Image Secondary

I visited Image Secondary for a couple days to bring some books and computer resources and discuss plans for a new library building at Image.  Joseph Uhemba was one of my IT students in 2010 and is Project Master at Image.  I brought a small raspberry pi computer server loaded with RACHEL educational content and a projector for showing that content to more students.  They plan to have a computer lab in the library that students would use to access the materials.  I also brought a collection of books for pleasure reading to encourage reading English and Swahili and some DVDs that they can listen to English with English subtitles to help them understand.

Image front gate

Form II students watching a segment on Seasonal Forests from the BBC Planet Earth DVD.  They had just had forests in their Geography class and the video generated lots of interest and questions.

Form II students in front of the new Library building donated by Peter King Foundation and Incarnation Lutheran Church.  The next step is adding tables and chairs, books, and computers.

With teachers officially accepting the materials I brought for the school.

Many of our groups visit Image and receive a warm reception but few get to stay an entire day and see the students routine.  Their morning starts at 7 AM with morning prayer led by different students each day.

Classes start at 7:30 AM and continue until 10:10 for a 30 minute break for Chai (tea and mondazi donuts, their first food of the day).  Classes resume until 2:10  when the students assemble and are given assignments for the rest of the afternoon before going to lunch.  This is the time that they exercise, clean and wash clothes, and do chores on the campus. 

Dinner is at 6 PM and on most days consists of ugali, a staple made from corn flour that resembles mashed potatoes, and maharagwe, beans but at the school with more broth than beans.  On Sundays they receive rice instead of ugali for a change of pace and once or twice a month they will have meat, chicken or fish.

They served 3 of these big ugali pots with amazing rapidity

Image runs a generator in the evening and the students return to their classrooms at 7 PM for private study.  There are a couple teachers on duty and the students are reviewing and copying notes from their lectures.  They stay in their classrooms until after 10 PM and then return to their dorms with girls dorms on one side of the campus and the boys dorms on the other side.  Some of the students were napping in the classrooms and I can understand why, their school is a pretty grueling pace.