Mission School at Pemba, Northwest Rhodesia, Africa
By W. H. Anderson
The work here is onward. I have sixty-two boarders in the school, and there are over fifty who come to the day-school from the surrounding villages. I am compelled to carry on all this work with the assistance of a few pupil-teachers. It is hard for me, and the school is not what it ought to be; but it is the best I can do for the present. I ought to have had help two years ago, but I am still alone. My out-stations are equally prosperous, and the three of them have an attendance of over one hundred daily. That number will be greatly increased when I can give more attention to them and the work there. I have two experienced native teachers at two of these stations, but the third is in the hands of novices, and all know what that means in the school-room. However, I try to do the best I can with the material I have to work with. I hope sometime to do better, and we will make things more substantial. I29have some good material as far as a native goes, but it must be trained and disciplined. It was stated that our old Solusi Mission, in Matabeleland, had some teachers for whom they had no work. I visited them on my way north, and selected five to connect with the work here. I will open five new stations in June, and place these teachers in charge of them, and then we shall be able to settle down to heavy work again. I leave next week for a trip around my out-stations, and to do some work in the villages. It means a trip of one hundred twenty miles, and the only means of travel I have is on the back of an ox. I shall be away about ten days. On these monthly trips, I hold services, conduct examinations, and settle all difficulties; they are no holidays, I assure you. I travel by day, and watch to keep the lions off by night. Part of the district I have to pass through is simply infested with these beasts, and I never pass but they come around to see if they can catch us napping. I have left my little girl at the Cape for a few weeks' rest and recuperation. She will return to me with the new missionaries. I was glad of this chance to leave her out of the country during this fever season. The rains have been very heavy this year, and the fever is very bad. I have escaped thus far, but the exposure to the rain and mosquito on this next trip may bring me down. I would like to tell the young people in the home land that the thing that was the greatest blessing to me in my work was that I had no money to go to school, and so had to work my way. The lessons of trust that I learned in school on an empty pocketbook have helped me over many a hard place in the field. What I learned as a cook at the college, as a canvasser, as a tent master, as call-boy and night-watch at the sanitarium, was as much help to me as what I learned in the class room at the school.