Schools in Sierra Leone Open Sporadically After Nine Month Ebola Shutdown

Fr. Franciskus Xaverius Sudarmanto (pictured above saying mass), or as his friends call him, “Sudar,” reports on the spotty opening of schools after being shutdown throughout the country for nine months due to the Ebola Crisis. Presently, even though neighboring Liberia, Sierra Leone has not been declared Ebola free yet. 6 days have passed since the last positive case was reported in Sierra Leone. Presently there are two hotspots: Moa Wharf area of the East 1 Chiefdom of Freetown and Kambia districts, which borders Guinea, where cases are reported in Forecariah (about 10 every week in that nation). We were worried about Kabala, when 23 days ago a woman died in the hospital and was tested positive. But it remained an isolate case. 731 Contacts are currently being followed in Sierra Leone and 22 are still admitted in the Treatment Centers. Every day about 300 samples are analyzed. In light of this we share a post from Sudar on the opening of schools again in Sierra Leone.

On Thursday, 23rd April, a few days after the official reopening of the schools in Sierra Leone, I went to Karifaia to visit the school. I could not wait to see the pupils cheerful with their teachers in the classrooms. But I was a little bit shocked when I found nobody in the school. While moving around slowly in the land rover in town, I met Hawa Koroma, one of our youths who has just taken the BECE exams this month, and Mary Kabba, just promoted to class six: they told me that school would start the following day, Friday. Then I met Mr. Sendeka, the former Regent Section Chief, who told me that many students and parents were still afraid to go to school. Unfortunately, I did not meet the acting head teacher because he was not in town, but had gone to the farm. When I asked if there were any teachers in town, Hawa and Mary told me that all teachers were in their farm. Many children were in town, but the teachers were still in their farms!

I continued my journey as far as Walia, hoping to find a different situation in the school. Surprisingly, on the way, I met Mr. Mohamed Marah, a community teacher, with his wife, holding a bunch of “locust” (a kind of fruit). They stopped me and asked me to give them a lift to town. Reluctantly I helped them. When we reached the school compound, I was shocked again to see that there, too, there was nobody, all the doors were locked. So I went straight to town. I stopped at the house of the head teacher and found shelter under a mango tree. I was tired. When the town chief came to meet me, some children, too, came around. They took some benches and a chair for me, then we sat down together under the mango tree.

When I asked the whereabouts of the head teacher, the Town Chief, a very simple man, told me that he was in Kabala for HTC distant course. Where were the other teachers? One of them was in Farana, Guinea, to get his motorbike repaired. As for the other one, they didn’t know where he was. The Town Chief then promised to talk to the people in the community, who would come to town on Friday, the following day, and ask them to send back their children to school the following Monday.

As in Karifaia, I saw children around the town, though not many. While they were gathered around me, I started singing together some Koranko songs. “Dinimbo kinambo ma ala bato…” “I kana wasu, mba fe mbi bolo…” “Mo wal ming ke la i wole sara sorna…” Then counting… 1, 2, 3, … then spelling the alphabet … a, b , c… They were all happy. My disappointment changed, little by little, to accepting the situation and hoping to see the following week something better.

While we were singing, counting, spelling, the town chief asked a big boy to climb the mango tree to pick some for me. The other two boys helped to gather the mangos. They put the mangos in a bag, which they gave to me. I knew, they were grateful for my coming, and tried to show it by giving a bag of mangos. But what made me keep smiling was that they look encouraged and motivated to make more effort in calling the community to cooperate for the reopening of the school and sending back their children to the class room.

On my way back to Mongo, I met some children in the bush, shouting, “Father… Father…” and stopped me just to greet. I stopped. They approached me, gave me some mangos, so I told them, “I will come back next week… You have to go to school… See you in the school!” Then I continued my way back to Mongo, while my heart could not stop praying for these children.

This morning, Mr. Foday Kamara, the head teacher of RC Walia popped in at the mission in Mongo, to say sorry for the school of Walia, which had not opened yet, due to his absence. I told him that to say sorry is not enough, the next step is to start the school next week in earnest. As it is common among the people here, the head teacher answered: “Yes, Father, by God ihn power!” [Krio: with the help of God]. Anyway, this answer reminded me of what St. Peter says in the first reading of the Mass today: “The God of all grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ, will see that all is well again: he will confirm, strengthen and support you” (1Peter 5:10).

May the reopening of the schools be really a way for a healing process of our young people, pupils and students in our country, Sierra Leone. We need to encourage them. It is through us that God’s power will confirm, strengthen and support the people of Sierra Leone.

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