More Pictures!

I didn't think that a nine year-old girl could ask me a question that would fill me with such sadness and make me reflect on life on general, but that is exactly what happened a few nights ago at dinner. I was sitting next to Beatrice, and throughout the meal, she was peppering me with questions: do you have a dog? How many sisters do you have? What is your favorite vegetable? But her second question broke my heart: do you have a mother? It was a question asked in passing. Only five words. But I cannot describe the impact that it made on me. Most of these kids are orphans, but there are some whose parents are in jail. Others have been abandoned. It breaks my heart that we live in a world where little children cannot assume that you have a mother. She is only nine, yet she has already gone through so much. I don’t know any nine year-olds in the States who would not assume that you have a mother. A child might have parents who are divorced, but he would at least have a mother. Here, you cannot assume this. 

School let out today for three weeks. I'm going to miss those students from the community. During the break, we short-termers will be organizing activities for the kids who live in the Rafiki village.

I also have a prayer request; the water situation here is critical; We are having water shortages in the Rafiki Village. It is the dry season in Zambia, and sometimes that means water challenges, but now they suspect a leak. It’s been difficult, as we are worried that we will run out. Please pray that they are able to locate and fix the leak and have enough water in general. It’s been an adjustment for me personally, since this means that we can’t take daily showers or do laundry. Please also pray for everyone in the village to maintain uplifted spirits and attitudes of grace and unity as they are experiencing these challenges and difficulties.

Last Sunday, I had the privilege of being invited to visit with two of the teachers, Pauline and Mackley. They picked me up, and we walked from village to village, visiting their homes and the homes of several of the day students. I got the chance to go into many of their houses as well. It was very neat to be able to meet the students' families. There was so much to take in and process and remember. It's a completely different world out there, even from the Rafiki village. It is a common saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, so I am not going to describe the surrounding areas right now in detail. Instead, I will post pictures to give you an idea.

This is what it looks like outside of the village. Please note the beautiful shade of the dirt. 

I'm not being sarcastic here: I really do like the color of the dirt. It lends character to this place.

This is one of the little shops along the road. 

This is the interior of one of the shops. Well, part of the interior. I thought the wall of cloth looked neat, so I had to take a picture. 

This is Chipego (the one holding the toddler). She is a day student in the kindergarten class. 

The main road outside of the Rafiki village is being repaired. (Which is nice, because it makes it a lot less dusty.) These road workers saw me taking pictures and started waving and yelling. They wanted me to wait "for permission," which I infer meant to wait until they could gather around and pose. 

The posed shot.

Some women hand-washing their clothes.

These people were building a house. The second time I passed it, I saw a little boy wearing a hard hat.

Mackley demonstrating how a water pump works. 

Another picture to give you a feel of what the surrounding area looks like.

Some friends of Mackley's.

The local bar. Loud music in English emanated from a radio there.

Oh, how I would love to master this skill.

The first time I saw an ox cart, it was a slight "culture shock." It was my first weekend here, and one drew up outside of the kitchen to deliver supplies.

Pictures!

Hello! I have the strong urge to act like the terribly cliche, overly enthusiastic traveler and post some greeting in the local language, demonstrating my profound lack of knowledge of that language. But I shan't. Because I'm like that. Well, and because the only phrase I know I learned today, and it means "Good morning." And it's 7:38 at night here... That and you all would want to know what the name of the dialect is... And I don't know how to spell it. :D I did get one of the boys, Lackson, to agree to help me learn some of the local dialect while I am here. 

Anyways, here are some pictures! (Assuming that I can get this to work. I've never tried posting pictures on a blog, and I am technologically illiterate.)

So IF these have uploaded... The first two when put together show the entire school. There are 72 kids here in the village (and almost all are enrolled in school), and there are... I think 34? students who come for school from the community. There are twenty kids in"my" Kindergarten class. Eleven of them are from the community. They are a handful but very sweet!

Update: one of the pictures is messing up the format, so you can see part of the school in the picture below. 

This is Mapalo. He is a day student. He wears this little worried expression--until he smiles. He was making faces, so I had to take this picture.

This is Mackley, the Kindergarten teacher. 

This is Isaac: he's in the preschool class. He is the most laid-back, smiliest preschooler I have ever met. 

This is Esther. This picture does not do her smile justice. Her smile is about three times as big in person. I wanted to capture her beautiful smile, but she wouldn't smile as big when I whipped out the camera. A lot of the kids will pose when I pull out the camera, so I had to tell Isaac (see picture above) to get back into his natural pose, because he started to straighten and grin, because he saw me coming with my camera. 

This is Patrick. He likes to play with my hair. I was kneeling next to him, when I felt a hand pulling on my hair. I turned, and he was laughing and rubbing my hair against his cheek. I have been asked: "Is that the hair you were born with?" Meaning, "Have you ever cut it?" And "Have you ever cut it short?"

This is Dalitso. He is in the Kindergarten class.

There is so much to write about, that I don't even know where to begin. The last few days have been quite full and amazing. I love it here. Even the spiders aren't bothering me as much. After the first night, I adjusted. (I slept with the lamp on the first night... Some of the kids found out about it and thus commenced the spider jokes. Haha.)

These kids will smile and laugh about anything and everything. One of the kindergartners, Esther, smiles bigger than any other person I have ever seen. She smiles with her entire mouth. And if she smiles for more than three seconds, she begins to giggle. I plan to post pictures of her tomorrow when I take them at the school.
The people here are so welcoming, friendly, and smiley, and I love them for it. They are so genuine. It's so refreshing, coming from the States. And when the kids sing, they SING. They know how to "rock the house." They also chant their lessons, LOUDLY. I love it.

I've hit it off with the kids I've met. A few of the boys invited me to join them Saturday morning to play baseball and football. It'll be awesome! Though... I can't run well in a skirt. They keep checking to make sure that I'm coming. And then one of the boys invited me to an all-boys' pj party. To which I replied, grinning, "Do I LOOK like a boy to you?" which set off a wave of giggles. They still tried to get me to come.

Today was my first day teaching. I've been scheduled for three classes a week at two different grade levels--kindergarten and Class 2. (They call them "class" instead of "grade.") I teach Reading for the kindergarteners (and help in the classroom for the other four hours) and Art and Reading for Class 2. I'm reading World History right now. After this week, there are two full weeks of school before their break, but school starts back in July, so I'll be able to teach again. (During their break, I will be busy hanging out with the kids and helping with G.A.M.E.S, which is like their V.B.S.) I'm very excited to have this opportunity. Lydia is on a similar schedule--she is teaching Art and reading for Class 1, and helping in the preschool class. We also attend devotions with the Rafiki staff at 7:30 in the morning, and we help in the library every day after school. I eat lunch and dinner at the common dining hall. The food is good. One of the common foods is this white... I don't quite know how to describe it, and I'm not sure how to spell the name. It's fluffy, very thick, and made of maize. It's mostly tasteless but good. They also have a green here that is very common called rape. (Yes, I know it sounds bad, but that's what it's called.) It's a bitter, good green.

The culture shock is surprisingly mild, even though it really is a completely different world here. I really don't have much jet lag, either. Really, the hardest thing to adjust to is having an entire table of kids stare at you as you eat. There are little things throughout the day that will surprise me or remind me that I'm no longer in the States. For example, I kinda forgot that the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. And when Irene went to pay for the airport parking, she was informed that they had no exact change. And the phrase "African time" is a reality over here. The village director got married last Saturday, and an hour-and-a-half into the wedding, he still had people coming in.

God has already been teaching me so much. He's been teaching me what things in life are really important--not the petty, infantile worries, like what people think of me and my personal appearance and my insecurities. I can't describe the wonderful, freeing feeling that accompanies this. I think as a teenager and technically an adult, I, and many others in my age range, are beset with these insecurities. Really, a lot of people are. It's very noticeable in America. And it defines us. And once something defines you, it begins to change you. And then it becomes the hamster wheel. Here, I am able to smash the wheel.
God is also teaching me not to take things like electricity for granted. We do have electricity at the village, but it goes out quite frequently. It usually only goes out for a few minutes, and there is a generator at the village, but it's still a reminder. I've also been doing devotions and praying much more again. It's so refreshing. God is teaching me to smile and laugh as I have never smiled and laughed before.

Hello!

Though I do have much to write about--there has been quite a bit to take in in the few short hours that I have been at the village--my reason for writing this post at this moment is of a wimpier nature. Let's just say that I had forgotten all of the terrifying tales people have told me about enormous spiders in Africa. I found four within ten minutes, not counting the other smaller varieties I found in the bathroom. And I'm not exactly sure if I successfully killed any of them. There is nothing to put a quicker end to sleepiness than the thought that the one in your room might still be alive. So, here I am. Sitting in the living room of the guesthouse, typing up a blog post and keeping a wary eye on the two spiders hanging out near the ceiling.

After around 24 hours of flights, I arrived in Lusaka at about 2:30 p.m. (Zambian time is six hours later than Eastern time.) It's about an hour's drive from Lusaka to the village, which is located in the bush. Driving through the bush was a very eye-opening experience. On the way, we passed tons of kids walking along the side of the road, right next to it. Many were returning from school, and some carried items on their heads. Some traveled in groups, others did not. As we passed, many stopped and waved. One little girl even struck a pose, grinning, as we passed. Irene, one of the missionaries here, told me that they hitchhike, getting a ride from the first person who will stop for them. It is a common sight to see trucks with huge beds in the back, loaded with hitchhikers of all ages.

Along the way, we also passed many small shops on the side of the road. They were all dilapidated, and some were made of nothing more than sticks and cloth. Many of them sold fresh fruits and vegetables and other such things. As we passed, it made an impression on me, because for some of the people, these shops are their sole source of income.

The last bit of the drive was on a very bumpy dirt road. In between jarring bumps which temporarily halted the conversation, Lydia and I asked Irene about the village. We discovered that starting Wednesday, we will be helping in the school for the next three weeks, until the kids are on their vacation! Once they are on vacation, we will be very busy playing with them and helping with a week-long G.A.M.E.S. program, which is their version of V.B.S. (G.A.M.E.S stands for Games, Art, Music, Enrichment, and I cannot remember what the S stands for right now.)

After I got to the guesthouse, I got the chance to eat dinner in the dining hall, at a table with one of the house mamas and her kids. There are over 70 kids here at the village, so I didn't get a chance to meet all of them tonight, but I did manage to find out that most of them cite football (soccer) as their favorite pastime.

Well, that's all for now! I will try to post some pictures sometime soon. (It was kind of difficult to try to take halfway decent pictures through a closed car window, jolting along at 70 km/hr.)