Last Day in Zambia; Teacher Training

Yesterday I joined Chris Mead as she held her third and final teacher training in the South Luangwa area on creative writing. We were at Mufwe Basic with ten 2-7 grade area teachers. It was scheduled to begin at 8:30, by 9:30 eight teachers had arrived and by 10:00 they were all there. Chris teaches 5-7 year olds in England and did a fantastic job presenting. Last year she visited as a volunteer like me. The content was valuable, she engaged the learners, checked for understanding and had fun. She began by explaining that Zambians teach the way teachers in the UK taught many years ago. The teacher stands in the front of the class and lectures. When she asked what they thought creative writing was, the answer was, "using the imagination." In order for students to write creatively, they need to know stories. She asked how often they read stories to their students? Some teachers raised their hands, but most did not. She read Handa's Surprise, by Eileen Brown. She began by suggesting they ask, what do you think the story will be about. By asking the children, they are using their imagination and they are thinking for themselves. Chris modeled how to read a story. How to hold the book so all could see the pictures. She asked a lot of questions. This was a very basic lesson. If you want children to be literate, story reading is the place to start. The most memorable part of the day for the teachers will probably be learning to tell the story The Little Red Hen. After modeling, practicing with the group and then with a partner, everyone used hand gestures and retold the story , some with theatrics and some with deep concentration. To help develop the idea of creativity, Chris mentioned that you can change the animals from a cow, cat and dog to an elephant, hippo and crocodile. And, change the topic of the story from baking bread to fixing a broken down car. At the end, "who will ride to town with me? I will. I will. Oh no you won't, I'll go to town by myself." Other activities included writing descriptions of photographs and objects. One of the laminated pictures was of lightning in a storm. She asked them to describe how they would feel if they were there. On chart paper, teachers shared descriptive words and Chris wrote them under the heading FEEL. Frightened, scared confused, afraid, threatened, nervous, cold... Use your imagination. SEE. Dark as the night sky, dark as a wet elephant. HEAR. Crashing trees, booming thunder, birds whistling, drums, wind blowing like a speeding vehicle. Now write an opening sentence to a story by describing the scene. Chris talked about a big box of objects she keeps in her room. She is always having the kids describe the objects so they can build vocabulary. The objects could also be used to set the scene for a story. A key for example. Other objects in the bag was costume jewelry, British coins, an empty box, shells. She has a time during the day where everything is focused on speaking and writing descriptive language in order to build vocabulary. Lunch break was at 12:45 with nshima and chicken. Some girls had been preparing outside on a fire for an hour or two. The chicken had been cut into pieces and fried in oil. There was some sautéed cabbage and onions along with the nshima. I had tried nshima once, when John ordered it at Flatdogs Camp, but this was the real thing, so I filled my plate. I ate with my fingers, but couldn't seem to take a fist of the doughy corn meal, form a ball and slop up the veggies. I asked a man if I could take a video of him eating so I could show my students back home. He didn't seem to mind. I told him he was going to be famous! At the end of class, about 2:00, Chris gave out a packet for each school. Each packet had a set of picture books, all African themed, a stack of laminated pictures, mainly local recognizable animals and places, and a bag of objects including seashells, pine cones, costume jewelry, British coins and keys. She had also prepared a manual explaining some of the activities she was presenting. It was a really great day and made me think about education in Zambia. First of all, I thought I had empathy for Zambian teachers before, but now I truly do. I have heard and read plenty about the problems with teachers. They leave the kids in the classrooms alone, they sit at the front of the room and lecture, they don't teach, they are late to class, sometimes dont come at all and on and on. Well, spending the day with real Zambian teachers, kind and caring gentle people, changed me. They could have been teachers in the states at a workshop. They collaborated with their partners, participated, laughed, did activities which made them uncomfortable, and had fun. When I think about their teaching conditions; 50-90 hungry students in a room with no desks or books, I can only believe they want to create a more literate country; why else would they teach?

Wednesday Night Rotary Club

Last night, Jenny and Mike invited me to go to their weekly meeting with them, so I did. It's a new club, about six weeks old, and they are not yet chartered. There were 17 people, seven female and six muzungus. Some had Fantas and some had a Mosi. The scheduled speaker did not attend, and there was a critical discussion about this. He is the head teacher at the Mfuwe School and was supposed to talk about standards. Instead, a school teacher talked about the problems of education in the Valley. Number one is hunger. The children are hungry. Number two is over enrollment. The classes have between 70-90 students and this is too many. Next, there are no books. The government is supposed to provide text books for the students, but there are no books. Typically there is one book which the teacher uses. Infrastructure was next on the list. There are not enough teachers. Also, many of the teachers do not do their jobs. They are seen at the bank and this is not good to leave the students. The teachers who have heart are good teachers. They care about the country. Many teachers do not have heart. Absenteeism is also a problem. This led into the last problem of no parental support. The parents do not insist the students go to school. They do not support them with books. Although this topic did not come up, parental support has got to be extra challenging with a great percentage of the kids not having parents! Having two parents is very, very unusual. When the speaker was finished it was opened to questions. There were a few. Jenny wanted to know who was responsible for providing textbooks and the answer was 'the government.' Evidently, books are provided every five years but they disappear rapidly. After the discussion on education, it was open to other business. Dave of Project Luangwa had forms for villages needing bore holes dug. Jenny wondered if the village at the far bridge needed a bore hole because she often sees them digging in the dry river bed sand for water. The Rotary president was going to follow up on it. The paperwork needed to be completed by the village chief. Last of all, I was asked to share something. So, I mentioned that we used to struggle with parent involvement until we started opening the schools to family nights. I said this has been successful for us in developing partnerships. I couldn't bring myself to mention that we feed the families all the pizza and hotdogs they can eat. Besides not having food, many of the villages don't have electricity. When I left the meeting I had a feeling of hopelessness. There are so many problems. Then, this morning Jenny and I went to Uyoba School, as we have been doing each day, and worked with the kids who showed up. This is their four week holiday, yet many came to learn. We continued to work on vocabulary words by teaching them charades. Then, they painted their words on paper and wrote a sentence using the word. We hung these posters on the walls, the only color in the room and the only objects on the walls. It was also the first time they had ever done anything at school besides listening to a teacher who stood in the front of the room lecturing. They wanted to learn and they did learn. So, I found the HOPE.

AIDS

I bought a book written by a local Zambian woman to read while in the country. It's about her life in a privileged Zambian family living by the shores of Victoria Falls. Then, AIDS, which was a mystery illness at the time, took her parents, sister and brother. When she was 21 she learned that she was HIV positive and decided to turn a tradegy into something positive. It's quite a story. She now lives in Chicago. I just missed her book signing in a Lusaka book store by hours! Anyway, I've included part of her epilogue.

Warrior Princess by
Princess Kasune Zulu with Belinda Collins

"When our time on earth ends, our life should nor only be measured by how longed we lived or what we managed to accumulate, but by what we achieved in the time we lived, the differences we chose to make, be they great or small, and how we chose to respond to the least of our brothers and sisters. We must think hard about the purpose of our life and be deliberate about the legacy we choose to leave behind. Whatever passions burn in your heart, whatever promises you have made to yourself and others, do not delay another day in pursuing them in the hope that time is on your side. Time has a habit of getting away from us. Take it from someone who knows all too well that time is running out: when the years have faded and we have all gone and our grandchildren ask, "What did they do?" what do we want the answer to be! Let us stand together and be counted."

The Blind Leading the Blind

Yesterday I began tutoring a young man who would like to go to Teachers' College. He has a new laptop and would like to know how to make a PowerPoint. His laptop has some assistive technolgy software installed, since he is blind, which provides screen reading. Screen readers give voice to computers. However, I'm struggling with how to use the tabs at the top to perform functions such as insert new slide. He can't use his mouse, as you can imagine. So for today, I have a list of Power Point short-cut commands ready for us to try. I'm just not sure if he has to have PowerPoint Shortcut Tools installed, or not? We'll see. Where are Linda, Casey or Skip when you need them!

Christianity by Paul

I believed in Christianity when I was a very young boy. It was at this point I received Christ to be my Lord and my Savior. Much of the time, I could see visions when I was sleeping. Whenever I told someone at my place about my dream, they would say, "Yes, it has happened." This is how people could understand that Jesus Christ was unifying in my body. I could give revelations to people telling them what God was telling me. One other time I was praying alone, and I had a prayer point. I said, "I am going to pray about experiencing the power of God. " Then I said, "God, protect me from the works of the Sit Back Evil Spirit." Just as I was speaking, and angel appeared to me and said, "Your prayers have been heard and I am giving you the authority to trample on surface and recover every sickness. As it says from the book of Luke 4:18, the Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel to the broken hearted, to those who are lost.

English Club

Kulamba Traditional Ceremony by Simon
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
Kulamba traditional ceremony is well known for its best traditional dances. It is practiced by the Chewa people from three countries; Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. Their paramount chief is called Kalonga Gawa Undi. Kalonga means come together and gawa means to give out. The ceremony takes place in a village called Undi where all the Chewa people from different places gather together. It occurs once a year. The ceremony always takes place on 25, August every year. The traditional dances that are practiced are Nyau, rite of passage, for example Muganda, chisungu as well as karat. It attracts a lot of people but once the Ceremony end a place reverts to quiet sanctuary.

School Is Out

Driving through town today I heard, "Mayshell, Mayshell!". It was one of the 2nd grade girls which I taught to hold a book and turn the pages. She had a baby tied on her back with a chitenge cloth. I'm really hoping it's not her baby since she was probably eleven tops. The kids are really given a lot of responsibilities for their age. It sure makes me wonder what the children think of a muzunga, white person, coming to their school and insisting they have clean hands and turn the pages gently.

Limbapo Nursery School

Close-up pictures of the kids who arrived early today. We made sure that George, the teacher, was going to be there today! No more of this trying to discipline in English when the kids only spoke Nyanja! George is a quiet spoken and gentle teacher. He's also a runner. Recently the 5th annual local 10 K took place with about 300 people running. The 1st year George was 4th place, then 5th, 6th, 7th and this year we was number 14. He said he didn't train this year. I took a great picture of him wearing his race t-shirt but will need to wait to post since I used my camera rather than my iPad. He's holding the orange County 10 fan in the photo!

The Two Suitcases

The night before last we went through the two suitcases which John and I brought to Africa with donations from FCSD#1, Baldwin Creek, and John and I. I shouldn't be surprised that many items had been removed before getting to Project Luangwa. Three educational puzzle-type activities, a wind up flashlight, and most of the books which my mom and I bought in Boulder at the 2nd hand stores. The books were picture dictionaries, atlases and a picture encyclopedia. The used laptops were there. The picture I'm attaching is dark because the electricity was out when we opened them. No electricity is a common occurrence. Karen, the Project Luangwa Coordinator was disappointed to learn of the missing items.

Second Day at Uyoba School

Only about half the kids were at school today. They have three terms per year and tomorrow, Friday, this term ends. So, like the Lander kids at the end of the year, many have checked out. Today we taught the 2nd graders, probably aged 8-12, how to hold and open a book. First we passed a towel around to wipe dirt and dust off hands. Then we taught them how to gently grab the top right corner and turn the page. Zambians are used to turning pages by pinching the page with their thumb and index fingers. There were. couple of kids who struggled holding the book and turning the pages. I've been told it's their 1st book. The books we used, called My ABC, are from the same Happy Reader series. We went through each page of the colorful little picture dictionaries saying the letter and reading some of the corresponding words. The kids are like parrots, so I don't say much. For example if I say, "Turn the page," rather than turning the page they will say, "turn the page!" H is for hut, V is for Village, C is for crocodile, and so on. It was an amazing feeling introducing these colorful little Zimbabwean picture dictionaries to the students. All of them were engaged, even the obvious class clowns.