Stonetown Preschool and Soap Berries
Thursday, September 8, 2005 
Across the street from the monument to the slaves was a preschool bearing a Catholic name.
As a Canadian preschool teacher, I was very curious to see what an African school might be like. The front door was open and I could see the children sitting on the floor and hear voices as they repeated the teacher's words in singsong. Of course, they were not speaking in English.
Ali said that he thought that in this school Christian lessons were taught in the morning and Muslim lessons in the afternoon.
The playground was in sadly neglected condition. Broken swings and dangerous-looking broken metal things peeking out of the long grass appeared to the only equipment there. Back home, the licensing authorities are quibbling over the least silly infraction in our own wonderfully-equipped play-yard. They would have a bird if they could see the condition of this playground in comparison. It puts things in perspective certainly.
Another thing that made me pause was the list of children's rights painted on the side of the building, between the metal-barred windows without glass. Among others, it included the rights:
* To be Loved
* To be Educated
* To Not Be Beaten....
Yes, you know you're in a different culture when that last right is not just taken for granted.
**************************************
As we continued to walk through this neighbourhood in Zanzibar, our guide Ali plucked some berries from a tree at the side of a street and demonstrated at a little water-tap how soap berries were used.
They foamed up very nicely as shampoo does and smelled quite nice on my hands.
It was around this time of the morning that Jo rejoined our group. She had gone off to a nearby pharmacy to find antibiotics to treat her infected finger. (Somewhere along the way, she cut herself and her finger was now starting to look very sore indeed.)
She returned with a package of "Canesten" that they'd given her. Our Dr. Sarah was quite certain that a treatment for a yeast infection was going to be of little help and returned with Jo to the shop. This time they returned with penicillin. Ah, much better!
Across the street from the monument to the slaves was a preschool bearing a Catholic name.
As a Canadian preschool teacher, I was very curious to see what an African school might be like. The front door was open and I could see the children sitting on the floor and hear voices as they repeated the teacher's words in singsong. Of course, they were not speaking in English.
Ali said that he thought that in this school Christian lessons were taught in the morning and Muslim lessons in the afternoon.
The playground was in sadly neglected condition. Broken swings and dangerous-looking broken metal things peeking out of the long grass appeared to the only equipment there. Back home, the licensing authorities are quibbling over the least silly infraction in our own wonderfully-equipped play-yard. They would have a bird if they could see the condition of this playground in comparison. It puts things in perspective certainly.
Another thing that made me pause was the list of children's rights painted on the side of the building, between the metal-barred windows without glass. Among others, it included the rights:
* To be Loved
* To be Educated
* To Not Be Beaten....
Yes, you know you're in a different culture when that last right is not just taken for granted.
**************************************
As we continued to walk through this neighbourhood in Zanzibar, our guide Ali plucked some berries from a tree at the side of a street and demonstrated at a little water-tap how soap berries were used.
They foamed up very nicely as shampoo does and smelled quite nice on my hands.
It was around this time of the morning that Jo rejoined our group. She had gone off to a nearby pharmacy to find antibiotics to treat her infected finger. (Somewhere along the way, she cut herself and her finger was now starting to look very sore indeed.)
She returned with a package of "Canesten" that they'd given her. Our Dr. Sarah was quite certain that a treatment for a yeast infection was going to be of little help and returned with Jo to the shop. This time they returned with penicillin. Ah, much better!
posted by Spider Girl | 7:11 PM
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