Reflections on a Visit

FSJMS Committee Members’ Trip to St James January 2024 (Self-funded)

On Thursday 25th 2024, five of us set off in our hired Toyota Hi-Lux en-route to St James: Chris Peskett (FSJMS Committee member) and her husband Neil, Sibo Njini Ndlovu (FSJMS Committee member) and her husband Tee and Margaret Nyamuda, a member of the BYO Lions club, who stood in for a supporter of FSJMS, Colin Mansell, of ‘Children First International’ charity, who had planned to join us, but was unable to do so at the last minute.

Fr Ncube, Priest-in-charge of St James,  met us at the Diocesan Office the day before our visit to the Mission.  He was pleased to see us and informed us that the 50 mile road from Bulawayo to St James was, in fact,  ‘No Road!’, as its condition had deteriorated so badly.  He took us to the accounts office to meet Mr Mafa, the Diocesan Education Secretary, and the accountant, a lovely lady.  Mr Mafa is also the person who often collects the food for the Feeding Fund. Mr Mafa informed us that Fr Ncube, whilst he is still the Rector of St James, is also the Head of St Columbas School in Bulawayo, and has been for the past 6 years, which we were not aware of. No wonder he is a very busy man!

Mr Mafa told us that the Diocese wants to introduce boarding at the Primary School, currently a day-school. The thinking is that there would be 20 girls and 20 boys, and that there may be children of parents who have daughters in the Senior School, who could afford to pay for the boarding places, which would subsidise other local children who could not afford it. It would also help pay for upgrading and maintaining the Primary school generally.  Whether this will be viable is yet to be seen – it seems quite a huge undertaking for the Diocese to fund the project in the first place.

It was surprising that Mrs Bafana seemed unaware of the existence and support of Sibo’s Alumni group of ex-students from the 1980s, and so Sibo explained how they were structured and what they were doing to help.

Over the past years, there had been additional senior girls’ dormitories built, and new classrooms were being constructed. Mrs Bafana explained that the funding for these new buildings, as well as any other improvements to the school, came largely from any profits that were accrued from the boarding fees.  Mrs Bafana asked if there was any money spare in FSJMS coffers, that it would be lovely if we could buy something that would benefit all of the school, not only the bursary girls. We agreed that it would be wonderful but explained that FSJMS funds were becoming more and more difficult to acquire,  that there is less money to go around in the UK, and that even millions of UK citizens are struggling.  But, we would let the committee know about her request so that we could discuss it.

We were shown our rooms in Emmaus, by Mrs Ncube, Fr Ncube’s wife, and Mrs Bafana gave us the freedom to roam about the school as we liked, without escort, in our own time. 

Emmaus is now guest accommodation, with about 7 rooms, the chapel, and a refurbished living room, and is used for things like clergy conferences.

At the Clinic we met Sister Dorcas (a different Sr Dorcas to the one that the Butlers had met in 2017, who is still there, but was not there at that time.)  lthough the building itself is in need of a coat of paint, it was clearly functioning well.  Also at the Clinic was the school’s person in charge of Environmental Health.

The clinic was well stocked and Sr. Dorcas said that they had been lucky in having very few major health problems in the last couple of years. As far as useful items needed, Sr Dorcas thought that the clinic could benefit from a kidney-function testing kit and an Iron-testing kit.

The worst incident recently had been that a cobra had found its way into a dormitory, and into a child’s bed, and the girl had been bitten.  Fortunately, they had anti-venom at school, which had been administered, and the girl was taken to Marter Dei hospital, where she had been recovering well.  As a result, the bases of the dormitory doors were all having strips applied to them to prevent snakes from being able to slip underneath. However, this was a very rare incident that had not happened previously in living memory.  

In the afternoon, we met with our sponsored girls for almost an hour.  They were all clearly quite shy, but gradually they relaxed.  Mrs Ncube had given us their reports for the previous term, and all of them were generally doing well. We had a lovely time, where we talked with them about their aspirations, encouraged them, and asked them to try and let us know how they got on after leaving school.

Next day, we joined school assembly outside the library on a newly paved forecourt, where we learned that the A Level pass rate was 97% A-E, and the O Level Pass rate was 91% - excellent news! We were introduced formally to the girls, who then went off to classes, whilst we continued our look around.

Our first port of call was the church, which looked unchanged, and the Stations of the Cross, painted by Janice Armstrong back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, are still in remarkably good condition, apart from the ones that were painted onto wooden panels which are starting to peel away, a little, around some of the edges.

The graveyard was very overgrown, headstones barely visible, as was much of the grassy area around the whole site, with a few workmen being deployed with slashers to start to reduce the growth as best they could.  IF there was any ‘spare’ money at all, a couple of petrol-powered strimmers would be of great benefit!

Sibo wasn’t feeling well so she went back to Emmaus for a break, whilst Chris found her way to the Food Tech and Textiles rooms and met Esther, who is the Head of the Technology Faculty, and seemed very energised and switched on. We also briefly met a young man called Uriel, also teaching Food Tech.  There is also now a designated Art Room and a full time, enthusiastic Art teacher.

Chris went to see a junior dormitory and the matron, Lingiwe, who had been helping with the Pre-school for many years previously.  She expressed her deep gratitude for the salary she had been receiving from FSJMS whist doing that work.  Now, as Matron, Lingiwe supervises the Form 1s and 2s’ dormitories. Some of them are still in bunks, and some are in single beds, but of course, they are all pretty close together and there’s not a lot of privacy!

Then, the visit to the Primary School, where Stanley Sibanda was at that time Acting Head until a new Head could be appointed. (Since our visit, Leonora Mavingere, a long-time senior teacher at the Secondary School, has been appointed, and she will no doubt bring the primary school forward.) Sibo was feeling much better, so came too.  We met all the staff at once, including Margaret Sibanda, who was one of the 1980s Alumni, now a qualified pre-school teacher, and it was such a treat to see her. The Pre-school is housed in one of the Primary School classrooms. We had a quick look around the classrooms and found that one of the teachers concentrates entirely on the Special Needs pupils, which we thought was a good idea; we also discovered that one 11 year old girl walks 10 miles to school and 10 miles home every day!  And then it was time for the children’s lunch.

The two ladies who cook the lunch had been preparing it in a small building adjacent to the school, and the sadza (a thick mealie-meal porridge) and bean stew were now ready. It was an extremely well-organised affair, with one class coming out at a time, collecting their dish-full and then going back to their classrooms to eat in a very orderly way. It’s a well-oiled machine. 

There are about 12 young children who live too far away for them to walk to school, and these children sleep / board at the primary school in a small shack, with very limited facilities, being looked after by one of the ladies who cooks the lunch. One of the children is a grandchild of hers, which is why she has agreed to come and stay Mondays to Fridays. The living conditions for the children are pretty grim, but if it weren’t for this, they most likely would not be able to attend school at all.

We had come to the end of our all-too-short visit, and returned to Fr Ncube and Mrs Ncube’s house for our final meal of a delicious lunch.  We had been made most welcome and had been very well fed and watered by Mrs Ncube in her home, throughout our time at the school, for which we were very grateful. We left with happy memories and renewed vigour to continue our support for this beacon of hope that is St James Mission and School.

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Friends of St. James Mission and School - FSJMS
Registered Charity No. 1017217