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Going To School

22/6/2014

Most children in the DRC do not go to school, either because there is no school close enough to go to or they cannot afford to pay the school fees. The government does have schools in the bigger cities, but there are usually no public schools in the villages, where most of the people still live.

If there is a school in a village it is usually run by a church like the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, or here in Katanga Province, Mission Garenganze (an Open Brethren Church Mission). School fees are kept as low as possible in order to help as many students as possible go to school, but even that is too expensive for many families.

A fairly typical school building

The government pays the teachers' wages but pays nothing for books, reading materials, furniture or anything like that. As a result, no schools that we have seen have any furniture in the rooms apart from desks or seats, and none have libraries. Students do not have any textbooks to learn from.

Children at school

All school buildings are made from bricks and have concrete floors. Some schools are well kept and tidy while others are not so good and need repairs. There is no electricity so there are no computers or anything else that uses electricity. The teacher uses a large blackboard to write on using chalk. There are no white boards and no photocopiers. Most students only have one book to write stuff down in.

Basic school room with metal seating

Primary school classes sometimes have large numbers of children crammed into them — up to 50 children in each room, especially up to year 8. In the year 4-6 classes it is not uncommon to see 4 children sharing a desk that was meant for 2. High School students usually have better conditions because there are less students in a class. Many children only go to primary school and then go to work.

High School Class

At break time most children run around outside or play games. There are no toys to play with and no adventure playgrounds. Some schools have a playing field for soccer but there are no concrete playing areas for other sports. Each school often has only one soccer ball, so children make their own balls out of scrunched up plastic bags and string.

A better than average soccer field!

A small home-made soccer ball gets a workout!

Teachers are on pretty low pay and often have to make do with nothing but their knowledge as many have no access to textbooks or other resources. They need to travel to a main town to get their wages as these are always paid in cash. Most teachers stand during teaching time and many rooms have no desks for teachers to use. The principal in most schools has a very modest office!

A tidy principal's office in a school of 200

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Life In A Village

20/6/2014

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From Kabyasha we travelled to a fairly big village called Luanza, founded in the late 1890’s by 23 year old Scottish missionary, Dan Crawford. From 2002 through to 2010 there was a lot of fighting in the area and over half the village was either killed or had to run away. Rebel soldiers finally agreed to leave in 2010 and the village is now returning to normal.

The village people in the countryside live in small homes made out of mud bricks. Many people make the bricks themselves and then build their own house. The roof is made from layers of long grass that are stacked thickly to keep the rain out. Only very wealthy people have corrugated iron on their roof. There is usually only one door for the house and many have no windows, so it is very dark inside. Many houses have only 1-2 rooms but some houses are bigger. Cooking is done outside in case the house catches fire! No houses have electricity, so if they can afford it they buy candles to help them see at night.

Each family is big to start with, though almost half the children who are born in the villages die before they are 5 years old. There are lots of diseases and not always enough food, especially if the parents get sick. Despite this sickness and poverty, the children seem very happy and friendly. Many children only have one pair of clothes each—two at most—and no shoes. They like to play soccer a lot and make soccer balls out of plastic bags rolled up tightly and held together with string. The children also make their own toys out of pieces of wood and branches, old bicycle parts, leaves and pretty much anything else they can scavenge. No children in the villages have toys from a shop unless maybe they are children of the chief.

What do children in the village eat? Most families eat twice a day—lunch time and tea time when the sun goes down. Some poorer families only eat once a day. The main thing people eat here is a floury mash made out of either manioc or maize. This floury mash is called fufu. It is sort of like a paste and is eaten with your fingers. It tastes like our mashed potatoes but without the salt and butter, and it is also quite gritty.

A lady in the manioc field with some manioc on her head

A field of maize

For vegetables most people eat boiled manioc leaves, some beans, or something like cabbage or lettuce. If they have chickens they sometimes eat them, and also eggs from the chickens. They also eat dried fish (which smell very badly!). On very special occasions they will eat goat meat. Most people will only eat meat once or twice a month. For sweet food there are bananas and sugar cane, and some villages have paw-paw.

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Visit To The Village Of Kabyasha

13/6/2014

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I am sitting here in the village of Kabyasha in the shade of an old tree, surrounded by children who have the clothes on their back and little else. This rag tag group of kids range from infants to children of around 12, with the older taking care of the younger. Though they have nothing they play, laugh and fool around as if they don't have a care in the world. Some have little toys they have made out of bamboo, others have a bicycle tyre they push around with a stick, and still others dress up in banana leaves as they act out some story. They seem so full of life compared to our children! Maybe it's just the novelty of the new guys in town. They don't see many white folk out this way so perhaps we are something like the circus coming to town!

Most of the older children are still in High School, just across the compound. They get out of class and make their way over to us in an orderly fashion to say, "Bonjour!" The teaching here is done in French, though many of the adults struggle with French and instead use their own tongue. This might be Swahili, Lingala, Bemba or any one of "who-knows-how-many" local Bantu-based dialects, depending on the location of the village. English speakers in these villages are very rare indeed.

Classrooms a very basic. Almost all have a good roof on them and some windows (no glass), but as far as furniture goes there is none apart from some form of seating for students. Primary school children usually sit on a wooden or clay brick "form"—sometimes there is not even that. Secondary students seem to do better and sit together on a combined chair/desk (usually metal). The classrooms all have a large blackboard at one end for teachers to use. There is no lighting at all, so I'm not sure what they do in the wet season when the clouds are over! And what if you want to go to the loo in the village? If they have one it will be a long drop — a VERY LONG DROP! This one was 4-5m deep and you must be able to squat well as there is no seat (or toilet paper unless you take your own).

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History Of The Congo

3/6/2014

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Some of the country we now call the Democratic Republic of Congo used to be called the Kingdom of Kongo. The Kingdom of Kongo was ruled by African kings or chiefs for a long period of time. Explorers from Portugal landed in the west of this region just before AD 1500 and started to trade with the Africans for ivory and slaves. Slaves were mostly captured by other Africans and by Arab traders, who then sold them to whoever wanted cheap workers.

Ivory Tusks

In the late 1800’s the King of Belgium decided that he wanted to control this area for himself. He sent people in to explore and to set up trading stations. He employed a man called Henry Stanley, a famous explorer, to negotiate treaties with local African chiefs and to further map the inland areas of the country. To do this, Mr Stanley mostly travelled up and down the Congo River, and other rivers that joined up with it, in an iron boat.

Mr Stanley and his "gun boy"

The Congo River is just under 5000km long (that’s real long!) and it puts out the 2nd biggest amount of river water in the whole world (an average of 41,000 cubic metres of water each second)! I wonder how many swimming pools that would fill up each second?

In 1890 the King of Belgium decided to make as much money as he could exporting rubber from the Congo. Rubber is made from the sap of rubber vines and trees. Though he called his country the “Free State Of Congo” it was not really very free at all. In fact very large numbers of people died because many workers he employed to gather the rubber from the villages were very cruel. People had to work so hard to collect enough rubber to pay the King that they were not able to provide food for their families.

Villagers collecting rubber sap

Villagers captured and forced to collect rubber sap

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Going To School

Life In A Village

Visit To The Village Of Kabyasha

History Of The Congo

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