Dingo Pingo is excited to enjoy one more classroom discussion before he must return to the United States. He wants to see his brother Jacob again. But he will miss Mrs. Nnakku’s social studies discussions.
Dingo follows Justinian into the classroom. Mrs. Nnakku is ready for the students. They have grown during this term. She is happy with their progress. She is ready for Dingo and Justinian to lead the discussion today.
The questions fly about the room. Even Sijui has lots to ask. Her glasses reflect the light from the windows. She is now sitting in the front row. Dingo remembers the first day when he found her sitting quietly in the back of the room. She has grown.
Dingo reports, “We found book about blankets in the library!”
“What did you learn?”
“Everyone needs blankets! Everyone makes blankets! They are all different.”
”Do we make blankets here?”
“Why do we need to import them?”
“Why import when we can make them ourselves?”
“Why don’t we make blankets here and export?”
“We grow so many pineapples at home. Uganda’s climate is perfect for pineapples. We don’t import them. That’s good. But why don’t we export them?
“We read a book about salt!”
“But it is not a book about salt in Uganda. We need a book about the salt industry in Uganda.”
“We have salt in Katwe, near the elephants of the national park in the west. There they make salt by hand. There was even a salt factory.”
“Now we have only salt coming from outside. We import the salt that we eat.”
“We can make salt here! Why do we import?”
The students find the most important questions are the questions that begin with WHY.
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