Our first letter to the Jewish Day Primary School

15 February 2014

Dear Fourth Graders of The Jewish Day Primary School,

Our names are Maryam, Dauda, Malick, Alioune, Cheikh, Fatima, Karima, Coura, Mame Anta and Awa. Our teacher’s name is Madam ZamZam. There are 11 students in our class, 4 boys and 7 girls. Our favourite foods are mafe (rice with a peanut sauce and meat and vegetables), pizza, chicken, merguez (spicy sausages) and eggs. We are Muslims. Our religion is Islam. We speak Wolof, Serreer, Bambara (all languages of Senegal), French and English. We are learning Arabic in school. We play regularly football and basketball. We do not have pets.

In our school we wear uniforms. We wear red shirts, beige pants and the girls wear a beige dress jumper. The girls wear a brown or red hijab that covers their hair. The boys do not wear anything on their heads. We wear sport clothes for Physical Education class. It is a brown Adidas sweat pants and brown and yellow striped sports jacket. The girls wear their hijab during the sports lesson.

In Senegal, there is no real winter. We have a rainy season and a dry season. In winter, we wear jackets on top of our clothes. It gets cold. In the summer, we wear lighter clothing. In Senegal, we wear traditional African Senegalese clothing. There are many different types of fabrics that our clothes are made from called wax, thioup, bazin etc. There are certain clothing styles that are popular as well: tye bass, mariniere, chaya, docket, tunique, etc.

We all live in Dakar. The closest person lives 2 minutes away, the furthest 45 minutes. We walk to school, take the school bus or go by car. The school has 3 buses.

Our neighbourhood is called Point E. The school is on a large road filled with huge neem trees, and small plants. There are many cars that pass this road. There are many houses and small shops in this area.  There is a supermarket very close to the school and a plant shop as well. There are small stands that sell coffee and tea, ice cream, coconuts, and fruits and vegetables. You can find people selling breakfast and lunch on the roadside as well. There are a lot of cats in our area and some birds. You can see some cows passing in the road with the cow herder transporting them. You can see elephants, lions, giraffes and other large wild life only in the parks or natural reserves. You cannot see wild life in the road, but you can see sheep, chicken and goats sometimes.

IQRA est une nouvelle école qui s’est ouverte en 2010. Le bâtiment est orange avec un grand mur. Il ya un rez de chaussée, 3 étages et la terrasse. Sur la terrasse se trouve la cantine, ou nous achetons le petit déjeuner, le gouter où nous prenons le déjeuner. Tout le monde ne mange pas à la cantine. Quatre élèves n’y mangent pas ; ils apportent leur déjeuner. Il ya un petit avant cours et un petit arrière cours ou nous jouons. Il ya également un laboratoire de science et une salle de technologie avec des ordinateurs et un vidéo projecteur. Les ordinateurs sont connectes a l’Internet. Il ya une grande bibliothèque. Nos classes commencent avec le préscolaire jusqu’au terminale, de 2 ans a 18 ans. Il ya une seule classe par niveau. Il n’y que 15 élèves maximum par classe. Il ya une petite espace de jeux pour les tout petits qui contient une balançoire et un toboggan.

Our classroom is large. There are many things inside. The classroom is full of colours. There are 11 tables and 11 chairs. There is a bookcase, a window, a glass door and a balcony. We put our bags and water bottles on the balcony. Our class is connected to another class. We have a door that we share. We put our work on the wall. Our class room’s rules are on the walls. We sweep the floor and we arrange the bags during the day. Our teacher has a shelf where she arranges her things. We have a white board. The walls are white. Sometimes we eat our snack on the balcony.

Every day we learn our Holy Book, the Quran except on Fridays, when we have religious discussions about the prophets, how we should behave etc. We have 10 subjects: French, English, Arabic, Science, Social Studies, Islamic Studies, Physical Education, Mathematics, Information Technology, and Quran. We have 7 different teachers but there are many teachers in the school.  Our teachers are from the United States, Senegal, and The Comoros Islands. Madam ZamZam is from The Bahamas. We have class from 8:15 am to 4:30 pm every day except Fridays where we get off at 3:30.

We love our school!