END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!

The school year for the primary, secondary and high school levels in Tanzania runs from mid January until the end of November or the first week of December. Shaloom kindergarten closed on Friday, November 28th. On Wednesday, the 26th, we had another parent/caregiver/teacher meeting. In spite of rain in the morning, all the caregivers and students attended our meeting. 

Boniface's sister, Mwaju Mdogo's bibi, Omari's mama mdogo & Aglipina's mama

Magi's mama & baby sister, & Dollie's mama mdogo with her little boy

Shalo & Casi's bibi, Jeremia's mama, Mwaju Mkubwa's mama & little sister, & Justina's mama & brother

Thobiasi & Naomi's father, and Rehema, the assistant teacher

Progress reports (thanks again to Corine for editing my Kiswahili) and the student's workbooks were distributed to the caregivers. They also received an envelope containing all of their child's school work for the second half of the year. Some of the caregivers registered children for next year's class. We already have five students registered! After discussions and refreshments, the children performed all of the songs they learned this year. Because our classroom rehearsals hadn't gone very well, I was afraid the children would have trouble with the songs, but they really surprised me...and their caregivers!

 

I've already had uniforms made for the 13 students who will be advancing to Primary One. The tailor (fundi mshonaji), who made the boys uniforms, sits outside a little shop, with his manual sewing machine, on the main road which runs through a village nearby my house. Many of the tailors work in these conditions. They don't seem at all distracted by the activity going on around them. This tailor was referred to me by a local woman, and I also had him do some work for me, so I was sure of the quality of his work. The girl's uniforms were sewn by one of the members of the Lulu Project (Corine's group). I wanted to give one of the girl's the opportunity to make some extra money. Corine asked the girls which one felt comfortable with the responsibility of sewing school uniforms. Violet made a sample for me to inspect. I was pleased with her work so I hired her to sew all of the girl's uniforms. The boys wear khaki shorts and white shirts, and the girls wear green skirts and white blouses.

Fundi Mshonaji

Violet-member of the Lulu Project

A couple of weeks ago, Rehema asked a shoe peddler to come to Shaloom and bring shoes for the students to try on. He came with a bag full of shoes and we managed to find shoes for all but three of the students. The peddler returned the next day with three more pair of shoes. It's nice that the children aren't at all fussy about the kind of shoes they receive. They're just happy to get a new pair of shoes! I picked up 13 pair of socks from the little shop across from Shaloom. Next on our list of things needed are school supplies. We already have the bags, compliments of our very generous supporters in New Jersey! All of the items will be distributed the week before the new school year begins...that way everything will be in good condition for the start of the new year.