What a wonderful and glorious morning it is as I write this, very sunny (as it has been for the last 3 weeks) but birds chirping and the sound of lawn mowers making hay while the sun shines. Unfortunately Kerry does not have the pleasure of writing the blog today as she is currently in England busy and enjoying her time visiting family and various churches there. So the trailer is very quite at the moment. I am well informed that she is enjoying her time there especially the chocolate and KFC!!! AND TIANDI L the best take away in BUDE. So am very jealous as SHOP RIGHT HAS HAD NO EASTER EGGS by the time I got there all sold out.

Although Kerry’s absence is noticeable, I have been very well taken care of here last week I visited the copper mine in Chingola and It was amazing to see so much sulfur (tonnes) and how huge the holes in the ground was and the massive trucks (150 tonnes) and another first I played golf on a beautiful course here in chingola which was once proclaimed one of the best about 20 yrs ago J. Only lost a few balls… don’t worry tiger Woods is safe…. For now. Apart from this been playing squash, risk and the beloved age of empires and gardening. I gave been digging up large parts of the golf course when trying to tee off.

Another highlight is last week Friday me and Jarrett helped at youth group in Musenga and we played lots of games with them. The youth group is for children who live in Musenga and in mainly children of the workers and great place for them to have fun and get some spiritual input. We were playing capture the flag sort of game and I was trying to capture anyone who ventured into our area. This man called ‘UNCLE’ was running at me when he suddenly skidded flat on the floor towards me, realizing my plight I jumped sky high in order to avoid him but I was so shocked. As he is not a spring chicken has 7 children and really did not expect it!!! They had to fill up a bottle with cups of water but before they did that had to spin 10 times around a pick axe (health and safety! What’s that? Not much of that here J) but it was hilarious as most of the time they got more water on themselves than in the bottle.

Just a few things of the many things happening here and looking forward to Kerry and Jane (kerry’s mum) returning in the next few weeks. We are all very excited about the safari that we are going on will be a once in a life time opportunity. Will let you know more about that in the next few blogs.    

 

 

Storms, Speed boat fun and Swabian food!

So we have crash landed into a lovely long weekend off here at Amano after what seems to have been quite an intense few weeks with lots of students and some staff getting flu type symptoms! Jon is currently wiped out on the sofa with a cold and enjoying some time away from lessons, science, schools reports etc.
Today is 'Womens Day' here in Zambia . A friend of mine has been running a ladies group in the local community teaching knitting, baking, sewing etc and so today they held a short presentation of their work and a march up and down the street singing bemba songs- was quite an experience for a Musungu! But a really encouraging and inspiring time as women spoke how much the 'club' means to them; learning these types of skills can really change these womens lives :-)

Last week Jona headed off to Chengelo for the weekend as poor Mr Grove, our P.E teacher went down with pneumonia :-( Chengelo is another international school in Mukushi (about 5 hours away). The school was hosting an ISAZ (international schools of Zambia) sports competition to decide which schools would qualify for the ISAZ finals in Lusaka.
They had a brilliant time competing. The boys did really well and showed great sportsmanship but unfortunately didn't qualify in the end. However, for the girls it was a great success as they won the majority of their netball matches and qualified for the finals in Lusaka which will take place later this month.

Pep talk from Mr Rass!

Another point for the Amano girls in green! 

Spot Mr Rass cheering in the crowd :-)

Whilst Jon was off at Chengelo, I had such a blessed time here in Chingola with some friends who had invited me over to share a birthday and stay the night. The highlight of the weekend for me was being taken out on a fishing trip with them on their speed boat!!!! WOW! Was REALLY good fun. Hilton even caught two fish :-)

The storms here have been CRAZY the past few weeks and I thank God that for the worst two storms Jon and I have not been in the trailer but in proper concrete buildings :-) Last night, the storm was spectacular; we enjoyed the 'entertainment' whilst enjoying some homecooked Swabian food cooked by the 2 dorm volunteers from Germany. What a treat!

Is that a real snake?

So we are well and truly into the second half of this term... and what a great few weeks we have had here at Amano!
We ended half term with a staff braai on our veranda. Thankfully the storms held off and we were able to enjoy our burgers in peace :-) Was really great to have all staff together in one place at the same time! The terms seem to slip by with most staff being extremely busy so to all gather at once is a real treat!

The first weekend back was our 'annual cook off'; based on the idea of TV programme 'Ready Steady Cook' the grade 11&12 boys and girls go head to head in preparing and cooking a main meal. They each get a list of the same ingredients which they can choose from. The boys were cooking at Mr Jarrett's house and the girls a combination of the tiny trailer kitchen and the banana house with Miss Kerry. They each had 2 hours to cook and then we all joined back together to enjoy each others cooking and let the judges decide!

The evening was filled with lots of yummy food from both teams but in the end the girls won it again with their creativity, appearance and taste!

This term, the girls dorm have been busy busy trying to fundraise for a Girls dorm day out! They have been busy baking cakes to sell at school and cleaning staff houses to add up the kwacha for a trip out to Nsobe Game Park in Ndola. They worked extremely hard and raised enough to go on the weekend!
We set off nice and early at 7am for the 2 and bit hour drive. We had a great morning of snake viewing (and handling!), canoeing and swimming. Followed by lunch in the restaurant of burgers and chips. Then we had a rather non-eventful game drive around the park (although there was fierce competition between the male staff and girls of who could spot the most animals!). To put the icing on the cake we stopped off at local shopping mall for an icecream! Such a great day out and a real treat for the girls (and staff!) to get off site and have a treat :-)

Jon and I are both healthy and happy and enjoying life here at Amano :-)

Half Term

I watched a brilllliant film last night with a friend called 'Simon Birch'. Such a brilliant, laugh out loud, unexpected tears, crazy ending kind of film! There was such a poignant quote in it which pretty much sums up this term so far; 'Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience, then it races like a gazelle when you can't catch a breath.' 

So crazily 4 weeks have already passed and we now have half term, it weirdly feels too soon but of course is nice to 'catch a breath' :-) Jon is busy catching up with lesson plans and trying to get ahead for next term (and playing lots of computer games ;-))Not much to report as been mainly working and chilling. We had a lovely night staying at a friends house on Saturday in town. Played darts, watched movies and had a great time catching up with them. Seen other friends and eaten too much!! 

Last night I took some time to make a 'photo wall' in our dining room (I say room...I mean area...lol). We took the pictures down when we moved but it's really nice to have familiar smiling faces down on us as we eat our supper again :-) Reminds me of how blessed we are to have such awesome friends and family both in England and here in zambia too!  
Thought I would also add some pics of the inside of our lovely new trailer :-)


 

Lounge Area

 

Teeny tiny lovely bathroom

 

Kitchen area

 

Bedroom

It's small but cosy and we really feel happy here. Not only that but it's sooo great having the veranda and being able to sit out there and watch all the wildlife and all the spectacular storms.
Not much else to report but thought I would share this funny photo from youth group before we broke up. We came up with a 'photo caption game'. So Jarrett and I gave the young people who were in groups 7 different headline captions. They had to then take a picture of themselves to represent the headline. We then showed them and chose a winner. Some of the headlines included 'Crowd horrified as man gets ngwee (coin) stuck up his nose', 'Half Term', but the winning team won with this picture for headline 'People shocked as lady gets leg bitten off by lion!!haha!
Jon and I have now booked a safari in April for when my Mum comes out to Zambia. Let's hope this headline doesn't make any reappearances! eek!

Sports, Flour and Water!

We've had a brilliant three weeks being back at Amano :-) We have one more week and then we break for half term.
The last post I blogged was about all the wildlife and there's certainly been more of that since then! Last week the grade 11's had a surprise visit in their classroom from a very unwelcome boomslang snake which had decided to join them for a bit of their english lesson! The snake was spotted by one of the students who made a VERY quick exit, leaving the rest of the class climbing for safety on top of their tables!! eek. Thankfully one of the gardeners came quickly to behead it! Drama or what!

Jarrett and I are now very happy to have made the move into the banana house for the youth group (pics below). Makes such a difference to have a permanent residence and also when the rains come we don't have to cancel because the roof is a lot more soundproof than the hall we were using before!

Last weekend Amano hosted some friendly games; 3 schools came to visit to play Netball, secondary boys football and primary girls football. Was a great day and really amazing to see the Amano students really working well together as a team and supporting one another. Although it was a friendly it was great result that the girls won all of their netball matches, the boys won 2 out of their 3 footy matches and the primaries won 1 of their matches. A great result!

Yesterday morning, Jon went off to the village of Filibaba again to take donations of clothes/toys etc to the local church. He took some secondary students along to help distribute and also to experience a bit of village life. They had a good time and returned once again with a live chicken for the boys dorm to enjoy! Pictures coming soon!

 And yesterday we had  lots of fun playing a very messy game out on the field with the boarders :-) The aim of the game was to try and assasinate the other teams 'president' by throwing water balloons at them whilst the defenders aimed to killed the offenders with flour bombs! A lot of fun which ended in mayhem after the game was over with a free for all with the water balloons and flour bombs.