My School and My Village
Primary 3 · Social and Religious Studies
My School and My Village
Lesson 2 of 3
13 min
Mutesi's mother wakes her early. She says: today we have four jobs. We must get Grandmother's medicine, buy tomatoes for supper, collect the paper for your new baby cousin, and be at church by four o'clock.
Mutesi counts on her fingers. Four jobs — but they will not all happen in the same place.
Let us walk with her and find out which place is for which job.
Some things you can carry home in your hands: a tomato, a bar of soap, a jerrycan of water. We call those goods.
But when the nurse listens to your chest, you cannot put that listening into a basket and carry it home. When a leader writes your baby cousin's name in the official record, you cannot eat it for supper.
That kind of help is called a service. A service is work that somebody does to help other people. Your village has special places where you go to get a service.
This is where you go when a body is not well.
The market is loud, crowded and full of colour.
Some families walk to a church, others to a mosque.
This is the office where the leaders of your area work.
Your village joins with other villages to make a cell, and the cells join to make a sector. That is why one sector office serves many villages, not only yours.
Let us go back to Mutesi's four jobs and take them one at a time.
Job 1 — Grandmother's medicine. Say the need: Grandmother must be checked and given medicine. Which place gives that service? The health centre. The market sells food, not medicine for a sick body.
Job 2 — tomatoes for supper. The need is food to buy. The place where people buy and sell food is the market.
Job 3 — the paper for the new baby cousin. Careful here! The baby was born at the health centre, so many children answer health centre. But read the need again: the family needs an official paper with the baby's name on it. Official papers are written at the sector office. That is the right answer.
Job 4 — be at church by four o'clock. The need is to pray and to meet with others. The place is the place of worship.
Now the rule, which you just used four times: first say the need in your own words, then ask which place gives that service. Never pick a place only because it is close by, or because something once happened there.
Tip
Four fingers, four places. Touch one finger for each:
Say the need first. Then choose the place, and tap Show answer to check.
Ishimwe must show a paper proving the day he was born, so that he can be registered for P1. Where does his family get it?
Answer: The sector office. The need is an official paper (the birth certificate), and official papers are made at the sector office.
Habimana has coughed for two weeks and now his chest hurts. Where should he go?
Answer: The health centre. The need is a sick body that must be checked and treated.
Your family needs a kilo of rice, some salt and a bar of soap.
Answer: The market, or a shop near your home. Both of them sell goods, and goods are things you carry home.
On Sunday morning many neighbours walk up the hill together, dressed smartly and singing. Where are they going?
Answer: To a place of worship. The need is to pray and to meet together.
A water tap in your village has been broken for a whole month and nobody has repaired it. Your parents want the leaders to know. Where do they take the problem?
Answer: They tell the village leader first, and the problem is carried to the sector office, because the sector office is where leaders work and where problems from the villages are heard.
What you learned today
Quick check
Match each need to the place that serves it.
Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.
