Damolgo Primary School, Our Second Remote School

Wednesday, July 22nd.

We were up and off early this morning to make sure we got to the school on time. We set up and I went to the resource centre where I met Felix and he told me that he had found my nickel charm in the dirt outside the resource centre this morning, very lucky! I went for a walk through the village behind the college watching the farmers planting and talking to some of the people. At 11:00 we loaded up in the vehicles and headed out to visit another remote rural school to present some school supplies. We drove back to Bolga and then out of town along a good road, a fair road and finally a dirt road. As we crested a hill we could see the school. We our trucks pulled up in front the students were very excited, jumping up and down and screaming. Obviously they don’t get a lot of visitors.  The school was called Damolgo Primary School and the headmaster is Maxwell Burge. The school was started in 2011 with 45 students and one teacher, Maxwell. They now have 234 students, 111 of which are girls (he was very proud of that). They have five teachers; one of whom is on maternity leave, two are attending the in service and the other two are left to manage all the students. They have three classrooms for the primary students and the junior students have their classes outside under a makeshift roof, not sure where the kindies go. We had a chance to talk to the kids and visit the very bare and sparsely furnished rooms. They do not have enough furniture for all the students. We heard a group of drummers coming down the hill to the school and then they turned around and went back up to with an elder and brought down the local tribal chief in a procession. Then we were called outside for a meeting under the roof shelter. In attendance when the meeting started were some of the elders and the chief, and a lot of community women, various levels of the GNAT hierarchy, the PTA, the local elected official, members of the department of education and members of the press. It was an amazing congregation. We began the meeting with a prayer and then several layers of execs spoke. They asked me to introduce the Canadian team and then I spoke for a few minutes about why we were here. I spoke of the fundraising, my students and of buying the resources in Accra. After I spoke a number of other people spoke, including the chief, thanking us for our support, but they all also mentioned the physical needs of the school. It was the same story as last week, they pointed out what they need is more classrooms, furniture and even more supplies. They were grateful and appreciative but my donation is just a drop in the bucket. However, I didn't feel as bad as last week because so many GNAT officials and the media were there that I felt that perhaps their message got out. During the meeting the students were gathered around watching and a lot of the women were there with their children and breastfeeding openly. After the meeting we posed for a photo with the chief and his entourage. The women danced for us, the drummers and dancers performed, the media took our photos and asked some questions and then unfortunately we had to leave as GNAT needed to get to the bank and we had to get back to our workshops. I could have easily stayed all day!