Mtama Secondary School 2

Students cleaning the school

Assembly day! We met at the school at 7am, for assembly to start at 7.20am. This was an experience, as we arrived to the children cleaning the school or collecting water. Then they had to stand in their year groups (forms) and do some military-style marching before singing their national anthem and raising the Tanzanian flag. Then they deposited the wood that they had all bought (donations from the families) in a pile before announcements began. The head mistress addressed the school, and then we went up to speak about READ and the library project. It’s safe to say that they didn’t really understand us, and were very quiet. But they did seem on board to help us with the drawing and poetry competitions.

Every morning they lay out cups and plates for us in the staff room, and boil water for us to have tea and coffee. I’d prefer to buy a kettle and do it myself, rather than waste their wood for boiling us water! Maybe that’s something I’ll have to look into. We also have bread and butter but we are planning on getting some honey, peanut butter and jam to liven things up!

The students lining up for the national anthem and the raising of the flag.