Breaking Rocks

Dear Friends,

This weekend I had the opportunity to visit another primary school. It was a very interesting experience. The program director from the school had come to my school to give an estimate for some more desks (we have so many students now that we need more desks for them). When he met me he asked right away if I could come and visit the school where he works. I thought sure why not, it could be fun to see another school and meet the children there. So saturday morning one of the teachers I work with came and took my roommate Josephine and I to visit the school. It was a very nice visit. They had asked all of the students to come to the school that day, so we got to meet the students as well as the teachers and staff of the school. They showed us around their compound and told us about the programs that they have at the school. This school has a lot of students who have been abandoned or are orphans, and students who for one reason or another haven’t been to school in a long time and so they are not at the level that they should be. There are also some classes teaching skills such as sewing.

The thing that stuck out to me most though was when the director was talking about some of the challenges they have at the school. One of the things they struggle with is getting the children to understand the importance of going to school. There are many students who choose to go and break rocks into smaller pieces to earn a little bit of money rather than go to school. We were even shown an attendance chart and we could see that during the times when there is less rain and more rocks to break the attendance at the school drops considerably, then when it starts to rain more the attendance at the school goes up because there is less opportunity for the children to go break the rocks. Oh yeah and these are children that are 6, 7, 8 years old that are going to break the rocks. When I heard them talking about that I just couldn’t stop thinking about how sad it is that children have to make the choice between going to school or breaking rocks in order to survive.

Back at my school, things are going very well. Many of my students are beginning to greet me in English when they see me and I always have lots of children asking me if today is the day I will be coming to their class. Pleas keep one of the teachers I work with in your prayers, her name is Lydie and she found out yesterday that her older brother has passed away.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and support.

Tracy Pilewski