Baldé was born in Saraya and the village’s only primary school, where he attended, had only three classrooms. Students from two grades would alternate morning and evening classes every week. The primary school Baldé attended is no longer functioning due to the bad condition of the building.
About a decade ago the community received some help to built another three classrooms not far from the old building. However, the village hasn’t qualified to have a middle school due to the absence of sufficient classrooms. A minimal number of six classrooms is required by the ministry of education. For over sixty years, youths from Saraya have to leave their home as soon as the finish 6th grade to attend middle school or walk about 25 kilometers to the closest middle school in order to stay close to home. Baldé is part of the association of elders from Saraya; for years the association has been looking for opportunities to build more classrooms for the Saraya School to allow the future opening of a middle school.
Following an invitation from the association of elders of Saraya, we left Conakry for Saraya on December, 31st, 2018 around 10 am. After a day of driving across the bad roads of Guinea we arrived in Saraya around 7:20pm. The same night the local leaders based in Saraya came to see us for a meeting. Everything was prepared that night so that we could have more time the next day to visit the school site and spend some time with the community discussing the future project. Our New Year’s Eve was spent enjoying the stars and the amazing breeze of Saraya. The lack of electricity was compensated by nature. Our second day in Saraya went by as planned. We really enjoyed the hospitality we received in Saraya and can’t wait to go back to help them build their school.
