Sydney and I are now here alone and so when we woke up this
morning I asked her what she wanted to do today. I gave her some options of zip lining, canopy
hiking in the tree tops, mountain hiking, among other tourist activities yet she
replied – I want to see our kids! That’s
my kind of girl!!
So we walked into town, hitched a kombi, and traveled to our
eLangeni primary school. I told our cook
that I wanted to help her prepare the Give Hope, Fight Poverty FOODOM food for
the 634 children. I didn’t realize it
was going to be such hard work!! We made mealies (corn porridge) and beef stock
bean stew with carrots and onions. The
work was back breaking, the kitchen was hot and we were dirty. After cooking for 3 hours it was time to
serve. We had to serve 634 children in
10 minutes so that there was time for them all to eat before going back to
class. I was sitting on the ground hunched
over my cook pot dishing out mealies to all of the approaching kiddos with such
speed that I wasn’t even looking up. Then finally I hear giggles so I glanced
up and it was Mazwi! It makes me happy
that with our help, the school is able to feed our kids nutritious meals. For
most of the children like Mazwi, it will be their only one of the day (Thanks
Mitali/FOODOM!).
Afterward, we met with the Deputy Teacher and Headmaster to
talk about how GHFP can continue to help.
The school is in a seriously bad situation. After pressure from the international
community, the Swazi government has decided to offer “free” primary education
and has been rolling this out for a few years now. This year it was “free” for grades 1-5. However, the government only gives the
schools 560 rand/year for each student which is less than $60 US. This is supposed to cover building maintenance,
school supplies, teachers’ salaries, electricity, water, etc. This is simply not possible. Grades 6 & 7 are still paid for by the
parents; however, our primary school turns no one away so there are 55 6th
and 7th graders who are double orphans (no mother or father) with no
one to pay their fees and they are still able to attend school. There
are broken desks, teachers not getting paid, no lights, and no school
supplies. I tried to play devil’s
advocate and asked the Deputy Teacher why they give free education to orphaned children
who cannot pay and she looked pained and replied “If I shoo them away, where
will they go? What future will they
have?” She explained that there is “so much death here…it’s too much”. Since the beginning of the school year 59 of
their children have been orphaned. Just
this year alone. That is out of 634
children, many of whom were already orphaned.
She then looked terribly sad and said “We don’t know if the school will
last until December” (their school years are Jan-Dec) as she said she soon won’t
have the money to continue to run unless the teachers will agree to go without
salaries for a while. I know that the
teachers will agree even though they shouldn’t have to because these people
love the kids more than anything. She
said that she is extremely thankful for all of the support we have been able to
provide over the last 7 years. Our
library is almost complete (the paint is drying on our bookshelves as we
speak!), the computer lab is already running successfully (thanks Franklin
Energy Services!), FOODOM is able to provide all 634 children with nutritious
food daily (Thanks Mitali!!), and our orphans school fees have consistently been
paid in full. We are in the process of
building 8 new pit latrines and another water tap/hand-washing station for the
school. Their current 8 pit latrines for
634 students are simply not enough and they are overflowing with poop all over
the floors. This is a public health disaster
and brand new structure housing 8 new latrines is only $2,736.82. After generous donations (THANK YOU!) from my mom, Heather Robinson, Sonia Schwartz, Mary Overton and Andre
Selvyn, we only have $1,590.82 to go. I’d
LOVE to see this project funded before I leave July 21st so that
they can get started before the end of this current school year. If you’d like to contribute, please do so on
our website (ANY amount helps, honestly!): http://www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html
Kids eating their lunch on break...I liked this kid's prime seating. :)
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