First Day of School

Monday was a big day because we officially enrolled our first three kids into school. We arrived at the house of the Grandma Fatuma and gave them some kid clothes that Meghan had collected. They also had their uniforms that they had made for them. The whole thing was one giant love fest, I thought that the little mud hut was going to explode with love, cute kid noises, and gratitude. It was awesome and the kids looked so good in their new uniforms. Saumu and Abedi are starting in Standard 1 (1st grade) and their older sister Zubeda is going to Standard 5. When we arrived we found that Zubeda had been kicked out of school that day and her book bag kept as ransom for money. It was perfect timing, to say the least.

We marched the whole crew, the three kids, us three, Living, the grandma, and Furaha (a teacher at Jiendelze) down to Njoro Primary School to be enrolled. We found out that Zubeda was actually attend Chem Chem Primary School, but that was located next door so no worries there. It was great to meet with the head teacher of Njoro. We told her about our project, how we would be coming back year after year, and that she would probably get sick of us. She was great and very welcoming. She gave us a defined list of how much we owed, 13,500 shillings for a year, plus 700 shillings for a tie. Most of the money goes to food. This is about 10 dollars a year, but it still very cost prohibitive. We made sure that the grandma and the head mistress knew each other so that there wouldn't be any funny business about the validity of the payment. We paid for their schooling and off they went. We then went over to Chem Chem and did the same with the other head teacher. Although the schools are literally in the same building, they are run differently and cost a different amount. Zubeda owed 10,000 shillings from last year and we paid that too, after we verified this wasn't the head teacher's way of getting a few extra bucks from us. Needless to say, we are on the look out for this kind of behavior.

This whole adventure took about two hours. Everything takes a lot longer here than you would think. After we left the kids in their classrooms, we went to purchase the books and the rest of their supplies in town. We also got some basic food and health needs for the family. All in all, it looks like we spent about 60 USD per kid, for one year of supplies. The kids were so happy to be in their uniforms with their classmates.

Every Tanzanian is taught from a very young age to value education. The phrase "education is the key to life" is written all over the city. Even at six and seven years old, they couldn't have been more excited to be starting school.

Grandma Fatuma was bubbling with thanks and God bless. It was a good days work.