Saturday, March 22, 2008

Happy Easter


Happy Easter everyone! We are in the midst of celebrating Easter with the CRC in Kabala. They had a church service every evening from Monday to Thursday. Friday morning, all of the churchs in Kabala joined together for a celebration in the town centre. We had church on the main traffic circle in town. There was tonnes of singing and dancing and even a sermon as the motorbikes zipped around us. Unfortunately, we were outside longer than we thought and most of us got a bit of a sunburn.
This week we also had the opportunity to visit Loma Secondary School. This school was started by a christian organization in 1979, but the school has not heard from them since the war. We were asked to speak to the students at their morning assembly, which was much more inimidating than speaking to 100 primary students (and they laughed at my accent :). There classrooms are incredibly crowded. In one class, we counted 123 students. They sit three to a desk and fill the classroom from wall to wall. The classrooms have virtually no materials, so something like a scientific experiment or silent reading is completely out of the question. The principal told us that a teacher may be able to hold the attention of the students at the front of the room, but the rest of the class is probably daydreaming, bullying each other or even gambling. It really helps us understand why CRC Primary is considered a model school. JT Koroma told us that CRC Primary is one of the only schools in Kabala that is even giving out report cards to their students. This school is doing so much good in this community, but it will continue to need lots of support so that it does not become like everyone else.
Melanie

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Praise God for His wonderful work at the Primary school in Kabala I will continue to pray for the school, its teachers and students. Happy Easter to you all. Miss you Melanie!