We were packed and ready to go to Ampamata on Thursday morning. Nazaire, the boat owner, gave us a bigger boat this time as we had to bring the panels to fix the walls, tables and benches and a new blackboard. We have been praying a lot for Ampamata. It felt lately as if there are constantly new challenges and sometimes we feel to simply leave them to carry on by themselves.
We were relieved to see that the school yard was spotless and inside the school everything was well arranged and clean. A big improvement on our previous visit. I have never seen a teacher so excited about a new blackboard and it was quite moving to see Ledesy’s appreciation. We had a talk with him about his drinking over week-ends and his tardiness. I came to the conclusion that there is always hope and we have to trust God to bring change.
Dries and Norbert got working on replacing the rotten wall panels. It was heavy going, because of the heat and I firmly believe that older men should not get near a ladder, but as Dries does not consider himself in that category, I prefer not to look.
Euphrasie and I re-arranged all the furniture to accommodate the new tables and to make the best of the available space. There are fourty-two children and most of the older ones have never been to school. There are four children from one family between the ages of ten to fourteen who did not even know how to hold a pencil at first, but they are making progress We have to pray that they persevere. They come from Andranompitily, a neighbouring village. This is the village where going to school is taboo and I am therefore very impressed with the parents who walk with them to Ampamata on Sundays and come to take them home on Fridays. On Wednesdays one parent comes to bring extra rice. If you consider this a small thing, it takes four hours of walking through mangroves swamps and over hills to get there. Dries and I did it once and it was heavy going.
As we left and looked back at the school, Dries said that he had renewed hope for Lovako school. We need to get this boat registration behind us so that Gabriel can get out of the water and be fixed so that we can go to Ampamata regularly. Mr Hussen the agent who is taking care of the paperwork, told us that we’ll have an answer about the evaluation of the boat this coming week. He did not sound positive about the price we put forward and told us that were it not agreed with by the customs authorities, a professional surveyor will be called in. Please continue your prayers for us in this regard. The waiting is the worst and Dries is becoming impatient about the fact that Gabriel should have been out of the water by now.
Have a blessed week.