Boiled cabbage and one candy for dinner
“Whose sister are you? Who are you visiting here? These questions are asked to everybody who enters the Salibauri boarding school. The first question to the Human Rights Center was the same.
When they learned that the visitor was a journalist they concluded: “Have you come here because we were ordered to clean our classrooms? Parent of our schoolmate Irakli Zakaradze sued the school and now they do not make us clean the rooms.” The school has always had four cleaners.
“The pupils of this school should clean their classrooms; they should sweep the floor, bring water from the stream and bring fire-wood as well… I am one of those parents whose children lived in Batumi boarding school. However, when I arrived there and saw a little girl carrying water in a huge bucket from the stream and a teacher looking at her from the hill who hurried her up I grabbed my two sons and despite hard life of my family and took them home. I can take care of my sons but what tens other children shall do there; they are losing their childhood,” said Nona Zakaradze, a resident of Khelvachauri.
The first thing we saw in the boarding school was empty benches under trees. There was only one iron round-about/ Children do not play there during the breaks either unlike the pupils of ordinary schools. The pupils of this boarding school have different problems.
“It was worse before. We were forced to clean classrooms. I had to sweep the room and bring water… one pupil moved from here because we were made to do housework. After that we do not do it,” said Ana.
-Whose sister are you? Who are you visiting us?
-Are you a journalist? Will we be shown on TV?
-I wonder how I look on the screen,- Luka in the sixth form is asking.
-Now we have Math. Will you enter our classroom?
-Soon the term will finish and I will go home, said Megi.
Several children gathered around us and started looking with sad eyes. Suddenly the teacher cried out:” It is time for lesson, go into the classrooms.”
The children do not want to go.
The first sixth form has music lesson. The teacher allowed us to attend the lesson. The pupils had to read a text about jazz.
There are desks, chairs and brown blackboard in the classroom. The walls seem to be painted long before. The windows used to have glasses before but now only some of them have it. There is a torn cloth in one corner. Luka explained to us in whisper; “We change our clothes behind it.”
The second sixth form has Math lesson. The voice of the teacher is heard in the corridor too. “Be quite! Cannot you be quiet?” Through a hole of the door we could see the teacher leaning her head on her hands who rather looked like a supervisor in the army than Math teacher.
When we asked the children what their main problem most of them complained about the teacher of physical training. “He gives a ball to us only during the lesson. Other time he does not give us the ball saying we might lose it… When the next school term starts will you bring us a ball and badminton?”
Older children complain about the library of the school. “There are only old books published during the Soviet Union. We are not interested in them.” However, the director boasts about the computer class which is locked for children; there are 18 computers in it. The director claimed children want only to chat on computer and they do not care about books.
Different Menu
Director and children have different opinions about the kitchen and menu of the boarding school. When we asked the children what they eat, they did not mention meat and fish. However, Director Sergo Khorzevanidze said: “We spend 3, 5 GEL on each child. On the weekend we do not keep them here, they leave school. On Friday they do not have supper on Friday and breakfast on Monday. According to the funds they are served with meat, fish and sausages during the week.
Director said that at 12:00 pm the children have rolls with cacao or juice for lunch. The children had to have lunch when we were at the boarding school however they were at lessons. At that moment the kitchen was being cleaned. The chef said they clean kitchen every Friday. We attended the dinner, but there was no meet, fish and sausages. Children ate boiled cabbage and one sweet.
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