January
17, 2015
Today
was the “Day in the Life” activity for people who only wanted to do day visits
rather than staying overnight. I was
scheduled to visit with a family in the Bison slums, but opted out of that to
go with Mariam and the GUW sponsorship staff person Eunice to visit Mariam’s
school. Manjasi High School is a
co-educational high school in Tororo. It
has a good reputation and was Mariam’s second choice when it was time for her
to select a high school two years ago.
(Her first choice, Tororo Girls High School did not accept her because
her grades/test scores were not high enough.)
We
all started at the GUW office. The “Day
in the Life” folk headed off at 9.
Mariam and Beza, another sponsored student, were already at the office
because the meeting with sponsored students had been scheduled to take place at
9 a.m. However, the time had been
changed to 3 p.m. to accommodate the schedule for volunteers, but too late to
notify the students and have them change their arrival time. Helen arrived shortly thereafter, and Kevin
about 10 – so they will have a long day of waiting, sitting around the
office. Took this picture of Mariam and
Beza. They were both part of the orphan
singing group which entertained the volunteers at a clinic celebration on our
2011 trip. The yellow bag (from a
carousel convention) that Mariam is holding contained some small gifts I’d
brought her: a Minnesota t-shirt, a
picture book of the Twin Cities, some pens, and a lovely leather bracelet I’d
gotten at last year’s GUW silent auction.
The
van transported Eunice, Mariam, and me to the high school.
It
is currently between terms so Eunice had made special arrangements with Sisye
Moses Mugulusi, the Director of Studies, to meet with us. He was a very pleasant man and seemed
concerned about the welfare of students at the school. He knew Mariam, perhaps especially because
she is a member of the Uganda Patriot Club of which he is the sponsor.
After
a discussion about Mariam’s studies, he took us on a tour of the school. It is located on a large parcel of land with
a number of buildings scattered about.
It is a boarding school so girls and boys dorms take up a fair amount of
space. There are approximately 350
students in 6 grades. (Ugandan schools,
based on the British model, have most students attending 4 years at which point
O level tests are taken. Some leave at
that point; some attend for another 2 years to achieve A level.)
This
is the science building, recently refurbished with funds from USAID and the
nicest building on campus.
The
“cafeteria” for students is the building behind the kitchen – which is an
outdoor cooking shed. Can’t imagine
cooking for 350 for two or three meals a day from this structure, even
considering the simple foods eaten.
The
school did get a grant to purchase 60 computers which are available in their
computer “lab.” Don’t know how good
they are since they were not functioning and were covered for the school holiday.
This
is the interior of the girls’ dorm for grades Senior 3 & 4. It’s not quite as crowded as it looks since
girls have the entire bunk bed, one in which to sleep, the other for boxes
where her possessions are kept. Still,
it’s not exactly roomy.
Girls
are locked in at night. There’s a
building which also serves as a meeting room and chapel that girls can use for
studying in the evening just across from the dorms. The head girl has a room and sleeps at the
end of the building; she has a key and locks that door so no one can go in and
out after a certain hour. The gate in
the fence (topped with barbed wire) that goes around the girls’ compound is
also locked at the same time; the head girl and the night guard have the only
keys. I guess it’s good security. But one hopes a fire never breaks out!
We
left the school and drove back to the office.
Kevin, another sponsored girl, had come so now there were four of them
sitting and waiting for something to happen. The
staff found something for them to do while they were waiting – shelling
peanuts!
I
left and returned to the hotel since the meeting with the students was schedule
to be held there at 3 p.m. – and it was.
All students spoke briefly about their year in school, what they were doing, and
what their career goals were. One
student was in primary, two were in high school, and the rest in or finished
with college. Mariam again reiterated
her interest in becoming a nurse.
I
think that would be a wonderful career for her in that it assures almost
guaranteed employment in Uganda at reasonable wages. However, just before the meeting Eunice had
given me Mariam’s grade report for the preceding term. It wasn’t great but was particularly poor in
the sciences and math, areas where a student must score extremely high in order
to move into the nursing track when finishing Senior 4, only two years from
now. I am fearful that she says she
wants to be a nurse but doesn’t have the interest and/or ability in the science
field. Her scores in English,
literature, Kiswahili, geography, history are all much better than her science
scores. I plan to discuss this with
Eunice and with her aunt, if I see her.
I want Mariam to succeed, not failing in an area for which she is not
suited.
The
meeting with students ended at 4:30. Had
a little down time before our 7 p.m. group dinner in the conference room – same
food as previous meals. After dinner
volunteers spoke about the experience they had, particularly with the “Day in
the Life” overnights and day experiences.
Generally people had good experiences, with a few low points. Finished a bit after 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment