My first day of school

While I don’t intend to continually give a play by play of my days here, it remains the best way to describe the experience for now. I anticipate that by week’s end, I’ll be able to get away from this technique, so bear with me for now.

Even by Zambian standards, Mwandi is a materially poor community. It’s literally on the edge of the African bush. More than once, school has come to a standstill when students and staff had to chop the head of a trespassing cobra. Mwandi (ma-WAN-dee) also is nestled on the top of a hill overlooking the other communities of Livingston, and in the distance, one can see the risking smoke of Mosi-o-Tunya (Vic Falls). This will be my teaching home for the next several weeks.

The day was not unlike the beginning of my student teaching semester actually. I met my cooperating teacher, Mildred (ironically, my grandmother was named Mildred and also was a teacher). I sat in a seventh grade classroom with about 20 other students. I was actually surprised by the level of their schooling as today the kids learned about the planets of the solar system and multiplying with reciprocals of fractions. Mildred gave me the 7th grade social studies books and told me to start preparing lessons. Tomorrow, she said, I can teach a art lesson. Obviously, she doesn’t know I’m completely ungifted in art. Oh well, it actually will give me a chance to learn students’ names by having them make some name plates.

I was disappointed when coming to Zambia prevented me from working on the pumpkin patch much at Faith. Ok, that’s not true…I was quite relieved to have an excuse to miss out on the pumpkins. I just do not enjoy gardening/farming. I’m not a great ambassador for North Dakota in that way. Well, my afternoon assignment today was to work at Maramba Farm. Despite my misgivings about working the land, the project was for a great purpose. In Maramba community, a group of women have started a small farm that sells produce in order to raise money to buy medication for those too sick with HIV, TB, or malaria to visit the clinic in Maramba. The women’s biggest money maker is mushrooms, but I helped with a crop of eggplants. Did I mention that yesterday, a larger poisonous snake slithered right by the legs of some of our volunteers? Did Africa not get the memo that I’m petrified of snakes? Well, thankfully today, there were no snakes, but instead crocodiles were the bigger concern. You see, my groups job was to water the eggplants. To do that, one person had to work the water pump which really resembled a Stairmaster in the gym. Other volunteers watered by hand. This involved one person flinging an empty bucket attached to a stream into the river (more like a stream) behind the farm. Then that person (which was often me) would pull up the full bucket and pour it into the other buckets. Volunteers then walked these to the rows of eggplants. The farm’s permanent workers told us not to worry, though, because the crocodiles would not come out when there was so much noise. Just two days ago, Brave told us never to go by the river because the crocs could see us even if we couldn’t see them…I just can’t wait to go back to the farm! (I know sarcasm doesn’t come across well in blogging, so I hope you all caught it just then.)

The farming project did have one big highlight, though. The project leader, another local woman, mistakenly thought I was Dutch because another male volunteer was from Holland. She asked me if eggplants were eaten in Holland, but I told her that I was from the United States. Just after I said I was American, I previously silent woman who was boiling fish for lunch simply said, “Obama.” I was able to have a brief chat with her and express my fondness for Obama and told her I was excited to vote for him. She was not a strong English speaker, but I could tell she felt a lot of pride because someone with African heritage might become the most powerful person in the world. I, too, was proud of our country because of this.

Cheers (I’m starting to pick up the language from the Brits in my house),
Zac