Thursday 24th October
Show Day in Hobart...very cold, wet, windy...
On our Royal Tour
of Sumba we drove for many kilometres towards the area where the pesola (crazy
horse demo)
was to be held. All along
her road were….schoolchildren, walking along the narrow hot bitumen road,
mostly in bare feet. Tiny five year olds
as well as older primary school children…not an adult in sight! Seija and I, both grandmothers, both former
teachers, exclaimed at this. In Sweden,
and in Australia, these children would have been strictly supervised, and
either in a bus, or in a large (maybe 4WD) car, being chauffeured right to the
school doorstep.
And how far did
they walk, in the heat, on the hot surface?
Well maybe only a few kilometers…there was a large elementary school
every five ks, on the dot.
And SO many
children! Seija asked out host, Ansel,
how many children there were in the average Sumba family. “Ten,” he replied, cheerily. He himself has only six daughters. So far…
Education in
elementary schools is free, possibly compulsory?, and the government provides a
uniform for each children. Red and white
for this age group; blue and white for secondary school.
We got a strong
feeling that there is no fertility problem in these islands…no need for IVF…
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