School in Nakayot

2/28 *journal entry
Another great day. Several hours out in the village sitting and talking with the VHTs then the afternoon and evening here in Kangole. Sat with the women from the bakery then managed my own dinner again successfully. Sadly I’m clearly not going to be moving into my own place this time but one step at a time and I’m in Dr. Val’s guest hut for now. It is piled high with vet supplies and meds but it has a matress and room to sleep. It seems rat and snake free at this moment but you will not find me looking deeply into dark non- corners (round hut, no real corners).
My most immediate neighbor is a well-educated mother of two who has a government job. (finances office? What does that mean?) Her kids are young(1 & 3) so in proper Ugandan fashion she has taken  hired two young slaves servants girls who work for her. They fetch water, cook, clean, go to market, watch the children, and tend the livestock and that was only in the short time I spent with them today. The 3 year old is fluent in English (well, as fluent as any 3 year old) but the two older girls speak almost none so the little one was translating. When the mother came home from work they joined me for evening tea and I got her version of the story. She has taken in these two to help them with school once her two are a bit older. Meanwhile, I looked at them. Maybe 11 and 14, clothes far more tattered than their charges, no shoes, not a single year of school yet, working their hind ends off and hours from home and their parents. This working mother is practically guaranteed to have more children and even if she doesn’t the baby is years from being old enough to go to school himself. The woman clearly has no intention of getting these two in school in time for it to make a difference in their lives.  Girls here just rarely get to go to school. But one would think that women like this one- educated, good job of her own, successful, would be the ones to turn the system around. Yet they aren’t. 

Here are the 4 of them outside my hopefully future home

But CLIDE is trying to turn things around. Here are a few pictures of the school they started in the village. In January they “graduated” their first class to the next level and moved half the students up to second grade and allowed 20 more young ones to enter and added another teacher. However, there is still only two classrooms so one class meets outside.  

Do I have to point out that every single one is a boy?