A DAY IN A LIFE OF AN AFRICAN SCHOOL GOING CHILD

 In Africa, normally a child is not told to go to school the first day of his/her school life, or is not taken by the parents to be registered on his first day of school. The child alone, due to the harsh conditions at home will try to seek refuge in a school nearby, thus this becoming the beginning of his academic journey. in a neighborhood where there are school going kids, the other child who does not school may follow them just for the sake of playing with them. This is all credit to the fact that almost all the schools in rural Africa are missionary founded, or government aided schools but with the help of humanity organisations like United Nations; these organisations therefore provide food and study materials for the pupils. When i first went to school, i followed my older siblings just to play with them because i used to get bored at home alone. So, i enrolled in primary school just like that without which i could have joined school when i was too old enough just like the rest of kids in the neighborhood. That means that i started school earlier than most of my peers, something rare in an African rural setting. nursery school is never heard of.

It's a common thing to find a parent who does not know which class or grade their child has reached in school, leave alone how they perform or what they eat in that so called school. its a norm, and even the children themselves understand that its supposed to be like that. My own mother up to now doesn't know what i study,...but now she has knowledge that i will be working with the hospital people, but doing what?! my father, being literate enough at least knows what i was studying and sometimes would take a look at my report card. Though he contributed less in my education, he was and has been the source of my inspiration. He would say, "dmongz (my father also calls me that way), you also know that there is nothing i can give you, but what i know is that you are always the best in what you do, and i believe in you, and i pray to the God to help you along the way". To me, knowing exactly that my father can't even afford to constantly buy me lunch in school, that was the best compliment anybody has eve given to me, and i live for that.

For us we have survived, and we still survive on scholarships as a way to study. you either enroll in school through the help of  a missionary, or through an academic scholarship after showing special academic excellence. We have government schools and missionary schools; all these offer free education in primary school except for minimal fees like for processing report cards and grinding maize in the mill to make flour. However for one to join secondary school, you either do it though an academic scholarship after being the best in primary school or through the help of a missionary you befriended in a catholic monastery. The parents can't afford to pay secondary education which at times is around US$50 (but paid twice a year), and so if you can't make it through those scholarships, you end up being back home and branded "unsuccessful", and thats the start of your new life as a villager: and if you can't humble yourself as a farmer (farmers are taken as peasants and low class in our tribe), then you will certainly become a herdsman/a raider/cattle rustler (which villagers in our tribe take as a heroic work) and therefore possibly meet your death in the process. But there are some children who will make it to school through their parents paying for them, these are the children of the businessmen in towns and the few civil servants/government workers; the few who chose to be educated those days when our fathers were still hiding in the bushes. 

As for me, after completing primary school in Kacheri Primary School, a government aided school with the help of christian missionaries; here free food was provided by World Food Program and free study materials by UNICEF. I later enrolled in a catholic founded secondary school with the help of my uncle (he was a police officer and so could afford). My uncle paid only first term though he would pay later than the rest of the people, and later in the second term i got a school academic bursary for being the best student in my first term. I later joined A level through a scholarship from Brac Uganda under funding from MasterCard Foundation for being the best student in the region(O level). Now am studying a degree of medicine and surgery under the State House of Uganda scholarship.

All the above is true, and if i were writing fiction i could be lying. take into account a normal Kararmojong school child, in northeastern Uganda.

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