I would like to introduce you to Mubiza Primary School in Caprivi. The school is fairly small with seven classes, infant and junior, Grade 1 to Grade 7. Grade 1 to Grade 4 learners have class teaching whereas Grades 5 -7 have subject teaching. In Grades 1 – 3 every lesson is taught in mother tongue (Silozi) and in all other grades the teaching language is English.
You would like the school. The buildings are grey ‘bricks’ and the windows and doors are green. There is a small garden in front of each room with evergreen hedges all around them. The caretaker is busy weeding these gardens after the ‘summer’ holiday; she said she would like to plant some flowers so I bought her cosmos, cornflower and Californian poppy seeds in the supermarket this morning.
I bought a football as well because there is no sports equipment in the school at all!
Four buildings (admin offices) and three class blocks are built around this garden courtyard. There are trees around too. Behind one of the class blocks are the old mud classrooms and the shady tree where
The lessons used to take place until fairly recently.
There is a story behind this ……………….
In the USA there is a volunteer association called the Peace Corps, rather like VSO. Usually young people take a year or two out of college before they start work and volunteer as teachers or other aid workers. Mubiza had a Peace Corps volunteer two years ago and he had the class under the tree! He loved the school so much that when he went home to the states his family and various relatives collected enough money to build a whole new classroom block – so no more teaching under the tree.
I don’t know how he managed it but there are also about eight computers in the middle classroom waiting to be connected. I met two young Namibian people, both 22 years old, working in the room as they have trained in ICT and are waiting for their certificates to come. They will not be paid and there does not seem to be any hope of a job for them either. The computers are for the community and the young people are waiting for an appointment with the Chair of the School Board and the Principal to ask if they can help out.
The Principal of the school is called Mrs Dorothy Ntema. She wore a fantastic dress and head dress to school on Thursday and she has a mango tree at her house! She only became principal of the school last Tuesday as she was transferred from another school on the first day of term. Her previous school had been a combined school (primary and lower secondary) so now to be head of a primary school is seen as a demotion. I think we will get on together and she says I am a gift!
The children come from nearby villages and when we drive down the (very straight) to school at 6.20am in the mornings they are all walking or running down the road towards the school like ribbons of blue and grey. One boy cycles with his brother on the cross bar of his bike and must travel at least ten miles to and from school.
Some of the villages are visible from the road but most are well hidden in the bush. The huts are round structures made from stout poles and the walls in-filled with mud, like wattle and daub. They are then thatched; reeds are abundant in the low lying marshes. There are no hills here only miles and miles of low lying areas. Local people tell us that these will all flood before the end of February as the ground becomes more and more waterlogged in the rainy season. I find this difficult to believe at the moment as everywhere looks so beautiful and abundant.
Several huts are grouped together in a compound which is then surrounded by more stout, bigger poles. I think this must be to keep the huts safe from animals – there are elephants about and crocodiles and hippos in the river.
So the children have a very rural life. Crops are grown and the fields are ploughed with iron ploughs pulled by three or four oxen. Farmers keep cows and goats and grow maize, water melons and cucumbers. There are even chickens in the school playground.
Next week the agriculture lessons are due to start so I will be very interested in writing about that aspect of school life.
And for any children reading this ...... how would you like a beach for your playground? Every school we have seen so far has a beach to play on; a beach for a football pitch and a beach for a netball court!!
