The children stream into the Ampitambe school yard beginning at 7:00 am. Toting back packs and book bags, each child wears a pink cotton coat of some sort over their street clothes as a uniform. They behave like any children, playing with their friends, making a racket – until a teacher steps into the courtyard and blows a whistle. Instantly, and I do mean instantly, it is so quiet you can hear your own heart beat. The children stand stone still and completely silent as the teacher gives direction. When she blows the whistle again, the chaos resumes.
I wander into the small chapel and find a small boy on the floor, studiously copying text from the blackboard into his copy book before school begins. Soon the secondary school classes file in for their morning devotions and the young one runs into the yard to join his peers.
We first visited this school back in 2004 when it launched and now the Ampitambe Global Action School is celebrating their 10th anniversary. In the beginning, when we initially collaborated on a basket project with Ibrahim to fund the school, they only had one classroom and one teacher. Now they boast ten classrooms for ten classes and ten teachers. The teachers currently earn less than $10 per week. They should earn more but because the children are so poor, everyone struggles to pay the modest school fees and for some children, it is simply not possible. Nonetheless, children are not turned away from the school.
The teachers allow us to disrupt classes for the younger kids and everyone spills into the courtyard to play with their new recreational supplies. Eyes widen as we unfold the new parachute and everyone forms a circle in an orderly fashion. We play the fishermen game with those manning the parachute catching the smaller ones dancing underneath every time the music stops. We play another game with beach balls and soon they’re flying all over place. The kids are having a great time, of course – they’ve never seen anything like this before. The magic whistle definitely comes in handy. The girls enjoy the new jump ropes and the boys eagerly cluster round to get their hands on the new soccer ball. We tell them about One World Futbol and how this soccer ball is indestructible. They’re skeptical but they’ll worry about that later – they just want to play. They hurriedly set up goals using broken bricks and they’re off and running.
It’s fun to watch the kids enjoying themselves, but this is a school and recess is over. They carefully return all the new supplies to the teachers and file into their classrooms. We distribute colorful pens to every chid in the school and then let the teachers get down to the business of teaching.
As they recite their lessons, the children’s voices overflow their classrooms – a beautiful cacophony. I stand in the middle of the courtyard drinking in the sound. It’s amazing what has grown here in the last decade. Ancient Path will continue to partner with Global Action to support these kids and teachers. We hope to find sponsors for the most impoverished students, to cover their school fees and supplies. And for the teachers – an extra few dollars a week would make an enormous difference in the quality of their lives.
It’s time to say goodbye to Ampitambe and turn our faces toward the mountain village of Sakalava. We’ve been told that the road has been damaged by the rains so we’re not sure exactly how we’re getting there yet. But we’ll get there!