I should say that the purpose of these visits was to meet with the struggling students. Not all student in the program are having this kind of trouble, but there were a few children and families that we felt needed some extra encouragement and intervention. Some may read this and think that the money being used for sponsorship on these children is a waste, if they are not in school every day and performing with high marks. But when your father is already dead and you are watching your mom die too and if you go to school and the cow gets lost and there is noone to fetch water, it becomes a matter of survival. These children are not "skipping school" becuase they don't want to be there. They sit and tell me with tears in their eyes how much they love studying and how they wish they could be boarding students (but that is extra money, so they cannot). They are torn and dealing with more than you or I can imagine. There is ZERO income for some of these homes. ZERO. So if mom is too sick to watch the cow and dig in the garden. Someone HAS to do it so they can merely survive. I am already thinking and praying about how we can help the young girl I told you about yesterday this next term. I want her to board. Her teachers all think that this would be the best thing for her. I will keep you posted on that.
Ok, back to Masaka. We arrive to this school and find the children had already gone home. This school is not a government school, which means there are many students and so they operate in sessions. There is a morning session and an afternoon session. These students we wanted to see were in the morning session and they were supposed to stay after to meet with us, but they had gone home. Fortunately, we had gotten a hold of mom and she was able to send them back, so we waited for them to arrive. While we waited, the teachers all spoke candidly about these students and their situation. The 2 boys are extremely bright and do very well in school, however, their attendance is also not consistent. The girl is an average student. One boy and one girl say they want to be doctors when they grow up and the other boy wants to be a banker. The teachers were clearly frustrated with the lack of care at home for these children. They come to school filthy dirty and that is not acceptable. The problem here is that they are old enough to be washing themselves, if mom would just enforce and remind them. Mom has not been helping to discipline these children, so I had a talk with them about reaching their dreams. I explained that they are so smart and that their teachers have told me how capable they are and how we all believe that they can reach that dream, but becoming a doctor or a banker takes discipline and they need to start practicing discipline NOW starting with their hygeine. I told them, starting today, they needed to go home and wash their uniform and lay it out to dry and in the morning, before getting dressed they needed to clean themselves from head to toe, brush their teeth and get to school on time. Please pray for them. They have such potential and yet mom is not really helping them reach it so it is up to their own motivation. They can rise above this situation, this poverty they are living in. Look at these precious children. Just beautiful!
As we were leaving the school, the second session was letting out for the day and the kids just swarmed to greet me. I love this part about being a "muzungu" (white person) in Africa, the children just run with big smiles to greet you. I got the most amazing video of about 100 kids reciting "good morning, good morning, good morning" over and over and then they switched to "good afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon" They were so proud of their new english vocabulary and thrilled at the opportunity to use it on someone that could appreciate it.
To be continued.....
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