A day starts at around 5.30am when the Muezzin calls all to prayer. His voice swoops and slides, and the effect is not tranquil, but more like an old gramophone with a wayward driving spring.
There is still snooze time before 6.30 when we must get up. Then there is coffee and a shower, even though the air temperature is not conducive.
Maybe a banana to prop the day up.
A short walk through the gate in the fencing, then past the dormitories and choo (that’s a toilet) to the classroom block. The ground underfoot changes from the hard quartz sand to the cement walkways past the new but incomplete science classrooms, and then to the admin block - down the passage to the chunky Chinese lock that secures the door. Two turns of the lock: no ceiling fan because it is cool enough. We put down our computers and camera and walk to the staffroom at the other end of the building.
The headmaster arrives, cutting short the signing of the staff attendance register. He begins with ‘Good morning staff’ and the staff reply in kind. Then he offers a prayer, almost inaudibly. The staff hang on for the final amen, and join in. Sometimes the senior ‘Auntie’ or the chaplain or one of the committed Christian staff take the prayer.
The meeting is in English. Issues of curriculum, staffing and students arise. The water supply is often discussed at the morning sessions as the pump is worn and at times totally ineffectual.
On Mondays Tuesdays and Thursday there is whole school assembly in the chapel, with singing, a talk by students, or an address, and a final prayer.
Outside the sun is bright and the day warming up. In the rainy season, the ground may be slippery where the running water leaves a fine silt.
Our day is in the office. We tackle costs and procedures, demands from the UK for exam results and the progress of sponsored students. We ponder how to support a student who is in need but does not qualify by any of the rules laid down by the Trust. We find ways of paying for replacement beds in the lodging house, and for medication at the hospital. Some students come in with headaches and stomach complaints. Quite a few are visually impaired - from blind to partially sighted, and eye infections are commonplace. One students awaits a decision on an operation that may restore a little sight, but which may be risky.
There is a database to fettle and get functioning, and for this there are routers and a dedicated computer. Some way up the valley, the national electricity supply company switch off the power. They have to replace all the transmission poles before the termites finally destroy them.
The Uninterruptible Power Supply beeps the warning that it is about to interrupt the power supply. Our laptops carry on, except for the Sony which has a faulty battery, and within five minutes its screen goes blank in the middle of its shutdown.
At this point two students and a carpenter arrive, all needing items that have to be printed. There is no longer any power for this, and it stays off for the whole working day, and comes back on at 5.30pm.
Chai is at 10.40. We have coffee and chapati. Teachers pour sweetened tea into their mugs, and some add a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and even a small teaspoonful of instant coffee.
The day goes on, watching the battery capacity on the laptops, and using a dongle for access to email and internet. A student comes in to ask about shoes. A teacher comes in to complain that he hasn’t been paid his University grant.
Lunch, beans and rice with a Tanzanian ratatouille, is at 2.30pm. We have managed to pass through the sleepy hour of 12.30 to 1.30 without actually falling asleep. Many jobs that require network access or printing aren’t done. The outlook for tomorrow is more power cuts as the poles are gradually replaced along the line.
In the middle of the cemetery, the reinforced concrete foundations for another communications tower are being laid. That will be the seventh tower in the village. We are surrounded by microwaves, and all these towers have automatic generators. The village doesn’t get any benefit from them.
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| Agnes does the washing, cleaning and cooking. |
At 3.30 we go home and make some tea and have a biscuit each. Agnes has made us a loaf of bread and her version of a pizza. Very tasty.
Three carpenters have a bid for eighteen new ‘double decker’ bunk beds. We discuss whether we could have each carpenter make six beds each. It is very complex, and involves protocols, pragmatic considerations, some local politics and a whole bunch of things that we don’t often consider in the UK.
We can’t make up our minds but will have to do so by the morning.
The evening draws in and power is returned. The sun goes headlong for the horizon and the calm day that started with the dew running off the corrugated iron in a row of small puddles has become boisterously windy. The banana leaves in the shamba make a noise like tumbling water, and the curtains fly about. The louvre windows don’t stop the breeze.
The sky is orange with dust.
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| Daniels minds the shamba. |
We will have the pizza, with fruit juice and papaya, and a little green capsule of anti-malaria medication when the sun is set and the solar lighting is on. Daniel has successfully harvested some beetroot, grapes and paw-paw. There is always spinach, and peppers of all kinds are fattening up. We have a water tank buried in the ground for an emergency supply, and it also waters the shamba.
We will have some entertainment, maybe an episode of the Danish Noir, 1864, or Doctor Blake, or House (the grunting Englishman who played Bertie Wooster?), or a movie.
Tomorrow we have to decide on the beds, and yes, write to the House of Lords. There will be ugali and beef for lunch.
Now that the power is on, the workshops work on into the dark, welding, bending, sawing. Simple music pours in to the village square. The Muezzin calls to prayer.
