Gugu’s school in the squatter camp was so much fun! Gugu never planned on being a teacher or even opening up a school until the Lord told her to. She approached a group of young kids one day that couldn’t afford to pay the school fees and began talking to them. She asked them, “how many of you are virgins?” and none of them raised their hands. She thought that maybe they didn’t understand so she asked again, “How many of you have never had sex?” and still no one raised their hands. She asked why they behave that way and their response, “We have nothing else to do.” Finally she asked, “If there were a school you could go to would you stop having sex?” Her school is informal, the kids don’t have to pay to go and some even are able to continue their education at a formal high school and finish their exams.
Once again, we all jumped in the koombie, drove down our safari-type road, over many speed humps, past the dump and into the squatter camp. It’s always amusing to see people’s reactions as many white North Americans make their way out of a small minivan. We went with our garden tools, and had shovels, hoes and a machete and cleaned the school grounds up. Before we began though, the kids sang us a few songs, and one of them was in Setswana, the language of Botswana. That one was about how the little kids praise the Lord, then they each praised the Lord by doing their own little dance and one part says, “Even our mother praises the Lord” and so the teacher danced and praised the Lord too!
In no time the guys were outside with a vision of how to transform this schoolyard. They began moving the big tractor tires, weeding and setting up an area for a sandbox. Some of us were busy removing the 3 piles of bricks that were now overgrown with weeds and creating a walkway from the sandbox area to the steps of the school. After all of the bricks were removed we moved the ant infested logs and began weeding the rest of the area. There were so many crawling bugs and spiders…ugh! Within five hours we had the place looking new and the kids had an area to play in. Gugu sat and watched as this transformation took place and was very pleased!
