Woohoo!! A month ago I would never have believed that I could be on such a ‘high’ at this moment – there was still so much to do before school resumed on the 10th January and I just knew it was going to be chaos. With almost 700 pupils (including almost 200 new students) starting and 28 new academic and non-academic support staff to be initiated, I was expecting a traumatic first few days. Even when we had only 50 students and three teachers (just three years ago!) we found stray kiddies sitting in wrong classes or wandering lost in the playground – what was it going to be like organising 700 children and about 100 adults!!
Well, it all went off without a hitch! Within the first 20 minutes of the first day all the pupils and staff were where they should be and I was floating back to my desk in a euphoric daze!
Mind you, it wasn’t easy but the hard work and fantastic teamwork by all the staff and volunteers made it as stress-free as possible - our school deputies worked non-stop over the holidays preparing everything so that all our new teachers and students knew exactly where they had to go and what they had to do; the carpenters (you might remember the photos in the last newsletter!) worked day and night to finish all the classrooms, kitchen areas, teachers’ desks, class cupboards and 250 new students’ desks and chairs; the builders and painters worked like Trojans to have the new classrooms ready; the volunteers who stayed here over the holidays raced around picking up new uniforms, text books, kitchen needs and stationary; and our visiting group of 13 students from Sydney all cheerfully helped with poster writing, painting classrooms and play equipments and uniforming new students. Also dear Greg (who just happened to drop into the school for a five minute visit and ended up helping out for three weeks over the busy holiday period) worked so hard cementing in and painting all the new sets of soccer and netball goals. Below is a picture of Greg and myself on the morning of the first day back at school. We were watching all the buses arriving, spilling out hundreds of kids all greeting each other and excitedly preparing for another big school year. It was a wonderful moment!
Below is a picture of Miss Stephanie and myself organising all the students into classes. Within 20 minutes the playground was cleared, classes had started and the only things that got lost that day were Stephanie’s and my voices!
Luckily we were ‘thinking big’ when we planned the Assembly/Dining Hall – below is a picture of the first assembly of 2006 … and here was me thinking it would be years before we filled it!
Pictures from our first days
When I had come back down to earth after the thrill and excitement of such a successful morning on the first day I had the luxury of going around all the new classrooms and peaking in to see all the eager new faces buried in brand new textbooks and exercise books and listening attentively to their teachers. It was such a thrill I took two rolls of film - but I’ll just give you a small sample! These are the moments that make all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes more than worth it.
With around 700 students the library is used almost every period of the day and so our librarian, Taryn, has a lot on her plate. A warm welcome must go to our new librarians who are joining us this year – Janet and Anna!
As I explained in the last newsletter, we have been fortunate enough to employ many highly qualified and well-experienced Tanzanian teachers this year. Below is the new mathematics and science teacher, Mr Rasul (left) with Mr George (right), one of our great mathematics teachers who joined the school last year.
Feeding all the students, teachers and non-academic staff is no easy job for our cooks, yet every day wholesome, tasty food is served and, amazingly, on time! Remember, for most of our children this (along with the snack at morning break) is the only meal they receive and if we want to have them energetic, alert and healthy it is important to provide nourishing food and encourage healthy eating habits. Below you can see both the children and staff enjoying the results of our cooking staff’s hard work.
All our staff members are grateful for the access to the modern technology that St Jude’s is now able to offer. Class notes and lessons are written up on computers, printed out and photocopied on modern and efficient machines and internet access gives them the chance to broaden the curriculum to include the latest information on their subjects.
Below, two of our new teachers, Mr Peter (left) and Mr Elibariki (right), are working hard on the computers in the staff room.
How the new classroom block was finished on time:
In the last newsletter I included photos of the progress of the new classroom block – I didn’t admit it then but I was a little worried that it wouldn’t be completely ready by 10th January.
Well, everyone laughs at my little spike in the office that is always full of bits of paper….but it works! Every time one of the building team or someone in the office wants something, he or she writes it on a piece of paper and places it on the spike on my desk. Then when I go to town, I collect all the scraps of paper, decipher them and make lists of purchases.
Such purchases may be paint for classrooms, steel for more swings, glue for carpenters, 25kgs of 4 inch nails and 50kg’s of 3 inch nails, 200 more bags of cement, 2 boxes of A4 paper, bags of uniform buttons (as the kids are always loosing them!), 10 pieces of conduit pipe or 12 sinks! I arrive back at the school in a bus laden with goods and often a truck following with more stuff – the only light thing being the ever-decreasing bank account!
When Sophie Gilliatt from Sydney (pictured below) visited last year, she came with me to buy some more mud bricks for the new classrooms. Whenever possible our building materials are purchased locally. In this way the school helps the local economy a great deal. It’s amazing to think that these bricks are outside a Maasai hut one day and the next they are part of the School of St Jude - it really is quite wonderful don’t you think!
The mud bricks from above went straight to work as soon as they hit the school campus! Below is where we were up to in early December:
about 20 more pieces of paper from various staff members from all sections of the school are added to the spike every day, and I often laugh at the lists given to me. Below is a typical order from my steel welder (he makes all the play equipment and staircases etc).
Just in case you’re not tuned in to Tanzanian English, here is the Aussie English translation:
1. 1 sheet of steel plate - gage 18 (this was used to make steel book ends for the library)
2. 4 pieces of square pipe - each 3mm thick (for an office desk frame)
3. 4 hinges and bush’s for a swinging steel door (on the new kitchen)
4. 1 piece of wire mesh (for the top of a septic tank … to save Lucy falling in again!)
Finally after all the deciphering of builder’s lists and the daily purchasing and frantic construction work, the eight-classroom block was eventually finished ahead of time! And that included the new glass louvers and the plants for the garden!
Even the new bus park was already busy:
It’s so wonderful to have another school block bustling with students learning and teachers teaching. Our Standard Ones love their new desks and chairs and the elephant on the back wall, painted by the students from St Vincent’s College, Sydney, was a huge hit with the children.
Getting the classroom furniture ready
You might remember that I also wrote about the progress of our new desks and chairs in the last newsletter. Well, that’s another success story!
Since October last year five carpenters have been sleeping and working at all hours of the day and night to get 250 new desks and chairs made for opening day. They finished them the day before! And they did a wonderful job. Below are two pictures of the results of their hard work.
Even the playground received a ‘makeover’ - minus botox injections and remedial massage!
All the 15 sets of double swings, numerous slides, climbing frames and the soccer and netball goals were given a new lease of life. After careful safety checks of the equipment, the team of hard-working students from St Vincent’s lovingly, artistically and with great enthusiasm splashed on bright colours to really lift the well loved and much used playground. It’s amazing what a new coat of paint can achieve … wish it was as easy for me!
Finally, the best job before school officially opened for 2006 – uniforms for all the new sponsored kids!Sponsored children who had successfully completed their probation period in the last part of last year, received their uniforms to wear for the first day of school. They were told that they could come anytime between 8:30am and 5pm on the Thursday before school started, but by 8am the anticipation and excitement outside the school gates was palpable! The eager faces of the children and their proud parents were so gorgeous to see – they had made it; they were going to join the school that was going to change their lives! And they deserved to be happy and proud as they had worked hard to get this far and they know they have to keep working hard to stay here.
It was all hands on deck to ensure that uniforms fitted and pairs of shoes made it to the right (and left!) feet. That was another task for which the girls from St Vincent’s joined in to assist our hard working volunteer team and luckily we had so many available – it was a long queue! Many thanks to all of you for making this hugely rewarding task a quick and enjoyable one.
Why are we here?
Some people ask me why we all work so hard to build this school when there are already government schools in the area. The following article was in our local newspaper recently. Basically it points out that of the 22,000 students who sat the final primary exam last year, only a quarter will get a place in a secondary school. As very little money is spent on education in Tanzania, the secondary schools are of a very poor standard so there is little chance for attendees at government school to do little more than fill in time before they are returned to their villages to work the family corn plot (if they are lucky enough to have one), eke out a living in menial jobs (if they are lucky enough to get one) or resort to begging or crime.
I do not want only a quarter of my students getting into a secondary school! I want ALL of them getting into secondary school … to actually learn something and get a qualification!
That is why we will build our own secondary school. This will start in 2008.
What happened to some of us in December during our Christmas break?
Some of our overseas staff went on holidays:
Yes, most headed off to have a well earned break with their families and friends back home … wherever that might be. However, John (chief sponsorship photographer), Paul (volunteer co-ordinator), Alex (chief food and text book orderer and class timetable sorter outer) and Dan (who is personally responsible for fostering a love of reading for many children) decided to do a road trip to Rwanda and Zaire.
Paul generously offered the use of his 4 wheel Pride ‘n’ Joy (which he lovingly cleaned and polished every Sunday) for the cross-country trek but bitterly regretted it when he and his travelling companions returned two weeks later minus the car’s heavy duty front bumper bar which just fell off due to the continuous vibrations from the shocking roads they traversed! The four adventurers arrived back looking more like the Filthy Four after more near-escapes than the Dirty Dozen but were thrilled to be able to regale us with tales of exciting encounters with crazy characters and nights spent under the vast African skies. I was so jealous!
Some should have taken a different route …
Lucy (volunteer art teacher) and Bob (volunteer computer wiz), below, also had great adventures – if you can call falling into the hole being dug for a septic tank (just stick to the soft drink, Lucy!) or falling off your bike (just stick to computers, Bob!) ‘adventures’! I’m sure they could have worked on some better stories to account for the bruises …
And some you just throw the book(s) at …
Over the past four months, Alex (below) has been ordering, collecting and accounting for literally thousands of Tanzanian curriculum school textbooks. These pictures show only a fraction of those. Thanks to her mammoth efforts all the children and teachers this year have been able to start school with more than enough reading material. Thanks Alex!
…and thanks also to the team from St Vincent’s College for all the hard work they did covering the text books. This will ensure they last the year in one piece and hopefully survive next year, too.
However, a trip to St Jude’s isn’t just hard labour – the girls enjoyed close encounters with the lions in the Serengeti and cooling off in the azure blue waters around the island of Zanzibar.
But I think the biggest thrill for leader Suzanne (Deputy of St Vincent’s College), happened on the Saturday morning her sponsored child, Margreth, arrived at the school with a gift – a live chicken! It’s lucky she’s expected to eat it as I don’t rate her chances of getting it back to Sydney as a souvenir!
And so we plough on into another exciting year here in Tanzania. It’s another year of exciting challenges reaping huge rewards which we all share equally – whether it’s here at St Jude’s or somewhere out there at the other end of an email or postal address. The universal ‘team’ that is building this school and making dreams come true for so many is spread far and wide but only if you look at a map – I don’t bother as I know all your hearts are here even if I can’t actually see you.
Thank you for your continuing support, kind words, generosity and unfailing help in so many ways.
Best wishes for 2006!
Gemma