Expanding Lunch to Buongo Primary

This past Friday, Edwin and I headed back out into the swamp, this time to begin laying the groundwork to expand our proposed school lunch program for Bubamba Primary School to another school, the newly formed Buongo Primary School.

Edwin and I held a community meeting with the head-teacher Obari and 23 parents under the large tree on Buongo’s school compound.

The school in Buongo began simply as an ECD (early childhood development) center, but now serves children in classes 1 and 2 as well. This totals to 94 children. The school plans to add a level each year, basically following the current students up to Class 8.

The school compound in Buongo. Parents had actually constructed this rustic mud school building voluntarily in order to start the school. The school is still not fully registered with the government, and won’t be eligible for funding for new facilities until next year.

We are now well into the rainy season, and with the significant rainfall especially upstream, the Yala River has begun to swell. Just last week, the agricultural fields adjacent to Buongo experienced significant flooding, and accessing the village required wading through water past waist deep.


Fortunately, the water level dropped in the 48 hours before our visit, which made our trip significantly easier.

This bridge spans part of the path to Buongo from Mubwayo, the nearest market town. It is a good 10’ off the ground, showing that although the surrounding land was only mud at the time, the potential is there for mass flooding along the road.

Standing water just past this bridge required wading knee-deep in water in small sections. But at the moment, the primary issue is mud. However, just a few days before, water was past waist-deep along this stretch, and the surrounding agricultural fields where people here have been farming over the past month were flooded, crops completely lost.

The locals have placed these planks along some of the trouble spots to serve as a bridge to the village. But they don’t span the entire path, and due to sinkage and breakage, they are only so effective.

We had met the head teacher Obari in the nearby town of Mubwayo, and made the trip out to Buongo together. Once there, we met with parents underneath the large tree on the school’s compound and began our meeting.

The meeting went very well. Parents had no prior knowledge as to specifically why we were meeting, but intently listened to my explanation of what type of work I do and what our intention was.

They were probably a bit disappointed that I didn’t offer much in terms of external assistance – just what we offered Bubamba Primary in terms of training, seeds, and energy-efficient rocket stoves. But these parents didn’t show it. I remain rather impressed working with people in the more remote areas of the swamp. The dependency syndrome does not seem to be as bad, because NGOs have largely stayed away due to the inaccessibility. They’ll go by car or boat, but wading through water is a nonstarter.

The parents have actually been voluntarily cooking porridge daily under the tree for the kids, so they are used to contributing. What we are looking to do together is to upscale their efforts.

Within Buongo, there is a main island upon which many of the homes, as well as the school, sit. But there are several other smaller islands where people reside. Children from these areas must wade through water, and walk across fallen papyrus plants, which serve as a bridge over the swamp.

The parents were willing to farm land adjacent to the school together to provide food, and they had many ideas of different types of crops to try that should do well in the swamp environment and better sustain flooding. They will also bring firewood regularly for cooking, and the mothers have volunteered to cook on a rotational basis.

My favorite discussion we had was with regards to constructing a kitchen building. One father said my favorite line of the day: ‘tulijenga shule nzima, haiwezi kutushindwa kujenga jikoni,’ (We already built the whole school building. It can’t beat us to build a kitchen!) I love it; this comment is emblematic of the community’s commitment to work together to improve their children’s lives themselves. The most common problem with development work is community buy-in, and from all indications, we have it with these projects.

There are some difficulties we’ll have to work on. For example, wild pigs and monkeys are rampant in the area, and frequently destroy wide swaths of crop. Unlike the other schools in the swamp, Buongo does not currently have a fence. We’ll have to work with the government to advise them to fund construction of one.

Our plan was to actually begin the project at Bubamba Primary last week, but unfortunately we have yet to get approval from PALWECO on our proposal. I’m now being told ‘inaweza kuchukua muda’ (it can take a long time). Everyone is in approval of this project, from local government officials to the local PALWECO agents themselves. I feel confident we will get approval, but whether it happens in time for me to actually see these projects through before my departure from Kenya, that is yet to be seen. But we completed our initial part in planning the projects and mobilizing the communities, now all we can do is wait to begin training.