Donate NowMary Wiltenburg, for the Pulitzer Center
Toni (c.) and his classmates - and there are 60 of them with two teachers in one room - at the Mapinduzi school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (Mary Wiltenburg © Christian Science Monitor)
Four-year-old Briton Joseph is so close in age to uncles Bill, 9, and Igey, 7, it's hard not to constantly compare the young illegal alien's life in Tanzania with theirs in the US.
The contrast was much on my mind today [April 17; posting delayed due to Internet access], when I visited Briton, whom all his friends call Toni, in his one-room school in Dar es Salaam.
More than 60 kids, all aged 3 to 5, packed the green-and-white-walled classroom on benches and hard metal chairs. At the front, a large chalkboard displayed numbers 1 through 20. Under the supervision of two teachers, the kids learned mostly by rote, through songs and chants, some of which they demonstrated.