We saw two of the wells at the school. Before school starts, children drw water with containers they’ve brought so they can water plants in the school’s courtyard. The children water planters in the courtyard before they run. Watering the planters is the children’s last job before they form ranks with members of their classes to start the morning’s ceremony.The children begin every day by running, with their own class, at least a quarter-mile around a large field next to the school.These young men could be smiling because the run is fun, or more likely, they are smiling because they are being photographed.After the morning run, there is an assembly in the courtyard. Children form up with their class for the ceremony, led in part by a student and in part by a staff member. Sometimes the only way to tell girls from boys is by skirts on the girls. Part of the morning ceremony is singing. These children are forming into grades, preparing to walk, unsupervised, to their classrooms to wait for their teachers. The uniforms of these ten-year-olds show the uniforms were not an equalizer, as uniforms are intended to be..Teaching this classroom of almost 50 pupils was pure delight. All the children were self-disciplined for the substitute teacher. There was NEVER a problem.They sit at simple, narrow, unfinished tables, on equally simple, long, narrow benches. The only light in the classrooms comes in through a few windows. At the end of each lesson, the students recite in unison, “Thank you for teaching us, teacher.”
