The Official Welcome to Bumala

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Jennifer and Heather Overwhelmed by the Official Welcome to the School

We’re up early, and head down for breakfast. Rapheal is our server and he is a noble soul, indeed. He takes the time to learn all of our names, and discusses with us all of the previous volunteers that he has met in the last 2 months through One Child’s Village.

Breakfast is a big affair. First, cereal is served. Each item is laid out on the table fastidiously. A napkin, a knife, a fork, a spoon….then again for the next person, and the next. Then he disappears for five minutes, and reappears with three juices. He leaves once again, and then returns 10 minutes with a small bowl of cereal. Each bowl is placed gently in front of the recipients, and the milk is brought to rest in the center of the table. We are then left for 20 minutes to enjoy our small bowls of cereal. He returns again and carefully surveys the tables. Bowls now emptied, he makes careful preparations to remove the bowls, one at a time, from their original resting places. The milk and any straggling napkins and utensils are then collected, and the ritual starts again with fruit bowls, coffees, main dishes, and more. We finally get away just in time to collect our things and head off for the school. Our arrival time of 9:00 am sharp is very un-African of us, but we revel in the breech of protocol because the first sight we come upon as we round the corner of the red dirt road and move up the rise toward the school are swarms of uniformed chldren, on the hill perch of the Bumala school on an early Saturday morning. The melodic chants of “Welcome, Welcome” rise in volume as we near the entrance to the school yard and the last 100 feet display throngs of gleeful children pressed up against the property fence in enthusiasm for our arrrival.

The atmosphere is charged with an energy that is rarely experienced in any other setting. The children jocky for position to see us, touch us, or experience a response from us. We make our way to the middle of the yard and, one by one, greet the teachers and attendants there. Finally, we see Charles and we make our way up to the school, exchange heartfelt greetings, and make our way into the school.

We greet inside again and sit down in Josephine’s office to sign the visitor’s book. We are treated to ground nuts and discuss a few immediate items. Then a group of us gather to go on the school tour. This culminates again with a meeting and lunch in Josephine’s office. Then back out to find the children gathered in the large hall that we built this last year. We sit at the head of the room and they proceed, one grade at a time, to perform poems, songs and dances for us. It is quite spectacular and even the video footage cannot properly convey the energy and excitement generated by the kids. The crescendo of the event came as the three of us were brought up to dance with the group in one unified expression of world unity. Gushing with sweat and out of breath we rolled and gyrated with our African friends a the women uulated uncontrollably throughout the spectacle. With a calf-tail switch in my hands, I inaugurated the arrival of our group to the Bumala school.

Finally, it all over, the kids are released to go home while we get some free time to simply walk around the school. I take the chance to speak in private with Charles and we turn out to have a very good business meeting of sorts. It was helped by the fact that the late afternoon brought in a monstrous thunder and lighting storm, followed by swells of rain against the red clay soil. After it was done, we made our way back to the hotel room, tracking with us pounds of clay stuck to our shoes which brought on a farcical dance in the front courtyard as we worked to pry the gobs of red clay from our feet.

Once inside, we tip-toed to our rooms, cleaned up a little, and went down to supper. Rapheal once again treated us like gold and we enjoyed a wonderful evening supper. We finally turned in and organised our bags late into the night in preparation for taking the masses of luggage to the school to unload on the Sunday morning.

Our days have been filled with such adventures and it is hard for all of us to believe that we are only on day one of our visit to Bumala. Wow……

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