Day Three, we packed a lot in!

Muli Bwanji! Zikomo for letting me be your guest blogger for today!

The head sister showing us the facilities at St . Margret’s Secondary School

Our Wednesday morning started with our usual talk about our plan for the day while having breakfast at the hotel. Today we scheduled a few stops before arriving at Dwankhozi Primary School. First we drove along the iron-rich, red dirt road to visit St. Margret’s Girls Secondary School. We were impressed by its vast and well-kept campus and comparatively developed buildings. The head sister gave us a school tour which included classrooms, common areas, enormous wood burning stoves with range tops the size an inner tube, and the sleeping areas that house 26 girls to a room. The reason for this visit was to get ideas for the secondary school Dwankhozi hopes to build in the near future. The next stop was at Vizenge health clinic where men, woman, and children waited for checkups and medical care. Beth and Laurie checked the facility and found that the maternity ward (a small building behind the clinic) was finished being built and now needed a furnished interior. This was yet another time we would have loved to have our checked luggage to fill the empty shelves with the medical supplies we packed. The supplies will end up here…eventually. We visited this clinic because in the near future, we are going to break ground on a new clinic in Dwankhozi. This clinic will allow the community closer access to medical care.

The wood-fires that create the gigantic stoves for this kitchen.

Mr. Kaluba teaching about the Voyages of Discoveries

Next we continued the familiar drive to our home for the week, Dwankhozi Primary School. The teachers got right to work observing classrooms and visiting with students. Mr. Kaluba requested we watch him teach and along with the children we learned about “The Voyages of Discovery.” We were in awe how the students chimed along, did group work, and shared their learning in front of the class. They drew their own maps and shared the little paper and pencils they had available. We quickly realized how fortunate we are to have maps, globes, and supplies at home to use for reference. We also realized how carefully the students drew maps of Africa and other parts of the world from their teacher’s initial example.

A student-drawn map of Africa showing the early explorers’ voyages of discovery.

School Motto: Education First

An intent learner

Next we continued our joint Queen Anne Elementary and Dwankhozi project with a few more classes. We have learned a lot about our young friends and are now calling them by name. We are excited to bring their work home to share with our students. During this time, the Dwankhozi-Hope staff was busy meeting with the project manager and Head Teacher to hear the status of the World Reader project that was launched last year.

Mr. Kaluba’s grade 9 history class

We ended the day with a trip to the local market. We were expecting a few food stands and were surprised to see a hubbub of activity and the variety of items for sale. Let’s say it was a one-stop shopping kind of place. It was fun to run into so many familiar faces and people happy to greet us. On the way out of town we only had 10 of the 12 of us packed in the van. We waved from the road toward the villages hidden behind the tall grasses that lined the tarmac. We hoped to be waving at the village that Ryan and Rene would be spending their night and morning in while shadowing the day-in the-life of a local grade-7 student, Martha. We are anxiously anticipating hearing how this experience was and look forward to having Ryan produce this story to share with the world. We watched out the van windows as the striking bulbous orange sun set and the familiar smell of  campfires filled the air. Tikawonane mailo (good night and see you tomorrow)! -Ciara Leckie