Nehemiah High School

On Thursday afternoon I finally got the opportunity to visit Nehemiah High School. It is a co-educational grade nine to twelve school, a mixture of orphans and fee paying students. 23 Harvesters children currently make the three minute walk there each day.

In South Sudan high school is only for those who have done academically well in grades one to eight and are able to afford the fees and lost income that further schooling entails.

Given the school is only about four years old in its current incarnation and has a repudiation for being the high school that gets the best results in all of Yei, I expected it to be much bigger and more developed, with specialist learning spaces. There essentially just four sandy bottomed classrooms, one for each grade level. All the other buildings I'd seen when waking past are student dorms.

Grades nine and ten have about 130 students in each year level and all students study the same ten subjects for five 45 minute lessons each week. The grades eleven and twelve classes are a bit smaller but will eventually be bigger. Those students choose an Arts or Business stream and study eight subjects from a possible twelve. The four subjects they don't choose are their study lines. I guess timetabling is easier when you only have four classes!

It was interesting talking to the vice principal, who told me that while they know the optimum class size is 45, they'd like to aim for 65, by building four new classrooms, cutting current classes in half. However he expected that when they build the new classrooms they will need to let more students in, as there is such a desperate need for high school spots.

The derelict building was their dining room until the roof was destroyed, now students eat anywhere they can find a spot. The building was originally built buy the UN, hence the colour scheme. This sight had been used for many different purposes over the years.

For my Science teacher friends there is a photo of the one specialist teaching space, a Science lab. It didn't seem to have any equipment. The library consists of a few books for teacher reference in the admin office.

This visit made me feel even more spoilt with all that we have in our schools in Australia.

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The Last Twenty Four Hours

In the last twenty four hours or so I have been able to take some interesting photos.

The house mothers playing pairs/memory to practise colours during their English lesson this morning.


The toddlers, Esther, Abigail and Gloria, counting with an older girl, Helen. .


Lonna bathing her son Moses. This is how all the toddlers are bathed, several times a day.


Workers remodelling a building.


Men going off to hunt with bows and arrows, they just randomly walked past when I was at the gate practising English with a guard.


This boy walked past the gate pulling his truck behind him. He told me had made it himself.



This was taken from one of the girls' dorms looking towards their kitchen/dining room during yesterday's storm. The water was ankle deep!


The pre schoolers carrying water so they can do some water painting on the dorm walls.



Toddlers making music.

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The Last Few Weeks

Thanks to the recent donation of an electric sewing machine (from Australia), I've spent lots of time sewing lately; repairing orphan and hospital clothes and sundry items, sewing labels on baby blankets, making skirts and hospital scrubs. The only other sewing machines around are treadle  ones that only do a straight stitch, so it's great to be able to zigzag. I've still been doing some adult English teaching and tutoring at risk students.

I'm constantly amazed at the strength of the local women. And they're amazed I can't carry anything on my head.

Joyce

Yatta

These are the beans we eat twice a day, they're dark red by the time they've been cooked for two hours.


Pre-schoolers painting the church with water, they loved it!



Playing physical therapist to a three year old with severe burns to half his body.



Mango season. The kids run as soon as they hear a mango drop!




Teaching English and computers at the vocational school.



Loom bands donated by Zoe and Mia.



High school kids off to church


Easter Sunday afternoon treats


Easter egg hunt for the missionary kids.



Charcoal irons, I don't iron my clothes!



My Easter break project, every child wrote/drew two letters to their sponsors. Even the babies had their hands traced and added some scribbles.

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Inter School Athletics Carnival

On Monday I joined a group of students and staff from Harvesters Christian School to attend the Inter Primary Schools Athletics Carnival. It turned out to be a much bigger event than I expected, with about 2000 students present. It is only going for three days this year, not an entire week like last year. We are one of the few schools that are still having classes and only let participating students attend.

Though who is allowed to participate is very difficult in a country with no birth certificates and in which you must pass an exam before you can go to the next grade and many parents cannot afford to send their children to school every year. So last week after school each day there had been weighing, measuring, photographing and face examining sessions. I was surprised to be told many students had been declared too old by the officials based on examining their face. There were no age groups, just one single category for students to compete in.

Our day began after assembly with the distribution of shirts and sports shorts to the participants. There were not enough shorts which meant some girls participated wearing their school skirts. This was quite common amongst all the participants, while most had a school t-shirt, that was their only sporting gear. Most students raced in bare feet or with socks on.

The warm up was the one hour walk into Yei, to the oval where the competition was held. Some students walk this way to school each day, so we meandered into town quite casually. It was extremely interesting to walk through the "suburbs" of Yei. Though the memory of the huge numbers of jerry cans and women lined up at the water pumps if still vivid. I hope I don't ever forget how lucky I am to have running water in my house.

In typical African style the day ran behind schedule, racing finally started about 12:30pm. There were about 40 schools represented and for the 100m they each entered two boys and two girls, so there was race after race as they went through all the heats. Apparently semi finals were to happen on Tuesday and then the final on Wednesday. There was javelin about to start when I left and the sawdust had been put out ready for the high jump participants to land on. There was also to be long and triple jump, shot put and races up to 5000m.

Lunch was also interesting, as some schools include lunch in their fees it had to be provided on location. Our beans and porcho (ground rice cooked with water into a solid mass) was sent on a motorbike from Harvesters, but other schools bought along pots and cooked on location. There were also local entrepreneurs taking advantage of the day by selling snacks such as popcorn and icey poles/popsicles.

Around 2:30pm I found out it looked like the activities would be going on until at least 5pm so combined with the lack of seating and toilets I decided it was time for me to leave. One of the teachers was kind enough to help me find a boda, a motorbike taxi, to come home on as I would have gotten lost if I had tried to walk back to Harvesters alone.

It certainly gave me a new appreciation of all the resources we have for our carnivals at St Patrick's College.




Lunch is served. I wondered what all the home owners thought of their homes being lent against by our students. We also sheltered against the house during a rainstorm.

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Rainy Season is Here!

Thankfully it was dry for our shopping trip to town but during lunch, Ethiopian bbq, we had to move inside a hut to finish eating as the rain started. It was a very wet run to the car from lunch and a very slow drive back to Harvesters. Thankfully there were was only one other car on the road coming back, also foreigners! I wish I had gotten a photo of the street we turned into as we left the restaurant, it could have been described as a river. At times the water running down the drains had quite large waves. And they tell me there will be much heavier rain to come.

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The Last Week

I'm constantly amazed at the wide range of tasks and people I get the privilege to be involved with, or at least observe. No two days are ever the same.



The kids are obsessed with finding green mangoes the moment they drop onto the ground. They're too sour for me but even Baby Eve at 18 months loves them.


Before school chores for the school kids happen at 8:15 each morning. This week they included slashing the grass behind our house.

Everyone came running to assist to put out a grass fire behind our house last Sunday.



The aftermath of the fire.

The pre schoolers love it when I  have a free afternoon and do some drawing with them.

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