So, more about life in the village. Most mornings I'm awake by 5:30 and up before 6. I couldn't sleep in if I tried between the roosters crowing and the kids running around screaming. We're finally at the end of hot season. Temperatures apparently have been up to 120* but I can't really say since my thermometer broke. It's possible that the mercury boiled. Freak of nature that I am, I really like hot weather and I have enjoyed the season. I teach Monday-Thursday at different times of the day but I always leave my house by 8 at the latest. On Monday we have morning staff meetings at 6:30 and I have class at 7, which makes Monday my least favorite day since I can't enjoy coffee and breakfast on my front porch. I've been walking the 3km to school everyday, it takes me about 35 minutes and gives me time to think and enjoy the scenery. Here's part of my daily commute..
I typically love my class even though I only get regular participation from 5 or 6 pupils out of 43. I'll upload photos of them soon and hopefully even a video of us going bananas. It's a song and dance I learned in training to get everyone out of their seats and having fun before or after class. It's just fun for the kids and makes me look a lot cooler than the other teachers. We play a lot of games so I can get everybody participating. I've started getting a much better return on homework and in-class assignments since I started bribing my pupils with sweets. I give 2 assignments each week, 1 in structure and 1 in composition. If they show me that they've tried it's almost automatically a 10/10 and they qualify for the sweet. Unfortunately there is a lot of copying from one another and even from my own example compositions that I write up on the board. When teaching I have to speak extremely slow and ask 1 or 2 pupils to repeat each of my instructions so that everyone is together. That's one thing I say at least 5 times a lesson,"Are we together?" ... Now that we've gone over irregular past tenses I've started saying "Understand?" and everyone yells, "UNDERSTOOD!" Unfortunately I think that they just love shouting it out in class and I'm sure that some pupils don't truly mean it.
I try to make my class as fun as possible. This term is the final term of the year and my first term solo teaching the whole way through, so I've been experimenting with my lesson plans. Each week I teach one structure/vocabulary lesson, one reading comprehension and one composition. That's Monday-Wednesday where I have 120 minute classes each day. On Thursdays I have only one block, which is 40 minutes, so I use it as a game/review day. Reading comprehension is my favorite. There is very little reading retention here since they've really never needed to develop the skill. I spent the first week of class getting the pupils involved in planning the term. I had them vote on what topics they'd be interested and then I found articles relating to each topic to give them for comprehension. So now we have a topic of the week and I plan each composition to relate to the topic and another opportunity to practice the structure and to summarize what they read about. One week our topic was music and I had the pupils do a reading comprehension on the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, Penny Lane. We grooved through the lesson and for their composition the next day I had them write me a story about something going on around Penny Lane. They were a bit confused and it could have gone better but we had a lot of fun. That was the week I learned how to give better instructions.
My favorite lesson so far was a group free-write where we wrote a composition together, meshing all of their ideas together and illustrating the story on the blackboard. The story ended up being about a mermaid who meets a handsome merman and falls in love. My grade 8 pupils are between ages 13 and 19... needless to say, there was a large gap in ideas. So as they passed the chalk the story took a lot of different turns. The handsome merman told our main character, Marina, that she was the most beautiful mermaid he had ever seen. Marina's reply was "OH! Thank you. That's nice." I don't know why that tickled me so much, maybe it was the voices they used to act it out, but I couldn't stop laughing all day. That's my go-to reply now for any compliments I receive from my pupils. I had them finish the story on their own and it was my favorite day of grading compositions so far.
The majority of my day is spent at school and in the Resource Center. I'll get to the rest of my job in the next post because this post is long enough already and there are some major frustrations with the other part of my job. Anyways, my school is within the Boma so the shops are just across the road. I pop into Ebenezer's Grocery for lunch with my good friends Alan and Bernard and to shoot the breeze with whoever is around. The Resource Center is practically my home now and my best friend is the assistant director to the center. The photo to the right is of all of us who work together everyday at the center. We get into a lot of deep conversations about any and everything, religion, politics, cultural differences, you name it. Zambians are very traditional, conservative, and the overwhelming majority are Christian. My own views are somewhat less than traditional so I've been very reserved in most conversations. As a volunteer I don't want to step on any toes and get into any trouble. But I feel very free with my friends in the RC and everybody gets involved in our discussions in a truly open and understanding way. I've learned a lot there.
Then I get to the village, which is a complete change of pace. I walk home around 16 hours and spend the rest of daylight with my Zambian family. We sit together outside of the insaka/kitchen hut where the women do all of the cooking and laundry. There is always something to be done. My Atate is the only adult who speaks English so it's a good time to practice my Chewa. Sometimes I eat with the family and sometimes I cook for myself. I've abandoned the brazier for a mentholated spirits make-shift stove. I just throw a match into a can of purple spirits and it burns high for 5-10 minutes. It's easier and faster than the charcoal brazier and I'm lazy. I tend to cook with a lot of spices, which the kids have grown to like but the adults can't accept. I've found that popcorn is always a nice gesture.
To showcase how goofy my family is, I'm including this
photo of my brother Loyd. He's actually one of the pupils in my class. But anyways, one day he runs up in this amazingly American outfit and asks me for my cowboy hat so he can ride his bike to strut around the Boma. For what, only god knows. They get really excited sometimes...
These are my youngest iwes, Alice and Mary. They're also little weirdos. I say that in the most endearing way possible. Their favorite topic of discussion is farting. Everyday without fail, one of them will run up and say "Osashula ku nyumba ya amai Banda!" Which means "Don't fart in amai Banda's house!" (They call me amai Banda, that's the family surname with the word for mother attached.)So we giggle and then get on with our coloring/ dancing/ whatever activity of the day until I'll throw out an "Alicey... mwashula?" Which translates to "...you've farted?" Gets em every time.
I guess I could say I fit in pretty well around here. I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else right now. I feel truly lucky to be where I am and blessed to have a reason to smile and laugh each day.
