Today I went to Bagamoyo Secondary School with Sophia (the vice-chairperson of Bawodene who is also a teacher). What an experience! Bagamoyo Secondary School was built in 1972 and was one of the first secondary schools in Tanzania. The school was originally intended for boys, and even now there are very few girls at the secondary school level. Girls have a much harder time persisting with their education here. The demands of their families, early and sometimes forced marriage, female circumcision and other traditions, and abuse often inhibit girls from continuing their education.
The Second Head Master for the school (I met with him, and he seems like a really cool guy who really cares about trying to make a difference for the girls in the Bagamoyo area) told me that last year of the 800+ students at Bagamoyo Secondary School, only 48 were girls.
As Sophia and I approached the classroom, we could hear the chatter of students without their teacher, but as soon as we rounded the corner and entered the room there was complete silence. Immediately, as if on cue, the entire class (of all boys) stood and said “Good morning, Madams”. (Secondary school is taught completely in English.)
After introducing me to them as her friend, Sophia asked the class to guess where I was from… Kenya! She has a Kenyan smile! Nyakyusa tribe! She has eyes like Ugandan! Kilimanjaro! Chagga tribe!
When it was finally my turn to introduce myself, the entire class laughed with surprise when I revealed that I was American. As I went to sit, one boy rushed to brush off my desk, another grabbed my chair before I could sit down and tilted it forward to remove the sand from the seat, and another came over to adjust the distance of the desk from the blackboard. They were the sweetest and most respectful boys!
Later, as we were walking around the school, we came across a group of girls, so I stopped to talk to them. Again, they were extremely respectful. I asked them about their lives, any challenges they faced in being able to come to secondary school if they were comfortable talking to me about them (although there was no one else around, we were outside, so the girls seemed somewhat cautious in telling me some things), and I ended by telling them that I was very happy to see them and that I was so proud of them. Their faces lit up!
All of the students have such an appreciation for education and were so extremely respectful of me and the other teachers (who are almost all women) that it did make me wonder where the disconnect happens... something obviously happens outside of school that makes some of these boys become the men who abuse their wives, force women/young girls into unwanted marriages or demand that a women be circumcised before marrying her...
The teachers say though, that it is more common for this behavior to happen in the villages in areas that don't have formal education systems accessible to teach alternative ways.
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