Veronica’s Grade Two class practices role plays, introducing themselves in English
Sreedevi got all packed up and ready to go so we were able to go out to Kantolomba before taking her to the airport.
The team begins the goodbye process.
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By far the most moving part of a trip to Zambia is the farewell serenade.
Estella was the drummer.
And then the hugs.
The Team explained to us the meaning of the words of the Tukamonana song, “God will provide another time for us to meet.”
As the Grade One class was assembling, we were ready with our toolkit to begin gathering enrollment information—camera, notebook, pen, sleeves rolled up, ready to jump in with both hands.
Together we launched a gigantic cooperative effort: the children lining up along the wall, Joy taking the names and ages, Susan singing with the other children while they were waiting for their turn, and Anna taking the photographs. In all of that movement and with all of that spirit of cooperation, the whole process was a very fun dance!
The photographs were taken in the narrow entranceway to the Grade One schoolroom building, just steps away from all the bustle of the enrollment activity. Here are some of the portraits, taken against the beautiful blue of the schoolroom walls:
Joseph
Dave
Emma
Meanwhile, Jen and Veronica were capturing names and photos of grade 3 students we had not gotten the day before. After we got all of the grade 3s, we took a group photo of the team members’ children.
Left to right: Felistus, Charles’s daughter; Ruthie, Georgina’s daughter; Dorothy, Peter’s daughter, and Cosmos, Mable’s son.
Cosmos and his two brothers, one older, one younger, are being cared for by their aunt, Monica, who moved into Mable’s home after Mable died suddenly a couple of months ago. Monica joined the Living Compassion team in Mable’s place. We are all so happy to have her on the team, and though no one can take Mable’s place it is comforting to know the boys are being well cared for. We took a few good lunchtime shots of our buddies.
A colorful line-up, waiting patiently to wash hands..
Little Cheri gives us a great view of those amazing eyes! In the afternoon we approached some of the girls who had stayed after their lessons to play in the yard. Again, we are reminded what a blessing it is that they have this safe, clean, quiet (no music from the local bars, etc.) place to gather and play.
Meeting with the girls
Several of the girls played a game called “Waida.” They told us that “waida” means “jump” in Bemba.
Landing after clearing the ropes.
“Jump” doesn’t seem to quite do justice to the leaping, soaring, and flying these girls are able to do, does it?
Natasha, a grade 6 student, has by far the longest legs of the group and excels at this game!
Many of these girls were with us for the Masala Clinic trip, at the end of which we had fun doing a group cheer. As Joy assisted with translation, and after talking about how great it is that each of these girls is sticking with her education, we came up with a cheer together: Stay in School!
It is a wonderful process getting to know these girls a bit more.
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Practicing our new cheer.
Soon, some of the grade 8 boys began to appear, their school day now over. We saw Beatrice’s son Brilliant for the first time this trip. He is interested in joining the extra lessons at the property. It will be a great benefit to the other Grade 8 boys to have him in the class. His English is, well, brilliant. The reason Brilliant’s English is brilliant is that his parents work on English with him and support him to learn. We see this over and over; the parent factor is critical. Having parents who teach a child to read can be the difference between that child being able to read or not. Left to the government school system, not all children end up being able to read, with class sizes as large as 65 students. A continuing motivation to keep working on ways to support reading skills for those that do not have the benefit of the parent factor like Brilliant does.
Brilliant by name....
We couldn’t resist this photo-op: JoAnne and Ruben’s children all in one place: Karen, Philip, Ronika. Ronika, still in preschool, was right in on all the action when we were talking with the older girls, putting her arm in and belting out the Stay in School! cheer with us. Great head start!
Later in the afternoon, we rallied for another heroic cooperation effort, this time to create the attendance charts for the Living English program. Each grade has a chart. Each student will get to put a star by her or his name each day she or he is present. It seemed an overwhelming task at first, being a feat of spreadsheets, getting name spellings correctly, drawing 35+ lines on 8 large charts, sharing limited rulers to get lines straight… but we took the “many hands” approach and after less than an hour we had 8 beautiful charts. Ready to start tomorrow!
Anna and Joy make name lists to hand off to the chart makers.
Georgina and Beatrice on the Grade 4 charts
Looking forward to taking those charts for a test drive tomorrow!