"These children are the poorest of the poor", said Miss Pearl Msali, the Principal of the Imvuleni Primary School. We were eating dinner at the Underberg Inn and she and her daughter Mandy were loving every bite. I asked her if these children were poor, just trying to get a little background on what we might expect the next morning when we arrived at the school. Sister Heninger was writing as fast as she could but stopped when Pearl said "poorest of the poor". Imvuleni Primary School is an hour out of Underberg if it's not raining. But it had rained most of the night. So, it took us much longer following her into the most remote area of our missionary lives. Underberg is a remote village in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains. It lies at the base of the Sani Pass, the back road into the Kingdom of Lesotheo. Imvuleni School is beyond remote.
We were introduced to Sister Msali, a member of the KwaMashu Branch in the Durban Stake, by Bishop Zulu, because we felt impressed to ask him if he had any school teachers in his branch. We wanted to place some hygiene kits, Humanitarian Services in Johannesburg were looking to move. She was very receptive humbly putting her hands together, as if she was praying, as we spoke to her about our plans to check her little school out. "This is a dream come true, to some day have missionaries come to my school" she said. We could not get Humanitarian Services to agree to supply the needed hygiene kits unless we went to see the school and the children. We also had to agree to line up someone to teach hygiene and invite the parents to the training. We agreed to all the demands and included the trip to the school on the end of a PA council training, trip to the Midlands .
It was a beautiful morning, the sun was warming up the mountain air and burning off the rain clouds of the night. It promised to be a warm dry day. The deeper we went into the country side the more remote it got. There were less and less people, we could see no inhabitants, no townships any where, which is unusual. It doesn't take long on most roads to run into people in remote areas. Huts seem to pop up at the most unusual places, it seems, without any reason for being there. Finally the mud road lead us to the settlement, then the road got worse. The hills were impossible, we got our little car going at times when I just had check to see if someone pushing.
The school looked deserted and was quite as a mouse, there were no kids outside. No playground equipment or groomed play grounds. Razor wire circled the buildings like you would see in a prison camp. Mud surrounded the buildings in and outside the fence.
The children were in the buildings quietly learning. We went from class to class. The grade one classes had to be combined as one of the teachers had not come in that morning. There were three little "learners " as they were called, to each desk. I shall never forget their faces as most of them saw for the first time a white person. It was nearly impossible to tell if they were male or female, until they stood up and you could see if they were wearing long pants or a skirt. They were incredibly cute. Their eyes were bright and wide open. I got the feeling they were quite afraid of us.
Class after class we visited, over five hundred students from grade one to grade seven. The older leaners were allowed to ask questions like: where are you from, what do you do? Not one leaner knew where Canada was. We had to draw a picture on the board to explain where Canada was in relationship to South Africa. English is taught and used in teaching but Zulu is spoken in most instructions.
We were honered with a show of singing and dancing. The children were just like our grandchildren, full of hope for a bright future. They did not know they were poor, they had no liabary and wore worn out hand-me-down uniforms but they were happy having a school to go to. And we were happy to be with them. "Hath not God chosen the poor of the world rich in faith...?" They knew Jesus when we put up a picture of Him on a pass-along card. And we felt closer to him being with them.
What an experience you are having!!!!!I am touched by your comments about the" learners". How many people get to experience this? Oh how I wish children and their parents, here, did not take so much for granted and appreciated more. Like you say we are all very privileged and sometimes do not understand what we have. Take care and keep informing us.
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