Letters from Africa

February, 2008

The long-awaited day finally came on January 14, 2008, when our first students arrived. Actually, two girls came the day before but we had to ask them to find accommodations somewhere for the night because we were still in the process of trying to exterminate hundreds if not thousands of wasps and hundreds of bats the day before we opened the school! That expensive process got rid of most of the wasps, but did nothing to prevent the hundreds of bats that fly around in the evening hours and during the night!

That first day was one that I will always remember. We had terrible storms with lightning and thunder and torrents of rain. That knocked out the electricity for the next two days. The kitchen staff was having a hard time keeping the open fires going with the wind and rain coming into our temporary kitchen which has no side walls. For this reason, supper was an hour late. That meant that the girls were lined up in pitch darkness in the rain waiting for food. Since we have no dining room, they had to sit on the cold veranda eating their meal! It also became a chore for them to find their way in the classrooms being used as dorms and to and from the toilet building which is about a block away from the classrooms.

Before we started classes the next day, on January 15 we had a Mass celebrated by Fr. Maciej Braun, C.R., the pastor of the parish in which the school is located. This automatically makes him the manager of our school. Mama Maria Nyerere, the widow of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, was present. She spoke to the girls after the Mass and it was evident that she was pleased that the dream of her deceased husband, whose cause is up for Beatification, was finally being realized with the opening of this school. We then went into our first full day of classes and again had no electricity that day and evening.

We now have exactly 101 students, with two more scheduled to come in the next few days. Each day of the past two weeks brings parents begging and begging to take their daughter. They just cannot understand why we cannot take “just one more”. Sadly, they almost all end their conversation with: “Then, what can I do. How can you help me?” Teaching classes of 50 and 51 students is definitely a challenge – especially in a language that is new to most of the girls. They have these “Exercise Books” in which they write all the notes that the teachers write on the board. They also do their homework exercises in those books, so it is difficult to check them. I find myself constantly carrying a large stack of books around for correction. Our blackboards are terrible to write on. We hope to somehow put on a coat of black paint, but I am so afraid of wrecking them permanently.

Wake up time for the students is at 6:30 a.m. which is almost an hour later than most Secondary Schools. At 7:30 a.m. they line up outdoors for “Parade” each morning for prayer, the signing of the Tanzania National Anthem and any announcements. There are four 40 minute classes from 7:45 to 10:40 a.m. That is followed by a half hour for breakfast or “chai” which means “tea” in Kiswahili. At this time on most days they have “ugi” which is a type of porridge. That is followed by three more 40 minute classes. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays after these classes, Fr. Godfried Maruru who teaches geography, civics and history, has Mass for all students, whether they are Catholic, Muslims, Seven Day Adventists, members of the African International Church or whatever. This is followed by lunch from 2:15 – 3:15. At 3:40 the students are divided into three groups and rotate through three activities until 6:00 p.m. These activities are sports or field (farm) work, quiet study with a teacher available to give individual help and a period in the library. At 6:00 p.m. they have supper. Then they study in the classrooms from 8:30 – 9:30 with lights out at 9:30. It is a long, long day and the three of us are really exhausted. I have never dealt with a boarding school and so am not accustomed to worrying about teenagers 24/7.

One of my greatest joys has been the way the girls have responded to our tiny library. Since they do not have text books, I have often dreamt about some way to give them the experience of learning to use books and to love reading. With a generous donation from Loretta Oleck, we have ordered about 5 copies of textbooks for each of their subjects. We have the text books I brought back from Chicago as well as books of simple poetry and story books in English that we purchased here. Dotty has been sending me copies of Time and Newsweek and I also put these in the library. They literally run and push to be at the front of the line to choose their book for the period they have library. We have to hold them back and leave just a few in at a time. I have found them copying parts of text books into their notebooks and reading books of mathematical tables! There can be 50 girls in the room and there is dead silence. I think they are just so proud to be able to choose a book. Some choose the Bible or a dictionary.

The subjects we teach in this first year of Secondary School are religion, mathematics, geography, history, civics, chemistry, biology, physics, English, Kiswahili and a course called “Information and Computer Studies”. We had asked Mother Dolores if they could purchase an LCD projector for us in Rome so that we could project the many, many CDs we brought from Chicago. Laura, the tour guide for the American Provinces during the Beatification in Rome has come to volunteer her services for about a month and a half and she was able to bring the machine. I wish you could have seen the joy on the faces of the students as they saw pictures of themselves projected on a large wall – pictures we had taken with a digital camera I received from the students at Res. Laura has also been doing some art with them and they thoroughly enjoy that as well.

Our biggest problem is the number of sick students we have had from the very beginning. By the first weekend, we had 11 sick and made three trips to the hospital with groups of students. Eight have had malaria, one had worms, one had amoeba and some have been running temperatures as high as 103 ½ degrees! It is very difficult for me to get used to the idea that we can give medicine so freely here to students when they complain of headaches or stomach aches. A new health clinic has opened up about 20 minutes away from us by car. Because there is a Polish missionary there, most of the funding to build and furnish the place has come from Poland and a Polish foundation has sent two young doctors to staff the place. That is really a God-send for us to communicate with the doctors about our girls and they have been open to our constant calling for advice of what to do with the girls. They just opened up on January 21 and we were the first people there with six students. I have truly been frightened to have so many sick students in our first two weeks. Yet, the doctors feel that the girls came with these diseases – even though we require a medical examination before they come into the school.

Water continues to be a big problem for us. One of the new pipes that were put just a month ago to bring water from Lake Victoria into the toilet building sprung a geyser type leak right in front of the building. The tanks for collecting rain water seem to empty out so very quickly with so many people. One finds girls carrying their buckets all over the place trying to collect water – from the rain, finding any type of pipe that may have some water coming out of it to drawing buckets full of water from our cement water tanks. They are constantly looking for water to wash up, to wash their dishes, to brushing their teeth to washing their clothes, towels and sheets. We need to put in more tanks for collecting water, but would sure like to know where future buildings will be placed before we put in the additional tanks.

In spite of the many problems, it is good to be started. On Sunday on January 27, we had a Marist Brother give a presentation on an organization called TYCS – Tanzanian Young Catholic Students - for half of the school, while the other half sat silently in the Library for over an hour. Even on this Sunday we had other visitors, I think they were really, really impressed that each girl had a book opened in front of her in the Library. We are just having a hard time keeping the girls occupied on days like a Sunday. We do have class on Saturdays since it was the only time that we could get a part time good Kiswahili teacher. It is not common practice to have classes on Saturday, but it is helpful in keeping the girls occupied.

Thanks for all your prayerful support. It is deeply appreciated. Please continue so that we can have the strength and stamina to keep up with all that needs of the people here and what the Lord wants to do for the students at Chief Wanzagi Secondary School and their families.

God bless!
Sister Stephanie