Tables and Chairs

I continue to be happily inundated with visitors, leaving me with almost no time to stay up-to-date on this blog. Fortunately, I’ve got a story that can be told mostly with pictures.

Last week, we took a donation of tables and chairs up the primary school Itipini students attend. They were donated after a visitor saw the deplorable state of the classrooms and how the students in some classes didn’t have tables or unbroken chairs.

There are two classrooms with no tables or chairs at all, the first and second grade. We only had enough for the first grade class (45 students).

Pictures are definitely more valuable than words in this situation so let me show them off.

The first grade classroom before the donation.
Bringing in the new tables.
The new tables and chairs being used.
Mkuseli showing off some of the old chairs. Note the absence of legs.
The second grade class remains without tables. They just put their books on their laps.
The third grade class has a few desks but not nearly enough for all the students. It doesn’t stop them from mugging for the camera, however.
In the upper grades (this is grade eight, I think), they’re all kind of crammed in the room.
The lunch ladies have food to cook but they have no money to buy firewood to cook it. We bought a bit for last week but it is not even close to a long-term solution.
But the first grade students have tables and chairs now and that is a step forward.

Waiting at the end of the day.