Ngarenanyuki Secondary School

The Ngarenanyuki Secondary School is situated on the main road through the area, just before the high bridge that crosses the Ngarenanyuki River.

The school has its own website now, and that probably marks the difference to the school as it was when I first visited there in 1997.

Ngarenanyuki Secondary School is a DME school and in those early days, struggled financially through the results of the Meru Crisis and the relatively recent establishment of the diocese.

Among the spiel provided by the Agency before we went to Tanzania was that only 6% of all primary school students were able to go on to attend secondary school. I have no reason to dispute this figure and happily the percentage is far higher these days.

So even though the facilities at the school were few in those earlier days, it does show that DME were forward thinking in providing the educational opportunity.

From my personal point of view, I really enjoyed seeing pupils from the various primary schools that we worked with, progress with secondary school education. Some of these pupils held responsible roles in the primary schools and I knew that they looked forward to their continued education.

That's positive!

Social demography is way beyond me, but it would be interesting to research the influences of what I noticed, as on outsider, at the school.

Ngarenanyuki is an isolated place and as such, it was a good place to send students, say from Dar es Salaam, who were 'disruptive' or worse. Of course the school would be happy to receive fees from the parents of these students because local parent probably were more tardy in their payment.

It would be interesting to quantify how this effected the school and the whole area of Ngarenanyuki.

The old school was built from timber and the weatherboards were treated with waste engine oil. During the dry season dust clung and settled on everything. The administration block was cooler and built with concrete blocks.

The Headmaster was the elder of the Somi brothers, we knew the younger brother, whose name we didn't know at the time so we called him 'Bwana Tie' as he was always smartly dressed and wore a tie. Actually the name stuck as far as we were concerned.

The elder brother eventually became Headmaster at Leguruki Secondary School and Bwana Tie [James] became Headmaster at Ngarenanyuki Secondary School.

As an introduction to our first seminar at the school, the the Headmaster introduced us using English, but a direct translation from Kiswahili which was very polite. Unexpected but nice to hear.

The students took part in the seminars and were very happy learn what we had to offer. We carried out a planting programme there with some success.

Later, Mwl Mashoya who we knew as Deputy Head of Makumira Secondary School became Headmaster of Ngarenanyuki. We liked this Mashoya and visited his home place on the slopes of Mt.Kilimanjaro - therefore he was of the Chugga tribe.

There was no need for us to become involved in assistance programmes for the school because they were receiving good assistance through the work of a German Pastor who seemed to have access to funding from Germany. This developed the school in a very positive way.  

During Mwl Mashoya's time at the school, we supplied trees for planting throughout the school area and carried out environmental seminars.

There was some cloud or other as Mwl Mashoya was replaced by James Somi which I put down to internal politics and I like to distance myself from politics.

Somi though has been a success at the school and he asked us to assist in the establishment of a tree nursery at the school which we were able to do.

I think the students at Ngarenanyuki are well-grounded.

A seminar in one of the timber classrooms. The gaps between the boards can be an advantage during the warm season but causes a problem with dust when the wind blows.

A demonstration of the planting technique. This was during the dry season and I was planting into dust! However by adding dry cow manure to increase the organic content has the effect of holding moisture and because there is water available at the school, artificial watering is not a problem - as long as time is allocated to the task.

This young fellow planted a Loquat tree in the prepared hole. I used to buy Loquat fruits at Lushoto and then give the fruit to people around Makumira who returned the seed to me. The trees were then grown in the Makumira nursery.

Quite a bit has gone into the production of these seedlings.

The followup to all planting is to make sure moisture levels are adequate. The porous, sandy soil at Ngarenanyuki loses water quite quickly.

At this time each tree was given perhaps 10 litres of water, which is a good start.

Clearing vacant ground to establish the school tree nursery.
It was a good site, under trees which provides adequate shade.
The students removed the rough vegetation and leveled the site.

Once cleared, some measurement was required to create an area that was a rectangle. The shape does not matter two hoots to the trees or to nursery production. It is good though because it is rare that students have a practical opportunity to use geometry.

There is a small skill in cutting the polythene tubing to size - again it is a practical exercise of mathematics. The student wanted to actually understand the principles of what they were doing.

The mixing and sieving of soil is an important part of the process. Oh sure it is ok to just use soil and fill the pot, but making good mix without lumps makes the soil better to work with and always produces a better plant.

And then there is the filling of pots. Remember that the pots are made from polythene tubing, so there is no bottom to the pot. This means that the pot must be packed with soil properly, so that when it is lifted or carried, soil does not fall out. On the other hand, 'plants will not grow in bricks' - in other words, the soil should not be packed too tightly.