Model School

We teach in a large school built by the Portuguese in the time before the revolution. In it day it must have been a magnificent building, with large windows, high ceilings, and hand painted tiles. Today a general sense of neglect and disrepair conveys the feelings that no maintenance has occurred since the colonial powers left in 1975. Broken panes of glass, cracked porcelain sinks in the bathroom, faded paint covered in murals, drawing and grafitti, and low lighting conditions all contribute to a post-apocalyptic atmosphere that would be perfect for a haunted house zombie movie. But it is not Knott´s Scary Farm, it is a functioning secondary school. Currently, we the 40 Peace Corps Education volunteers in training, just finished running a two-week academic session for local students. We face many difficulties in our effort to teach our classes: our only resources are the chalk and blackboard, our students´only resources are their pencils and paper and anything our creativity can scrounge up (in the case of my lessons "colors and clothing" I brought in different pieces of Janet´s and my wardrobes). When it rains outside of the classroom (which has been frequent lately!), it rains inside of the classroom as well. When the wind blows outside, it blows through the class as well. When it is nice outside the classrooms are pleasant. Most of classes have about 20 students, but the rooms still have about 50 empty spaces which will be full during the academic year, when some of us will have classes of up to 125 young Mozambicans. In general our students have been eager to learn, but have difficulty retaining the information we impart. They love to repeat in chorus, but are more intimidated by any assignments that go beyond that. Now as we walk around town we receive many more greetings and smiles from the youth, and a lot more people know our names, although it is very difficult to remember all of our students´names. We are very excited to get out to our little school in the north and start teaching when the new academic years begins in January.