I am in town this weekend for a bit of a Thanksgiving feast at Ron and Erma’s house. I have been told there won’t be turkey or cranberry sauce so I am not sure what were having instead, but I am thankful nonetheless.
This past week was the busiest for me since I have been in Africa. I didn’t teach or monitor exams, instead I became the designated typer for exams. Most of the teachers (instead of using a typewriter or hand-writing it like they used to do) gave me their final exams to type and print, so the last five days I have been typing all day. I really don’t mind doing it, but by Friday I was tired of looking at a computer screen.
It has started raining more often now, mostly at night, although sometimes in the afternoons. It is somehow very relaxing to hear the pounding of rain on the tin roof. It is also the only way to tell that time is passing here, because without the rain all the days are the same. There is no change of seasons. It doesn’t seem like November because it is still the same temperature as it was in September.
The evening after the first really heavy rain, there were swarms of insects. They were these flying ant-like things. Some people fry them and eat them but my host family didn’t. We just put on our jackets and turned off all the lights and sat inside all night. We ate in the dark too, because if we turned on the light in the living room it was unbearable. But the next day they were gone. (I guess pharaoh let the people go.)
Well that’s all for this time.

Two weekends ago I was in Livingstone. It was great to get away. I got to eat fish and chips one night and pizza and ice cream the next. The falls were also pretty spectacular. There was very little water since it is right at the end of the dry season. However, this allowed us to go right up to the edge of the falls and dangle our legs over! It is not like American national parks where there are ropes and rangers everywhere to make sure everyone is safe. We just paid to get in through the gate and were allowed to go wherever we wanted. We also went down to the “Boiling Pot” which is the bottom of the falls. We were able to stick our feet in the Zambezi River and could’ve even gone swimming if we wanted. In fact, some people did swim.
At home, my family finally started giving me nshima instead of rice at every meal. It is still not great eating the same thing at every meal but I like it better than rice and this way I feel more Zambian and more like a part of the family. Although they still give me my nshima and other food on a separate tray than the one the family shares. Oh well, at least I am making some progress. I found out the reason for giving me rice instead of nshima was that my host mom thought that white people’s stomachs couldn’t take it…haha.
This past weekend was the MCC team meeting in Lusaka. It was nice to get to see everyone again and here their stories and also have a hot shower and American food. On Sunday we went to a water park. Once again there were very few rules and we could basically do what we wanted on slides. We could go down forwards, backwards, upside-down, on tubes, hanging on to the person in front of us. (Of course, if anything happens they aren’t liable). The first time I went down a slide I was about half way down going around a corner and there is a kid hanging on the wall in the middle of the slide…haha. (I did manage to miss him.) The other nice thing was that the lines were very short. We could basically just slide down, climb back up, and go again.
Another fun experience was driving in Lusaka. There is a mall about 2km from the MCC guest house so instead of taking a taxi, Siggi let us drive. Amy drove to the mall and I drove back. It was weird being on the right side of the car and on the left side of the road and to make matters more difficult the car had a manual transmission. However, the hardest part was the turn signal. It was on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left. So I kept turning on the window wipers when I wanted to turn…haha.
In the classroom I can tell the term is starting to wind down. I am having a hard time getting any kind of focus from the students. (I don’t know if I have told you about the Zambian school calendar, but they have 3 terms: one from January through March with April off, then May through July with August off, and September through November with December off.) So I won’t be covering anymore new material this term, which is sort of nice because I don’t like making lesson plans, but now I will have significantly more free time. Luckily, I was able to stock up on books from the MCC library. (Now I won’t have to read my textbooks anymore…seriously I was so bored I read my Zambian physics, chemistry, and biology textbooks.) Instead of lesson plans, we will just be reviewing for the final exams in the final two weeks of school. I won’t have much to do then either because I am only responsible for writing two exams: Grade 11 biology and Grade 11 physics. I will have even less to do come December when all the kids leave. Siggi suggested I build a water slide..ha