Enguwantale Combined School

Term 1 is in full swing now and the atmosphere in Enguwantale has changed. After a long Christmas break the school and village have come to life and there is a fresh energy about. There is no doubt that the area’s children are the lifeblood of this community. Life seems to now revolve around the school schedule. Women from the village now make their daily trip to the school to sell the children snacks and the shops open only after school is finished when the students pass through on their walk home.

Enguwantale Combined School is considered “combined” because it includes children from primary, junior -primary, secondary, and junior-secondary class levels. This means that children from grade 1 to 10 attend the school. In the states, children in the same class are generally about the same age. However, that is not the case here. The student’s ages from class to class vary drastically. In fact, the 7th graders told me that the youngest in the class was 12 while the oldest was 21! The students don’t only come from Enguwantale but from many of the surrounding villages. I am told that some of the students have to walk between 1 and 2 hours to come to school. But at least there is none of that “uphill both ways” business. ECS is considered a “bush” school due to its remoteness, so these students walking several hours a day are certainly living deep in the bush.

This year there are about 265 students attending with the largest class being the 8th grade class with 70 students. 8th grade tends to be a major hurdle for the students so a good portion of the class is made up of repeaters. There are 13 teachers in total, including the principal. For the upper grades (6 -10) the teachers rotate from period to period teaching different subjects. The lower grades have just one teacher. There is a wide variety of classes: physical science, math, life science, life skills, English, Oshindonga (the local language), agriculture, geography, and entrepreneurship. The school days run Monday through Friday with classes starting at 8:00 and ending at 2:00. The upper grades stick around for study until 4:00. An unfortunate statistic about the school is that it is estimated that upwards of 60% of the students are considered orphaned or vulnerable. This means that they have lost one or both parents and/or are living with HIV/AIDS. But this is hardly noticeable. These students are so full of life and eager to take on the world.

The vast majority of my time now is spent at the school. As a volunteer here, I am supposed to play a role in the school as well as in the community. The community aspect of my job is very slow going since the village is quiet most of the day and Enguwantale isn’t exactly buzzing with economic activity. At the school, I am working with the entrepreneurship teacher and helping him make the curriculum more practical and hands-on for the learners and helping him with content that he does not understand. I have been developing different games, role plays, assignments, and case studies for the students. What this means is that the teacher does the teaching while I occasionally take a period and do a fun activity with the children. Of course, having this role has been very enjoyable. The students aren’t entirely used to me or my accent yet. They often have to tell me to speak slower and even then they all still won’t understand. I will ask them if they understand and of course they will say “yes”. There are times when I know this isn’t the case so I will ask them in the local language, “Omu uvite ko?”. This will get a lot of laughs and a very enthusiastic “NO!”.

It is hard for me to believe that the school term is already 5 weeks in. Looking back at my first 6 weeks at site, I was wondering what I was going to do and how I was going to keep myself busy here for two years. But now, my role in the school has become more apparent and time is flying by. I admire the children here in so many different ways and I am really enjoying having the opportunity to have a presence at the school.

Morning assembly which occurs every Monday and Friday. The assembly starts with singing, a prayer and bible reading, the singing of the national anthem, and finishes with announcements from the principal. Announcements can vary from school and class news to more important issues like making sure that the kids do not allow their goats on the school grounds. Last week, a student announced that he had lost his donkeys the night before and was hoping that someone had seen them on their walk to school. Sure enough, someone had, and off he went running to fetch his donkeys.

One of my 8th grade classes. This class is probably my favorite. They are full of energy and we have a lot of fun together. Everytime I enter the room it is like they are having a shouting contest to see who can say “good morning, sir!” the loudest. And of course, they love the camera.

The school grounds consist of four blocks of classrooms situated around a courtyard with several nice shade trees.

The school was supplied several mango trees from the government to plant on the school grounds. Each grade received a tree to plant. We had a tree planting day and it was a lot of fun to make the rounds and see how each grade worked together to plant their tree.

The students are certainly not camera shy. Once the camera comes out they are quick to strike a pose and flash their gang sign. I believe that the gun hand sign is actually the symbol of a local Owambo rapper call the the Dogg. I have a lot of work ahead me….

Every Wednesday is athletics after school. Only a handful of students actually get to participate fully where they get the opportunity to go to the city for occasional track meets. Here, we were conducting time trials to see which students would make the team. There is a very fast 7th grade girl who was able to snag the top spots in the 100m, 200m, and 400m at a regional meet in Oshakati.