This blog post will be somewhat of a guided tour around my project at Bana Ba Metsi, I hope it will give you an idea as to where I live and work everyday but also a slight comprehension as to how rural this Project is.
To the right of these you will also find a volleyball pitch and recreational room which contains weights, table tennis and marimbas
Moving on through the school you find yourself at the new kitchen, storeroom and the boys dorms;
Storeroom;
For starters, I'd like to show you the drive we must take from the ferry in order to arrive at BBM, all I can say is that it is a very straight dirt track, right down into the middle of no where.
Along this track there are some larger villages such as Ngarage, but mainly dotted along the 100 or so kilometer stretch are mudhuts and plots of land, the owners of these houses live mainly through substance farming of goats and cattle.
After this long trek down the very straight road you finally find yourself at the turning to Bana Ba Metsi,
Some may ask what the need is for this project to be so rural, why cant it be situated near a major town? The answer is that Bana Ba Metsi aims to take delinquant and disadvantaged kids away from the distractions in their lives that had them in that situation in the first place, whether it be drugs, homelessness or a broken home. It would be very difficult to rehabilitate these young boys if they were still surrounded by these factors. BBM is a safe haven for these kids, while term is in progress they do not have to worry about their safety, where they will sleep and when they will get their next meal.
Moving along on our whistle stop tour we have finally arrived at BBM, outside the school there is a rather nice murial which was built and painted by the staff and students over the previous years.
As you will see in the coming photos, there is alot of art work on the buildings at Bana Ba Metsi, it gives the school alot of character. All of the building's were decorated by students.
Just to give you some sort of orientation of the following photos here is a map of the school which was drawn by one of the previous volunteers;
Starting at the entrance to BBM you drive straight out onto the recreational football pitch which the boys use in their free time
Rec room;
Elephant dorm, there are also two other dorms which are lion and crocodile but elephant is the most well decorated. (Plus this poor internet connection can only handle so many pictures)
To the rear of the dorms you will find the school libary, computer room and classrooms;
Computer room; The computers were donated by an American charity, and in all honesty and superior to the ones my secondary school had back in England. Truly an amazing gift to BBM the only sad part being that we have no access to the internet!
The classrooms and staff room;
On the left is standard 5 classroom, to the right is standard 7 and behind the building there is another class room connected to the building for standard 6. In the middle is the staffroom, here are pictures of a classroom (they are all the same) and the staff room.
Heading through into the middle of the school grounds you will find the garden, swimming pool and TV tent.
The Garden is not only a source of food for the school but a tool for education, the boys learn about agriculture and work in the garden during manual. They are rewarded with the vegetables that grow here such as maize, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers.
(The pool isnt normally this dirty, we ran out of chlorine which is not something we can buy from our non-existent local super market, no more swimming until a trip to Maun is organised!)
TV tent, no other school on our side of the river has access to a TV, not one with a freeview box anway (WIN)
Moving towards the rear of the school you will find the slaughter house, accomodation for the German volunteers and the work shop.
The slaughter house is used at the beggining of each term for the chickens we buy. They arrive at the school as chicks, the boys raise them and feed them, then when they are big enough we kill them for food. Some animal lovers my find this thought upsetting. But believe me, when your only eating samp, pap, soft porridge and bread all week you become detached pretty quickly.
I decided to include the German volunteers accomodation because of the view from their balcony, just to give you an idea of how remote we are. I apologise for the weather conditions, its normally 100x more bright and beautiful however the rains are coming and my oppourtunitys for photo shoots during the week are limited.
The view faces to the west, which means we have a glorious view of the sunset everynight at 6:30. As you can see however there is nothing but bush and the okavango river for miles all around.
The workshop and brickyard, (all of the bricks used for the buildings at BBM are made by staff and students)
Moving on toward the end of the tour and to the rear of the workshop you will find the chicken coups (layer hens and those for slaughter), a building project and our home.
The vast majority of the buildings at BBM are built by staff with the help of students, external help is only used for two specialist jobs, thatching and electrics.
And finally, and most important of all... The project trust volunteers home (Built by previous volunteers);
Also our shower facilitys, they are located outside and only supply cold water. Of all the home comforts I miss, a nice hot shower is without a doubt top of the list.
Bana Ba Metsi was originally set up in 2001 by an ex-peace corp volunteer, Steve Harpt. The school started as just a peace of land and only offered building skills to 12 students. But in recent years has flourished into what you can see in the pictures above, housing 56 boys andI feel incredibly lucky to be part of this project.
This brings me to the end of the tour, as you can see in some of the pictures it is wet from rain. Much less frequent than England of course but theres no such thing as a light drizzle here, when it rains it poors.
Future posts will include the orphans day party and the end of term which is on november the 27th, after that I will be off travelling for six weeks and I'm still not sure how much of that I will post on here.
Anyways, until the next time ✌️
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