For the past few weeks now we’ve been having an awful lot of rain. Well I think it’s a lot but in reality it’s less that what Zambia is used to at this time of year. That being said I have been out in the rain a few times now and it’s not so fun. With the usual wetness of the rain plus the added bonus of having muddy feet constantly which is just a bit of an inconvenience really. But it is good for the crops and the farms so I can’t complain too much.
Last week has been similar to my other weeks, I’ve been in Janna School on Monday and Tuesday in the Grade 7 class doing fractions and English lessons. I am having serious flashbacks from primary school trying to figure out how to add fractions together with different denominators. Although me remembering how to do it is easy in comparison to me trying to explain to the kids who just aren’t getting it how to do it.
On Wednesday I had to go to immigration to sort out my work permit which was a bit of a hassle but I wasn’t expecting it to be easy by all means. However the thing that did get to me was that the immigration officer thought I was about 14 but ah well. I’m sure I’ll be grateful for looking young one day. After that headed off to Kawama with Mike and Jan and got to spend some time in the nursery and reception class which was a nice change for me as I’ve only really been around the older kids. The language barrier is definitely more prevalent in these classes though as they are just learning English now so there was a lot of hand gestures and smiles but I just about managed. I also made a trip into the little village near Kawama and it reminded me just how friendly Zambian people are. In London if you didn't know someone you might smile if you made eye contact but most of the time you're keeping your head down and not talking to anyone. Here it's the complete opposite. I think putting their friendliness together with us being white we got a lot of attention, it took a lot longer to get to the shop Mike needed because everyone kept saying hello and asking how we were.
Also today, Shane arrived to stay the week whilst Melissa goes to Cape Town. She's helping with looking after the boys and also just so there's someone else in the house to help Dan with things around the house like the cooking. We had one very exciting thing that happened today though, Ben took proper steps across a room!!! This may sound exciting enough but this is huge for him, even just time that I've been here we've seen him move on to needing two hands to hold him up to one finger and now walking all by himself! We were all very proud of him.
Thursday was an admin day. Shane and I worked on putting Bemba stories together for phonics for the schools to use. This probably wasn't my strongest point what with me having very little Bemba at all (although I am learning!), but I tried to help fill out the stories and we worked on them in English as well so she could translate them.
Friday was an exciting day as I did my first ballet classes for some of the girls of families from the church here. I hadn't realised I'd missed teaching until I was there doing the exercises with them and it gave me flashbacks of RCDS and I tried my best to channel my inner Becky and Miriam. But I think it was a success and the girls all enjoyed themselves and I also had my two glamorous assistants Lucy and Sanka who helped me with the music and did some dancing as well! That evening we had a slight dinner drama as Dan invited a family over for dinner but between us we didn't know how much spaghetti to do for each person. So we thought, ah Jill's a mum, she'll know how much to do! However this was our slight downfall as she wasn't 100% either so we ended up doing almost a whole package for 9 of us, with 4 of them being small children. By the end of dinner we had a bowl of spaghetti left over. But we treated it as a learning curve and we'll know better for next time!
The same as the last few Saturdays now, I went swimming with the Pearse family in the morning and as with every time I've been so far, I've realised that swimming is not my strongest sport but I'm going to work on it! After that we had a brunch at the Pearse's house as there was a family who have just come back from the US and go to church so we had bacon, eggy bread, fruit and lots of juice and milkshake.
Sunday is church day and so at 9am we were in the hall again at the service which was really nice. Then after church Jacob and I had a writing session on the porch with some stones whilst enjoying the sunshine. We made all of our names and he spelt them out and helped with his name telling me gleefully that J is for Jacob!
I ended my Sunday with lunch at the Stonier's (Claire and Jason next door) with a roast dinner which included YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS!! This was a very exciting part of the meal for me and it was also Shane's first time having them so it was interesting to see her reaction to this very British thing!
So that's been my 5th week in Zambia in a nutshell. Hope you're all well and you're all having good weeks.
xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment