Going Home - Doris May Lessing [59]
A broken-down motor car was settling into its parts among the mealies. ‘You see—they are getting rich—they have motor cars these days.’
I have seen many bad compounds, but never one as bad as this; and when my host said: ‘They are picturesque, aren’t they?’ I said I didn’t think they were picturesque.
Whereupon he said that this was the first time he had actually taken a look at this compound; and if one had farm managers one expected them to take the responsibility; one had to see to everything oneself these days, or nothing was done. But perhaps some brick huts would be built here—yes, it was time there were some brick huts.
The farm manager looked a little quizzical at this, but said nothing.
In front of the compound, between it and the grading-shed, were a big water-tank and a water-tap, which was the sole supply for all these people; and the women and the children were standing in the mud puddles around the tap waiting for their turn to draw water.
The whole place smelt bad and wet; it smelt of heavy, damp vegetation, of chicken droppings, of souring porridge. There were no latrines or showers in the compound.
I asked the boss-boy privately if there was any one thing that the people of the compound wanted more than another, and he replied with simplicity: ‘Higher wages.’ So I said, ‘Yes, but apart from that?’ He said: ‘We want the doctor to come, because our children cough all the time.’
In the meantime my host was urging me to go and see how the children were being educated. For he was paying a teacher £6 a month so that the children could be taught.
In a corner of the grading-shed was the class. About twenty children sat on the floor among piled bales of tobacco. They were of all ages, girls and boys, in their ragged pants and shirts, their ragged dresses—barefoot, of course. They were the children we had already seen working. The teacher, a cheerful and enthusiastic pedagogue, was repeating the syllables of the Shona language again and again, while the children chanted them after him. He wrote the syllables on the blackboard, which was the top of a packing-case, with a bit of chalk. The children had pebbles for the purposes of counting, and bits of torn schoolbooks lay about. They had to pay for their own books.
There was a single yellowish electric-light bulb glowing down from the rafters of the shed.
It was a very cheerful class; both teacher and scholars were proud to have visitors, and the little hands were shooting up in answer to every question: ‘Yes, teacher,’ ‘Me, teacher,’ ‘Please, teacher.’
It seems that these children go to class every afternoon at four or five o’clock after their day’s work for a couple of hours’ education; but my host said it was a pity I could not see them at week-ends, when they are at their best, for they do marching and games under the teacher.
‘And so,’ he said, ‘you must not say that nothing is being done for the children, because all the tobacco farmers have schools on their farms now.’
I tried to get the figures later from one of the publicity men for child labour, but was unable to do so. It appears there are no figures. Child labour is extensively used on the farms; and in the towns children work as house servants. But it is expected that within five years all the children in the towns will get some sort of education.
I also asked the publicity man if there was any sort of control of these private compounds; he said there was regular inspection, and the conditions were ‘pretty good’ these days.
When I paid a visit to my own district, Lomagundi, some weeks after this, I was on another tobacco farm, and asked how many children were employed. My hostess did not know; she thought sixty or seventy children. ‘But these days