Kids in Ebola-hit area grow bored as schools shut

No school should be every child's dream, but Ebola-hit Liberia's children are so bored after months of school closures that they actually visit their teacherless classrooms every day to meet friends.

It is midday in Buchanan, a port of 35,000 people 110 kilometers southeast of the capital, Monrovia, and Prince David is waking from a nap on the veranda outside his empty classroom.

"I have nothing to do so I came here to wait for some friends. Every morning my mother gives me jobs to do at home, and when I get through I come onto campus to meet friends so we can chat," he said. "That's how we kill the time."

The 13-year-old and his friends probably felt a pang of excitement when the government, hit by the worst Ebola epidemic on record, shut Bassa High and every other school in the country in June.

Now, said the sixth-grader, it's all just getting a little bit boring.

"Really, I am tired sitting here every day while students in other parts of the world are going to school," he said. "I think this is not fair to us. In school they tell us that every child has the right to learn, but we are not learning."

Schools across Liberia were given hope on Thursday when the three-month state of emergency that closed their classrooms was lifted, but there was no word on when pupils would be allowed back to lessons.

Classrooms will reopen "at the time that will be decided by the progress that we make in this fight", President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said, with local authorities consulted and pupils enlisted in cleaning up neglected premises.

Liberia is estimated to have at least 1.5 million school-age children.

Praying Ebola leaves

It's not just school that was canceled under the state of emergency - the government outlawed almost all nonessential public gatherings, and Buchanan has hardly been a playground recently.

"I am not blaming the government, but it is not just fair. We cannot go to school, we cannot play football, no sports, nothing. It is just not fair," a glum Prince said.

Prince's classmates Hawa Sherrif, aged 12, and Musu David, aged 14, sell oranges nearby - partly because they need the money, they say, but also just to get out of the house.

Bassa High is the largest secondary school in Buchanan, with more than 1,000 students.

The new academic year should have started on Sept 1.

Prince's mother, Anita, tries to occupy her son with chores but it is never long before he is finished and heading out the door. "Let us just pray that Ebola leaves Liberia soon, otherwise we will lose our kids to the street," she said.

Buchanan is Liberia's second city. Before Ebola hit, the streets thronged with night life and the constant rattle of brashly painted vehicles arriving for business or pleasure from Monrovia.

Today the clubs and bars are nearly all shut, and while the port remains open and commercial activity still goes on during the day, the streets empty as a night time curfew kicks in.

(China Daily 11/17/2014 page12)