School has started again, which I am happy about. The weeks go much faster when I have something to do. My job has changed a bit this term. The school secretary is on medical leave for the term so I am taking over her position. This basically entails typing letters and other documents for the headmaster and teachers. Because of my secretarial duties my teaching load has been reduced, so now I only have two classes – 12th grade physics and 11th grade chemistry. I will have 3 grade 10 classes when they report to school, but as of right now they are still waiting for their Grade 9 National Exams to be graded. I have asked several people when they will report. Some say at the end of January and others say not until March. I guess I will just have to wait and see.
In the afternoons, we have started basketball “practice” again. Once again practice is in quotes because it in no way resembles what I think of as practice. I treat it more like a basketball camp where we only work on individual skills and play games like knockout (I bought two balls which has allowed us to do more things) or horse or other shooting and dribbling games. So the result is something like a mix between a basketball camp and a circus, but I think they have fun. We are supposed to be “tripping” (i.e. going somewhere else, not falling down) on the 26th of January for a basketball tournament, so I am looking forward to seeing what Zambian basketball is really like.
At home things are changing as well. My two sisters who were still living at home last term have left – one to teach at a primary school and the other to a teacher training college. Also, Cliff, one of the boys who stayed with us last term, left. They have been replaced by a two year old girl and a five year old boy -- my host parents’ grandchildren -- their mother (my other married sister) has also started teacher training school. At times they are very entertaining but I am getting tired of the two year old crying every night while I am trying to sleep.
About the only other thing to report is the rain. It has rained everyday except two for the last month and a half. It is a serious problem to get in and out of Sikalongo. The backroad straight from Sikalongo to Choma is horrible and has taken my host father as long as 8 hours to get from Sikalongo to Choma or vice versa. To make matters worse, the paved road that the school and clinic use has had a bridge washed away. So to get to get to Choma to catch the bus for Lusaka (where I am now, we had a team meeting) the headmaster of my school had to drive to the washed out bridge where I walked across a makeshift bridge to the other side where the headmaster at Mark’s school (Batoka Basic) picked me up and took me to Batoka where Mark and I got a minibus to Choma. I asked if it is always like this in the rainy season and they told me it is not usually this bad. In fact, they are saying this is the most rain they’ve had since 1921. Many farmers have had their crops washed out and some people have lost their homes.