Saturday, April 30, 2011

A story about a girl’s school


 My plan for the day was to go with one of the men’s teams to see their progress on an agriculture project.  The project was a large grape arbor, funded by a British group, and built in the yard of a girl’s school in a near village.  As we drove to that village, I had in my mind a picture of one of the many well-funded but poorly-built, poorly-equipped, and poorly-attended schools across the rural districts of this country.  Many of the schools in the central province we previously worked in were hollow buildings, empty of anything that resembled education.  I was taken aback when we drove up the hill and into the yard of this girl’s school.

The school sits on a perfect plateau, above the rest of the village, and it is completely engulfed in green gardens and fruit trees.  The school itself is just 1 building, but the yard around it spans about 10 acres, and it is beautiful.  Every type of fruit tree I could think of was present, as well as patches of root vegetables, varieties of lettuce, beans, radishes, cauliflower, and tomatoes.  All the gardens were well kept, irrigation canals had been fashioned to sustain all the plants; clearly much care had been given to this land. 

Being drawn in by the land, I looked more closely at the school.  Built in 2006 with funding from a large Scandanavian organization, this 10-room school building offered local girls courses from grade 1-10.  The building was different from the standard national design, it had been custom designed by a European volunteer who had worked in M-ville for many years.  Like the grounds, the building was extremely well kept and attractive.

On the side of the school I noticed quickly that our project had been here previously, addressing water and sanitation needs.  Three of our Biosand Filters were lined up by the school, and all three were gradually filling the buckets in front of them.  A handwashing station was beside these filters and the latrines further away.  The large latrine structure was also impressive to see.  Usually large public latrines are a horrible site because of the volume of people that toilet around the outside perimeter of the latrine rather than inside.  Not so here, there were no messes around this latrine.  I was so surprised by the site of fully-functioning water and sanitation facilities that I could hardly say hello to the 5 or 6 year old girls that came out of the school to get a drink.  One of the school janitors was there, filling a cup and offering it to the girls, and then making sure they put it back in the right place so it didn’t get dirty.  As the girls returned to class the janitor made his way to the front of the school building, picked up a large steel bolt, and struck it against a large steel gear from a truck axle.  At first this action did not make sense, until he persisted to strike the steel pieces together until the sound of students changing rooms came out of the windows.  He had just rung the school bell. 

Noticing my observation of the school, the headmaster came and introduced himself, and invited me to tour the school.  He first sent me around the grounds with a staff who pointed out all the varieties of trees and plants.  The produce from all these plants, he said, goes first to the students, for their families.  As we walked he told me the history of the school.  Long long ago the plateau had actually been rolling hills, just like the ones around the plateau, and the hills had been an ancient graveyard.  Some two decades ago, the community gathered and decided that this ancient graveyard was no longer of much use to them, and they wanted to reuse this land for the community.  The village all took part in paying for a bulldozer to level the hills and graves, and create the plateau.  The land had been developed for agriculture before the notorious anti-government group (NAGG) came to power, but much of it was destroyed in their time, as well as the small girl’s school.  After the NAGG was pushed out, the community decided they wanted the plateau to become the girls’ school, and they petitioned the European engineer and Scandanavian donors.

Back from the tour, the headmaster invited me to come in the school and take a look.  Together we peeked into one room that was bouncing with 1st graders.  The headmaster said how sorry he felt for the 2nd grade teacher today, who was doubling on 1st and 2nd grades because the other teacher was gone.  There were at least 30 very naughty looking 1st graders in that room.  We then went down the hall and I noticed how well the building let natural light in, and how clean and nice the building had been kept.  The headmaster pointed out that not a single fan or switch or window were broken, not a desk or wall marked on, because these students and teachers cared about “their” school.  I asked, and was blown away to hear that 600 girls attended this school between morning and afternoon sessions.

Without a warning, the headmaster led me into a room full of 10th grade girls, and asked to see their artwork.  The surprised girls all stood to their feet to welcome a visitor, then relaxed when the headmaster told them I was with the organization that brought the water filters.  A stack of artwork came together, and the headmaster proudly showed off what these young women had been creating recently.  There were pencil sketches, portraits of historic leaders and family members alike.  The pencil shading on some of these works of art made the faces as real as could be.  There were also calligraphic poems and verses about philosophy and life.  Lastly there were watercolor and oil-based painted pictures.  The watercolors had been painted with a variety of brushes and creative finger strokes.  Each of the paintings was a lesson.  Some were about clean water, sanitation, nutrition, and others about agriculture.  The colors, designs, and truth in the lessons were utterly amazing. 

My favorite painting of all was divided in half, with a good side, and a bad.  The good side of the painting depicted a beautiful village home, surrounded by gardens, animals, and happy people.  In this half of the picture the sun was setting, and a man was coming home to his family, tired, but pleased with the days’ work.  The other half of the picture was an elaborate, almost woven field of opium poppies.  In the center of the tall poppies, surrounded by two great flowers that circled like snakes, was an erect and eerie human skeleton.  No words were necessary on this painting; it clearly depicted that this girl had seen both realities, and wanted to show the world the pain and longing she felt. 

---

This is the end of the story of my observations about this school.  I will continue in the next post by drawing some points out of this story, to clarify what this school does and does not mean about education, change, and women in this country.  But I made this separation between the posts because I want you to savor this amazing story with me.  My visit to this school has given me fresh hope that despite all the things that are against good change, it is possible.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, wow, wow! A community developers dream come true? We were both so encouraged by this post! Thanks for taking the time to put this in words. We feel like we were along for the journey- you did a good job of painting the picture for us!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree, with BB. When I read your post, I felt like I was seeing what you were seeing. I can remember some of your more frustrating posts over the years, so I can imagine what a shining example this was to help lift your spirits.

    And how you described the picture that girl had drawn -- wow. It sounds like a person who has the right philosophy in life and knows how to dream. She can think of what she does want in life, rather than focusing on what she hopes doesn't happen.

    Awesome post, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ok, tears in my eyes. One word in your last paragraph ... "hope". Print this post off and wall paper your house with it ... for he is able to do exceedingly abundantly even more than this.

    ReplyDelete