By Deidre Kwenani | Project Leader
Dear friends,
And now we are 60!
This year we have decided to expand and introduce a kindergarden group of 15 four–year-olds. These little ones are really sweet but have been quite exhausting at the beginning. In addition we have 15 kids attending our pre-school and a large number of the older school-going children in the afternoon.
Our cook, Meme Dina, had a difficult time during the first few weeks. It was quite a challenge to estimate the right amounts of ingredients for 70 persons and to cope with cooking pots which were too small. By now she however has everything under control again.
Although we now care for more children than in previous years there are still many whom we sadly cannot accommodate. There are just too many children in need of support. As always our waiting list was very long this year and we had to decline many applications because we just did not have enough space.
The biggest stress however arose from the fact that our teacher Junias unexpectedly resigned – and this by sms one day before he was due to start classes after the Christmas holidays. Junias worked for Mammadu right from the beginning. In those days he had no formal teaching qualifications and we financed his studies over the past years. It was difficult to find a suitable replacement in such short notice, but we have managed. Our new teacher is strict, which is good, and also fluent in Afrikaans which was always our Achilles heel. The children have grown accustomed to her and at present everything runs super again.
We also have a new driver for our bus now. Unfortunately during the first few weeks he always forgot a couple of kids at one school. Although it was frustrating, it is probably understandable considering that we transport a large number children to and from school. Everything however runs smoothly now, he knows the kids and is punctual and drives carefully.
From this year Augusto attends the Waldorf School. The teachers praise him a lot and he is proud of himself because he has always been top of his class. In the new school he has to take German as subject for the first time and still finds it difficult. Many of his class mates are German speaking and others already had German as a subject before. Sadly he was also bullied during his first weeks at school. Was it because he was new, because he is smaller than the others, because he is competent – who knows? It is difficult to find reasons for such behaviour. Augusto is also sensitive by nature which has made it very difficult for him to cope. We were in continuous conversation with the school, with him and with his fellow pupils and hope that matters will improve. It is however not easy and I can’t help worrying.
From this year onwards we have been assigned our own school doctor who visit Mammadu every Monday to examine our kids, do eye and ear tests, check their weight and whatever else is important so that we can consult a specialist if necessary. She is a volunteer who comes to us from America.
And finally, something to smile about! Several weeks ago Jerome, an Afro-American tourist visited us. He comes from a less priviledged family but nevertheless managed to qualify as a medical doctor. His idea was to speak to the children about his life, his experiences, his profession – and he did just that. His English had a strong American accent and even I had to concentrate to understand him. What the children remembered about him was however: “Mami, he talks like the people on the TV!“ And today they speak about him as the movie star.
We are very grateful for all of our volunteers and our donors! We would not have been able to expand this year to have more children.
By Deidre, Volunteer Social Worker at Mammadu | Project Contributor
By Deidre | Project Leader
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
