August 2004 Newsletter

This month Judith Burnett gives us a rundown on her recent return to Gouria: Arrival in Gouria in August is completely different form arriving in March. It is the middle of the rainy season. Just looking out of the window of the car on the drive down the road from Mokolo you can see how the dry hot dusty landscape has been transformed by water and hectic human activity. The sweet corn plants are taller then me as is the millet. Potatoes and peanut plants fill every space. Almost to the tops of the mountains the dominant colour is green as everyone rushes to grow their food for the year. Walking around the village is also more complicated as the usually easily spotted paths and houses are all hidden by corn and millet. Mostly if you did not know there were houses there you would not guess that there are people living all around. Following a path is like walking through a maze with corn or millet as the walls. On August 24th the teachers started to prepare for the year at Malima. Particularly significant among their work was the collection of information about the population of the village. There has never been a complete census of the population so even the villagers themselves were surprised at the results. There are apparently almost 2000 people in the village of whom over 1000 are children of school age. There was some interesting data. Such as there are 2 men in the village with 5 wives and several with numbers of children in the late twenties. Our aim in the data collection was to be able to plan for education in the village in the future. We now know how many children there are and what ages, roughly, so we can work on appropriate plans for our preschool and later our school. The children started back on Sept. 6th and the atmosphere is calm and particularly pleasant. I can see there are many challenges ahead, but I feel optimistic that with your support we will be able to meet them and our children will have a better future. Judith in Gouria.

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