Lodooi pupils dress up under trees
Apr 11, 2012
The sight of mattresses hanging loosely from the tree branches welcomes one to Loodoi Primary School, Napak district. Basins, buckets, slippers, clothes and blankets are scattered under the trees.
By Vision Reporter
The sight of mattresses hanging loosely from the tree branches welcomes one to Loodoi Primary School, Napak district. Basins, buckets, slippers, clothes and blankets are scattered under the trees.
This is a government-founded boarding school with an enrollment of 930 pupils. Due to lack of dormitories, the pupils in boarding section sleep in their classrooms.
The classroom verandahs are litered with pupils’ suitcases, buckets, jerrycans and books. At night the pupils carry their property into their classrooms.
After bathing, some girls have to keep watch to ensure boys don’t peep at them while their colleagues are dressing up.
“When we finish bathing, we dress up from the back of the classroom and go for lessons. There is no way we can avoid boys peeping at us because we dress in the open,” one Primary Seven girl explained.
The dry season is a blessing to these pupils because their property remains safe on the classroom verandah.
However, wind sometimes blows their undergarments from the trees into the classrooms.
“We are embarrassed when the wind blows our knickers into the classes. Some girls are shy to pick their knickers and wait until the end of lessons to do so,” a Primary Seven girl explains.
During the rainy seasons, children’s books, beddings and other belongings get soaked.
The school also faces acute water shortages and the pupils trek for many kilometres to access safe drinking water.
Due to the scarcity of water, many boys in boarding school reportedly go to bed without bathing.
The school’s head teacher, Ben Diiko, says the parents and teachers agreed to introduce
the boarding section to help improve academic performance.