Ngaruka Juu Primary School

We drive up from Ngaruka town a few km toward the mountain side of the Ngorongoro area and arrive at the Ngaruka Juu Primary School where we are met by Mikas Laizer, the head teacher of this school.

• The school has currently 910 pupils and around 14 teachers. Thanks to sponsoring from Tanzania National Parks four new classrooms are being added so it can become a total of 11 classrooms.
  
• The number of students that passed standard Seven level last year was 79 and could go further to secondary school. Only 12 students went on to specialized schools. (technical, medical etc) The school was founded in 1949 by a Lutheran church. In 1963 the school was handed over to the government.
  
• We have now two major student groups. One group are students from Maasai places. They don't pay anything. We also have some students from other places in Tanzania. They pay a small fee to support food etc.
  

Again we enter a new meeting. Two of the Maasai elders from the village joined us here, and now we are set in a classroom with five teachers who also joined us for a conversation. Marias stands up and makes the introduction, introducing us all in Maasai language.

• Linda, those are our school teachers. This is the head of our school. And now you maybe could show us the solar product.
  

Linda makes an introduction and give back the task of demonstrating the product to Rafael, as usual. He becomes a better and better salesperson each time, each time also demonstrating his natural authority as a leader. Even though we don't understand what he says, we get really sold on the product. Nods, hums and an intensive interest is shown today in HiLight, as it does every time.

Rafael leaves the room open for question

• Is it possible to charge a radio?
  
• If it is possible to charge a radio from USB, then it works
  
  

As the conversation flows on and move into the subject of mobile phones we hear that 3 out of 4 here has a mobile phone even though that there's not even any network coverage here in Ngaruka. You have to climb up to the top of the mountain to get in reach for the mobile network!

The school has a solar unit on the roof, and people come to the school from the villages around to charge their phones at a cost of 500tzs per charge. ( appr 0,2 EUR)

The teachers also live at the schools, in rooms that lack electricity. They use kerosene lamps for light, as do the pupils who live at the school. Kerosene is expensive but also dangerous. The school uses 40 l per month of kerosene at a cost of approximately 20EUR.

• Would the HiLight be useful here?
  
• Absolutely. We would buy these with our own funding, but we could also ask parents for contributions to buy.
  

And we drive back to Ol Mesera in the sunset after a overwhelming day. In the back of the car we bring two men and four 50l bottles of water back to Marias village