INGWENYA BOARDING SCHOOL opened in February, 1936, with a roll of 220, an increase of about thirty over last year. The First Year class numbers seventy and it is pleasing to note a number of children of correct school age, six years, although the average age is nine.
In previous years much has been said of the class-work done in school. In this report it is proposed to sketch shortly the work and life which lie outside the ordinary school routine.
During the last six months of 1935, three of the new huts were occupied by the boarding girls and now a fourth is practically ready, and the teacher’s house in occupation. Each hut consists of two rooms, both of which are used as sleeping apartments at night, and a little room at the back with a fire-place where the cooking is done. The houses are arranged in two rows, facing one another, and are neatly thatched and plastered in grey clay. The teacher’s house is placed at the end of the row and looks down the road. Mr. Tallach has laid out little plots of geraniums and a row of jacaranda trees on either side, which give a pleasing appearance to the whole.
Each house is in charge of a head-girl who is responsible for cleanliness and order. The girls take weekly turns in providing wood, fetching water, and preparing food for the resident teachers and themselves. Before school at 7.30 a.m. all the school-rooms and dormitories are swept and dusted and their sleeping mats and blankets neatly rolled and placed on top of their boxes on the floor. All assemble in the Church for worship in the morning but in the evening each head-girl is responsible for taking worship in her own hut.
There are sixty-five girls in the boarding school this year, many of whom have come from distant mission schools, as far as a hundred miles away. It is difficult to ascertain why they have come so far, as there are a number of excellent schools throughout Matabeleland. The girls belong as a rule to ambitious parents who are anxious to have their children educated and trained in home-craft. Most of the parents have some Church connection and the children are recruited from such denominations as Seventh Day Adventists, Wesleys, Church of England, L.M.S. and American Mission Societies. Some of them have a fair knowledge of Scripture when they come. Nevertheless, it is true to say that with the exception of the Christian girls, using the term in its narrowest sense, their attitude to social and moral questions, beneath a veneer of civilization, is essentially heathen. It is difficult, but most essential to bear this in mind. A few have been brought up in homes of real piety, but the majority have grown up in a society where the old order is disintegrating, where discipline is slack, and the children are daily witnesses to the life and conversation of all that heathenism implies.
The girls are as various in disposition and character as an European group of the same number would be. Almost without exception they are docile, loveable and eager to please. The difference between a newcomer and a girl who has been a few years in school is very marked. Some knowledge of English, suitable clothing, a few responsibilities of her own, make the schoolgirl self-confident and resourceful.
Care-free as they appear to be they have real problems of their own which never enter into the thoughts of children at home. For instance, many of them are promised in marriage while still children, and cattle are given in payment by their future husbands. In a drought year the cattle may die, or in a dire case of need be eaten, and when the time comes for his daughter to marry, her father, however indulgent in other ways is forced to make her marry the man, regardless of her own feelings in the matter, or incur disfavour in the eyes of all his tribe.
From what kind of homes do these children come? One can only guess from the type of homes around Ingwenya. Within a certain radius of the Mission most of the kraals are neat and clean. A circular fence of thorn bushes, tightly packed together, surrounds a few round huts and within this enclosure the yard is usually swept and clean. One hut acts as a kitchen where the food is cooked on a fire in the centre of the floor, the smoke issuing from the door. There are sleeping huts containing skins and blankets, but windows are rarely found. The more advanced kraals have a hut where the family sit at times and there one may find a box or table with a few plates and cups, a calabash where the milk ferments, and it may be, a barrel half-full of dried locusts. Poverty so extreme can hardly be imagined. Nothing in the way of domestic equipment is to be seen, with the exception of a native clay pot, no plates or spoons, no remnants of cloth, as any garments they have are made at the local store, not even a sheet of paper, for no storekeeper will use his paper on natives.
When one bears in mind that a number of our day-school pupils come from an environment such as this it will be realized that the teachers have much more to do than the mere teaching of reading and writing. So the native housework syllabus includes such topics as, “Why flies should not be allowed to rest on our food. Why we should not draw water from stagnant pools in the river where the cattle stand; and why it is better to eat from a table than from a pot on the floor.” It is pathetic to see such children come to school in cold weather without breakfast and thinly clad. It is then we appreciate the parcels of clothing sent to the Mission by friends at home.
We take this opportunity of thanking the ladies who contribute to the useful parcels of material and thread sent out by the kindness and care of Mrs. MacIntyre, Mrs. Miller and Miss Sansum. We also wish to thank the ladies of the Fladda Congregation for the valuable parcel of home-spun yarn of light and dark blue, every bit of which was used in making scarves and jumpers both by the senior girls and the women’s class. This wool was much sought after and was especially acceptable in many cases for children with weak chests. We miss very much the help Mrs. Macdonald used to give in the sewing-classes, but are glad that she and Dr. Macdonald, who willingly took responsibility for Hygiene and First Aid, are having a well earned change.
Quite a number of attractive baskets have been made during the past year, but as the Government Inspectress has been on furlough we are keeping them meantime for inspection.
We hope this year to add a new item to our scheme of work as Mr. McGillvray has kindly sent us wools and canvas for making pile rugs. We are looking forward to this class. With many other gifts Mr. McGillvray constantly reminds us of his interest in the school work here, in which he says he is greatly assisted by Mr. Grant of the Grant Educational Co.
Mr. Tallach has added considerably to our school equipment this year by making desks, blackboards, etc., and since Dr. Macdonald’s departure has been teaching Hygiene and Scripture to the higher classes which is a great help.
Under Mr. Tallach’s direction Mr. P. Hlazo has been giving the boys practical agricultural work, and their field of mealies will soon be ready for harvest. The irregular attendance of the boys is one of our biggest problems. Every Friday they take the cattle to be dipped and twice a week during the dry season they are required to drive the cattle to a river five miles off to be watered. Naturally their progress at school is retarded by this.
It is difficult to give an adequate idea of the vast field of opportunity there is among the native people in all branches of educational work, of how little is being accomplished, and of the absorbing interest which makes the work its own reward.