Dahwe Primary School

Please note that VSO is in no way connected with or responsible for the content, comments and observations in this blog: these are solely my own in a personal capacity.

I know, I know, I know. But there is so much back-log and, now that I seem to have a reasonably fast internet connection for once (5kbps would you believe!!) I am going to get some photos up. Some people said to me that they wouldn't mind seeing (and hearing) a bit more about the work side of things so here goes. All the photos apart from the first two are from Ecole Primaire Dahwe, Ndora Sector, Gisagara District. 779 students (405 girls and 374 boys) with 240 in 1st class and 40 in 6th class. The first two pictures are from the P1 class in Gisanze - I stuck them in because they are cute pictures and I have the upload speed for once!!

Some of the pictures I have uploaded in a higher resolution than usual - if you click on them, the larger version should appear. I hope. I haven't been having a lot of luck with photos in Blogger!

P1 class, Ecole Primaire Gisanze. When I came into the room with the Director, they were all sitting exactly like this, even though there was no teacher with them.

Ecole Primaire Dahwe. The shot on the left is of what used to be woodwork and sewing workshops. People took refuge in them during the genocide and, when they were killed, the building was badly damaged and has never been repaired. On the right are some of the classrooms that are actually in use at the moment, a mixture of proper bricks and mud bricks for the most part.

Part of the damaged building is occasionally used as an open-air classroom. On the right is Ferdinand, the director. He was appointed just a few weeks ago and only had six months' teaching experience before that. I think he is about twenty years old.

Another building on the site - it was under construction when the genocide happened and has remained untouched ever since. Constructed with mud-bricks, it is probably too badly deteriorated to be salvagable at this stage. On the right are the coffee bushes in the jardin scolaire. The students grow these (as well as cabbages and carrots) and they are sold at market to provide some income for the school.

There are twelve latrines for the 779 students and ten staff, and in pretty poor condition at that. There is no water whatsoever on site - students bring small quantities to school with them in little jerrycans (1 litre cooking oil containers for the most part).

This is one side of the latrines - six on each side. In theory one side is for girls the other for boys but it is a bit of a free-for-all. Students start school around 0700 and morning break for the whole school is at 1030 - all 779 of them, so you can imagine the crush! Apparently, one of the latrines is reserved for the staff ...

Is he looking at me or at her ? Ah, it is me after all!!

The main information board - teachers and classes. Also the new Mathematics books arrived this year, enough for all the students - but in Kinyarwandan. All Mathematics is now being taught in English, so these books are not being given to the students as it would confuse them even more.

A little girl in P3 is trying to add decimals. In English, they have adopted an incredibly cumbersome way of expressing decimals: 79.735 is not 'seventy-three point seven three five' but 'seventy-nine and seven hundred and thirty-five thousandths'. So the sum (11.23 + 79.735)was to add 'eleven and twenty-three hundredths to seventy-nine and seven hundred and thirty-five thousandths', the answer being ninety and nine hundred and fifty eight thousandths. Beats me.

More statistics on the staff-room wall. It includes numbers of orphans (one or two parents), mentally and physically handicapped (very few of these, they are rarely sent to school; the six listed here as mentally handicapped actually suffer from epilepsy but this is how they have been classified), the percentage wearing uniform (49%) and shoes (72%) and how many are covered by health insurance (41%).

The staff in their staffroom. One is away sick in hospital. Ferdinand, the Director, is in the green sports top in the picture on the left.

The staff here feel very isolated and neglected. Although the school is in the same sector as the

District Office, they rarely see any District or MINEDUC officials. Ferdinand has only recently been appointed as Director - in fact, the school has had no director since sometime early last year. The results are very poor - not a single student from the school passed their P6 exam with a high enough grade to qualify for secondary school but this is partly because, given the school's poor facilities, the parents who have stuck with it as far as P6 send their kids to other schools where they feel they will do better. I can see myself coming back here a lot in the next few months .......

That's it for now. Hope to do a bit more over the weekend and update you on what my guard has been doing in my bedroom, among other things!! And special congratulations to my wonderful god-daughter Alannah for her amazing performance as the Caterpillar in her school's ballet production of Alice in Wonderland.