Week 66 (21 - 27 Oct 2007)

Photo: Young goat asleep outside our back door (I stepped over it to get the photo!)

Rev Allan Lacey preached at the morning service on Sunday (he and his wife Ann are our new friends from Kuluva). We took them to lunch at the White Castle as they hadn’t been. The staff remembered us from last week so were happy for us to charge our laptops while we ate! We had a pleasant day and it was good to get away from the school for a short time.

On Monday Andrea and I asked the three remaining classes for questions relating to Life Skills and HIV/AIDS. They were anonymous but we kept the class responses separate. Andrea spent the rest of the day typing them out and collating them. They make sobering reading. Many of the questions are those normally asked by teenagers e.g. relationships and friendships but who do they discuss them with if the teachers are hardly ever around and they only see their parents during the school breaks? We felt they needed their parents and that this is one of the problems of a boarding school. Other questions showed many misconceptions concerning HIV/AIDS – and revealed our ignorance in knowing how to help answer them. It rained heavily this evening. Our roof started leaking.

Tuesday was OK. I led the staff devotions and started a jig-saw – but not at the same time. The roof leaked again and the mark on the ceiling expanded.

On Wednesday my meeting with the Principal was postponed because he took an injured student to the hospital and was delayed there. The staff don’t really know how to treat injuries and it seemed that it was more important for the boy with the cut leg and “gaping” wound (according to Andrea) to go down to the dormitory – a difficult path if you are in full health – and put on his uniform rather than sit with his leg up while urgent transport was arranged for him. His school trousers ended up getting covered in blood. So what’s the priority?

We returned to Kuluva again on Thursday afternoon for a further meeting with Arumadri Joel to give him the students’ questions about life skills and HIV/AIDS. He was very impressed and it will help him plan the day. He will bring a team from the hospital and after the formal teaching and discussion they will stay for a while to give individual students an opportunity ask more personal questions. Joel sees this as an introductory exercise to begin to build bridges and relationships with the hospital rather than a session where the students will get all the answers, a view which we suspect is held by more than a few of the teachers.

On Friday we had the monthly Full Staff Meeting. After a typically frustrating and hot morning it was the last thing I wanted to attend. But, we were very encouraged. The Principal, Deputy and Director of Studies showed a surprisingly united front when some difficult issues were being discussed. Each in their own way used arguments and ideas that we have been discussing with them for some time. We hardly said a word. It was great to see them start to tackle some of the school issues. The staff were, understandably, a bit defensive especially concerning timekeeping and teaching all lessons. We will return to some of these issues during our training workshops in two weeks time.

The Ushindi Board Meeting (school Governors) met on Saturday morning at the primary school. It’s the first Governors meeting I have attended sitting outside under a mango tree! This was another productive meeting as far as we were concerned and seemed more relaxed than our first. There were only a few governors there but we discussed freely and openly and made some decisions which we felt were timely. As we have been busy recently the last few days have given us a boost in seeing that some of the things we have been doing are starting to move forward. However, the rain was even heavier in the evening and Andrea was dripped on! We sent an urgent text to our solar electrician. He promised that he would come on Monday without fail. We’ll see!