Of Rats and Spiders

Highlights from June 20^th 2012:

• writing creative short stories with the grade seven’s at Birdland
• Olive and her lovely staff made a traditional Zambian lunch for us featuring the much awaited N’shima (Alice was very excited).
• Reed, Gigi, and Grace killed their first large spider (Tommy killed the rest) and felt triumphant
• Emma and Grace signed with the deaf kids at Munali and when they coulden’t keep up,  resorted to written conversation
• Gigi, Jack, Reed, Leora, and Sam visited Temwani at his home. Temwani is a 7^th grader at Birdland who has been too sick to come to school (the cause of his illness has not been diagnosed yet)

June 21, 2012

After a bumpy bus ride to Birdland school we met up with Olive Mumba (head of Birdland) and she took us to the homes of four students whose education is paid for by SAAS donations. The first woman we met was the grandmother of a former Birdland student and four other kids she was raising by herself with the money she made from crushing rock. The grandmother had injured her leg which made it hard for her to work. After speaking with her we visited three other families who were very greatful for the opportunities their children had been given. Olive had organized for some of the money that SAAS had brought over to be used to replace their dirt floors with cement ones. After buying the cement with the families we took a public bus (The size of a VW van) back to Birdland; the bus was packed with 25 people! When we got back to the school most of the group read with the third and fourth graders who talked animatedly about insects while Emma, Reed, and Leora helped make lunch and hung out with the kindergarteners. At lunch almost everyone tried some rat that Gabe bought from one of the families we visited (we got pictures as proof!) After school we went to Manda Hill Shopping Center to exchange money and stock up on food. We all had a blast at the supermarket armed with Mercy’s detailed lists. We made sure to get our new favorite mango and guava jam.  We ended up with four million kwacha worth of food for the next few weeks. For dinner tonight we had tacos and discussed the two very different scenes we had taken in. We are now watching the Euro 2012 quarter finals! 

Our First Big Day in Zambia (6/19)

Muli Bwanji (Hello, how are you?) blog world!

This morning we woke up to mooing cows, crowing roosters, chirping birds, and  a barking Scrumpy!!! Toto, we’re definitely not in Seattle anymore!  After a VERY restful night, Sam and Jack were up early enough to see the sunrise (“megs jello!”-Emma*), which according to their pictures, was gorgeous. Alice, Emma, Josie, and Carly woke up and took some much needed showers in the beautiful, outdoor-ish shower room. Gabe was the dish washing ringleader as we cleaned everything up from the previous night’s feast. While the now senior girls sleep in the big cabin with Mercy and Sonja, the juniors, Gigi, Reed, and Grace spend their nights in their private chalet (“Omg! Double jello!”-Emma*). Upon arrival, the junior girls had a memorable incident: in the room there was a spider the size of a pancake! With stripes on its legs! But have no fear, Tommy, the arachnidbane came to the rescue, bearing Insecticide.  Huzzah!

At 10:00 am, the bus from Munali Boys School picked us up and took us to the Birdland School. The Birdland School was so much fun! We first met the pre-schoolers and the kindergarteners. We were all taken aback by their cuteness. And Izzy exclaimed that the kindergarteners had better handwriting than many of the people we go to school with. We then moved on and met the rest of the grades; the Birdland school holds grades pre-school up to seventh grade.

After meeting all the classes, Olive and Mercy gave us permission to split into pairs and ask to sit in each of the different classes and hang out with the kids.

Leora and I (Alice) visited the third grade class. The teacher, also named Alice, was so kind and let us freely walk around her classroom and talk to the kids. All the students were welcoming and fun. The students gave us more drawings than we could carry.

After many years of exchanging letters, I (Emma) finally met my Birdland buddy! Sandra, my buddy, and her classmates loved getting their pictures taken and showed me all of the drawings they made. At lunch they taught us all of the games they play and songs they sing.

We also met with the seventh graders and presented them with books, created by Sonja’s eighth graders, which explained how to write short stories (Shout out to Delaney Flood. I gave your short story book to Betty and she loved it. Nice work, Pipsqueak!). The students are all very excited to start writing their own short stories. They also loved all of the stickers in the back of the books.

After our exciting day at Birdland, the bus picked us up at Munali High School. Before we got on the bus, we hung out with some of the students. Jack, Sam, Izzy, Josie, and Alice were taught some traditional Zambian dancing, which was followed by a group sing-along of Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’. The girls swooned over Jack’s Justin Bieber-esque voice as he belted some Disney classics.

We made the 3.5 mile long trek to Pioneer Camp today. Along the way we met many children that lived in the nearby villages. They were just as adorable as the kids at Birdland! Many of the children did not speak English, but this was not a setback as they were thoroughly entertained by having their pictures taken.

Once we arrived to Pioneer Camp, we hung out, talked, and repacked some donations. A spectacular dinner was made by tonight’s dinner crew, lead by the FANTASTIC chef Mercy. As Emma and I type this blog entry, our entire group is gathered at the Bar watching England and Ukraine play in the Euro Cup.

Can’t wait for tomorrow. Shout out to the Floods and Yuh Colemans! Woohoo!

Xoxo

Alice and Emma

***Key to Emma’s Vernacular***

Megs= mega

Jello= jealous

Omg= Oh my god!/Oh my goodness!

http://saaszambia2012.blogspot.de/

Dear family, friends, and loved ones,

We have arrived at Pioneer Camp after a long and tiring two days of plane rides in good health and good spirits. Four plane rides and eleven different time zones have finally brought us to Pioneer Camp in Lusaka, Zambia. We just finished an amazing home-cooked meal by Olive Mumba, and we will visit the Birdland School tomorrow. We had quite the turn out at the airport, being greeted by numerous students and principals who helped load our many suitcases, and drive us to Pioneer Camp. Everyone is doing very well, we are all HEALTHY, happy, and extremely excited to be in Zambia!!

Fun Facts:

Gigi was saved by a Zambian customs officer who found her missing down coat left on the seat of the last plane.

Sam, Carly, and Grace have been constantly trying to check the scores of the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. We even ran into a German fan who let us know that the Deustch had advanced to the quarterfinals.

Jack slapped himself in the face in order to wake himself up on the last plane flight, but had redeemed himself earlier when he remembered the exact number of gates (11) between the Chipotle and our first Ethiopian Airlines flight.

Tommy charmed half the plane by doing an impeccably accurate Jar-Jar Binx imitation while flying from Washington D.C. to Addis Ababa. The complimentary socks were used as ears.

Reed, Izzy, and Josie are continuing to express their unconditional love to One Direction. Magazines containing “over 175 hot pics” of the group were purchased during our 2 hour layover at Dulles.

Leora and Alice entertained the trans-Atlantic flight passengers with their extensive knowledge of in-flight yoga stretches.

Men Prefer Blondes was watched by our chaperone Mercy as part of the complementary in seat entertainment offered on the 13 hour D.C.-Ethiopia flight.

Emma slept. Later she bonded with Scrumpy, one of the 4 dogs that call Pioneer Camp home.

Sonja topped the scales as the carrier of our heaviest suitcase. Said Don Zwiers before we left, “it gets even heavier on the way back.”

Gabe miraculously solved our luggage problems by holding back five different nervous breakdowns.

Look for our next post tomorrow (we think Leora and Gigi have been haggling for a turn!)

-Jack and Carly

Tuesday and Wednesday we packed up 30 suitcases with 170 pairs of dress shoes, books for the Birdland school library, soccer balls, 20 laptop computers, and a ton of donated clothing.  The SAAS community has been exceedingly generous in donations this year.

We are headed to the airport today for a 10pm departure.  We will arrive in Lusaka (fingers crossed) at 2:30pm on Monday June 18th.  We are excited to reunite with our friends from Munali School, Birdland School, and Pioneer Camp.  The next time you hear from us, we'll be in Zambia!!!!