The Country of Books

Primary Schools in Arusha, Tansania

Every year with the rainy season approaching a huge unease hits the primary schools close to Arusha, Kilimadjaro area, Tansania. The big book counting. It is meant to measure the void in the classroom shelves and to organise books for the next year. The children fight against a  phalanx of problems: Theres is not enough light to read, water pours into the classrooms, 80 children share a place that would be too small for 25 children in europe. They fight with their weapons: engagement, optimism, intelligence, humour. Their parents just started to understand that books are the most reliable way out of poorness, instead of sending their girls to the field work. The schools I visited with my friends from momella.org slowly increased the number of college degrees, pupils slowly enter the track to universitys, the track to self consciousness. There´s a lot of light in that so called dark continent and europe has a lot of homework to do.