The slum school

We had an opportunity to visit one school in one of the slums in Lima. That was a very interesting experience to me. It made me realize that conditions im my own school are excellent!

The school was made by the parents of the area. After a big fire in Lima and flood in other part of Lima many people were homeless. Goverment gave them a piece of land up on mountainside at the end of Lima. Nothing else, just the land.

Anyway parents tought that their children should have a school and decided to build it by themselves of the materials they had there. In this picture behind the children you can see the wall of the school. It looks the same inside. Actually one thing a little girl said when asked how would she improve the school was to have walls so that the wind doesn't blow in.

Most of the classrooms have dirt floor. There's no electricity in most of the classrooms. classrooms are crowded. In one third class I counted 43 desks almost no room at all to walk around. At the end of the school yard in which weren't a single swing or other place to play was 5 lavatories. There was also a little shop to buy some snack.

The lessons were very noisy and it seemed that the ones who had the biggest voice got all the attention and teaching. Specially the girls in their back pews were left their on their own. Pupils didn't have books. They had note books where they copied the writing on a board. One boy had a puppy in his lap on a lesson. In one classroom there could be very different aged pupils because some would strat going to school later in their lives.

So teaching in those conditions seemed like a huge challenge! Far too many pupils in one classroom, no equipment, no books, no good class discipline. Big amount of pupils spoke Indian language as their mother tongue but teachers didn't understand it. But they were really trying to make it work. They wanted to have better future for those children.

The woman waving in this picture is one of the teachers. They had almost 1000 pupils and about 30 teachers. No assistants at all. She was very happy to recieve some pens and sharpeners.

One thing I have to tell you is that I really enjoyed being a teacher in Peru. Oh, You should have seen the eyes of the people when they realized I was teacher! The look was full of admiration and appreciation. I've never experienced that in my life. In Finland I always try to hide my profession as long as it's possible.