Wednesday began with the hot water up and running! We were up and out early, stopping first to replenish our water supply – then it was off to Kantolomba!
Our normal exuberant greeters (the children) were in classes when we pulled in. Theresa smiled as we parked remarking, “Just wait till they notice that we have arrived.” Sure enough, within seconds, great cheers erupted from each of the classrooms and one class even got up onto their desks. We cringed, feeling for the teachers who showed their incredible skill at classroom management when only 90 seconds later all order was restored. Amazing!
We tiptoed out of the car and from a distance spotted “younger” Foster (so named as there is another Foster on the team more than twice her age) laying out items at a temporary tuckshop (the coop shop selling basic goods to the community). The official tuckshop is situated about mid-property, near the main road, but due to weather damage, it was being repaired by Peter and Pascal. Foster was setting out her items and neatly filling small bags with sugar to sell. This is how everything is sold in Kantolomba. No one has enough money at any one time to buy a whole bag of mealie meal or sugar or tea or… So, entrepreneurs (which is just about everyone in the community since there is close to zero formal employment) buy a bag of something then repack it into small amounts to sell at tiny profits. It is a marvel how this community-local economy works, people getting by with just enough to survive, if they are lucky.
Younger Foster’s temporary tuck shop.
The official tuckshop under construction. Ingenious use of old rice bags as ‘siding’ for extra weather protection. NOTHING goes to waste in Kantolomba.
The first order of business was class observation! Sreedevi was off to Joy’s class and Jen to Ethel’s. Both Joy and Ethel are pre-K teachers – Ethel has the littlest ones (2-3), and Joy has the next age group up (3-4). It was the beginning of the year, so Joy was still learning her student’s names. In order to assist with this, she created adorable name tags with colorful string. Anyone who has taught for even one day knows you MUST know the children’s names—unless you enjoy chaos! After these were handed out, it was time for some Genki lessons. Today the children were learning the “What’s Your Name?” song. It’s a catchy song that goes something like this “What’s Your Name, What’s Your Name, What’s Your Name?....What’s Your Name, What’s Your Name, What’s Your Name?...My Name is (children say their names out loud here!).” After a half hour lesson of this, all the grown ups in the room are just praying they will be able to fall asleep that night without that song relaying through their heads!
Joy’s new students with name tags.
Then it was on to Veronica’s class. Josephine was teaching temporarily while Veronica was checking on something. Today’s class consisted of learning about the weather. Children came up in pairs and answered a question. Then all the children would clap for the pair in a learned cheer. Very cute!
Meanwhile, in the “babies class,” Ethel had the large challenge of having the children keep their attention on her while this new and exciting visitor was in the room. Most of the children wanted to sit next to, talk to and touch the very strange straight hair of “Jen-y.” The long e sound is put on the end of just about everything in Bemba. So, Jen becomes Jenny.
Ethel did a heroic job of it, and it was impressive to see her bring the process of learning numbers alive. They were working on 1, 2 and 3. They showed us proudly that they can actually count to ten! Ethel was engaging all learning styles by having them say the numbers, holding up a puzzle piece of each number, having the children stand up and point to a number of a wall chart and having them place each number in the correct position in the puzzle. It is truly a gift the attention these children are able to receive in their learning process at such a young age! Most of their peers in Zambia are not this lucky.
When it was time for break, each student wanted her/his photo taken.
It took a few tries to get the point of “one at a time” across…
But we managed and much cuteness ensued.
Do you recognize Bruce by now? Check out last year’s blogs—you’ll see him. Not sure he has grown an inch since we were here last March but the teachers assure us he is healthy and that his family is petite. He is a character! When we first arrived this trip he came running out to the car, recognizing us immediately, and began speaking to us non-stop in Bemba. Theresa broke out laughing, “He is saying, take me with you!” Watch for him; he has a way of sneaking in to every photo.
That dress—and smile!
A bit shy.
Quite mature, this fellow.
Some needed encouragement from Ethel.
Does it get any cuter than that?
After lunch, we took a property tour with Theresa and Veronica. The kitchen has been moved and we went to check out how it was working in its new space. Theresa also discussed possibly building a dining hall closer to the kitchen, which would create more quiet space near the classrooms and be closer to the cooking.
Theresa explaining her vision of the new dining hall.
A basket of peanuts about to get roasted…peanut butter is on the menu for Friday. The team makes it fresh!
JoAnne stirs a batch of the peanuts in a very big pot.
The basket the team will use to remove the skin from the peanuts. The basket helps the skin come off by rolling the roasted peanuts in them!
Some of the older girls arrived at this point. We had a song on a digital recorder that we wanted to share with them. We decided simply to show one of the girls, Natasha, how to use the recorder then leave her and her friends with it.
Natasha learns how to use the recorder.
Five minutes later Natasha has gone from pupil to teacher. Powerful!
Leaving the girls to themselves, we met with Theresa, Charles, Joy, Veronica, Susan and Ethel—the teaching team. They told us the All Star programs is going well – the children like putting the stars up and it helps motivate them to continue to come to class. One area that was more challenging was the field trips – they were a bit harder to organize, so the possibility was brought up of doing these as surprise outings once or twice a year, instead of it being a staple of the program.
Several teachers commented on how proud they were that the children from Living Compassion had a 100% passing rate on their exams this year! Wow – what an accomplishment, and a testament to the team here. We discussed how to continue to motivate other children to join the All Stars program. One idea was possibly having a celebration to honor the students who had moved into the next level, and maybe even have a student speak to their peers about how the extra lessons had helped.
This segued into discussing the reading program. Everyone agreed that reading is by far the most important element. As Veronica simply, but strongly, stated, “Reading is the backbone of education.” Some of the students were already taking advantage of the new readers the team found on the last trip, but what else could be done? To support a stronger reading program, a couple of ideas dropped in. The first was having students who are stronger readers pair up with those who need more support – creating a peer-learning environment. Second, creating “library” hours for each class, where students could go and read with Josephine during class time periodically. What if we even created library cards for the students to track what they had read? Maybe a sticker for each book read? Lots of fun ideas and possibilities.
So exciting to see the library filled with children on the benches, eager to read!
Josephine, in the library, using the numbers puzzle from Ethel’s class to reinforce the earlier lesson. Team work!
Joy and Ethel are reading a book too! It’s a teacher’s resource book someone donated to us in the U.S. More teamwork (otherwise known as Sangha)!
We then moved into a conversation about scholarships for students who couldn’t afford government school. We discussed different ways to help fund these, and agreed that the team needed to meet amongst themselves and discuss the best way to move forward.
So, throughout the meeting we had heard strains of the song the older girls were learning, and it was time to check back in on how they were doing! We walked down towards the room they were using and they beckoned us in. We were astounded! In the time we had been meeting, they had created three separate amazing dance routines to the song. It is inspiring to see how gracefully they move. What fun to watch! If our plan works out, you will get to see a video of this in the months to come!
Other children are curious about what’s happening in the room!
The girls practice their routine.
With that wonderful performance, we called it a day and headed back to the Lodge. A full day – and a blessed one.