Muzungu, Muzungu!

A few pics from the last week.

This is Hilda's (Hilda is my bemba teacher and Zambian Mum!) grandson; baby Harold, he has one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever laid eyes on! Each week he gets accustomed with our shoes, this week it was my flip flops!

As I write, we can hear the faint sound of the huge bull dozer the school is borrowing to level out some space for a new rugby pitch. It's been amazing to watch the progress that's being made let alone the HUGE granite rocks they are finding under the surface.

Jon and I spent some time watching the work yesterday evening as the sun went down, just chatting together. Watching the bull dozer made us think about how often things in life seem like slow progress; little by little, bit by bit but when you stand back and look at all that has happened you can see that God has and is doing great things through the seemingly 'slow progress'.

Yesterday we had a fantastic time shopping in Kitwe! Words can never really explain the sights, the hectic busyness of market madness, the sounds of chasing stubborn street sellers shouting 'Muzungu, Muzungu!'(white person, white person!), the hustle and bustle of overwhelmingly overcrowded roads , the smell of dried fish mixed with sewage mixed with the hint of overpowering outdated aftershave wafting far too close as strange men try to get close to stare at funny looking muzungu ladies wondering lost through the maze of stalls. Stalls piled high with tatty trainers, mountains of retro remnants and fake football shirts!

 Beate and I had lots of fun trying out our bemba and buying over-priced clothes!

As I tried to subtly pull out my camera to snap a few shots of moments I wanted to capture, lots of stall sellers wanted to be made 'famous'!! The picture taking didn't last long as I was aware of the unnecessary fuss it was causing!

Monday is a public holiday here in Zambia so Jon and I are currently enjoying a peaceful long weekend!!

Chingola to Chengelo.........

We had a wonderful half term nearly 2 weeks ago now! We rested, caught up with friends and work. It ended with a fun trip to Chengelo school in Mkushi to watch the secondary boys compete in some friendly matches of rugby. Seeing the sunrise and sunset in one day was spectacular as we travelled the long road there and back; travelling a total of 9 hours!

But it was certainly worth the journey to see the boys give their best and compete in some extremely tense matches. Jon has been helping coach the boys at rugby here and there and was thrilled to see them play! I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought and will definately make an embarrassing Mum one day as I jumped up and down shouting like crazy! 

We started the second half of term with some more friendly sports. A visiting school, sakeji, from the northern province came to pay us a visit. They played netball, football and basketball with our students. The games ended with teachers versus some of the older secondary students which was very funny (and very competitive!!). Jon did surprisingly well scoring a few goals, or baskets, whatever they're called!

We are both well and enjoying each moment we have here. I am currently trying to memorise psalm 23 in bemba; 'Lesa ekechema Wandi, shakaka bile nangu chimu, alantwala kumulenfwe kumenshi yabumi'. 

'Moments!'

After being catapulted from the month of May rapidly into the month of June...we now have some space to catch our breath and reflect on all that has already happened over the last half of term and prepare ourselves for the next half with a lovely little break.
Although times are busy I am constantly reminded of the importance of 'moments'... a friend of mine recently sent me a youtube link which (although a little cheesy..) is absolutely true! To capture and appreciate the little things in life because moments fly by so fast.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GhOUaszMGvQ
So some of our 'moments' since I last blogged include the school fun fair held on 'Africa Freedom Day'. A great event where staff, students and parents all get involved in organising various stalls! Jon and his tutor group organised a coke and sprite drinking competition. I think the winner of the coke competition managed something crazy like 5 seconds and the sprite through a straw was 20 seconds. Unfortunately I couldn't even manage the whole sprite!!

Another not so nice moment was finding Mr Spider in our house. I think all of the neighbours heard about it after the fuss I made. I love how in the picture our wooden giraffe seems to just be looking at it casually!

As Jon likes to say, I had a "toe-tally" bad moment when I had a run in with one of the sofas in the banana house and ended up ripping my big toe nail off!argh..... so so painful. Annoyingly it has got infected and I'm still trying to get rid of it... (the infection and the toenail!!). So that's put a stop to me running cross country with the students on a Wednesday afternoon... but it hasn't stopped Jon who has managed to take 3-4 mins off of his time now running the 3.5km in 22 mins! And it certainly hasn't stopped Mr Jarrett who managed to run it last week in his banana suit!

The weekend at the beginning of half term Jon went along to the ISAZ (International Schools Assocciation Zambia) Athletics with the students. He had quite an adventure so I hope he will be able to write before half term is over with all the details of that!
We have so far had a lovely half term of resting, seeing friends and getting ourselves prepared for the rest of the term!