KAMBA y NYOKA PRIMARY SCHOOL

       This was the last of the three primary schools we visited in the Karatu area, in the shadow of the Ngorongoro Crater. It was the closest to the Farm House toward the crater, but the farthest away from Karatu.  It clearly was the least affluent of the three near Karatu, yet a building of two new classrooms with an intervening school office was in final stages of construction.  One of the classrooms had been completed that day, as the paint on the walls was still wet, and we saw brushes in paint outside!  The other classroom needed several more days of work; plastering was not quite complete.  The new rooms had windows with glass already installed.  Few of the older buildings were not covered with stucco or plaster, leading to their rapid deterioration.  One had the remains of holes intended for windows, but which had been bricked in.  Another building had only a large hole where a window should be, and appears in one of the images.  The new building was entirely unfurnished, and the head teacher had no means for furnishing it.  Our project made arrangements to have 80 desks for this building; we understand they already have been manufactured and delivered.

       Mr. Comos Mateo (PO Box 95, Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa) is its head teacher.  We communicated well with him.  He clearly has the school's students best interests at heart.  The school had been started by a Catholic Sisters charity (perhaps Shishira Sisters), other buildings probably had been funded by other sources.  The new building in particular was typical of ones funded through Kibo and OAT, not like ones paid for with government funds.  It appeared to be a solid building which will last for a substantial period of time.

       We visited all of the classroom buildings.  One of the images shows a packed classroom of Standard I students.  Others show students from several other classrooms.  One group sang a song they had composed for Shirley Forbes which included her name in a prominent way!  We visited the school library which was in a separate building.  It seemed rather good, given other aspects of the school.  This is the school for which Lois and Scott sorted and packed six cartons of books.  This consisted of about 500 books, sorted into preschool or Standard I level, primary (standards II - IV), and intermediate (standards V - VII).  We also left a map of the world on an inflatable globe.  The project supplied exercise books, pencils, book bags and Christian crosses for each child, except we ran out of the crosses for a few students, something which distressed Lois greatly, as she was passing out those.  The project also brought a number of soccer balls, basketballs, and foot pumps with needles.  Lois found some inexpensive kites; we gave three to students here.  Scott helped some older boys assemble them.  They were flying in no time at all, much to the enjoyment of the students!  (Three of the images near the end of the slide show have kites in the sky.)  The  older boys  were extremely interested in the balls, and immediately began inflating them with the foot pump.  They appeared not to know when to quit, making Scott concerned that they were going to burst the balls!  But the need to quit was communicated, and the balls started going up in the air, although they waited until we left to take them down a hill to start kicking them around.

       We had a very substantial gathering outside with the whole student body.  Tables and chairs were setup for us and some of the teachers.  After some brief speeches by the head teacher and Shirley, the students sang for us, then a dance troupe performed.  That was outstanding!   A group of girls marched in to the beating of a drum.  They danced in a circle, really moving all body parts around!  One little girl seemed to be especially into moving her bottom around!  They obviously had fun; so did all of us.  This was a very satisfying school visit.  After their performances, we passed out things we brought, an orderly process which allowed interaction between various of us and the individual students.  School should have let out about 3pm; we were still there at 5pm!  As we tried to leave some of the children ran along our vehicles for up to half a mile.  Their appreciation was very apparent.

       The six boxes Lois and Scott packed for this school were wrapped with forethought.  The boxes Shirley and Joyce took on their earlier trip broke apart in shipping and handling.  Scott obtained good quality 5/16" nylon rope and double wrapped each box in about 25 yards of it, not cutting it at all.  Three of the six boxes so wrapped arrived at Nyoka with the rope intact.  (Guides had cut into others to get out various items without Scott being aware that was happening.)  The snarled rope from the three boxes was taken off the boxes intact.  As Scott untangled one of the snarls, an old man came up asking for them; Scott gave him one.  The head teacher expressed appreciation in receiving the other two lengths of rope.  Similarly, Lois left the dresses she had been wearing to the schools with teachers at Nyoka; again they expressed great appreciation for these garments.  These uses  illustrate two things:  Little things can be useful, and the people of Tanzania use everything as many times as possible. 

       The images below are organized in this order:  Students in classrooms, existing facilities, new facilities, our gifts, and finally their show.  And it was some show!

ACCESS TO A SLIDE SHOW ABOUT THE VISIT