the nurse gave me anti-fungal medication.  I was struggling to eat or drink because of the pain.  In short, I was in a terrible state.

Christine has been a tower of strength, first getting me washed and dressed, which I am finding difficult, more or less force feeding me mashed food, and supporting me through the very difficult journey to Gulu.  She comes from Gulu so she able to mobilise family members to help us there too. 

The road from the Ugandan border to Gulu is a rutted, dusty track, heavily used by lorries going to and from South Sudan. The journey took about four hours.  We were fortunate that Pastor Juma had paid for a private taxi with air-conditioning.  Even so it was agonising as it had poor suspension.  We went direct to the hospital called St Mary’s, locally known as Lachoa.  It is a mission-run hospital which boasts specialist doctors and x-ray equipment, unlike the Nimule counterpart.

After a short wait in A and E a doctor looked at my x-ray and said he could see nothing wrong!  Words can’t describe how I felt.  We went to pay.  The cashier looked at the referral and doctor’s opinion and immediately left her desk to ask the doctor to request a second x-ray.  He agreed so we went to the x-ray department where we were seen immediately.  It turned out that there was a fracture after all, so we were asked to come back the next day to see the orthopaedic surgeon.

Christine called one of her sisters who booked us into a small hotel for the night.  Getting there entailed a bumpy bus ride on more unpaved roads.  We shared a twin bedded room.  I had yet another broken night due to pain.  In the morning we found a currency exchange for me to get some money to pay for the hotel and other expenses.  Then we tried to find something I could eat and finally found a store selling yogurt.  Then we went back to the hospital. 

We saw the orthopaedic surgeon who decided my wrist should be plastered and I should return in six weeks’ time for its removal.  As it was being done I queried the fact that there was no attempt to manipulate the bones back into position (the wrist is askew).  I was told that the breakage is typical of wrist injuries to post-menopausal women.  The hospital lacks the facilities to operate and pin the bone and believes the result would be purely cosmetic anyway.  I was assured that my wrist will be fully functional. 

The ultimate in quiet anonymous hotels

Christine’s sister found us another, cheaper and quieter hotel where I could stay and recuperate ready for the journey back.  During this time Christine worked so hard to find food to build me up.  However my mouth was not improving and I felt very weak.  On the evening before we left Christine’s family invited us to eat.  I was so sorry to be such a bad guest.  They had clearly pulled out all the stops to make a lovely meal which I was completely unable to eat. 

We took a bus back to Nimule on 2^nd January.  Thankfully with my wrist stabilised the journey was less painful.  There was no air-con so we all got the full benefit of the dust.  I was completely yellow by the time we arrived at the border.  Christine hailed a taxi.  When we arrived back at Cornerstone the taxi-driver refused our money.  I must have been a pathetic sight!

Bus back to Nimule

Family leaves for Gulu

I decided to take my American missionary friends up on their long-standing invitation to stay with them, so I could get a bit of help to recover with nutritious, mashed food.  As soon as I arrived Eddie took a photo of my open mouth which he sent to a doctor friend.  I got an immediate diagnosis of a viral infection.  Eddie was told the correct medicine and went straight into town in search of it.  To my amazement he found it. 

I stayed several nights, feeling better each day.  The first night after I arrived, they had a late night phone call telling them about the worsening political crisis and advising them to leave.  They spent most of the night packing.  The poor things not only had me to care for, but their three little children, who are too young to be exposed to the worries of the increasing crisis.  In the end they left for Gulu (with great reluctance but at the insistence of their home church in the US) on Sunday.  Eddie is keeping an eye on the situation and will be back, minus family, after looking at the situation.

I owe that family a huge debt of thanks for their help, first with the correct diagnosis and treatment of my mouth infection.  Then nursing me back to relative health.  Suitable food is an issue at Cornerstone, but after a couple of days shopping and cooking for myself I am now fully recovered, at least orally.  

Cornerstone is planning to evacuate to Uganda in the next few days, but is dependent on agreement of finances from their supporting charity in the US.  My next post may be from Adjumani, a town in Uganda, close to the border going south-westwards.

  

Christmas in Nimule

Christmas greetings

Despite news reports to the contrary the whole of South Sudan is NOT a war zone. Areas affected are those which were war torn in any case: places such as Jonglei and Unity States.  Juba has now calmed down and we are no longer seeing panicking families heading for the border.  Eastern Equatoria State, where I am, has been free from violence. At Mass on Christmas Day the Deputy Governor for the state gave a very good speech appealing for a grassroots-led movement for peace and reconciliation. He said that the fighting is between government factions looking for personal power. Although the president and vice-president come from rival tribes, their struggle is personal and should be ignored. He urged the people not to cause things to escalate by making it become tribal. He asked people not to seek vengeance for their family members, but to work hard to forgive and mourn those who have died together.  He was greeted with enthusiasm.  I made sure I took his message back to the children’s home.

Christmas dinner is served

Yesterday I dropped into our local UN base to ask for news. They are very relaxed about the local situation.  They also see this area as very safe.

That said, we are being careful.  The gate-keeper to the children’s home and another male staff member have equipped themselves with traditional bows and arrows in case of emergency.  I attach photos, which don’t do them justice.  Close up, the arrows look absolutely lethal with barbed spikes to make them hard to remove.

Gatekeeper equipped

Pastor Abdullah has made a trip into Uganda and found a suitable place to rent in the event that we have to evacuate the children’s home.  The border is walking distance.

Christmas was lovely.  The boys killed three goats.  We ate together and had a feast of goat (roast and stewed), rice, fruit and sweets.  The children found the sensation of a full stomach very uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  Hardly anyone ate the evening meal.  Everyone proudly wore their new clothes.  Later in the day the older girls went out, clearly wanting to show off their swanky attire.

The only fly in the ointment was that I was attacked by a mad woman on my way to Mass on Christmas Eve.  She knocked me flying and I fell very awkwardly on my wrist.  Thankfully there was an immediate rush of people to help me, including a Dinka who took me to a local clinic for pain relief and bandages.  He then helped me get a boda to church.  I doubt if I would have had such care from strangers in London.  My wrist is still very swollen and I am therefore typing this post one-handed. An incident like this could happen anywhere in the world, including London.  The reaction of bystanders was characteristic of Sudan, north or south.

We will not be moved!

This is a photo of my three youngest charges, who were staging a ‘sit-in’ in my room and refusing to come out.  As you can see, they are blissfully unaware of the country’s problems.  Hopefully this will remain the case.

Political crisis

The President of South Sudan and his Vice-President have been at loggerheads since before I arrived here.  On Sunday, things came to a head and there was an attempted military coup in Juba by supporters of the Vice-President.  The news even reached the BBC.

Monday passed without incident although people were tense, as it turned out, with good reason.  There is a barracks in the town, and they feared that there might be clashes there between the two groups.  Other than these forebodings, and a 6pm curfew, nothing happened in Nimule.

On Tuesday things were quiet during the morning.  Pastor Abdullah gave a particularly appropriate reading and soothing sermon on the subject of ‘If God is for us, who can be against’.  He said that nobody should go out of the compound.

Later I sat and taught some children in a shady spot with a sleeping three year old on my lap.  Then, when we had had enough, I carried the sleeping child to bed.  I was followed by an eight year old carrying my books and glasses.  After depositing the little one, I went back to retrieve my books and glasses from my pupil.  She was still outside.  Suddenly some teenagers ran towards me and staff started shouting in Madi.  I looked and saw tall, thin soldiers with oversized guns coming through both sets of gates.  The army is largely Dinka, who are a very different physical type from the Madi.  For the first time I saw things through their eyes.  It was sad to see how the Madi stereotype of Dinkas is being reinforced to the children at the home through nobody's fault.  My poor pupil was panicking and stumbling and had dropped my glasses.  I went back outside to get my glasses.  Then I walked behind my pupil so she could feel that there was someone safe behind her and helped her indoors. 

My first feeling was of sheer fear, but thankfully this passed really fast.  The next thought I had was a ridiculous one: ‘Thank goodness lunch has been prepared before this happened – we won’t starve!’  I think most people reacted in the same way as everyone went immediately to get their food.  As we did so, the soldiers were silently circling around outside in a very sinister fashion, checking the school buildings and church and the surrounding homes outside the compound. 

This situation carried on.  At one point, soldiers came into the home itself and checked every room, including mine.  When they came to my room they asked if I had any visitors, which seemed a strange question at the time.  Since then I have been told that the reason for the search was because they had heard that one of their opponents had escaped from Juba to Nimule and was directing operations from our immediate area.

I spent most of the time while we were inside the home telling the children stories to try to de-stress them.  To give you an idea of the length of time, we worked our way through The Princess and the Pea, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Tortoise and the Hare, Cinderella, the Three Little Pigs, The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Sleeping Beauty.

Then, as suddenly as the soldiers had arrived, they left.  The matron, who comes from Uganda, was very scathing.  She said if it happened in Uganda, the soldiers would be arrested for carrying guns into a children’s home.

Later, when the staff were eating, Pastor Abdullah told us about his experience.  He did a comic impression of a stupid Dinka who speaks very bad English and asked ignorant questions about the obvious.  He told us that the commander saw some of the older children, who are in their teens, and was amazed that they were still at the home.  The soldiers’ eyes lit up at the sight of our beautiful teenage girls.  One soldier asked if he could marry one of them.  The pastor said that if he wanted to marry one, he had to go through him and the marriage must take place at the Cornerstone church.  He was joking about it, but I doubt if it felt funny at the time.

Apart from the initial panic, the children behaved very calmly.  At morning devotions the next day, I congratulated them on their courage.  My opinion of Pastor Abdullah has also gone up.

Trip to the dressmakers

A typical dressmakers

Numerous people have told me that everyone must wear new clothes for Christmas.  This is a local tradition which is strictly carried out.  Everyone has seen my entire wardrobe as it is very limited, so I can’t produce something from the bottom of the pile to stun them with.  I have spent two months admiring the local ladies’ best clothes, which are made of lovely African patterned cotton, with a certain degree of envy.  Typically they wear long flared skirts with matching short sleeved tops.  After some soul-searching, because my budget is limited, I decided to treat myself to a locally made outfit. 

Making the finishing touches to my outfit

The local market has many dressmakers, working on treadle-operated machines.  I asked Christine, the matron at the children’s home, to come with me to introduce me to a good dressmaker in case I was ripped off.  Together we went to a dressmaker who is a friend of hers, only to find that she was not at the booth.  The booth is rented by a number of women who use it casually, bringing their own Singer machines on their heads, ready to attach to the treadle tables in the booth.  The dressmaker who was there phoned Christine’s friend.  In the meantime we sat and talked, watching the other dressmaker work.  In the meantime I chose some cloth in a suitably festive colour scheme.  When Christine’s friend arrived, I showed her my sarong and one of my blouses, which I wanted her to use as templates.  The price was small, 50 SSP (South Sudanese pounds) for labour plus 65 SSP for the cost of the cloth.

The finished product

Today I went to fetch the finished product.  As you will see from the photo, the outfit is not cut to match the pattern of the material.  The design of the skirt is the local traditional one, with a drawstring waist, in a very different pattern to my sarong.  The blouse has long sleeves as requested, but is not the same design as the blouse I had shown as a template.  I realise that all these women are self-taught and making a living as best they can, so this was not completely unexpected.  They do not have professional training and can only make designs that they have practised and taught each other.  The result is lovely if unorthodox, and will remind me of the dressmakers of Nimule whenever I wear it. 

On a side-issue, one day I came into the staff dining room to find two of my oldest Primary 5 girls talking to the matron.  They were very despondent because they had failed their end of year exams for the fifth year running.  Naturally they find it extremely disheartening to see the younger children passing and moving ahead while they are doomed to stay.  They were asking the matron’s advice on what to do as they are now in their teens.  Christine suggested that they stop school and learn to make clothes.  She strongly recommended this as so many local women are very successful at making a living that way.  She said that the home would pay the necessary start-up costs and find someone to teach them.  The girls accepted her advice.  Soon they will join the legion of women who create the elegant ladies who throng Nimule.