Lovako School in Russian Bay has fourty-eight pupils this year and the space is filled to capacity. Euphrasie and I were once again impressed by the dedication of the three teachers and the fact that everythings is clean, organised and neat. An added blessing is that the village built a well right next to the school and this makes life at school much easier.
To maintain the well’s cleanliness, the community has thoughtfully added a roof and protective barriers, preventing dirt from contaminating the water. It will dry up after the rainy season, but everyone is enjoying the water for now. During the dry season, water needs to be fetched from a distant stream in a neighbouring village, a long walk away. This makes every day tasks like cooking and washing very challenging.
Euphrasie and I spent some time with the teachers while Anne, Annika and Larisdiana played games with the children outside. They taught them a dance and it sounded so much fun out there that Euphrasie said after a while that we should go and join in.
There are two issues that are concerning to me: None of the teachers is equipped to sufficiently teach the Bible. The fact that we don’t go to the school as often as we did before due to Gabriel still being out of the water, has added to the situation.
Secondly, the parents are not paying their school fees. You might want to remind me that the people are poor, but at the same time it costs less than R10 or .40€ per child per month. What is concerning, is the fact that the parents were always quite good at taking responsibility for their children’s school fees despite the lack of money. Here is my theory as to why we have this issue now. A project, cultivating seaweed has been started in Russian Bay about two years ago by a French individual. The seaweed is grown in the sea, harvested, dried and then exported to be used in products like cosmetics and toothpaste. That is all good, because the village needs the investment. We see now though, that the more the village benefits, the less they want to invest in the education of their children. Even to help out at school with minor maintenance work, doesn’t happen anymore. Even the building of the well was not with the school’s benefit in mind, but the proximity to the project. It has long been a theory of mine, that the more money people have doesn’t necessarily imply that they honour their responsibilities in a better way. It is in fact the opposite, their children benefit less. One might say that these are miniscule amounts that we are talking about here, but I believe that education should not be free, because there needs to be ownership and responsibility. Money corrupts in this case as it is spent on music systems and alcohol. Please pray with us for this situation.
Dries will return on Saturday. Please pray for a safe journey.
May you have a blessed week.
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