Hello to all of you. Hope you are enjoying your Saturday! I thought there might be a time soon when I would say we have a routine, but that hasn't happened yet. Each day is different and we have to be very flexible and not have our "to do" list too concrete!
But on Saturdays at our house there is a slight routine as some of the sponsored students arrive at 0800 to do "chores". Each sponsored student is to volunteer a certain amount of their time in order to show appreciation for the gift of education that the Canadians have provided. So... this morning there are about a dozen students that have come to sort beans, "peel" maize cobs, do a bit of laundry, rake the yard... Our philosophy is that education is not a free gift and in order to keep ZMF-C running, it is good for everyone to make a contribution!
By 0700, Richard was out the door and off to Siabalumbi where we have construction of another classroom block on the go. My apple oatmeal muffins were in the oven and Mashell had arrived to get ready for the students.
By 0930 the laundry is finished—and this week Winnie (the lady that cleans inside the house) and I have been doing our "dry season" cleaning—washing of bedspreads, mattress covers, curtains. We had a few curtains left to do so Audrey and Orleen finished those. You can see how laundry is done in rural Zambia in one of the attached pictures.
I've just served muffins, watermelon and juice to the kids and we chatted about classroom sizes and availability of text books. Belvis tells me that his grade 12 class at Mwaata School in Kalomo has 43 pupils and they share a few English text books inside the classroom, but are not allowed to take them home. Wisdom, a grade 11 pupil at the same school says there are 53 pupils in his grade 11 class and they have one text per each pair of pupils. I haven't seen a class yet where the kids can take the text book home. This makes studying and passing exams very difficult.
Yesterday, I bought several high school text books and set up a library within the Kalomo High School library for Kalomo High School ZMF-C pupils. Fortunately, Jannie (a male student), one of our ZMF-C students) is the KHS library supervisor. He has the books under lock and key within the school library and only our sponsored pupils can borrow the books and the books must remain in the library. Since there are over 1200 pupils at this schools and text books are scarce leaving a text book around is a huge invitation for theft. Recently, there was a text left in the boys dormitory from another library system and it was stolen. The book was worth about K160,000—a sizeable sum. I asked our kids why a book would be stolen. They replied, kids can sell the book and buy cigarettes and alcohol. So... we shall see how this arrangement works out. My goal is for these thirty-three Kalomo High School kids to get better grades—and for us to be able to have the books in place for the next term! We shall see.
Richard is off to Katungu now to take more building materials out. In Zambia, the builder must transport all supplies. We took out materials last night, but the roofing sheets were all the wrong size. See the photo of Richard, Mashel and Timmy tying the planks and re-bar onto the Dyna (truck).
At 1400 we have a "date" with our Kalomo High School pupils at the high school to celebrate graduation. We have eight grade 12's there. The grade 11's are the ones responsible for organizing and the makuwas (white people) and the pupils themselves have provided funds so that party can happen. There is to be singing, dancing and, of course, speeches. No formal gathering is complete without speeches!!
Timmy—the young man wearing the blue shirt pictured on the truck is sixteen years old. He attends Namwianga Secondary School, the boarding school that I can see from this window. Timmy has been a sponsored student from grade 5. His dad died when he was two years old and when his mom re-married she moved away and left Timmy with his grannie. Timmy started school on his own at age nine. His grannie wasn't able to send him so he just went on his own and it was noticed that this kid was neither enrolled nor paid for. I'm not sure who paid for him for the first five years, but eventually ZMF-C picked him up. Timmy is doing very well in grade 8—but he says he feels silly being so big in the grade 8 class. He plans on attending grade 9 at the same secondary school and then he's going to see if he can skip grade 10. He is very bright—and at this rate he'll be twenty years old in Grade 12. His goal is to be a minister. He said when he was in grade 4 and his granny had no food that he would walk the five km to the secondary school cafeteria and wait for the leftover food from the college students.
There are so many stories like Timmy's. I'd say most kids have it figured out that to have a life free of hunger they must work hard everyday at their studies. They do not take education for granted. When Timmy left our house last night at 1900 hours he said, "I'll be back tomorrow morning for chores!". We told him since he'd worked all afternoon and evening that he could just rest this morning. I fed him a big meal of beans, nshima and rape and buns before he left. He was a full and contented camper when he left, but very dirty from the long and dirty ride out to Katungu on the back of the truck.
If you've made it to the bottom of this e-mail then I owe you a chocolate cake!
One more thing—if you really want a chocolate cake! I've started a contest—The "when is it going to rain?!" contest.
I have a white board in this kitchen with names of sponsored students, Winnie, Mashell, Richard and Sue and guesses to when the rain will finally start. The winner gets a chocolate cake! The students are excited about this as is Richard. Richard has guessed November 5—and although that is his birthday and a chocolate cake would be nice, I really hope rain comes sooner. The days are hot!! It usually is about 38 celsius by 0930 and remains hot until about 1600. Then it cools down to about 30! No rains means that when the wind blows we eat dust and sand! So... we have a steady diet of sand because it is windy almost every day, like in Saskatchewan.
Must go for now and thanks for bearing with me!
No comments:
Post a Comment