Meeting the Girls

On Monday, Monika and I had a driver take us to the Kisomachi Secondary School to visit Neema and Gloria, the former GHTA students and the girls I’ve been sponsoring for the last couple of years.  Kisomachi is a Catholic boarding school for boys and girls.  It’s about 1 ½ hours outside of Moshi and the countryside on the way out was beautiful.  There are tall, green mountains and little villages along the way.  I also saw a couple of extremely large Baobab trees (they are the ancient trees you’ve probably seen in/on National Geographic).  Of course I was disturbed by the many motorcyles (really dirt bikes) going by with a man, a woman, and a small baby on them…no helmets, of course.  When we got off the main road onto the extremely bumpy and rutted dirt road, there were school children who stared at us mzengu  (white people) as well as women with enormous baskets of fruit on their heads (not sure how they were doing it without hands). 

 

After about 20 minutes of off-roading (in a minivan!) we made it to the school.  We chatted with the Headmaster who was quite talkative and proud of himself.  He said he came to the school last year and made many changes.  Monika asked him about what kind of changes and he gave us this song and dance about how when a student has a discipline problem, they sit them down and talk to them, they communicate.  We were both a little skeptical. But he spoke excellent English so we were encouraged by that.

The girls came to the Reception area to meet us.  They both came running up to us and gave us big hugs!  It was a wonderful moment. We asked the girls if we could see their classrooms and dormitory.  The classroom was pretty basic with old wood desks and a water stain on the ceiling.  Monika explained that you really can't compare the classroom with what you would expect in the US.  The girls were in the middle of taking their exams to pass Form 2 (9th grade) and must pass to move on to Form 3.   There are exams every 2 years so their next will be after Form 4.We asked one of the girls' teachers how the girls were doing and he said they were doing fine.  So we expect them to pass their exams with no problem!

 

 

 

The girls' took us to their dormitory located behind the classrooms.  It was bascially a large room with a cement floor filled with 3 rows of 10 bunkbeds.  It was extremely stark and the rows were separarted by maybe 2 feet at the most. We were happy that Neema and Gloria are bunkmates.  Then we went to the school library where I gave the girls gift bags with some body wash, Goldfish crackers, and a couple of other little things.  They were very interested in the Goldfish!  We talked about school and if they are happy.  Neema was a little more shy than Gloria but they both spoke in English so I was impressed.  We asked them what their favorite class was and they both said Book Keeping.  Neema said she wants to go into business and Gloria wants to be a lawyer.  Monika gave them a talk about staying away from the boys...and they were both so cute, "OK, no boys", they told us.  Neema said she likes Rihanna and Gloria likes Beyonce...I guess teenage girls really are the same no matter where they live.  

 

It was wonderful to finally meet the girls after sponsoring their education for 2 years.  I look forward to seeing them progress over the next few years.  I am confident that they have bright futures ahead of them.