Security guards

In Africa, many people have a house protected by a security guard. As a foreigner, I also want to live in a well-secured house, so also a security guard should be part of this! Some security guards are very good; others are more like a joke. I experienced some kind of funny guards, in some cases you can doubt how much security they bring!

In Nigeria for example, at some point we had a security guard who was somewhere in his eighties. We always said that if something would happen, we would be the ones to protect him instead of him protecting us… He didn’t speak one word of English, what is of course very useful in a house with two foreigners who don’t speak Yoruba. The most interesting about this man was that he was scared about our watchdog.

We also had a guard there who managed to lose the key of our gate. So, if he would go out, he would close it from the outside in such way that we couldn’t leave, but anyone coming from outside could simply open the gate. Very secure indeed!

Here in Yaoundé I first had a deaf guard. He was very friendly, but of course anyone could just enter if he would face the other direction. He was replaced by someone who is socially not so strong. He now travelled and his junior brother is taking over. This guy is (hopefully) not scared of dogs, but he is definitely scared of people! He doesn’t look at you when you greet him, and instead of bonjour he says; eeh! No idea what he will do if there is a serious issue.

My guards are maybe not always the best. But it can always get worse. I know of someone whose guard helped some robbers to break in to the house. At some point the robbers entered the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife. I prefer someone being scared of people over someone like that!

Security

If you live in a country like Cameroon, people will often ask you how safe it is. There is normally quite some news about Boko Haram. If it is peaceful, where people don’t starve or other disasters happen, there is no news. So the only thing you hear are the problems…

In Cameroon, security is quite a big thing. Boko Haram is really concentrated in the North and Far North Regions, but the insecurity is a topic for everyone. Sometimes the insecurity in the northern part of the country is causing problems in other areas. For example, the road between Kumbo and Bamenda is still under construction. It seems that there is no money to finish it because it was all spent on the army to fight Boko Haram.

In daily life, you mainly notice a lot of road controls. When you travel by taxi you get constantly stopped. If you travel by bus between Bamenda and Yaoundé every passenger has to leave the bus at least once or twice to get their ID cards checked.

But, does this provide security? There is no computer system to check your ID card. So how do they know this person is not a searched terrorist? The only thing they can see is if you have an ID card with you. But I am pretty sure a terrorist would always make sure he or she travels with an ID card, so what does it proof? They only thing is that the policeman can ‘chop’ some money if someone travels without an ID card, but that is hardly extra security…

Recently I visited the offices of some international organisations. Normally you also have to leave your ID card at the security guard and they register who you are. Nowadays in some organisations they also check your bag (more or less) and scan your body with a metal detector. However, if that thing beeps, they don’t do anything! I visited an organisation recently, the man entering just before me had the detector beeping, with me it beeped. But nobody bothered to check. I came to the conclusion that if you want to commit an attack, you should put your weapon or bomb in your pocket, that is where they expect metal to be and don’t check. So does this really provide security?

In Abuja I saw something similar in the Hilton Hotel. There was a real danger there as Boko Haram did attack Abuja and focused on places with many westerns, so that makes the Hilton Hotel a potential target. All bags had to be scanned, every person had to pass the metal detection, like in the airport. But in the airport they check you when the detection beeps, here they didn’t.

Maybe some terrorists are really stopped by all these checkpoints. And maybe people really feel safer with all these controls. But to me, it really feels like a fake security. But fortunately, the security situation in most of the country is not so urgent that it really matters!

 

Dutch, Deutsch, Neerlandaise, Allemande...

When my bag was stolen, I also lost my residence permit. So I needed to renew it. That sounds much easier than it turned out to be!

After being sent up and down between Immigration and Judicial Police and waiting for two hours for the Commissioner to arrive and sign my document, I finally got everything ready and paid. But now, the real challenges came in…

I found out they have a new computer system since about one week. It will (hopefully) give me a nice new permit, and much sooner than it used to be. However, it seems I was one of the very first ones (if not the very first!) for who they made the permit like this. So the officer had to try out the system on me...

After an hour, he managed to fill in most fields on the screen. But, ‘what is your nationality?’ I explained; ‘I am from the Netherlands, so I am Dutch, neerlandaise’. ‘So you are from Germany?’ ‘No, from the Netherlands, Pays Bas’. ‘Ok, so your nationality is German?’ ‘No, it is neerlandaise.’ The system knew Hollandaise Caribbean, but I don’t think I am very Caribbean. ‘So, NO I am from the Netherlands.’ ‘Yes, but Netherlands is part of Germany right?’ ‘NO!’ ‘Ok, has it ever been part of Germany?’ ‘NO!’ ‘But your parents are German?’ ‘NO!’ ‘So you are not German?’ ‘NO!’ ‘So what is your nationality?’ ‘I am Dutch, neerlandaise.’ ‘So, German?’ I spent literally more than half an hour like that.

When he finally thought he found my nationality (Hollandaise Caribbean, so not even the correct one) he had to scan my file. That was a step too far…

Then the next problem, they needed to take my picture… Before that could happen, we were already four hours later and someone had come to support the technical process. At least he pretty much understood the program.

So, the picture… I understand taking a picture of a white person against a white wall can be difficult. But that was not the challenge. After twenty tries they came to the conclusion: ‘Madam you are too tall to take your picture!’. I agree I am not the smallest person you have ever seen, but I am not extremely tall either! So in the end we had to put the chair on its side and I had to sit on it. Then they finally managed, but: ‘Madam, you are laughing at that picture!’ (Yes, sorry, I just find it funny!)

At this point they had to take my finger prints and signature. And scan my documents. One scan went wrong so they wanted to delete it. And then all information got lost so we needed to start all over!

By now they figured out what my nationality was. (‘So you are Dutch right? Not German? Not Hollandaise Caribbean either? So Dutch?’) That saved quite some time. But now they managed to mix up my father’s and my mother’s name. Fortunately, the technical guy was able to change it without deleting everything again. In the end I got my temporary permit, which even says I am Dutch.

By that time, the office was already closed. There was a Nigerian guy who came in together with me who was still waiting. They still wanted to attend to him though. I only hope they do know the difference between Nigeria and Niger…

Expat dilemma

Compared to Ilorin, Kumbo has quite a white community. There are always numerous volunteers, American PeaceCorps volunteers, Belgian interns, German volunteers and some more. But there is not much of an ‘expat bubble’. There are no expensive restaurants where only white people go, there are no fancy European shops.

In Yaoundé, this is all different. There is quite a big community of expats, working in NGOs, embassies and commercial companies. There are European and Asian restaurants, European supermarkets, European style bakeries etc. I have been in places that you don’t realize you are in Africa; fancy furniture, real croissants, mainly white people. Kind of a new experience to me!

At the same time, it brings me dilemmas. If I see how much people earn working in NGOs, I feel bad (also Cameroonian NGO workers earn quite a lot of money, although probably less than the foreigners). I really don’t mind if people make a lot of money in commercial companies, that is part of the game for me. But in NGOs? People with a very average salary earn easily enough per month to execute all Knowledge for Children activities in a school for a year.

For me it is kind of difficult to understand that people work in an NGO and then earn so much money. I understand other people make more costs than I make, sending children to school etc. I also understand you may want to be compensated for living far away from your family and I also know the salaries are still lower than what you should earn back in Europe or the US for this job.
But, how can you face a class of children knowing your monthly salary is higher than the entire school budget for the year? How can you face a mother who just lost a child because there was no money to buy medication for the child?
Sometimes I am just wondering what people spend their money on. Yes, there are great and not very cheap restaurants, but going out for dinner every day? I was really wondering, until I met a Cameroonian friend. When we went home I said; ‘I need to go to the market and buy some tomatoes and other vegetables’. She was just staring at me and then said; ‘You buy tomatoes in the MARKET? You are really a strange expat’.
It never came into my mind that I could also buy tomatoes at the European supermarket. She told me she once went with a friend and bought three tomatoes for sevenhundred francs (a bit more than one euro), while I pay one hundred francs (about fifteen euro cents) for four or five tomatoes on the market close to my house.

I hope I will be able to get the best of the two; enjoy the European supermarkets to treat myself to cheese or chickpeas, enjoy fancy dinners every now and then and hang out with some Europeans. But also keep enjoying cheap lunch on the street, eating grilled fish with my Cameroonian friends and buy vegetables in the market!

Discussing politics

When I lived in Kumbo, I had a good friend. He has the same deficiency as I have; we love to discuss about world news and politics. He moved to Yaoundé last year, but now I am also here so we can have our (pretty much endless) discussions again.

For me, these discussions are very interesting. He is from a completely different background than me. I grew up in a pretty left-orientated and progressive Dutch family, as a woman. He is a Muslim man from a relatively traditional (though educated) background. So the worldviews we got from home are pretty different.

Sometimes I feel kind of sorry. For example, when we talk about terror attacks. These terrorists attack in name of his religion. He is very clear; this is not my Islam. We agree that these terrorists are mainly using the religion to mobilize people. But still, it has consequences for Muslims. Populist politicians blame all Muslims, not distinguishing between these people misusing religion and the normal Muslims who also reject this.

Another ongoing discussion topic is politics. The role of France and other Western countries in the Middle East and Africa, the weapons distributed which are later used against Europeans in other countries etc. As many Cameroonians, he has some sentiments against France (Cameroon used to be mainly a French colony).

What I hear more often from Cameroonians is that they feel that the West (especially France) wants to keep their influence here. They want Cameroon to be like them. That of course leads to the following discussion topic; what is the best government system, democracy or something else? We didn’t really agree yet but so far we came to the conclusion that for a real democracy you need people how are sufficiently educated to make an informed choice, and media that are free enough to provide the information you need for this informed choice.

I believe this is also what went wrong in the UK. The decision to stay or leave the EU is so complicated, you can hardly expect people who are not working in this field every day to really understand the consequences. From here you get, of course, to the next topic; Brexit… And from Brexit you get to all the new female leaders; May, Merkel, Clinton… And from there to the populist men who all seem to have foreign women (Thanks for that insight Andre!) and from there…

As you see, our discussions are just endless. I am already looking forward to the next one!

City life

Not as nice as the view in Kumbo,
but still not bad

Some time ago I wrote about my adventures looking for an apartment in Yaoundé. Since last week I officially live in Yaoundé.

While I travelled to the Netherlands, my landlord finally managed to remove the previous tenant from the house. The landlord told me he disconnected that guys four years ago from water and light because he never paid the bills. Can you imagine living without water for four years? At least, the pipes and taps in my house didn’t really survive that. So plumbers have been working in my house for three days.

Luckily, my colleague moved my belongings while I was in the Netherlands. Most things made it, except for a table and my toothbrush… I borrowed a table from the landlord, so the house is fine now. Only the toothbrush is still missing!

The house is quite nice and until now the water and light have been really reliable. At least once it was fixed! It is quite a delight to just have water whenever you on the tap. Or to feel you can take your laptop off the charger as light will still be there by the time your battery is empty. Of course, you never know for sure but until now it works!

I live in a quite central location, but outside the real expat quarters. I like it, I can go there easily but I still feel like living in Africa. My neighbours already know me, when I came back from Kumbo I got comments that they missed me. I already have ‘my’ sandwich boy, tomato lady, onion lady etc.

After a few days in Yaoundé I had to travel to Kumbo. It was really nice to meet my colleagues and be in the office. But when I saw all the mud and entered the hotel without water, I remembered why I wanted to go to Yaoundé. 

I still need to get to know the city. Mission for next week is to get an office. For now, I have been working from home but that is kind of boring. Hopefully I can find someone who could sponsor Knowledge for Children by giving me a free office space. And, as a real Dutch, I want to get myself a bicycle. So; slowly getting a city life!

 

 

 

 

Councils

Before I came to Cameroon, Knowledge for Children started trying to work with Councils. The idea was that Councils have an interest in the education in the schools in their municipality and they have a budget for education. So they should be able to contribute financially to our programs for schools in their own region.

This has always been a difficult issue. Most mayors are used to NGOs bringing them things, not NGOs asking them to help. Besides that, a mayor is a chosen position. According to some Cameroonians, that means people who are now mayors had to spend a lot of money for campaigns to get to that position. Once chosen, they need to get money back and that means they don’t give it to projects. I don’t know if it is true, but I am afraid in some cases it looks like it!

In the past two years, we tried different strategies to approach councils. We tried to invite Mayors to book donations, we tried to work through the Deputy Mayor in charge of education and more.  In the end, I think the Lord Mayor has to be convinced about the importance of our work. But how to get the Lord Mayor to understand this differs per Council. There are also some Councils where the Mayor is not very welcoming. They forget about appointments or refuse to receive us. We decided to leave them; if people are not ready it is their problem.

Signing with the Lord Mayor (left) and the
Deputy Mayor in charge of education

Last week, we finally signed a partnership agreement with the Nkambe Council. In the next three years, they will support eight schools. They will pay almost € 2300 per school. The community will still contribute their percentage. The support of the Council really helps us to be able to do everything we need to do in the schools.

The Lord Mayor of Nkambe really values education. He told us in our very first visit that he used to be a teacher. He always wanted to become a head teacher. He never made it to be the head teacher, but now he is the Lord Mayor and can still support education. And of course I am happy he does this by supporting Knowledge for Children so the children of Nkambe will Read Today and Lead Tomorrow!

House hunt

In June I am travelling to the Netherlands. When I come back, I will move to Yaoundé to work from there on fundraising for Knowledge for Children Cameroon. So, last week I travelled to Yaoundé to look for a house. Quite an adventure!

I have to admit it was not as bad as in Nigeria. I tried to find a new house there and I even got offers of apartments on the first floor, without stairs; Madam if you rent it we may be able to build stairs!

In Yaoundé, houses are very expensive. At least, the houses in the better areas, which are safe and central, are expensive. I have really seen apartments (so not villas with a swimming pool, but an apartment) for 1,500,000 CFA (almost € 2300) per month. Just imagine the salary you should have to live there! And especially, consider that the GDP per capita is $ 2300 (data from 2008). So, renting that place for a month is literally the year income of an average Cameroonian.

After looking at houses and rooms for three days, I got the idea it was quite terrible. Places were very expensive. Or the walls are covered in mould (we will paint it Madam, so you will not see it anymore! That doesn’t really solve the problem…) Or there were big puddles in the bedroom (we will dry clean before you move in Madam!). Or they could only be reached through a small path which was already very slippery without rains falling. Or they were right above an evangelic Church.

In the end I found a place where I will move in July. From the outside it looks pretty bad. The landlord said they used tiles from China. And instead of protecting the walls from water, they absorb the water. But the inside is very fine, and that is what it is all about.

So, I'm getting ready for the city life!

Highways

The Cameroonian ‘highways’ are quite an interesting experience. Of course, many highways are covered in potholes. Between Kumbo and Bamenda they broke down four bridges last year. They are still trying to build them up again. Now that the rainy season is coming, we know that in a few months it will be almost impossible to go to Bamenda. I heard stories that the taxi takes you to the bridge, then people carry passengers and luggage through the water and a new taxi waits at the other side. How this will really work with four bridges in a row is not yet very clear to me, but maybe I will experience it soon!

Officially we are supposed to drive on the right side of the road. But in reality, we drive on the best side. That means the left, the middle and sometimes even next to the road. Sometimes the best part of the road is simply besides the road.

Another interesting thing is that it is totally acceptable to stop on the highway to talk to your friend who you see in the car coming from the other direction. Or to turn around on the highway if you miss an exit. I did that some time ago when I missed the exit in the dark. There was a taxi behind me who followed me and also missed the exit, and also turned around. Nothing strange!

Cows passing

Did you ever try to cross (as a pedestrian) a Dutch highway? No? Well, here it is very normal. There are zebra crossings on the highway. But of course nobody uses them and crosses anywhere. Even cows are passing the high ways. Some time ago I ended up pushing our car uphill as we needed to stop on the steepest point because of cows and the car couldn’t continue anymore.

Regarding this, it is not too surprising that you use your horn all the time. To pedestrians who may be crossing, to other cars who may change lanes because of the potholes, may just stop or turn around. I have to admit that this horning is less here than it was in Nigeria, where you horn also to people who are not there, but may be there at some point.

Soon I will be in the Netherlands and enjoy our Dutch roads. It is always a bit strange to keep my own side, to drive straight instead slaloming around potholes. And I tend to horn to every car that should give me priority, or every bicycle I want to take over.

Do you dare to enter my car in June?

Children's dreams

The differences between the Netherlands and Cameroon are obviously very big. But, children are the same all over the world! I don’t know any child who is not happy with a balloon. And like in the Netherlands, children in Cameroon also have dreams about their future.

Last week I visited a school. In class 6 (around 12 years old) I asked the children what they want to be when they grow up.

Fabiola wants to be a teacher. She wants to give knowledge to the people. Noel wants to be a doctor: ‘I will help people from dying and sickness’. Faith has even bigger plans: ‘I want to be a pastor to preach to people that they are not going to church and to make people now thanking God who gives us much things. I will preach to them and they will sing and enjoy that the Lord is good’.

It is nice to see the dreams of these children. But, what makes me sad is to read these stories. The language is so terrible that sometimes you can only guess what the children are writing. It is also sad to realize that most of them will not be able to live their dreams.

Many of them have gone through a primary school where they hardly learnt how to read and write. Some of them will not be able to go to secondary, for many tertiary education is too far because their parents don’t have money to pay their school (or they don’t want to spend on it). And even if they are able to go to school, they are still not sure of a job after they graduated.

For many graduates, there is no job. Most people work in agriculture. During Youth Day, the President even told young people to go and farm. On the one hand, it is good to encourage young people to work in agriculture. On the other hand, isn’t it sad that so many young people struggle to go through university and can only grow corn afterwards?

I believe that creating opportunities for young people starts in primary education. What you see right now is that we have a vicious circle; in primary schools they say pupils don’t perform because the teachers are not capable. The teacher training colleges say they can’t help that as the students they get from secondary are not performing enough to study well. In secondary school they say they get pupils in school who can’t read or write and that is because of primary. We need to break that cycle somewhere, and breaking it in primary education seems logic to me.

I don’t have the illusion I will solve the problems of all young people in Cameroon. But if Faith really becomes a pastor or Noel becomes a doctor, I hope they look back at their time in primary school and think; thanks to Knowledge for Children we had access to books. And that they will buy books for their own children so they also get the opportunity to read!

Faith wants to be a pastor

Esly's little Cameroon Quiz

Cameroon flag -
Youth Day 2016

How much do you know about Cameroon? 

1)   The Cameroonian flag has three colours; red, green and yellow. Why?

a. The flag was based on the flag of Ghana, the first country in West Africa to get independence.

b. The three colours represent; green for vegetation, red for independence and yellow for the sunshine. The star symbolises unity.

c. The three colours represent three religions; Christianity (red), Islam (green) and indigenous believes (yellow).

2)   What is the background of the name Cameroon?

a. The first British to arrive in Cameroon was Mr. John Cameron (in 1467). He named the country after himself. Over time, this changed into Cameroon.

b. The highest mountain of Central Africa was always called Mount Cameroon by the local people. The country was named after this mountain.

c. Portuguese sailors reached the country in 1472. They saw so many shrimps in the river that they called it Rio dos Camarões (Shrimp River). Over time, Camarões became Cameroon.

3)   How many languages are spoken in Cameroon?

a.  Two; French and English

b.  More than 200

c.  More than 500

4)   In 1996 a new Constitution was accepted. According this Constitution, the President could be elected for maximum two terms of seven years. Since when is Paul Biya (1933) the president of Cameroon?

a.  1982

b.  1995

c.  2008

5)   Cameroon is often called Africa in Miniature because it has mountains, deserts, rain forest, savanna and coastland. What is true?

a. Cameroon is more or less five times as big as the Netherlands. The population is about twenty million (compared to seventeen million for the Netherlands)

b. The highest point of Cameroon is more than 5000m above sea level.

c. Cameroon is home to one of the top-five wettest places on earth with an annual rainfall of more than 10,000mm (more than ten times the annual rainfall of the Netherlands)

See the answers below!


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The flag between 1961 and 1972

1b. The flag has three colours (green to symbolise the vegetation, red for independence and yellow for sunshine). The first flag had two stars to represent the British and French parts of Cameroon. In 1972 Cameroon became a unitary state and the second star was removed from the flag.

2c. When the Portuguese arrived in Cameroon, they entered the Wouri River. This was home to the Cameroon Ghost Shrimp. Until today, Cameroonian prawns are famous.

3b. It is unclear how many ethno-linguistic groups Cameroon really has. Some sources talk about 230, others about 275 or even more than 300. What is clear is that the diversity is huge. Cameroon has two official languages; French and English. These are also used in education.

4a. The current president Paul Biya is in charge since 1982. In 2008 an amendment to the constitution was accepted to allow the president to run for unlimited re-elections. At this moment, discussions are already on about Biya running for a next term again.

5c. Debundscha, on the foot of mount Cameroon has an annual rainfall of over 10,000 mm. This is one of the five wettest places on earth.

Mount Cameroon has a height of 4095 meter. Cameroon has a surface of +/- 475.500sq km. The Netherlands is +/- 41.500, what makes Cameroon more than eleven times bigger than the Netherlands. The population of Cameroon is around twenty million so the density is much less than in the Netherlands. 

Applicants

Since I came to Knowledge for Children, I have recruited a couple of staff and interns. Every time it is an interesting and often painful procedure. Cameroonian graduates often have a lot of factual knowledge, but their skills are quite limited in most cases. I call these people victims of the Cameroonian education system.

Part of the problem is the system, which only trains people to reproduce what the teachers say and not to think for themselves. In the Netherlands, I believe factual information is only a small part of our education. It is often seen as more important to know where to find the facts and how to use them. Here it is the opposite.

But, often also the people don’t really understand what is important. For example, we received a request of a student to do an internship in project management which should focus on Monitoring and Evaluation. In the period he wanted to come, we were very busy training teachers and there was no time for serious M&E. So I told him we couldn’t offer him an internship as the only position available was someone to support in logistics (put up flipchart sheets, registration). He wanted to do that and said; that is also project work! (Yes, but it has nothing to do with project management and even less with M&E). If people do like this, it is not too strange they don’t have the skills needed.

I have done this for almost two years. But still I am surprised every time we recruit. Some of the most interesting cases:

• An applicant who was so boring that my colleagues and I, who did the interview, almost fell asleep. When we asked his strongest point he said; ‘I am really a motivational speaker’.
• A drunk person coming for the interview, talking for minutes without answering any question.
• We were looking for a Program Manager and said a driving license would be an advantage. Then I got a call; ‘Madam I hear you recruit a driver, how can I apply?’ So I said; ‘Sorry we don’t recruit a driver’. And he managed to get angry; ‘Yes Madam, you need a driver!’
• Someone studied oil and gas management. When we asked her motivation for this she said; ‘I have always been very interested in the oil mafia in Nigeria! You know, these people who kidnap Europeans and so’.
• But the worst case was someone who applied as a teacher trainer. He said he had worked in the Teacher Training College Kumbo. When we interviewed him, my colleague asked what he was teaching in this college. Then our applicant managed to call the subject my colleague was teaching himself! He tried saving himself by saying this was long ago, but in the last few years he taught something else. However, he called the subject one of our freelance trainers teaches…

Reading Competition

Stand up if your group has the right answer!

How do you encourage children to read? How do you encourage teachers to teach reading (instead of repeating)? It is not so easy to do this, but one of the strategies we use as Knowledge for Children is that we organise a Reading Competition. And it seems like it works, as pupils and teachers are really passionate and eager to win.

So, what does this Reading Competition look like? First, every school is organising a competition within their school, to select the best readers for level one (class 1-2), level two (class 3-4) and level three (class 5-6). Currently, we are busy with our zonal finals. That means the schools gather in eleven different venues to select the best school of a zone. This will lead to eleven finalists who will compete in the big Knowledge for Children Finals in Kumbo, on the fourth of March.

Answering the questions

So, what does it look like, a Reading Competition? Every school is represented by three pupils (one for each level). In some activities, they work as a team. For example, they get a word with mixed letters; glaf. The children have to work together to find the word flag. Or, we give a very long word and they should form the longest word they can make. Or we give them sentences in mixed order and they have to construct a real sentence. Also, they have to do individual assignments. For example, they read a word and construct a sentence with it. Pupils also read a text and answer questions (reading comprehension).

By the end of the day, we know which pupils are the best readers for their own level and which schools perform best in each zone. Of course the winning school will come to the finals in Kumbo.

It is quite interesting to me to see the difference among schools and also among pupils. We see quite some children who score no points at all, schools that end up with 35 points while the winner has 150 points etc.

What strikes me often is that many pupils can read, but don’t really understand. That gets clear with the text they need to read, but also when pupils need to read words and construct a sentence with that word. For example, I saw pupils (class 6) reading the word ‘direct’ and constructing the sentence; ‘We have many directs in our house’. (Interesting for me; ‘Our cat is eating a very big banana’. I was laughing but according to my colleague cats here eat a lot of bananas).

Read!

For many schools, this Reading Competition seems to be a wakeup call. Often, all children pass the exams (as fraud is very common), but here they are really comparing themselves to other schools. We tell the teachers; if a pupils performs well we congratulate the child, if a pupil performs poor we blame the teacher. Teachers feel really bad if their pupils loose. So hopefully they will take it more seriously! At least, the schools can now see that they are behind similar schools. Winning schools want to make sure they win again next year.

I believe teachers will really try to teach better now. However, yesterday, a very smart little girl of class 2 won a prize in her level. When my colleague asked her where she learnt to write, she said; I taught myself. So my colleague asked about her teacher and she said; we have many children in our class, but only very few can read and write. So it is not because of my teacher because then all of us should be able to do it!

Dust!

In the rainy season, we all complain about mud. Mud makes it difficult to travel, potholes fill with water and you can’t see any more how deep they are. Now, it is the dry season and we complain about dust.

In the Netherlands, people always talk about the weather. Here we all talk about the dust. It is very normal to meet someone and ask; how are you? How are you managing the dust? Half of Kumbo is coughing and complaining about catarrh.

Dust is really everywhere. Dust enters the house, if you touch a curtain you start coughing. Dust covers the floor, the tables, every time you touch something your color changes. If you buy something people first clean it but before you reach home it is covered in dust again.

People here say the dust gives free powder to women so we look more beautiful. I always say I feel more like a traditional warrior with it, you can draw patterns on your face! Your shoes are immediately covered and people go around with towels to clean them before entering an important office. Bike guys wear hats that cover their entire heads, women put a wrapper around their heads and clothes, we try everything to protect ourselves from dust.

The dust is the biggest problem when we travel. If you happen to have a truck in front of you, you can’t see anything because of the dust. When you drive you can’t open the windows because of the dust, but the sun shines so the car becomes like an oven. The ventilation of the car also brings in clouds of dust. So we try to leave very early before the sun really shines. In some parts the dust is so thick that we need our four-wheel drive to be able to climb the hills in it, or we just start sliding like in the mud.

My own road is manageable from my house down to the market. A small stream passes so people water the road every day; they take buckets of water from the stream and throw it on the road (yes, causing mud that makes you slip). But in places where no stream passes, or where no people live right beside the roads, the dust wins all battles. The only thing we can do is to wait for rain, and mud…

Reading Tests

January is traditionally our time for Reading Tests. We as Knowledge for Children conduct these tests to monitor the impact of our programs. We have a standardized test which we use to see how many words a child can read in a minute. The test starts with two-letter words and gets more and more difficult.

We do this because fraud with exams is common practise what makes it difficult to measure any impact based on exams. We see pupils in class six who read only five words in our test, but that school has a 100% score in the exams… So we need our own tools. We have not yet started analysing, so I can’t say anything yet about the results compared to previous years.

Our testing is unannounced and we do random sampling in the classes. If we announce our test the school is very likely to send the dull pupils home for a day and have only smart ones in class. Also teachers complain about the pupils we test; ‘if you make us do the sampling you will see that they can read!’ They want us to only look at the smartest children in class so it looks like all pupils can read well.

Some things are always remarkable when we do the testing. We see for example pupils who read the word ‘up’ as ‘youp’ or even ‘youpee’. They obviously recognise some letters, and know their names. But they are not able to read and don’t know the sounds of the letters. (Try reading simple words while only using the letter names… You will get confused!) Something similar happens to pupils who can read the sounds like i …. s…. but are unable to bring these two sounds together to form ‘is’.

These children at least recognise letters or sounds. In various cases you see children in class 2 (we test in class 2-4-6) who are not even making it that far. The first word in our test this year was ‘to’. I had one child who started reading and said ‘to’. So I was very happy! Until the child read the second word (‘at’) as fifty-four, ‘is’ as eighty-seven and ‘he’ as sixteen. Obviously he just guessed something and didn’t even see we were giving him words, not numbers.

Sometimes it is really discouraging to see that pupils can’t even differentiate a word from a number. But we also meet children who do so well and teachers who really try to do their very best. It is for these people that we will continue!