Day 7 - Part 1

Today was going to be a very busy day so we were up early and down to breakfast about 6.15am. Although breakfast was supposed to start at 6 they were really only just getting ready when we arrived but we managed to get some coffee, toast and mandazi.

Robert and Shabani picked us up at 7 and we set off for our day in Chato. We stopped in the town of Katoro to pick up Hamisi from his office as well as some computers. Katoro is quite a big town which stretches a long way down the main road. I took a few photos from outside Hamisi’s office while the others loaded the car.

The pineapples were starting to smell a little in the car, not unpleasant at all but it probably meant that they were ripe and ready to eat so we passed over a couple to Sheda, the guy who works as a computer trainer for Hamisi.

We left Katoro about 8.15am and it then took about an hour and a quarter to get to Chato. We didn’t go through any towns of any size, just some villages but the road was pretty good. We got stopped a few times for police checks but otherwise made good time.

The first school we were visiting today was actually 2 schools - Chato A and B Primary Schools, which are right in the centre of Chato. Here we were met by the Chairman of the Teachers Union in Chato and the Academic Officer from the Chato District Education Office. We have met both of these gentlemen before on our previous visits to Chato and they would be accompany us for the whole day.

The two schools together have 3702 pupils and 57 teachers. The classes are very crowded. We looked in on a Standard 4 class that had 150 pupils.

Chato is the home of the present president of Tanzania, President Magafuli and there does seem to have been a lot of new development in the area, including upgrading the airstrip and building a new bus station, there even seem to be lots of new road signs and a set of traffic lights both of which which you hardly ever see in Tanzania.....very strange as there is hardly any traffic through Chato.

So in addition to all of this they are also building a new primary school so there will be a lot more classrooms so class sizes should go down. The buildings are all very nearly finished and include a dedicated computer room that will be shared by both schools.

All the new classrooms are light and airy, with mosquito screens on the windows, electricity and tiled floors. The computer room has loads of plug sockets which is great.

We were then taken to a large room where teachers from both schools were gathered along with both head teachers and the chair of the school committee and other committee members. As this was a new school for us we went through the conditions of the computer loan, signed the paperwork and passed over 3 desktop computers. We didn’t have enough funds to give them a printer this time so they can apply for that next year if they do well.

Then of course there were all the speeches from various people including both headteachers, one of whom gave us a history of the school and the other who thanked us for helping them. Apparently President Magafuli attended the school between 1968 - 1974. We then received thanks from 2 pupils from the school. It was now about 11.30am and time to move on.

Our next school was Ritunguru Primary School about an hours drive further north. We did stop on the way for a coffee and snacks. Below are a couple of photos from the drive.

As we drove the skies got darker and darker and eventually the heavens opened. It then rained really heavily for the remainder of the day making things interesting!!

When we got to Runtunguru at about 1pm it was pouring down. Luckily some teachers escorted us from the car to the computer room with umbrellas.  The picture below is not great but shows how wet it was.

Teachers, pupils, the village chairman, the village executive officer, the chair of the school committee and committee members and some parents were all present along with the Ward Executive Officer and Education Officer.

We have supported Rutunguru School since 2017 but they only got electricity last year so have really only been able to teach ICT using computers for 1 year. They have 1060 pupils and 13 teachers.

The assistant head teacher welcomed us and thanked us for supporting the school and then said that some of the pupils would do a short computer demonstration.

They children demonstrated how to use Microsoft Word, Educational Games and the Swahili-English dictionary.

This year we are adding a projector to the equipment loaned to the school. The school already have 2 laptops from us so should be able to make good use of the projector. For teachers, projectors are really useful when teaching such large classes and are always on their  “wish list”.  We were given drinks and nuts, while everyone took it in turn to speak and thank us. We then renewed the loan contract and handed over the projector.

It was now about 2.30pm and we were running well behind schedule so it was time to leave and head to the next school which I will cover in Part 2