AFRICA TIME: Stores seem to open and close whenever the shopowner feels like it. Some shops are open, some aren't. Other shops I haven’t seen open for days. It's acceptable to be 1/2 hour late most places.
Today we went to Ben Bella. Iris and I interviewed form II girls while Camryn passed out information folders to our current scholars.
Overall, the Ben Bella girls impressed us a lot, which was a stark contrast from the school environment and teachers\administrators. We interviewed about half of them in the morning and half of them in the afternoon.
The girl that touched me most was the last girl, Bahati. Every girl has said they are impoverished, so assessing need has been very hard. The video camera had already run out of battery so I transcribed her interview almost verbatim. I liked her because she was very genuine and giving even though she was clearly very poor. She gave us evidence of her financial need by showing us her old uniform and explaining that she only eats meat when her village has a festival. She even invited us to her house to eat cassava!
During the interviews I got a call from an unknown number and when I called back, the lady on the other end couldn’t speak English. I gave the phone to the headmistress and she told me that someone from the Ministry of Education was trying to contact us and wanted to meet with us ASAP. We were being summoned to the Ministry of Education! It made me feel like I was in Harry Potter. A man named Mr. Vuai called us later and we set up an appointment to talk with him at the Ministry on Tuesday.
We tried to meet with Zuhura, the last scholar that we hadn't met with at Ben Bella, but she was still not at school. Apparently she has a heart condition that they are still trying to figure out. Eek!
Word of the day:
kishoto - left
No comments:
Post a Comment