C2002 My school

When I was in primary school, there was no school in our village. I had to walk 3 kilometers to the next village to go to school. The first two years I went to my great-grandmother’s house for lunch at noon. Later, when my great-grandmother passed away, I had already learned how to ride a bicycle, so I went home for lunch. I cycle four times a day.
My elementary school is a very small school. It is a rectangular building with 6 rooms. One for each class and one for the office.
The staff consisted of 6 people, 5 teachers, one for each class and a handyman for school maintenance. There is no principal; one of the teachers combines this role with his teaching responsibilities. Students had to help the school with repairs. Each class is divided into groups, and each group has to clean up to maintain order for a week. Occasionally, we have to help with the maintenance of the school grounds, such as weeding, cleaning the yard, planting flowers and so on. Once a year, we had to polish the desks with glass shards; no sandpaper.
There was no electricity, no telephone, no running water. Water is drawn from a well on campus.
No computers, no printers, no copiers. The principal typed his own letters on a manual typewriter. When he needed several copies, he would type two or three at a time using carbon paper between two sheets. When he needed multiple copies, he made a stencil on a special paper and embossed it; the embossed paper was then wound around a cylinder that could be covered with ink and rolled on a sheet to to print. Older students help the principal with the printing work.
There is no physical education teacher. There is a badminton court, a volleyball court, a bunker for long jumps and high jumps, some parallel bars and an open field where we played soccer, but no coaches. The only exercise we did regularly was stretching in the morning; the class leader had to lead the rest of the class in stretching.