Welcome back to our new feature about meeting our students. Before I get into introducing you to Wolter, I want to give you an update on what is going on in Tanzania and specifically our school. Tanzania is reporting 32 cases of Covid-19 which is up from 12 when I left just shy of two weeks ago. They have had 3 deaths associated with Covid-19. The first wave of locusts seems to be turning into the second wave threatening an already battered agriculture industry in East Africa.
The school remains closed per government orders though it would be closed right now due anyway due to mid semester break. The teachers have all turned in very nice activity packets for the students that have been printed and delivered through a no-contact system for the students to work on during their break. We plan additional packets though it is doubtful we will meet my original expectation of weekly because of the time involved in getting them typed up and printed without my being there to help. We are having the new playground equipment the Mauldin UMC Men’s Fellowship donated installed Monday.
Ok, I have you caught up on things in Tanzania, I would like to introduce you to Wolter sometimes spelled Wolther which is common in Tanzania for a person to have multiple spellings of their names on official documents. It is also common for people to have multiple names (one per document) on different document which can make things confusing for an outsider. Wolter’s name is pronounced similar to the English Walter.
Wolter is a Standard 1 student who has been with us since the first year of the school. He normally breaks into the top three students once maybe twice a year but mainly is in the top ten all year. His overall grade typically bounces between a B and C using the USA grading scale.
Wolter comes from the Msitu Wa Tembo area (which stands for Elephant Bush area) which is a village just outside of the TPC Sugar Plantation. So he is about 5 miles away from our school and his parents are farmers.
Wolter has a calm demeanor and it is rare to see him acting out or running around crazy. Though he does enjoy chasing things on Friday during sport time. His English skills verbally are typically better than they are written. He is really good with his greetings to people.
While Wolter likes to hang out with me he is not one of the students that finds it necessary to crawl up in my space which makes it easier to play games with him. As I mentioned before he loves to chase things down, which is good because he desperately needs to work on his catching skills when someone throws him the ball.
One of the things that is most impressive about Wolter is that he keeps himself clean despite eating with his fingers, running in the dirt and just a general space that is almost impossible for a child to keep themselves clean. It is not just about he does stay clean but that he actually seems to care about doing so at his age.
Steve and Barnabas 
What a cute fellow! 💕
Sent from my iPad
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