Ngarash Primary School

Ngarash Primary School

Back in ninety five, schooling had it’s challenges in a third world country like Tanzania, especially in rural areas. The issues were many and varied, not at all to be blamed on the kids, although it was their numbers that had a big impact on school infrastructure. While the country’s population was growing rapidly, the economy was lagging far behind, with the country’s whole infrastructure simply unable to keep pace.

I’m no educationist but did work with schools back home in the capacity of lecturing about matters environmental and forestry. I also tried to encourage secondary students to take forestry on as a career during vocational seminars at local schools, which I found to be a bit of a challenge. And living small rural townships, most parents were involved in running the local school, so I too was roped into doing my bit. Boiling it all down, I had a fair idea how schools were run and funded.

German East Africa included what is now Tanzania and remained under German control until the end of WWI when Britain, through conquest took over. Like all colonists, both countries thought they owned place, which was typical of any colonial power of the day. During those times, churches played a dominant role, and it was common that alongside churches, there was a school and a hospital, or at least a clinic. Come 1964, independence was won, Uhuru! The word’s literal meaning is freedom, and that’s how the people saw it. Stewardship of the country became the responsibility of Julius Nyerere, ‘The Father of the Nation’. In the early days, he was influenced by Russian communist principles, so he nationalised everything, including the schools and hospitals which quickly fell into disrepair along with the whole economy. That’s no criticism, it’s just how life was when I turned up there, but it still seemed odd to me that the German influence remains, while there’s hardly any sign of the British.

Hifadhi, the outfit I worked for, had applied to The Agency for a volunteer, they’d written up a project proposal for which they gained funding, but they didn’t really expect anyone would actually knock on their door. Consequently there was no structure laid down or no real job for me when I arrived there. Luckily my local co-worker, Joshia, was a keen forester and we gelled from the start. Joshia agreed with me that if we wanted to be successful in the villages, the best way was to have the children on our side and the logical way to do that was working with primary schools.

I was still struggling with Swahili but had begun, with limited resources, to set up a tree nursery at the back of the Hifadhi property. Joshia was keen to introduce me to some of the village primary schools and start working. I never quite worked out how Joshia knew so many people, all the schools we worked with, happened to be through contacts he had made. Maybe it was tribal, where everyone was distantly related, ndugu is the word, which also means comrade a hark-back to the Russian leanings. Perhaps it was because he was choir master at a large Lutheran church and through the competitions with other choirs he had established contacts – however it occurred, it was helpful to our evolving project.  

Ngarash was one of the earlier schools we worked with, a school that didn’t seem quite as worn as some of the others. Still they had very limited resources: too many kids to a desk and text books that were child-worn and no longer suiting the curriculum. However, the head teacher had her students in the palm of her hand and she was supportive of a planting programme at the school. The planting programme went well and the kids worked diligently, to create a guava orchard on the west side of the school.

To motivate the kids I suggested that we make a show of carefully inspecting and measuring the trees. Each tree needed a shelter to keep browsing animals at bay and to create shade, so we also assessed each shelter the kids had made. The idea was to award a prizes for the best tree or shelter. Well, it turned out that they were all excellent making it impossible to decide on the best! So although still unfair, we selected the best ten. We had no project money so I bought some pencils and avocados to give out. Joshia spoke to the kids and told them of the difficulty to select the best, so as an additional prize, anyone who wanted to, could come up and shake the hand of the mzungu. The white guy. They all wanted to! At the time I thought they were pretty miserable prizes, but on reflection I realised that all the kids came from subsistence farming families and so their expectations weren’t very high. We made it obvious that neither of us had wealth and weren’t much different to them. This was a significant lesson for me. There was even a song that went: It’s a gift for a child… and even if its small, its still a gift. It’s a bit more lyrical in Swahili.

At the same time, The Agency’s Assistance to Primary Schools project started, and through it, we were able to deliver school desks, teachers’ tables with chairs, storage cupboards, new text books together with teachers’ copies, science kits, world and Tanzania maps, writing slates, chalk, and blackboard paint. The handover of the items was a school celebration, and although the assistance package wasn’t part of our environmental project, kudos from the schools fell on me, which encouraged the school to please me in the only way available to them, viz. making a best effort with the environmental programme.

Our visits to the school were regular but sporadic over the two years I worked with Hadithi, and after the two years were up I moved to another project. Some five years later, after dropping off a friend’s daughter at her secondary school, which happened to be in the approximate area of Ngarash Primary School, I decided to call on the old school. At the approach of my vehicle, the same head teacher stood outside to greet whoever might be calling. I was in a different vehicle to the one the head teacher was familiar with, but when she saw me alight, she stood there slightly stooped with an expansive smile and began a slow, quiet, rhythmic hand clap. She then began calling quietly, ‘Babu, Babu, Babu….’ (Grandfather, Grandfather Grandfather) I stood there, a tad emotional! It was like one of those flash-crowds! Slowly, one by one or in groups, the rest of the school came out to stand behind her until the clapping and chanting rose to a crescendo! I had seen nothing like it, expected anything like it.

The school had changed, the guava orchard had gone and in its place, two new classrooms had been built! The other trees we planted were doing well, two guava trees remained and they were bearing fruit… and so was the school.