Our van drove into a schoolyard and we thought we had
arrived at the destination for today’s distribution. Not so! The
school we drove into was in front of a school that was in front of another
school! The total population of
the three schools was close to 3000 pupils in the primary school years P1 to
P7. We were to distribute at the
middle of the three schools. The
first school appeared to be a “more expensive” school with newly painted
buildings and an entrepreneur who had set up a stall to offer food to the
students who could afford to buy it.
While one meal a day is supposed to be offered to all students in
government schools, most cannot afford to do this without passing the cost on
to parents.
Today we talked to over 1000 students and parents who were
going to receive a bedkit. The
story of Sleeping Children Around the world was simply told and the bedkit
items were shown to loud cheers, particularly when the school supplies were
held up to the families by our traveling volunteers.
The din at the schools continued all day while we handed out
the 700 bedkits. Many more children did not receive but watched eagerly through
the windowless “windows” hoping there might be a chance they could receive
one. Teachers watched the process
of the distribution in amazement and little actual teaching occurred in the
classrooms today. In this school class
sizes averaged 50 – 125 per class with only double desks for the students, a
blackboard for the teacher and student notebooks to write in.
This distribution left all of us touched by the magnitude of
the numbers of needy children in Tanzania. Parents are struggling to send their children to primary
school at least and thanks to our donors, they will be able to achieve a good
night’s rest on their new mattress and free from the mosquitoes bearing the
dreaded malaria. No wonder the
children smiled and laughed when we asked them to for their pictures. “checka, Checka” we asked (smile, laugh).
To see all of the pictures from today and the rest of the distributions. please visit: Tanzania 2013 Pictures
