Wide Open Spaces - Amy

How you can help the Library in Anker

I realized the other day that I really like Anker. I think that Anker is going to do OK. There were a couple of things that I realized. First, I've finished taking stock at the library (which was way more work than I think I realized going in to it) and I realized that even before Courtney came in 2004 the library had almost 700 books, which means they were trying to buy books and improve the library even before that. 700 books is a very reasonable number here, they suggest that if possible you try to have a ratio of 3 books for each learner in a library and there are almost 300 kids at the school. They are really good people and they are really trying to give these kids a good education. The classrooms are full of neatly coloured, hand-printed posters and kid's art work. Plus, I found books in the library with teachers' names in them that were donated in 96 or 98, which means that these teachers are committed to this school which is a little unusual in the more rural areas (Interestingly enough I also found three or four books stamped in Afrikaans as belonging to the "Ministry of Bantu Education" which was the old apartheid system that educated students better or worse based on their color.) Most of the severe problems that the Peace Corps warned us that we might face, I haven't seen at all. The extent of the corporal punishment I've seen has been a tap on the head or a kid being roughly taken to the principal's office. They warned us that sometimes orphans or poor children who can't pay school fees or can't afford uniforms aren't allowed to go to school, even though this is technically against the law, but my headmaster said one day, "They still haven't brought their kids to school. They are trying to come up with the school fees. I tell them, we can work something out with the school fees, but the children must be in school, you can't keep them back." And students who don't have uniforms wear whatever they have that's closest to a uniform. (By the way, school fees are $12 a year and hostel fees are $30 a year and you can get a school uniform from pep for $10 including shoes) When it's cold, like it's been this week, all of the kids wear whatever clothes they have anyway: Sweaters and sweatshirts of every colour, T-shirts so big that they hang around their knees like a dress, towels wrapped around bare arms like shawls. I don't know how a system that really works on an honour basis functions, but it does and if the school development fund is a bit empty (and it is usually), at least the kids are in school learning. I really think that with some quality materials and some professional training, Anker could become a very good school, the people certainly want it to be a good school and are trying hard to make it one. I am all the more thankful for these people after visiting Otjiwarongo and realizing what it could be like.

OK, That's it for now. One of my friends wrote and said that she wanted to tell me to stop apologizing at the end of every letter. So, I'm just going to leave this letter the way that it is. I think about you all a lot and it helps just to write something down and to know that someone is listening. I love you all lots and I hope I will be easier to contact now.