A CHAPTER FOR AN UNWRITTEN BOOK

Hello friends and family,

This e-mail is quite long but I couldn't cut it shorter. This past week could be written into a book. We have finally begun school for the new Kindergarten children this year. The following is all about the two very involved days of trying to register children. Sorry, I don't have my glasses on and I can't tell if I am striking the right keys.

I will copy the story below:


KG Registration

High School students were sent out in the morning to run throughout the villages around Yetebon to carry the word that the Kindergarten Registration was to take place that afternoon. Hundreds of parents and children, who had been anxiously waiting for this day to come began to pour through the gate of the compound.

The reason Marta waited until the day of the event to announce that it was to begin was because so many parents would do anything possible to improve the chances for their children to attend school. However, because of disagreements between the elders of the three communities in this region, who were to supervise the process, the registration didn’t begin that day. Hundreds of parents and children who had sat waiting all afternoon for the event to start left disappointed.

The elders presented Marta with a list of 200 names for enrollment the next morning. She explained that this was not the procedure they had agreed on and signed to be carried out. Therefore, she had to send the high school students out, again, to call the parents and children in to attend the registration. Marta and Deme later learned that some of the elders had sold the spaces to make up the enrollment list.

It was later that day, when Marta and a friend were sitting in the car, that the head elder approached the car with an explosive attitude questioning why she did not accept the list presented to her. She explained, again, that it was not what had been agreed on and that there was no way to know, from the list, if there was a balance of boys and girls. Also, there was no way to know the ages of the children listed. “A soft answer turned away wrath.” The elder said,

“Oh, now I understand,” and walked away.

Marta had asked the volunteer visiting nurses if they would help me check the age of the children by looking at their teeth. So, when the children had lined up, the first we approached were very young girls (maybe four or five years of age) and when the first one in line was asked to open her mouth she let out a scream and tears flowed and the next four girls in line began crying, as well. The high school students who were assisting us helped calm the girls and were able to coach a couple of them to open their mouth and it was quite evident that they were younger than six years. lThese were sent to their parents. So, the elimination process began. As it was determined that a child was around eight years of age he/she sat on the ground and waited until all the girls had been checked and told to sit down or go to their parents.

Those girls who remained sitting were asked to stand up and were moved to a different area where they were questioned by the elders about the possibility of siblings already attending school. The elders had agreed that there could be only one child per family accepted in the school since there were thousands of children who wished to attend any school in the area. More children were sent to their parents. The parents began moving into the area where the girls were being questioned while the guards threatened them with big stick to move back. However, they would move back only a few feet then advance forward again as they got a chance to do so.

Sometimes a parent would approach Marta with a question then others would crowd around to listen and to also have an opportunity to talk with her. At one time I asked a guard to move the people back away from Marta and he cleared a path to Marta, thinking that I wanted to stand with her. I stayed back fearing that the open space could be closed in behind me if I advanced forward. Her son, Sammy, took the opportunity of moving into the space beside her and was so tall he towered over the people and was a strong presence. Deme would have been right there, as well, but was being reported to about the change of events, as they happened, while he was laid up in bed with a few bone fractures from a recent fall.

The elders finished the second phase of the process with the girls and the high school students led the first group of girls to the dining hall where they sat to participate in the drawing of lots. The elders were still outside questioning the boys after their teeth had been checked.

At one time during the process, I observed a father slip his son back into line after his child had been sent away. Then, later, when the boys who had passed the first two examinations entered the dining room a group of teenage boys brought two young boys to the door and pushed them in, just after the last child in the line entered.

One little girl had been sent away after being questioned by the elders then a dispute erupted because it was her half-sister who was already in school and she lived in a different house. So, she was brought back two or three times to join the other girls in the drawing of lots.

While the boys and girls from the first community were in the dining hall drawing lots, in the presents of the elders of their community, the children of the Yetebon community were being examined and questioned. It was a much larger group and I had to stay in the dining hall to put the security bracelets on the arm of each child who drew a number one from the bowl of folded papers which were opened and shown to the elders, one by one. One of the teachers wrote the child’s name on the bracelet and those with bracelets sat on one side of the dining hall while those who drew a “O” were sat on the other side of the hall.

When the girls from the Yetebon community were led into the dining hall there was a great rush and it seemed that all of the girls, who had been eliminated, jumped back into the line before they got to the door.

When the first community group of children were dismissed to go home the parents gathered around and were beginning to fight with one another and the guards. I could not see them but was told by those volunteers who were standing by that if a child came exited the dining hall without a bracelet the parents would grab their child and walk away with them quickly. Others were holding their child’s arm up to show off the prized bracelet. It was a scene of happiness and sorrow and a heavy heart was felt by all of us who watched children having to be turned away from an opportunity that was a chance in a life time. If a child drew the right lot it was a guarantee for attending school for the next twelve years and a possibility to bring a family out from under the bondage of poverty.

This was a fasting day for the Moslems and Marta was anxious to get the children out before dark so that those who had not eaten all day could be fed at home. So, we didn’t have time to check the teeth of all the children again. I did check teeth before I put the bracelet on those who drew a number one, if it seemed to me that they were too old or too young. There were one hundred and sixty girls and about the same number of boys in the Yetebon community group so it took quite a long time to have each one pick a piece of folded paper from the bowl, have it opened, and then separated into two groups.

It was past dark when the children were returned to their parents and as with the first group of children released, there was great disturbance outside. Marta asked me to stay in the far corner of the dining room before the doors, which were being pressed against from the outside, were opened. The inside kitchen door was locked and I didn’t like the thought of there being no other exit so I slid the doors above the serving counter opened, sat on the counter, swung my feet over and exited into the kitchen.

There were many questions waiting by those volunteers in the staff dining room who had been working elsewhere during the day. I was filled with a wide range of emotions as I recalled the events of the past two days. Remembering how it all started so peacefully the day before with small children lining up and sitting on the grass in the shade of the rock wall they backed up to; watching Marta meeting with the elders while sitting on benches under the shade of an acacia tree in the middle of the open green area of the compound; the eruption of arguments when the elders went to explain to the parents the process for registrations which they had agreed on; how the parents sat down when Marta wanted to talk with them and then blessed them before leaving in the car to go make a telephone call; seeing the hopeful eyes of children and big grins when children drew a number 1, or the tears that flowed when a child was asked to return to their parents or when one drew a “O;”
recalling the frustration I felt when parents would not cooperate and stay back so that we could do our work with the children, or the disappointment of the lack of respect shown by the village people I had come to know as gentle.

I had to remind myself that all my reasoning about what had occurred was based on my own past experiences. I couldn’t help remembering how embarrassed I was when I broke down and cried in a principle’s office years ago when I was told that there was not a place for my son to enroll in a magnet school in St. Louis, MO.

I had been told by a vice-principle at the school that my son would be accepted if I could present them with certain papers requested. I had gone to great lengths to obtain these papers in the file I carried and had entered the school with the joy of having completed the task. In my situation as a parent I had other educational options for my son.

Only 20% of all the children living in this region will ever have an opportunity for a formal education. In the whirlwind of the past two days, parents came with great hopes and dreams of having a member of the family accepted into the kindergarten that would be the first step to hopes for the future of his/her family. Especially for the older children who were brought to register, this would possibly be their last chance to try to draw a winning lot to become a student.

Even on the first day of school for the chosen kindergarten students, parents of children who had not drawn a place in the enrollment, were brought with hopes of one more chance. As the bracelets were checked two children had damaged bracelets. One had been stretched to be taken off another child’s arm and probably sold to the child wearing it. The old name had been mostly rubbed out (possibly with a cleaner) and the new name written over it with a ball point pen and we had used a fine point black Sharpie marker to write all the names. The other bracelet had been broken off, possibly for the same reason. We had suspected that the children’s names had been sold the year before when we realized that we had fifty-four children who were older than ten years of age when classes began just after registration. The older children just assumed the name of one who had drawn a lot to become enrolled.

Of course, with so many children in the community it is difficult for the elders to keep things like this from happening.

I know that if my own children had been brought up in this culture and community I would want to be just as desperate about even one of my children having an opportunity for an education.

I have seen the quality of life change for the better when individuals in this community, who have been under the bondage of disease and poverty, have come to the Lord to learn of His ways and followed his commands. They become stronger, more productive, cleaner, healthier, and take pride in their homes which is shown in the flowers and vegetable gardens around their grass huts (tukuls) or the newer rectangular houses with metal roofs they are building to replace the tukuls.

Love to All, Dee Donalson