Last week I spent the day in a school, whose name, I’m not permitted to mention. When I arrived the children from the Secondary Sch. (which shares the site with the Junior Sch.) were standing outside in the morning sun, somewhere in the high 20’s, being preached at by some American evangelist with a megaphone. It lasted about 30 minutes or so, by which time the children were obviously hot, sweaty and bored due in no small part, to their inability to discern the unfamiliar accent nor the rather adult message. The ‘sermon’ finished the children were handed copies of the ‘New Testament’ for which I’m sure they would all be eternally grateful. Indeed they did appear very pleased, sure as I am that apart from their school texts books this is the only book most of them would be likely to have.
From there I passed over to the Junior Sch. who fortunately had their dose of indoctrination in the relative comfort of a classroom. I was taken to sit in a Year 3 classroom with a Mr Hammond and a class of 32 of the most wonderful children you could ever hope to teach. The classroom on the other hand was appalling (see the picture to the side). A truly tiny room with tiny desks, two windows (no glass) and two large doors left wide open for light, there was no electricity, and ventilation. I addition there was a teacher’s desk, one cupboard, a bench and small chalk-board, cracked and broken concrete floor and corrugated-iron roof. The children sat in rows facing forward, as they do in all the classrooms I’ve visited here, stood to answer questions, shared text books and what other limited resources they had, and sharpened their pencils with razor blades into a bucket at the back of the room.
Mr Hammond was one of those elderly, tall and distinguished African men you might see in the movies, softly spoken with a slight stoop, a warm face with a smile you couldn’t help but return and a demeanour and presence which holds people spellbound. And despite t such desperate circumstances and awful conditions the children were, so inexplicably, happy, enthusiastic, keen and dedicated to a man old enough to be their grandfather. I sat, I’m not ashamed to say, at the back of the classroom, in awe of this man, with tears in my eyes... not least because he so reminded me of my dad... whilst all the while thinking of some of the ungrateful children, classes and parents I’ve had to deal with back home and how they just don’t realise how fortunate they are.
From there I passed over to the Junior Sch. who fortunately had their dose of indoctrination in the relative comfort of a classroom. I was taken to sit in a Year 3 classroom with a Mr Hammond and a class of 32 of the most wonderful children you could ever hope to teach. The classroom on the other hand was appalling (see the picture to the side). A truly tiny room with tiny desks, two windows (no glass) and two large doors left wide open for light, there was no electricity, and ventilation. I addition there was a teacher’s desk, one cupboard, a bench and small chalk-board, cracked and broken concrete floor and corrugated-iron roof. The children sat in rows facing forward, as they do in all the classrooms I’ve visited here, stood to answer questions, shared text books and what other limited resources they had, and sharpened their pencils with razor blades into a bucket at the back of the room.
Mr Hammond was one of those elderly, tall and distinguished African men you might see in the movies, softly spoken with a slight stoop, a warm face with a smile you couldn’t help but return and a demeanour and presence which holds people spellbound. And despite t such desperate circumstances and awful conditions the children were, so inexplicably, happy, enthusiastic, keen and dedicated to a man old enough to be their grandfather. I sat, I’m not ashamed to say, at the back of the classroom, in awe of this man, with tears in my eyes... not least because he so reminded me of my dad... whilst all the while thinking of some of the ungrateful children, classes and parents I’ve had to deal with back home and how they just don’t realise how fortunate they are.
Do you perhaps a picture of this distinguished Mr Hammond?
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