Rain School

A tribute to the determination and creativity of schoolchildren in Chad, Africa finds young Thomas enthusiastically looking forward to the many opportunities of an education before arriving with his classmates to find no school and a teacher who invites the children to help in its construction.
The children arrive on the first day of school and build a mud structure to be their classroom for the next nine months until the rainy season comes and washes it all away.
It is the first day of school in Chad, Africa. Children are filling the road. "Will they give us a notebook?" Thomas asks. "Will they give us a pencil?”"Will I learn to read?" But when he and the other children arrive at the schoolyard, they find no classroom, no desks. Just a teacher. "We will build our school," she says. "This is our first lesson."     James Rumford, who lived in Chad as a Peace Corps volunteer, fills these pages with the vibrant colors of Africa and the spare words of a poet to show how important learning is in a country where only a few children are able to go to school.