We were extremely fortunate to have had a visit to our school by Father Wilbert (Willie) today. He spoke with our Primary 5/6/7 classes.
Father Wilbert is from the Moshe area of Tanzania, at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. He is a member of the Chaga tribe and he became a catholic priest who now helps to run a number of different primary schools at home. One of his schools is called Saint Mary’s and it has almost 200 pupils from Primary 1 to 4. Each year it is growing and in three years it will have the full compliment of P1-7 classes.
He was telling our pupils that in Tanzania they start school at 7.30am, with many walking distances of 10 miles to get to school each day. They only break for lunch of porridge and finish school at 4.30pm. Each class has an average of 80 pupils and there are very few writing books or textbooks.
Our pupils had many questions and Father Wilbert took the time to answer as many as he could.
Afterwards we spoke about opportunities to partner or link with ourselves and Saint Mary’s in Tanzania. We are hopeful we could get our pupils to write or communicate with pupils in Tanzania and find out a little more about their culture and schooling life. Watch this space over the coming months.
