School in Port Harcourt

Playtime

A high point of our visit to Port Harcourt last week was a stop at the school Jamie spent time at when she was here 18 months ago. It is a private school, run by a woman and her daughter. The woman, Debrovka, has been here since the mid - 60's, having moved here from Croatia with her husband. This, then, has been a lifelong effort.

Debrovka

Debrovka's daughter, Monica with Mary Ann in their home

It is certified by the country, charges tuition, and has a very good reputation, but Debrovka has tried to maintain the neighborhood character of the place, taking local students over those more able to pay, but who live further away. The streetview is very deceiving - there are perhaps 12 classrooms, educating 350 students in grades preprimary (2-3 yrs) to 7th or 8th grade, as well as Debrovka's home. They use a sort of master teacher/apprentice system. There are older, more experienced teachers who teach 1 or more classes, but also oversee 3-4 classroom level teachers.

Monica with the "master teachers"

The building is in a central city location, with limited land, on a side street. The grounds are neat and clean, the buildings in good repair, built in a sort of Nigerian style - open windows, air flow from outside to a central courtyard, concrete construction. We had collected a lot of miscellaneous school supplies, from pencils to inflatable globes to wall posters of letters/numbers/geography, and a number of small books and DVD's. We also wanted to make contact with each of the children, so Mary Ann had come up with friendship bracelets, adjustable multicolored string bracelets. We met each class, and M.A. did a topnotch job of explaining why we wanted to meet them, and that we wanted to be friends, and cared about them. It was pretty rewarding. The children, of course, were amazing. Even little ones would, in unison, say "Good morning, auntie" or some such. Very well mannered, but not at all wooden - you could pick out the serious ones, the frightened ones, the mischievous ones.

The third from the left is a good example of a mischevous kid! But she was fun!

We visited the oldest students last and two of them remembered Jamie. Really nice - they said she was kind and helpful, and taught them alot (!).

The next post will deal with Miriam and Turner's home in Port Harcourt, their "real" home.