Literacy classes in the Sungu church

You could be pardoned for wondering about all those literacy teacher training seminars, whether they actually result in anything. We wondered that after we did the seminar in Bulungu, a town 19-20 miles upriver from us, in 2006 (it’s on your map of Congo). The silence from Bulungu and the other villages that participated was deafening. Once I ran across a hospital patient at Vanga who said, “Oh, yes. We have reading classes at Bulungu First. They’re great.” But that was all.

Then in January I bumped into the teachers we had trained for Sungu at the hospital in Vanga. They said, “Oh yes. We started classes in Sungu and have been teaching right along. We stopped just recently because of Clotilde’s (one of the teachers) health.” But why have I never heard about your classes? I wondered. “We’ve been sending in reports all along to our district women’s president to send to you,” they said.

In March, on my way back home from Masi-Manimba, I had had to spend the night in Bulungu and got to talk to some of the women there. I told them about the new opportunities in the country for adult literacy, and their advantage to be had in being registered with the state with us, so they promised to send me the reports and money for book orders.

Then the Sungu ladies again came to the hospital, after which they came to visit me. Their major concern this time was glasses for themselves and their students. We arranged that an optometrist and I should visit them the first weekend in May, right after I got back from Sona Bata.

So, where in the world IS Sungu? Well, it’s not on my map. But it’s close to Bulungu. They claim to be the market basket of Bulungu, producing manioc, vegetables and rice for the town. There were 3 ways to get there. The way through Bulungu is short but the narrow foot trails winding up and down hills are not good for a bicycle. A shortcut across country requires a river crossing. There used to be a bridge. Now a canoe man ferries people across for a fee. The well-travelled truck road wanders the long way around, through the “county seat” of Nko. Extra miles mean extra work.

As it turned out, the optometrist was just back from another trip and too tired to go with me. (He plans to go another time on his own.) So I set off on my own by bicycle. I had mislaid my directions. Eager villagers mis-directed me a couple of times along the way. Instead of following the cross-country shortcut, I wound up in Bulungu. There they advised me to leave my bicycle with an acquaintance and ask for Sungu people in the market who were ready to go home. It’s about a 2½ hour walk from Bulungu to Sungu, down to the rice paddies, up one ridge, down, up, down and up once more to Sungu. Quite a haul to market, and a barrier to carrying very much.

We had a very good visit. The village chief is a church member, and claimed me as his guest. He even loaned me a foam mattress – probably his and his wife’s. I visited the literacy classes, held in the local primary school, and corrected the teachers’ techniques. They had forgotten some of the techniques we had taught them, so were taking way too long with their lessons. As a result, whereas the first class should have been finished with the first book and into the second, it was still just a little over halfway through the first book. I hope they will now buzz through rather quickly, as the students’ reading and writing skills are pretty well developed by now.

As always, I talked with lots of people about their agriculture, their plans for economic development of their village, health in the village, their schools and their church. The Sungu Baptist church was awaiting a new pastor. In the meantime, the old laypastor and our literacy French teacher were holding things together. But the old laypastor needed new glasses badly to do his job well. Generally he would ask the younger man to read the Bible, then either he or Kawita would preach.

The village was suffering from a reputation for a lack of good roads. They produced lots of peanuts (every house had sacks and sacks stored in it), but needed to persuade truckers to come to the village to get them. The chief was a relatively young man, hardworking, dynamic, with good ideas, determined to rule for the good of the village and be respected as a Christian. One drawback though: neither he nor his wife knew how to read and write. My visit brought respect to the literacy classes as a legitimate development activity for the good of the village, and to the teachers. The chief and his wife hadn’t been sure about these classes and had not joined, but will now.

A young man from the class, Timothée, walked me back to Bulungu to pick up my bicycle. He had had to drop out of school at 6th grade, when his father died. Not only was there was no one to pay his school fees any more, but he had to help his mother support his younger siblings. He’s extremely poor (on our way, he had no shoe on his right foot, and only a broken one on his left), but this is his chance to catch up and make something more of his life. This is one motivated guy.

Please pray for Timothée, the chief and his wife, and for our teachers, who are doing a good job in serving their village, and deserve payment and recognition. Also pray that that optometrist will get to the village, and that I will be able to help them buy their glasses.