It smells a little of pigeon droppings, and on the desk is the flag of the "new Sudan," the oil-rich, but war ravaged South, which is hoping for independence from the government in Khartoum.
Behind the desk sits Mary Biba, a small, thin 63-year-old with a headscarf, whose appearance does not suggest her past as a rebel leader.
Today she is the only woman at the head of local government in Southern Sudan. As such she has a clear goal: "If we want to build up our country, we have to send the girls to school."
After more than two decades of civil war, the school system in Southern Sudan is totally destroyed. Only about one child in three goes to school, the teachers work for nothing, or for the very little that parents can pay.
Only 16 per cent of girls attend school, since the parents cannot afford it, and because the girls are needed to carry water and to look after their younger siblings.
Because of this situation, the U.N. children's aid organisation, UNICEF, has built 60 primary schools for girls in the Yambio region.
"Boys are even sent long distances to go to school, but girls have to stay at home," said UNICEF spokesman Ben Parker. In total the charity is supporting over 200 girls schools in Southern Sudan.
In a gloomy, straw-covered hut, about 30 girls squat on the mud floor. Only the teacher has any schoolbooks, an English book without a cover and a notebook with maths exercises. He points to English words on the board with a stick, and the girls chant "a goat, a cow, a cat."
For arithmetic every child has a pile of ten little sticks. During breaks they eat the sweet and sticky fruit from the huge mango trees that grow everywhere in Yambio. Others hold hands, sing and dance barefoot in circles.
"Education is the highest priority for out new government," says the district administrator, Mary Biba, "and we will fight for it." But she hardly knows where to start.
Many youths that fought in the SPLA rebel army are now flocking to school in order to finally learn reading, writing and English. The civil administration is still being organised and has no money to pay the teachers.
Many villages around Yambio are hard to reach during the rainy season because the dirt paths turn into muddy channels. There are no paved roads. Eventually oil money should arrive, as agreed in the peace treaty, but that might take time.
There still is no unified syllabus. Even the question of which language should be spoken and taught is a political problem.
"We have many tribal languages," explained Mary Biba, "but everyone can communicate in Arabic."
However Arabic is the language of the Islamic North that the Christian and Animist South wanted to separate from.
English or Kiswahili, which is widespread in East Africa, could be alternatives, but until independence is achieved, Southern Sudan will not be able to do without Arabic.
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