‘In a better environment,the students would do wonders’

After a long and tortuous boat ride, we reach Maduwa Primary School. But there is nothing to indicate where we are: No signpost, no get, no fence, just a couple of buildings.

It is a Tuesday evening and whereas one might expect the students to be enjoying sports,  the ones here are carrying  pangas and on their way to look for cooking fuel.

Moving in groups, they head for the  surrounding swamp, looking for dry papyus reeds. It is no easy task as they have to keep warding off the flies swarming around because the insects irritate the eyes if they manage to get in.

But they have no choice because failure to get the reeds means sleeping on an empty stomach. That is because the slightly more than 60 who board  have to prepare their own meals. And they know that as a student in  Maduwa, a school located in a hardship area, you have to be hardy yourself.

The boarders cook for themselves after  parents in the area decided it was better for them to live in school rather than commute daily, thanks to unreliable transport between their homes and the institution. The arrangement began in 2004.

The eight  teachers employed by the government also live in the school  and only go out on  weekends.

To reach this school school located in the Yala Swamp in Budalangi Constituency, in Busia County, you have to make part of your journey by boat. And while the school is not located on an island as such, the Yala Swamp cuts it off  from the mainland.

Google Maps indicate that the shortest distance you can cover on the lake is 2.04 kilometres from Osieko Beach, which is on the boundary between Busia and Siaya counties.

After leaving the lake, you  take another 2.45-kilometre trip up a river through  terrain that that is surrounded by lots of greenery. This meandering river is the only link between the school and the outside world.

And the journey up the river is not for the faint-hearted because  the overgrown plants on the river’s edge leaning inward scratch you for most of the journey. If you are unlucky, you might even run into tsetse flies.

At the end of the journey, you suddenly find yourself in a place bustling with activity, literally in the middle of nowhere.

The school buildings and portable toilets, all cramped in an area that barely measures an acre, are a welcome break as you try to soothe the scratches   you received during the journey.

“Now you know  what  travelling  to Maduwa entails,” Mr Charles Oyugi, the school’s  head  teacher, remarks as the skipper of the school’s wooden boat switches off the engine.

Mr Oyugi informs us that three of the  buildings are classrooms by day and used as dormitories by night. They accommodate more than 70 people, including the teachers. They all sleep on mattresses placed on papyrus mats on the floor.  Not even the head teacher enjoys the luxury of a bed.

Lack of distraction

Established in 1973, Maduwa, which has 207 pupils, has earned an enviable  reputation for performing well in the area. Local residents we meet  describe  Maduwa as a success story  because it registers commendable results in national exams.

“If you look at the school’s performance compared to others in the area, Maduwa is the best,” said Assistant Chief Samuel Oduma.

Its 15  students who sat for the KCPE  had a mean score of 298.13 marks – its  third highest  since 2001. And for the last five years, the school has maintained a mean score of above 260 out of a possible 500, a feat the assistant chief attributed to lack of distractions for both learners and teachers.

“Because the teachers are confined to one place, they can focus on their work. Once a teacher reports on Monday, they will most likely stay there until Friday,” the sub-chief explains.

“Besides, the pupils are not exposed to any activities that might distract them from t their studies. If they had a better environment, they would do wonders,” he adds.

Mr Barrack Wanyama, who left the school in 1991 and  now a parent with six children in the institution, explains that it was established out of necessity.

“Pupils had to travel to neighbouring Bulwani to study, but the many rivers and swamps on the way made the journey difficult, so parents felt it was time to start a school here,” says Wanyama, the school’s volunteer skipper.

Wanyama, who also doubles up as the treasurer of the school’s management board, adds that the school had mud-walled structures until 1996, when World Vision, a non-governmental organisation that  has since left the area, built two wooden classrooms. It later built three permanent classrooms and the teachers’ quarters.

He says the Constituency Development Fund later saw the construction of   three classrooms and another teachers’ room.

In addition to these classrooms-cum-dormitories,  there is  a corrugated iron sheet structure on the edge of the school compound which serves as the kitchen where the boarders prepare their meals.

“Most of the pupils who prepare their meals are from distant villages. They come from the same locality and know one another well,” said Mr Oyugi. “Children from one family cook together, with the older siblings taking care of the younger ones.”

The head teacher  tells us that the students’ staple diet is ugali and dried fish, adding: “Most parents with children here are fishermen.” However, the boarders have only lunch and supper, but no breakfast.

So what happens when a child’s food supply runs out? 

“The teachers go around checking to ensure that everyone has something to cook. If a student or a group of students run out of supplies, we either accompany them home to get some more or  ask their parents to replenish their stocks,” Mr Oyugi replies.

At 7pm, we sit down for a chat with six of the  teachers, all of whom request anonymity. They have been here for periods ranging between two weeks to five years.

They say it takes more than the hardship allowance they receive from the government to teach in the school.

One recalls a day in 2012 when he was returning from a competition with a group of 60 pupils when the  boat engine stalled in the middle of Lake Victoria. He adds that  it was by the grace of God that they made it back at 10pm.

Another says he has had to give up a part of his social life; he used to follow the English Premier League religiously but has now almost  forgetten  about it.

As we chat with the teachers outside their quarters, mosquitoes swarm us, and everyone is soon slapping themselves to get rid of the pesky insects, which a try to get to any exposed part of the body.

For a school that is sandwiched between a swamp and a river, this is not surprising. And we’re told they are particularly bad on cold nights in this sparsely populated area.

Another teacher notes that his stay at Maduwa has made him sacrifice his family life, but adds that the hope of improving the childrens’ lives makes it well worth the while.

Interestingly, there is no government-employed female teacher. The only female teacher is employed by the parents and teaches the nursery pupils.

We ask about the gender imbalance and Mr Oyugi replies, “We had one who worked here for two years but she could not stay after she got pregnant.”

They crack jokes in the dark outside their quarters...

Since there’s no  entertainment, the teachers spend their evenings chatting away when they are not supervising the  pupils.

And as they crack jokes in the dark outside their quarters, the pupils prepare for evening preps  and to do their homework after supper.

They use two classrooms lit  using bulbs powered by a car battery. The light  is far from adequate, but as with everything else, they have learnt to make do with what they have. They also seem to draw inspiration from their school motto: “Education is power.”

The mosquitoes are a constant bother in the classrooms, and the pupils have to keep swatting  them even as they  study.

Chances of pupils contracting malaria in this environment are high, which Mr Emmanuel Obuory, the chairman of the school’s management board, acknowledges is worrying because the nearby Maduwa Dispensarywas closed  more than  five years ago, and the nearest health centre is miles away.

The chirping of insects, as well as the rippling of the  Nakhaira River that passes a few metres away from the classrooms, provide a backdrop that the students have grown accustomed to.

When the clock strikes 10pm, the final bell indicating that it is bedtime rings, and the three classrooms as well as the staffroom have to be converted into a “dormitories”.

In a few minutes, the boys have settled down in two rooms and girls in two others. Here, everyone, including the teachers, sleeps on a mattresses placed on papyrus mats laid out on the floor; a few lucky ones have mosquito nets.

The teacher on duty ensures everyone is in their “dormitory” before ensuring that all the doors are closed.

Sleeptime is not the best says Josephine Achieng’, the deputy president of the school’s child government.

“There are nights when people — I think they are night runners — try to scare us by pelting the roofs with stones. But that is not enough to deter us from studying in this serene environment,” she says.

Snakes, waterbucks and wild pigs are some of the animals that abound in this area, but Achieng’ is thankful that no one has ever been harmed.

On the day of our visit, we are told that the pupils had killed a snake in the compound earlier.

At daybreak, the boarders wake up, roll up/fold and place their bedding outside the classrooms, re-arrange the desks in the classroom and then go to the river to clean themselves.

Some carry some petroleum jelly to apply when they are done wiping their arms and legs while others take their toothbrushes and toothpaste as well.

The river is everything to them: they use its water to bathe, brush their teeth, wash utensils and when the need arises, as their means of transport in and out of the institution.

And until last year, when a donor brought in two water treatment machines, the river also served as their  source of drinking water.

As the boarders clean up, the day scholars start trickling in, ready for another school day.

When morning classes end, the boarders will rush to the makeshift kitchen to prepare lunch while the day scholars dadh home to eat.

But this routine will change in a few months’ time because the school is in a flood-prone area.

“Every rainy season the water level rises dangerously, so we usually take Standard Seven and Eight pupils to Osieko Primary School on the “mainland” while the rest are sent home until the long rains are over,” says the sub-chief.

He regrets that the school might be forced to close  because the Yala Swamp is increasingly encroaching on its land due to human activity upstream.

“I know and believe that within a short time, Maduwa will be no more,” he says. “That is why we cannot think about making it a boarding school  because the  compound is not beig enough. Besides, the water table is so high that you cannot build toilets to serve many students without causing pollution,” he says.

We leave the school at 11am the next day as classes are going on.

Wanyama, the volunteer skipper starts the engine for yet another journey. He has been doing this since 2006.

I brace myself for some more scrathing by the reeds on the riverbanks.