It is breaktime and the playground is full at Baropodi Primary School in the rural Limpopo area of Jane Furse. About 20 young schoolgirls sift through paper thrown on a half-burnt pile of rubbish. They are looking for the cleanest pieces to use as toilet paper.
About four metres away, their peers have already chosen their paper and are sitting on concrete blocks with holes in them, relieving themselves. When the wait for these pit toilets becomes too long, some of the girls squat down in the dirt.
These toilets do not have walls. But no one bats an eyelid at what is happening in full view of the whole playground.
This is one of 16 schools visited by rights organisation Section27 last week, following up on the Limpopo education department's promise earlier this year to build new toilets at 215 desperate schools by July 24 ("Section27 threatens more court action over Limpopo schools", Mail & Guardian, February 15).
The M&G joined Section27 on its trip last week to speak to school governing bodies and found that only one of the 16 schools showed any signs of construction.
