Otjomuru
Hostel learners of the Otjomuru Primary School in Epupa were assembled for breakfast when New Era visited them last Sunday morning.
Giggles, trying to steal each other’s positions in the queue and taking porridge from each other’s plates were the order of the day.
Seemingly unfazed by their situation the learners enjoyed their meal as this journalist conversed with their teacher, Titus Tjiumbua.
He explained that the school gets 54 bags of maize meal for each school term. However, with the 91 learners at the school, that is not enough, said Tjiumbua.
He said the children eat twice a day and that the pap is probably the only meal they know, as many of their families are extremely poor and cannot afford to feed their school-going children.
In fact, some members of the community come to the school to ask for food just to survive, the Grade 2 teacher said.
In addition, the maize meal does not always arrive on time leaving the learners with nothing to eat.
“This community is very poor. If a person in the community comes to the school to ask for food then how much are the children suffering? That’s why we thought of feeding them twice a day at the school.” The children are served porridge at 10h20 and 18h00, day in and day out. But Tjiumbua lamented that the supplier does not always deliver the bags of maize meal on time.
“Sometimes we (teachers) use our own money just to buy them maize meal. We can’t let the kids stay at home, so we have to give them food for them to concentrate,” said Tjiumbua.
He feels government should consider giving other food such as macaroni, rice and relish to boost their diet.
“It’s nice,” some learners commented when asked how they are enjoying their meal. “It’s nice but it doesn’t have sugar,” a girl, Fatima Daniel, added. While having the conversation with the teacher two learners interrupted to ask for salt.
“Teacher please give us salt,” the boys said. Tjiumbua explained that the learners sprinkle their porridge with salt and add water to give it some taste. “That’s how they do it,” he says with a tone of sadness as his eyes dim.
“The maize meal is too little to feed them three times a day but that is the situation at hand.”
As if that is not enough, the hostel learners sleep in classrooms, said Tjiumbua who stressed the school is in need of a hostel.
“We want the school to have a hostel. Some of the learners were sleeping on the ground outside with no tents or blankets to cover them. We were afraid they will be bitten by snakes because it’s in the middle of the mountains and the area is very bushy.”
Also, last year, many learners at the school fell pregnant while sleeping outside in the open air, the teacher explained.
“That’s why we thought of letting them sleep in classrooms so that we can supervise them,” said the teacher who added that learners no longer sleep outside, as was the case for many years. The school was established in 2008.
The learners sleep in classes with no mattresses and just one blanket to keep them warm, he noted. A privileged few have linen which serve as mattresses on the hard cold floor, while others have to do with the blankets which they also received from donors.
“The learners’ blankets are numbered so that learners don’t steal from each other,” further explained Tjiumbua.
Most learners at the school are from the settlement. But others come from far-away settlements.
He noted learners have a burning desire to attend school because it was a luxury a few could afford before primary education was free.
“Most of the learners from the marginalised communities like to go to school; only a few stay at home to look after cattle and goats. Most of them always come to school, they never stay away.”
Not only that but the young teacher was proud to say that the learners perform very well academically, with a pass rate of 75 percent last term.
The school makes use of solar panels for electricity but it is not very strong at the teachers’ houses who need it when preparing for the next day’s lessons. In addition, they struggle to receive teaching materials such as textbooks on time.
But Tjiumbua said they come up with mechanisms to improvise and ensure that learners do not miss out much. The school has 91 children, most of whom are in the hostel. The school has a pre-primary school for up to Grade 7. Otjomuru is situated some 25 kilometres east of Okangwati.