Pikeliai is a small rural village,near the Mazeikiu Nafta refinery. One of the locals working at MN, Aurelija, was a teacher at the village school before being hired in her current capacity in admin. Her income now has far exceeded her previous income as a teacher.
Aure continues to volunteer at the school on the weekends. This a grade 1- 10 school, so the age range is wide, with a total population of about 70 students, though I am told maybe 50 attend on any given day.
Through her ongoing involvement, Aure learned about one of her former students who required a bicycle as transportation for the 5 kms to school and so Aure purchased a bike for one of him. In hearing about this other MN crew chipped in and they were able to present 6 new bikes to other needy kids from the area as well. This was viewed as huge event in this little village, with the local parish priest presiding and the
press in attendance for the presentation. I had heard about this after the fact through the American admin folks at MN when I first met Aure and so struck up a conversation with her about it when we had a MN celebration for the successful raising of the one of the refinery towers. (Aure is the one leaning over my shoulder)
Cheryl and I had talked about volunteering to speak English to the students in the Mazeikiai school for the gifted.
So I wondered aloud if there was something we could at this school instead or in addition. Aure took my interest very seriously and the next Wednesday, we were on our way out to the school to meet with the students, teachers and director! We had no idea what to expect...in fact we had originally thought this would just be a quiet fact finding tour with some discussion about where we could best help out. Instead, we were the eagerly awaited main attraction of the week!
All of the students and their teachers came in to one classroom to shake our hands and introduce themselves. The grade 1 kids sang a little song for us, as did the grade 10s.
We then sat with the older kids and let them ask questions, which they did very shyly and answered some of our own. We got into a bit of a discussion with them about what they saw the needs of the school to be and as a result they gave us a tour.
Here you can see the change room, the gym and the equipment room, jut to get an idea of how "bare bones" this facility was. ...the lone basket ball, the hula hoops and table tennis set, was all they had in terms of sporting equipment.
I doubt that it occurred to them that something was lacking though. They had a computer lab, with about 6 old desktops, but only 2 were working and apparently only 1 was set up with internet access. They seemed to take this as a matter of course.
The teens were more interested in a place that they could go in between classes, a room that would allow them to relax and socialize some place other than in the corridors or outside (especially when it was cold out.) I doubt that we can realistically do anything about this, but coming up with computers, or sporting equipment might be a tangible and attainable goal. Despte the lack of glitsy equipment, the students seemed happy and attentive, albeit a bit unknowledgeable about the outside world.
The kids asked that we come back again as they felt it was good to have this opportunity to hear and practice english. We agreed that we would return each Thursday afternoon if possible.
In the meantime, one of the boys who had been sitting apart from the group the entire time remained behind when the rest of the students left for home. Aure explained that this was the boy to whom she had given the bike. She wanted us to see how he and his siblings lived. He had apparently taken the bus to school that day and had missed it by staying to meet with us while we toured. We agreed to give him a ride but were a little surprised about her insistence on actually going to his home. Enroute I asked him why he had not ridden his new bike to school. He sheepishly replied through Aure, that he had been too tired to ride that morning. I asked what time he had gone to bed and he said after midnight....Aure interjected that there were often no parents around to intercede and ensure decent bedtimes.
Both parents were alcholics. The family lived very remote from the village and the only mode of transportation (other than the bicycles now) was a horse that the father sometimes used for itinerant farm labouring jobs . The parents would often go on drinking binges with friends and not return home for several days. There was no running water in the home, all water was drawn from a well. Three children - boys 14 and 11, and a little girl, 6, lived with the parents in the 3 rooms...a tiny cooking area, a bedroom and a living room/storage area.
As we drove down winding dirt roads further and further out in to the countryside, Aure told us that the children had been taken away once from the parents but had eventually been returned with the condition that there would be regular "check ups" from the authorities. Those check ups had apparently now ceased. The oldest boy was of an age to start to realize that this was not how he wanted to live and had come to the notice of a kind neighbor woman who was willing to help clean the children and their clothing, and provide some lunches to take to school, if possible.
As we drove up the path we saw a little urchin riding along on a bike in what appeared to be pajama bottoms. This was the youngest sibling. When asked why she had not been at school, her brother said she had not attended for the previous 3 days due to black eyes!.
Upon driving into the yard and seeing the mother sitting on the stoop, I was a bit leery....... strangers showing up at this home demanding to be let inside to look around. Aure was insistent though and spoke to the woman and reassured her that we were not from the authorities. This is what we saw...
The main room room had rotting ceilings and walls, flies buzzed around the heaps of dirty clothing and canned goods clogging the area. the clothing apparently had been
donated to the family by many concerned community members and teachers, but with no running water and very little sober interest from the parents, they were never washed. The kids had lice and stunk most of the time, thereby causing the other children at school to isolate or avoid them.
The boys slept out on the couch in the main room.
The cooking area was cramped and filthy, but provided the heat for the entire home via the woodburning stove.
Note the matching black eyes sported by mother and daughter.
The bedroom had an extra cot at the foot of the parents bed, on which the little girl slept at night.
In retrospect, I know that this family is representative of similar situations that can be found everywhere...only need to go outside Calgary to one of the natives reserves, for instance....or any major inner city slum. It has just been many years since my early social work career when I was more frequently exposed to this type of poverty and neglect at a close level.
I don't know what we are going to do and really am not sure that there is much we can really do that would have a lasting effect. We will not be here forever and this is a situation that will require long term solutions. Anything we could "donate" directly would run the risk of being spent or sold for drinking money. A washing machine won't assist when there is no indoor plumbing. Having the children taken away could lead to their institutionalisation and they do not want to leave their family. The best hope in my mind is to provide as many safe options for them as possible...until they are of an age to make some choices and decisions on their own. Education and exposure to "another type of life" is probably the key to their escape from the cycle, but the only way to ensure they attend school is likely with the assistance of the kind interested neighbor lady and Aure.
