Unfortunately, there were no games on Saturday That was pretty disappointing. The administration decided we were to busy to host and it was not a mandatory tournament so we didn’t travel to the alternative site either. I will have to wait until next term to experience Zambian basketball. Since then we have only been having practice on Wednesday and Friday (the days for sports) and not everyday like before. Also, I think my players are tired of doing drills so we have mostly been playing 3-on-3 winner stays or 5-on-5 depending on the number of players. One day at practice, my players (grades 8-11) scrimmaged the grade 12’s. (The grade 12’s aren’t allowed to do sports in their final term because they have to study for their national exams, which coincidentally, started last week and will go to the end of November. They have 1 exam per week.) Anyway, it was ugly – I tried to put in an offense and organize our zone defense (2-1-2 for those who care) but it turned into chaos as soon as the ball was thrown up. When the dust cleared (and there is a lot of dust – it hasn’t rained for 2 weeks), somehow we were ahead. This outcome just made me curious how we will do against other Zambian schools. If any of them have even heard of fundamentals we will be in trouble. But if not, we have one decent shooter and a 6’6” guy so we should be competitive.
At school, teaching is pretty much still something I endure in the morning so I can tutor individuals or small groups in the afternoon/evening and coach basketball. The one fun part of teaching is that when students go to sleep I throw chalk at them. I used to not like it when they slept, but now I almost look forward to it. I have also started teaching computers/typing to one of the staff members for about 1hr every other day. We had to start from the VERY beginning. “This is the POWER button.” But since then we have learned some basic operations in WORD and have started to learn to touch type. Since we don’t have a typing program the typing lessons are just me typing a line of non-sense letters like “asdf dssa fd sas....” Then him repeating it below. Thus far we are still working on the home row. But he is getting better and he his very excited to learn. He even made a drawing of the keyboard so he can practice at home.
This past Wednesday was Zambian Independence Day (October 24, 1964). We didn’t have school and instead the students did speeches, drama, cultural dance, and sketches. They had all the staff dance around in a circle too. I basically walked around the circle and moved my arms as rhythmically as I could (not very rhythmically). It would have been more rhythmic but I couldn't hear the drums over all the laughter of 750 kids. Apparently, someone said something funny. I was also involved in one of the cultural dances. One of the dancers came up to me and handed me a big stick and told me I was supposed to go pound maize on another dancers stomach, which I did as best I knew how. Again, someone said something funny that I didn't hear. Then in the afternoon the dormitories played sports against each other. I was in charge of officiating the basketball games.
Well, I am off to Livingstone for the weekend with Mark, Amy, and Jocelyn. We are going to go to Victoria Falls and maybe a game park or museum. I have been looking forward to this for a while.

Until next time,
Tyler

EVERYONE ON THE LINE!!! Okay, actually I haven’t made them run at all. I thought first we need to learn how to make lay-ups...seriously. The first few days it took 20 minutes just to make 5 lay-ups in a row. However, I have seen improvement. By the end of the week, we were making more than we were missing. (And in all fairness it is harder to make lay-ups here – the ball is round-ish, the backboard is made of wood, and the rim is bent forward). Yet, my players are truly excited to learn how to play basketball. They told me they want me to run practice just like I would if I were in the US. I don’t think they quite knew what they were asking and really it would be impossible to do so here due to limited resources, players showing up and leaving practice at various times, and the opportunity for spectators to participate in whatever drill they think looks like fun. A certain rebounding drill was a crowd favorite. The team suddenly gained 8 people. (And I hated the drill when I had to do it). But despite the disadvantages, I am still having fun trying to coach and I think the players are enjoying it also. They even asked to have practice everyday instead of twice a week as they used to. Our first game will be next Saturday right here in Sikalongo. We are hosting a tournament for Choma district schools. I am very curious of what it will be like. Will they have officials? Will they call traveling? (I hope not.) What if the wind is blowing 30 mph? What is the competition like? How long are the games? Etc.
In the classroom, Mark inspired me to try to do as many experiments/demonstrations as possible. So this week one of my 11th grade physics classes took a “field trip” to the water pump (it was like 100 yards from the classroom) to observe the relationship between effort force and distance from the fulcrum. We also looked at bicycle to learn about gears and wheels and axles. (We are studying Simple Machines). In my other 11th grade class we sprinkled some cocoa in some water and watched the brown color slowly DIFFUSE throughout the whole glass as we were learning about Diffusion and Brownian Motion. But my favorite experiment was with my 10th grade physics class as we took a field trip to the water tower. First we measure it, then a boy dropped 10 stones from the top and we measured the time each took to hit the ground. We used the average time and determined the acceleration due to gravity. Our experimental value was 15.6 m/s/s. So your assignment for the week is to figure out what the accepted value is for acceleration due to gravity on earth and then find our %error. If you get them right, I won’t make you pay for your autograph (see above)
Well that’s all for this time, but before I go, I do want to say I am starting to like it here. I still get frustrated with things sometimes and of course still miss home but I don’t constantly think about it. I’ve stopped looking at each day and this year as something to get through so I can go home and instead as something to enjoy as much as I can while I can. What would I be doing at home anyway? Hauling trash? Working in a lab? Going to school? Watching (American) football...oh wait I do miss that.

Hello again,
A lot has happened in the last two weeks, not least of which is finding a faster internet cafe in Choma with Air Conditioning! which is where I sit now. In addition to the AC I have had the opportunity to enjoy other luxuries like a hot shower, American food, and cold drinking water. The cold water from the water cooler that was given to teachers for the staff room at the school and the hot shower and food were supplied by Ron and Emma, a couple of ex-pats who live in Choma. They gave Mark and me a place to sleep last Saturday night. We were in town to "help" Jocelyn, a SALTer from last year who extended, with the Peer Education seminar at Choma Secondary School. Peer Education seminars are for secondary students who have shown exemplary behavior and grades and want the opportunity to learn more about HIV/AIDS, sexual purity, abstinence, STD's, and other fun stuff and then take that knowledge back to their respective schools and use it to influence/teach their peers. They also get to eat chicken and have bread with jam! As for Mark and I's part, we didn't really do much. We sat through a couple of incredibly long lectures. We ended up leaving one early to go to Choma. We found out later that it lasted for 3 hours. Another lecture was almost that long. I have learned from these experiences and the church services I have attended that the attitude here seems to be since there isn't much else to do you might as well speak for a really long time.
Speaking of speaking, they asked me to speak in chapel two weeks ago. The first time I spoke, I got nervous and spoke to fast. I am not sure that they understood a word I said, which was okay because my topic was really more for me anyway. I spoke on Abraham having enough faith to follow God to a distance land. I was/am trying to convince myself that God does have a reason for bringing me here. And that reason is to make my descendents as numerous as the stars... okay just kidding. But seriously, I feel many times like if all I was brought here to do was teach, then God should have picked someone the students can understand. I have to constantly remind myself to slow down my speech and over-ununciate my words, which is hard because when you start talking about energy levels, moles, pH, etc. you just naturally get excited . In addition, even when I do slow down I have been disappointed with the students’ performance on homework (if they turn it in at all). I do not know if I am not being clear or if my expectations are just too high. Part of the problem is also the setup of the education system here. The grades students get on assignments don't affect their grade for the course. The grade for the course is the percentage they get on the final. But even that doesn't matter. All that matters is whether or not you get above a 40% on 6 of the 10 subjects in the government-issued grade 12 exams. If you do get higher than 40% on 6 of the 10 then you pass high school, so most students prefer to just study previous year’s exams. That said, there are a few bright students who do get what I teach and are genuinely interested in learning more than the 40% they need to pass. I have found some purpose and fulfillment in working with these students. There are also a few struggling students who have asked me to help them in the evenings. I do enjoy working with these kids. They do not get everything I say but they do work hard and truly want to learn. After working with these kids a few times, I am beginning to wonder if the maybe the best thing I can do here is not teach a bunch facts and concepts to a bunch of kids but maybe its just to be someone who cares about them enough to come from the other side of the world and attempt to get to know them, live like they do, and learn their language or at least attempt to. Most people get very excited if I even attempt to speak to them in Tonga. So I have decided to let the students teach me a little Tonga at the end of each class period. They seem to greatly enjoy this and it has really improved my relationship with the students. (However, I am not sure I will ever really learn the language. I talked to an American woman in Choma who is learning Tonga in an actual class and she explained why Tonga is so hard for English speakers to learn. In English our vowels are soft and our consonants are hard. In Tonga, it is just the opposite. Thus, it sounds to us like they are mumbling. Also, most verbs can have up to 20 different forms depending on the tense, person, and noun class.)
In other news, it has rained three times in the passed two weeks. (One of the times was this past Sunday while I was riding on the back of a truck taking me from Choma back to Sikalongo. I have never felt as African as I did riding in the back of a truck in the middle of nowhere with about 20 students while being rained on). This is highly unusual. It usually does not begin raining until the middle of October. This, coupled with the ecology department's prediction that this will be an especially wet rainy season has people worried (or as worried as Zambians get) that there may be flooding here as in other parts of Africa. (Don't worry mom, I live on a hill.)
Along with the rains, come animals. Aside from the bat that I encountered a few weeks ago, I have also seen a chameleon (it was green in the tree and brown on the ground), a big black iguana-ish lizard, and been chased by a lion...no not really. But the coolest/scariest thing I have seen is a spitting cobra. It was in one of the chicken pens. I watched (from a distance) as Mr. Muchimba killed it. At one point, he and the other boys I live with (who were much closer than I was) began running out of the chicken house. Needless to say, I had about reached Lusaka before I even turned around. But, eventually, it was killed without incident. Then we ate it the next day for lunch...okay that’s not true either. But we did have dika (I think that’s how it’s spelled). Dika is an impala-like animal. It was very good. Maybe the best meat I've tasted. It was a lot like beef but very soft.
I am still slowly making progress integrating into my host family. In fact, they have started to ask me more questions about myself, my family, and where I come from. My favorite question I have been asked by them (and by several students) is "What tribe are you from?" or similarly "What language does your tribe speak?" There are 7 main tribes in Zambia and everyone belongs to one of them and each has its own language. Also, there was some confusion as to why my parents named two of their kids the same name. For those who don't know, one of my brother's is named Taylor (the monk -- see above). To them Tyler and Taylor are the same. If you have trouble understanding how, they also have trouble distinguishing eyes and ears. Try to make those words sound the same. It is the same for Tyler and Taylor.
Well, I better go, but before I do I wanted to let you know that I will be in the Jan. or Feb. issue of MCC's "Common Ground" magazine. They sent Mark out to Sikalongo on Monday and Tuesday to take pictures of me while I was hard at work. There will be an autograph session when I get back.

Tulabonana,
Tyler