PATHRIE

On Sunday afternoon I traveled to a town called Pathrie. Actually we were just outside a small farming community which was just outside of Pathrie. The village is very poor, made up mostly of farmers.

The grounds owned by the school taken from the roof. The center of the picture is the faculty housing building. In the lower right you can see a couple hundred bikes which the kids ride to get to school.

It was a predominantly Muslim area until about twenty years ago or so. The government needed to supply more electricity to the area and so they planned to build a hydro electric plant on a river some twenty kilometers away. The result however was that many villagers from that area would be flooded out of their communities.

Students stand in rows every morning for their morning routine, which includes the pledge of allegiance, singing the national anthem, and reciting the Lord's prayer.

The government informed the people of their plans and told them that they were providing a space for them to move to and resettle. That area just happened to be right outside of Pathrie near this already existing Muslim community.

A student stands and reads during class time.

What resulted was a growing tension between the two communities. The Muslims had their own established community for years and years, and they did not appreciate being imposed on by the government. To them the Hindu’s are unclean (spiritually speaking). Fast forward about eighteen years, and this Christian school gets its start literally between the boundary lines of these two communities. The boundary line actually consists of Sugar Cane fields and wheat fields.

This was the first class in which I sang a song. I was drawing a blank with the guitar in my hand and ended up sing "Amazing Grace" / "Grace like Rain"

Classes for the school begin at 7:40am and conclude at 1pm. At that time the students are dismissed and the teachers get a break. A few of them live on the School grounds in housing that was built for faculty and staff. At 4pm an afternoon program begins which goes until 6pm. This program is sponsored by Compassion International.

At the end of a long day here the Compassion sponsored students get some food in the evening

Each of the students who attend this program do not have the money to attend the school so instead they attend the government schools. However the government school do not really provide much of an education. Each student progress from one grade to the next regardless of performance, and the class sizes are as small as 30 to 40 all the way up to as many as 80 per class. Sometimes the teachers don’t show up. Needless to say it is not an environment that is geared towards learning and education.

The school here actually has a class on personal heighten. It is an attempt to educate the younger generation on how to maintain clean living. Here a teacher inspects a students "First Aid" kit as part of their curriculum.

The after school program is designed to be a time of tutoring and helping with homework, and since these are the poorest of the poor they also get a meal as part of the sponsorship. Most of my time there the kids just wanted to hear about America, so I talked with them about what America was like. Some found out they I play guitar so I played and sang for all the classes I visited after word got out. I visited the little kids the next day and could not avoid singing and playing for them either. A lot of kids wanted my name and email address, I relented. The real story though is the principal and the assistant principal. Their dedication to the work here is commendable. They have seen this place go from Sugar Cane field to a one and a half level school.

Work progresses slowly on the building project where they are adding a second floor. This structure was designed to be a three story school. Though they have to take it a stage at a time as the get the funding.

Soon it will be a complete two level school. They have worked hard to make the School in Pathrie what it is and just as hard to maintain a solid reputation in the community. Along with that Matt and I stayed in Ajay’s home (the assistant principal).

Ajay, the assistant principal, and his family.

When we arrived they showed us to the guest room. It was small and the bed was basically a low table with blankets on it. It was not until the second morning when I got up a little early and happened to see the kids room and I saw Ajay sleeping on a blanket on the floor that I realized he and his wife gave us their bed, and they were sleeping on the floor in their kids’ room. These are the kind of people I stayed with. I will write a short post on Ajay later…