My weekend at the Orphanage Part One

On the 12th-14th of February I was at an orphanage in Lufwanyama, about a 3 or 4 hour drive away from Ndola into the bush, with the Pearse's, Chontay and Malene and Andreas and their little boy Noa.

After the long drive in the rain we finally arrived and were shown where we'd be staying for the weekend. Chontay and I were apart from the others as they were in family dorm room so we were led off to see our room which felt like a ver long trek away. Once we knew where everything was we headed to the orphanage which was about a 15/20 minute walk away down a very pot holey road. When we got there it had started tipping it down with rain. Luckily Melane and Andreas had their car and I'd been in with them but poor Malcolm and Emily arrived pretty wet from the rain. When we had all arrived we were fed Nshima, sausage and sauce and then all the children gathered in the hall  and sat in a big circle whilst the team was introduced. Melane did a session with the children about identifying with Christ and to not be ashamed of the Gospel and being a Christian but to proudly show it to the world. It was so lovely to see so many children so involved in the group and seeing the older kids helping out with the younger ones.


By the end of the evening we had a few of the younger ones asleep and the older ones looking well and truly ready for bed. We headed off in the rain back to our accommodation but between us we had no umbrellas or coats. Just as we were about to reach the gate to the orphanage some of the kids ran out with their rain macs for us to use. To see them with so little but be so willing to give what they had to protect us from the rain really hit me hard and I was so grateful to the little girl Mary who gave me her mac for the night. We trundled back and then Chontay and I realised our mistake. We hadn't really been focused when they showed us the way to our room and now it's pitch black with only torch light to see where we were going. It took us a few wrong turns to finally reach our room. I can't say that it was our finest moments as we realised that we really should have just stayed with Malcolm and Emily in their room as this was a little terrifying.  We went back to their room to get a cup of tea and then headed back off into the dark to our room which really had a creepy feel even after we'd checked every room for bugs and creatures!

Our home for the weekend

Saturday morning we were up nice and early and the first thing we saw in the morning was this very strange exchange happening outside our room's window:

The hand over of a chicken just happening outside our room at 7am 

After that strange start to the morning, we had breakfast with the rest of the team and from there we trundled back to the orphanage for the morning session. It started off with Chontay and I doing some games with the kids to get them up and moving. We found out that Simon says is something that can be picked up very quickly and it wasn't too long before it was getting quite competitive with a lot of the kids pointing out who made a mistake and ratting their friends out if we hadn't quite seen them to try and win! Then Melane did her talk about Water Baptism and a few of the children put their hands up to volunteer themselves to have a water baptism the next day.

The view from The Pearse's room where we ate breakfast and lunch

We had lunch of egg, tomato and avocado sandwiches at the Pearse's dorm room and then before heading back we went into the village a little to get some cold drinks. It was there that was a real challenge. Before now I've felt quite sheltered from the absolute poverty here, as the areas I've been in have seemed relatively ok poverty wise but this was a real shock to the system. It's really tough when you see so many people begging for money and you can't really do anything about it. There are too many people to give money to everybody and so then you feel torn between just giving it to some people and hoping they share it or not giving any at all which just feels horrible and helpless.

After that shock to the system we went back to the orphanage for some more games and Emily stepped up the games by introducing them to the strawberry lace race. It was girls vs boys with small groups of 6 at a time to see who could eat the strawberry lace the fastest without using their hands. It was very close and there was definitely some cheating going on but the girl were eventually victorious which made us very happy, not that we were biased!

I'll split this weekend into two as otherwise it's going to be a very long blog so that was the first half of my weekend at Lufwanyama and the next bit should be up soon :)

xxx

It's been an interesting week

So I started this week as usual in Janna with Jan on Monday and I got to spend time with my Grade 7's as I have been doing. This time seemed like I was fighting a losing battle with trying to get across how to figure out dividing fractions. In the end I'm not sure if I helped much at all but I did try. I've also been taught a lot of bemba recently but as it's the kids trying to teach me I'm struggling to remember it all as it's just been shouted at me at once!

For lunch Jan very kindly took me to the Mint Cafe where I had the biggest lemonade I think I've ever seen. It was also like a slush puppy which was rather strange to try and drink, I felt like I needed a spoon! It was bigger than my head!

I spent the evening with the Pearse's for dinner which was lovely and then once Lucy and Albert were in bed Emily and Malcolm introduced me to Duck Dynasty, a programme about an American family who are the creators of duck calls who made millions and now have more money than sense. It really was hilarious watching the programme and some parts we had to rewind bits because we missed them due to laughing at it so hard. 

On Tuesday Shane and I did some more Bemba stories and got through some other bemba translations that Dan needed done. After we did that Shane and I started to prepare dinner, which in my mind we started ridiculously early at about 3. I was the carrot peeler and onion chopper and I've got to say I think onion chopping is possibly one of the worst things about cooking. But eventually it was all cooked and we had a very nice chicken and rice with a tomatoey sauce although I must say we've still not figured out portions for things like rice and pastas! That night I babysat for the Stonier's and got to watch Bend it like Beckham, which I'd forgotten is such a good film. 

On Wednesday I headed into Kitwe with Emily after a hectic morning of photocopying and printing disasters. We went to both Kawama and Greater Joy for Emily to do her training with the teachers on differentiation and it was lovely to see the teachers so engaged at Kawama. Greater Joy wasn't quite so enthusiastic but we think that that is to do with it being held at the end of the day and they were all tired. We left with plenty of time as we both had plans for the evening, Emily had people coming round and I was cooking bolognese. So with that in mind we were cruising along home when all of a sudden I felt my life flash before my eyes (ok maybe not quite but almost) as the front left tyre, the one right under me as the passenger, decided at that very moment to shred itself to pieces and sent us off course towards the side of the road. Luckily the road was clear and Emily managed to control the car enough to get us safely off the road and to a stop without me fearing for my life. We got out to see the tyre looking like this 

After waiting for a while on the side of the road being honked at and rained on, Jason finally arrived to help us out, after we'd given him the wrong directions of where abouts we were and put the spare tyre on for us as there was nothing in the car in case this happened. It made us very grateful to live on a mechanics site and be friends with the owner of said mechanics site. So by the time we'd got that sorted I didn't end up being able to make my "amazing" bolognese but I did cook the pasta for us which I managed to get roughly the right amount for everyone! I took that as my mini success of the week. 

On Thursday Chontay arrived from the UK. She's a friend of Emily's and is staying for about 2 weeks. We had a big team meal for her that evening and it's really nice to have another person my age be around. 

I'll do a separate post about this weekend as it was quite a different way to spend a weekend but it was a good one. 

Hopefully I'll also be able to catch myself up soon as well otherwise I'll start forgetting what happened!

xxx

Rain rain go away, come again another day

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

Things that I've learnt so far in Zambia

Having been here now for 4 weeks I've seen and heard a few things that would just never happen in the UK. So here's my findings of slightly abnormal to downright terrifying things I've witnessed in Zambia so far:

• It is not uncommon to see goats travelling on the back of bikes by being strapped to them.

• G. Rutherford seems to be the most well known man in Zambia, other than the President, and you can see massive billboards for his advertising company everywhere. Like actually everywhere. There's a roundabout near us that pretty much has his adverts the whole way around the roundabout. He is EVERYWHERE

• Chickens can be seen either wandering the streets or in massive cages, either on the back of trucks or by the side of the road.

• Minibuses will drive along the road and just pick up people on the side of the road, but they don't seem to have a limit of how many people can get in.

• On the same line as that one I've seen several trucks with open backs that are just full of people standing up. I'm sure if the truck had to do a sharp turn for some reason that some of those people would be in danger of falling out.

• Speedbumps. I cannot put into words how frustrating these things are here. First of all, there are just plonked anywhere, there is absolutely no need for the majority of them and in some places you just have three in a row on a completely clear stretch of road. It makes no sense!

• Driving in the dark is not something I'd recommend in the slightest. There are no street lights as far I have seen and people not only drive more stupidly because the police aren't out but they will also just walk out in the middle of the road, sometimes not looking where they are going. It's a disaster waiting to happen. 

• If you are white you are going to be stared at. Also little children will either be really shy around you or they will want to stroke or touch your skin and hair whenever they can. The amount of times I had little children stroking me at Greater Joy on Thursday was ridiculous. Also the word for white person in Bemba is muzungu which is something I've heard a lot since I've been here!

• Bemba is hard. I'm just putting it out there, these kids can speak Bemba and also bits of English and I'm highly impressed by that. It's nothing like English most of the time so I just can't really get my head round it. 

• Drivers are crazy here. They don't have road rage in the same way the British have it nailed down to a fine art but the way the drive is enough to drive me to road rage and I'm just a passenger. When I've mentioned this to someone here they've said that you can often notice a drunk driver as they are the ones driving straight and not weaving in and out of lanes!

• Some people hold phones the wrong way round when answering calls. I'm slightly confused by this as surely the way phones are designed is so that you hear better if you hold it the right way round. 

So, that's a few of the things I've noticed in my first 4 weeks here. They really have flown by!!

Hope you're all enjoying the wet weather as much as me.

xxx

First days in the schools

On the week beginning 11th of January, the schools officially began again, although in these schools at least that's not always the sign that all the pupils will be back. With many students living on farms or visiting family across Zambia, there won't be as many students as they would like to be in school this past week and maybe for a week or so yet, they come in dribs and drabs. And so because of that the Beyond Ourselves team went to the three schools over the course of three days and did some more teacher days. On Monday we were in Janna Community school which is just 15/20 minutes away and this was the first day I got to try Nshima. It looks like mashed potato and I think it is made up of maize and water. It was surprisingly nice although very hot which makes it difficult to eat when the norm here is to eat it with your hands. But as I knew it was going to be something I'd be eating almost every weekday for the next three months I am very grateful that I didn't hate it! 

In all of the schools we did group reflection on the year just gone and then the hopes and dreams of the year to come for their school. It was really interesting hearing all the things that they were hoping for for their schools as it was slightly shopping list but still included hopes for the good of the children and their results in grade 7 and overall safety of the pupils. After lunch we had some team building which was great because the teachers all got quite competitive and it was really fun getting involved and being part the teams in Kawama and Greater Joy, both the teams I was in won which I think was a triumph!

It was definitely a day that you could tell the staff learnt from and it was lovely to get to meet them more after the first staff training day on the Friday before.

xx

Week one - The one where I'm properly settling in

So as I figured I'm not too great at the writing every thing down I thought I would occasionally do my week in pictures and just tell you all a little about what's happening in it/where it is

This is the view out of the window at Janna school, where I started my week. In the not so distant future that whole area will be filled with children running around and playing at break time.

On Tuesday we were at Kawama School and this is the art work that's been done by the teams from Cranleigh School who are linked with Beyond Ourselves.

Here are some of the staff from Kawama waiting for the session to start.

Wednesday had us at Greater Joy, the last of the three schools

We arrived just before the children were let out of school for the day. They were all very excited to see us and we got a lot of highfives and fist bumps. 

On the way back from the market on Friday we drive down a road that, in late November, is filled with bats. Although it's not the right season for them there was still a tree that had it's complete trunk covered in bats

Today was a day of exciting things as I got to visit a local market and Dan, Tim and I bought Chipolopolo shirts (the football team). We also stopped off at chitenge shop and I bought that delightful material I am sporting on my bottom half. I'm contemplating whether I want it to made into a skirt or trousers but I'll figure that out as I go along.

A line of ants!!

On Saturday we drove to Nsobe game park for breakfast and a game drive before we had to drop Tim at the airport. So we had a quick drive around and saw a few animals - I was most excited by the Zebras even though they were so far away you couldn't really see them, but ah well. 

On Sunday we went to Church and had a relatively lazy day as it was pretty overcast and rainy for the majority of the day so the boys and I along with some of the other children in the families around us watch Toy Story 2 and kicked a football around for a bit outside in the few moments of sunshine we had scattered throughout the day.

So that has been my second week in Zambia, I can't wait for the next ones as I'll start to have more of a routine in the next few weeks and it'll be nice to get properly into the swing of things.

xxx

Staff training day

So turns out I'm not very good at the whole update your blog or keeping a journal but I'm going to try my very best to get better at it.

On Friday 8th January we had a relatively early start to the day in order to get to Greater Joy school in Kitwe, which is about 50 mins away, for a staff training day (of sorts). We got to the school with plenty of time to find the first drama of the day being that no one had bought anything for lunch! So with that Emily hooped into the A team mobil and headed off to the shops with Maureen to get enough for everyone and then we began. It was a day of prayer and worship as well as having the visiting pastor and elder from Restore Community Church, where Dan and Melissa are from, doing some sermon-esque teachings on God's love for us and how we are important to God. It was an interesting day as I got to be introduced to the majority of teachers from the three schools however because they all arrived at the same time it was a little overwhelming and I only remembered a few names by the end of it, mainly because they had stuck out or had been specifically introduced to me by a member of the team such as the headteachers and the directors/pastors of the churches. It was a very hot but successful day with a lot of the teachers saying they enjoyed the things that were talked about.

Sadly I have no pictures of this day other than this, but this was the hall that we were in all day so I don't think that's such a bad one, I just need to work on taking more pictures of things

I found it very interesting as the way they pray and worship here is so very different to anything we'd do at home; the worship part of the day was singing which is lovely and can also sometimes involve dancing and then the prayer involves everyone praying out loud at the same time, which I must say, at first I was a little bit daunted by as it's quite a strange situation to find yourself in but I've got used to it.