Sunday 5 February 2012

Most definitely not Britain then

Haiti where Port-au-Prince is one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, a pretty wretched place for the tens of thousands still living under temporary shelter and tents; where vast pyres of burning rubbish can be seen on most corners, where rivers and canals have become open sewers and cholera is rife.*
"In a little coastal town an hour from the horrors of the capital, a wooden shelter houses several hundred schoolchildren. I sat in the shade of a tree and watched one of their lessons in Creole. Each child was immaculately dressed in clean, ironed clothes. The girls all wore ribbons in their hair and I could see my reflection in the boys' shoes.
Anyone noticed our schoolchildren going to or coming home from school lately?


Just asking.........


* From the print edition (sadly, apparently not on line) of today's Sunday Telegraph in which Ben Fogle pens a short article in his regular Country Diary column, this time about his recent trip on behalf of Shelterbox,  a charity of which he is an Ambassador.

7 comments:

TomTom said...

If you can't wear a uniform properly you are proving your total inadequacy for responsibility and being taken seriously. British Schoolchildren are infantile and become Adolescent "Adults" immature and incapable. Attentuated Childhood and lack of resilience.

Oldrightie said...

TomTom puts it very nicely. Great post and so prescient. Of course asking kids to be kids in the UK is against their human rights, innit!?

Stuart said...

I hold my hand up to my children having unpolished shoes. I will rectify the situation.

IanPJ said...

and so long after the earthquake that devastated that island.

One really should be asking where all the billions in aid have gone and why the children are sitting under wooden shelters to have their lessons instead of pristine school houses.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

TT: Agreed.

Or: Thank you for your kind comment.

S: Don't forget the bit just in front of the heel and behind the sole.....

IPJ: Fair point and not one that I had forgotten. It is just that the point about dress resonated when I recalled seeing the school bus discharging its load of brats this afternoon.

Anonymous said...

I saw a bunch (gang/murder/gaggle/crowd/etc.) of schoolgirls wandering along the high street the other day, and they all seemed to have modified their uniforms in some way.

But what did not make any sense at all, was that none of them was wearing a coat…

The wind was low but icy, and there was snow on the ground…

???

WitteringsfromWitney said...

r_w: I am reliably informed that the cold tends to make a certain part of the female anatomy 'stand out' - you know what schoolgirls are like, anything to attract attention.......