A Dark, Rainy, Cold Day (relatively speaking)

                At 8, I had tutoring with Jeremiah, Stone, and Obey.  I was supposed to have Stone’s older brother, Given, again, but when he saw that there were older kids with Rachel, he wanted to go with them.  His English is quite poor and Rachel’s kids were pretty advanced, so he really should have been with my group again, but we made it work.  I don’t want him to be embarrassed that he’s working with his little brother, but we’ll have to figure out what will be ultimately the most helpful.  Obey wasn’t on our list, but I tutored him anyway.  He’s at almost the exact same level as Jeremiah, so it worked out really well.

                We did more stuff with the Bananagrams tiles and also looked at a PowerPoint I made with the ABCs and pictures.  I’m kicking myself for not bringing a basic ABC book with me.  This tutoring session was really fun for me and again made me get creative with how to teach Stone, who doesn’t know his letters as well as the other two boys, without separating him from the group.  Lots of differentiation! (Dr. Brightsman would be so proud).  The boys are naturally competitive, which I think is great because it keeps them focused and interested in what we’re doing.

                Then I had English with the ladies.  Today’s lesson was the best one I’ve had so far.  The women are definitely opening up to me and we’re getting comfortable with each other.  I had Regina, the very advanced English speaker, read a short story I found in Abby and Tammy’s box (The Country Mouse and City Mouse) and answer questions about it on her own.  Then I reviewed what we did yesterday with the other ladies and then extended it to make it more challenging.  I had Thokazani, who is very shy about her speaking skills, do a short activity with the women who  missed yesterday’s class.  When I told her she was the teacher for a few minutes while I talked with Regina, she laughed and acted all embarrassed, but she did really well with it.  I think it gave her some confidence and ownership of the lesson.  I had mini-lessons on vowels/consonants, directions (right, left, next to, etc)., and gave them their assignment for Friday.  We don’t have classes tomorrow because it’s a holiday – International Women’s Day.  This morning was so much fun for me.  I love seeing the progress in the students.   

                We came back for our lunch break to find that the power was out.  It rained all day today and was actually kind of chilly.  I even needed a coat.  I spent part of my lunch break outside under the tent reading on my Kindle and enjoyed the rain pouring down around me.   Because of the rain, our students came late for tutoring, so my session with Shain and Miriam was shortened.  They’re great kids and I am even getting quiet, timid Miriam to smile and laugh a little, but I am still so shocked by how little they know about letters and their sounds.  I’m thinking these two could be my most challenging students just because they are so far behind from where I expect eleven year olds to be. 

                We had a nice, long afternoon of being isolated in our house.  The rainstorms were relentless and our power was still out, which means we had very little we could do.  Rachel and I played Bananagrams (she beat me twice, again just barely…I haven’t lost this much since playing with Melanie), read, and talked.  About every ten minutes I complained about being unable to microwave my coffee from this morning.  Hard life, right?

                One of the seminarian students found a baby snake while working outside and came to show it to us.  It was a baby Black Mamba and even though it was teeny tiny, it looked vicious.  Black Mambas are scary – they shoot venom at your eyes so you’re blinded and then bite you.  They’re very dangerous, but he made a funny comment ab9out how “even a woman could kill it with a stick because its skin is so weak.”  That’s…comforting.   By the way, he's really not a jerk to say that, it's just a Zambian thing.  He is really nice to women :)

                The power was still out when we went to church, so we worshiped in the dark.  Thankfully the power came on while we were walking home, so we can now charge our laptops and wash dishes!  We’re planning on going to town tomorrow to buy groceries and see a movie.  Our plan is to be really productive and plan ahead tonight so we can do this stuff guilt-free, but we’ll see how that goes.   

A Love Story, Bananagrams, and Just a Few Tears

                Up at 6:15, workout, shower, coffee, breakfast, and over to the chapel for English lessons at 8.  We started them in a whole-group activity, which needed an adaption when it didn’t work out quite as well as we wanted it to.   We tried to do that activity Michael does on “The Office” where he has people put cards on their head and they had to try to guess what was on it (except without the offensive stereotypes, obviously).  We wanted each woman to have a vocabulary word that they would hold up on their forehead and the other women would have to describe it to them without using the word.  They didn’t quite get it – when Rachel had “cup” on her head, they shouted it out.  There were a few other failed attempts, so then we turned it into a “game” where each woman got a vocabulary word and they had to say a sentence using it.  It worked out just fine. 

                Then we started teaching them a hymn – “Oh Dearest Lord, Thy Sacred Head” – so they can get used to the Lutheran hymnal and songs they’ll be hearing in church.  We split up so I could teach my advanced group more of the tricky vocabulary words, like sacred, thee, thy, and pierced.  Then I went over their writing assignments, with which I was pleasantly surprised.  I reviewed yesterday’s lesson and then introduced them to past and present verbs.  I took a lot from my fourth grade lesson plans (thanks Ms. Schramm!) which helped a lot.  I only had three of the five, so I’m going to have to figure out how to re-teach it tomorrow but still challenge the other women too.  Sarah left early, so for the last twenty minutes I just had Thokazani and Regina.  I want them to get better at speaking English, so I tried to get a conversation going between the three of us. Thokazani is very shy about her English and was hesitant to join in, but Regina speaks English very well and I learned a lot about her.  She told me about how her husband and her met (I think I said yesterday she’s married to Titus…that’s wrong.  Her husband is Stewart).  It was a really interesting story – she and Stewart met at the Lutheran church and fell in love, but her guardians wanted her to marry this rich older man from town, so they rejected his numerous proposals (he was shy so he first proposed in a letter and then had his parents go ask her guardians).  Regina didn’t want to marry the older man – he had three children and had his divorced his wife in a dishonorable way, not to mention the fact that she didn’t love him.  So the pastor of the Lutheran church went to speak to Regina’s guardians and convinced them to let her marry Stewart.  And they lived happily ever after!

                Next, tutoring from 10:15-11:30.  I had Jeremiah (age 9; Pastor Phiri’s son), and two brothers – Given (age 13) and Stone (age 11).  They are all lively, slightly mischievous boys, and we had a blast.  They didn’t know the alphabet very well (side note – they sing the ABC song differently, and because of that, they forget about letters like Q and T because the song goes fast in those parts) so we practiced writing it out, singing it, and then identifying different letters.  I am discovering cultural differences with letter sounds: C is always taught to sound like S, R is said with two syllables, G sounds like J, etc. In a moment of inspiration, I brought out my Bananagrams tiles and we did some work with them.  The boys loooooved playing with them and seemed to really learn a lot with them.  I had them sound out simple words like run, sit, and clap, and when they figured it out I had them act it out.  Then I had them practice writing letters to find words and even had them reading simple sentences by the end of the lesson.  I had so much fun working with them!  They’re really active and excitable, so I’m definitely going to be challenged to find some physical ways to get them to learn more English words. 

                Preschool was much better than last time.  We started outside with songs and games (Rachel led, of course) and then moved inside for their lesson.  We worked on the letter A – how to write it, how it sounds, etc.  We did more songs and books and then had free play outside.  There were moments where they did really well, but then there were others… 

Funny/What are you doing??? moment number one:

                Isabel likes to kick, hit, slap, punch, roll around the floor, etc.  While Rachel was reading stories, I was trying to control the crazy children, especially her.  I tried to teach Isabel what a time out was, but she didn’t care.  She just went all rag doll whenever I tried to show her to the chair in the other room (I’m sure this looked really hilarious, but I was definitely not laughing) and then just kept trying to hug me and talk to me in Chewa.  I could tell she just loved getting attention from me, so I was trying to do it without her getting any positive reinforcement, but it’s just super hard when she doesn’t speak the same language.   

Funny/What are you doing??? moment number two:

                We were outside playing What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf? when Rachel all of a sudden points to the slide and shouts, “What are they doing???”  I turn and see Innocent relieving himself on the bottom of the slide.  Then Peace just slides right down without caring about the puddle.  I am laughing uncontrollably right now remembering this.  Again, this was not definitely not funny at the time…

Funny/What are you doing??? moment number three:

                It was free play time.  We go outside and are passing out balls, trucks, and other toys.  The older kids just grabbed whatever ball they could and ran off to play soccer.  The younger ones, who apparently have never learned how to share, were not thrilled by the toys and showed their displeasure by crying.  So imagine this…seven children sitting on the dirt, screaming for me to give them a different truck.  Again, how do I explain sharing to a bunch of little kids who don’t speak English?  I did what I could and then let them cry it out.  They learned eventually that I wasn’t going to cater to each scream and tantrum, and eventually it was blissfully tear-free. 

Funny/What are you doing??? moment number four:

                Stewart (who is so, so, SO cute) said, “Teacher!  Teacher!  I have to wee-wee!”  I then give him permission, so he runs out to the “bathroom” (field).   

                We were a little tired after this.  We came back by 3 for a short break before our next tutoring session.  Mr. Zulu (groundskeeper for Dave and Dee and the other missionary guest houses) came by to take pictures of us.  He is the funniest, happiest, most hysterical man.  I should record him talking sometime because he is just hilarious. 

                I then had Barnabas Kawaliza and Barnabas Ndumba.  Barnabas K (older brother of super-smart Betha) is fluent in English and has a ton of potential.  I am so excited to work with him. He’s 13, in the 9^th grade (very high for Zambia) and wants to learn about civics, history, geography, and science (I’m not quite as excited about that last subject as I am about the others).  Barnabas N is 11.  He was one of the boys that played soccer with me in my first days here and we have a good relationship already.  Even though he is 11 and Chewa uses the same letters that English does, he struggled writing out his ABCs.  We’re experiencing firsthand the downfalls of Zambian schools.  I worked on his letters using the Bananagrams tiles and practiced forming small words.  This session will be interesting because this is the first group I’ve had where the students weren’t on the same level.  I’ll have to find things the boys can do independently while I work with the other. 

                Teaching here is definitely making me more creative and able to adapt.  I’m also very grateful for the resources we have in American schools.  How many teachers in America have to wonder if their students have paper or a pencil at their homes?  I’m guessing not too many.   

First Day of Teaching!

First, Rachel and I went to 7:30 morning worship with the seminarian students so they could welcome us officially.  It was the Morning Worship from the hymnal.  Titus preached.  Rachel and I both really like Titus – he’s really tall with this huge smile and is the father of two of the sweetest kids in preschool, Stewart and Brian.  He’s very well-spoken, as is his wife, Regina, who I have a feeling will be my translator during the English lessons.

                After that, we came back to our house for tutoring.  All of our tutoring will take place under the tents in our little courtyard, so we’ll be outside most of the day (yes!).  Rachel and I have split up the kids by grade level – she has the younger kids and I have the older kids.  This morning, Rachel had four kids while I only had two, but that was the only way we could make that work.  Rachel had my little buddy Ndamiwe (we finally figured out how to spell it…of course we should have known it had the silent “n” J) and a few other little boys who pretty much only know how to sing the ABCs.  I had Betha and Mildred, both daughters of pastors here (Kawaliza and Mutentame – check spelling for those names later).  I am so excited about these girls – they already speak excellent English and are so eager to learn more.  Betha is 10 and has five older siblings (Benford, Beatrice, Brian, Barnabas, and Bridget…how adorable is that).  Mildred is twelve with two sisters, Haga and Margaret.  They’re both in grade six, which is quite high for the education system here.  For the first little bit, we just sat and talked. They understood me very well and I didn’t have to slow down my speech or anything.  I showed them pictures of my sisters and parents, which they loved.  (Looking at the pictures of all us girls from Emily’s wedding, Mildred said, “This is very nice!  What a nice picture!”).  I showed them the pictures that St. Marcus sent over, and Mildred recognized Dr. Kolander from his visits here.  Then I asked them to tell me what they hoped to learn.  Spelling was one area they wanted help on, as well as learning American English (since they learned British English), maybe a little history on America and Zambia, some geography, and some math.  They were really interested in the books that St. Marcus had donated and picked out “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” as their first one to read.  They read extremely well.  While they were reading, I made a list of some spelling words (all from “Charlie,” so they’re learning them in context).  I asked some comprehension questions along the way, which they answered very well.  I introduced ideas like the setting of a story, antonyms versus synonyms, and summarizing.  After we read two chapters, I gave them the spelling test of fifteen words (for example: extremely, altogether, young, awful) and then went through and corrected them together.  Each spelled about half the words wrong, so their assignment is to write each word five times and I’ll test them when I see them again next (unfortunately not for a while, we just realized – there are two national holidays coming up on Thursday and next Monday, which are the days I tutor them).  I also gave them two writing assignments so I can assess their writing skills: write about their typical day and summarize what we’ve read so far about Charlie.  Also, they’re going to bring their math textbooks so I can see where they’re at.  I was so excited after this hour and fifteen minutes with them!  They were super polite and sweet and I can see so much potential for them. 

                 At 9:30, we went back to the chapel for English with the ladies.  We played “Going on a Picnic” to get to know their names, explained our theme for the week (kitchen – things found in the kitchen and things you do in the kitchen) and then divided into our ability groups.  I have five women (who know slightly more English) and Rachel has six (who aren’t quite as advanced).  I have Regina, Besther, Sarah, Thokazani, and Ella.  We went through our worksheet and wrote down the English words that matched up with the picture, talked about verbs that go along with them (you “stir” with the “spoon”) and then we did a little mini-lesson about nouns and verbs.  Some women, like Regina and Ella, did really well and can spell everything well.  Others struggled a little more and needed help on some of the spellings.  After that, we played some Pictionary, which got them to open up and start laughing and teasing each other.  Then we played “What Am I?” (Example: I have four legs.  I have a seat and a back.  You sit on me.  What am I? …Rachel and I wrote these out beforehand after we saw that Abby and Tammy used them a lot).   Near the end of our time, I wanted them to talk more, so I had us go around and tell me about their families.  Regina came from a family of eight, but everyone has died except for her and one other sibling.  Sarah didn’t know how old she was – she said twenty-two, but then she said she had been married for ten years, so to clarify I asked if she got married when she was twelve, which she laughed at and said no.  They chatted away in Chewa, and then came to the conclusion that she forgot how old she was.  At the end, the women came together and graciously sang us an African song.  Again, I was struck by how beautiful these women sing.  I’ll try to tape it one of these times. 

                When Rachel and I came back for our lunch break (the English class was from 9:30-11), Anne had changed our sheets, washed our towels, did our dishes from breakfast, and made us fritters.  Sweetest woman ever! 

                Our afternoon tutoring session began at 1 (or 13 hours, as Zambians would say).  I had Miriam and Shain (I’ve written about him previously as Shy and Shane…this is for sure the correct name).  Both are grade 3 and are ten years old, but their knowledge of letters and reading is very low.  I suppose this is normal for Zambia, though.  I spent a lot of time having them write certain letters – both students often had to look at the ABC chart and sing the song in their head to figure out which letter was which.  Then we formed small words, practiced the sounds, and figured out what the words meant.  My experience and education on teaching kids how to read is limited, so I’ll have to brush up on techniques for this.  They’re good kids – quiet, but polite and worked really hard.  Next time I meet them, I’m going to do more work with individual letter sounds and then work on just conversational English, because they actually do fine with that. 

                After tutoring, Rachel and I prepped for tomorrow.  Tomorrow’s a busy day – English from 8-10 with the ladies, two different sections of tutoring, and two hours of preschool in the afternoon.   Then Rachel and Sue went for a walk and I biked.  While biking, I saw the craziest thing – someone wearing a Bloomsday T-shirt!!!  Only people from Washington will find this significant – Bloomsday is an annual 10k race in Spokane.  About 40,000 people participate, and each year they give out a T-shirt with a unique design on it.  I am so curious how this person got a Bloomsday T-shirt.  It is a popular race and brings in people from Kenya and other countries, but seriously…

                A couple other funny things on my bike ride: there were construction workers shouting, “Muzungu!  Muzungu!” and they got really excited when I understood what they meant.  There was a man on a bike swerving around on the road ahead of me, pretending like he was going to crash into me and then actually ended up biting it in the gravel.  He was fine though – when I came back down the road, he had recovered and started racing me for a while. 

Overall, I feel really good about how today went.  I’m excited to continue working with the students and the women and am really motivated to find stuff for them to do. 

A Pretty Typical Sunday

                Church, shopping, and pool – sounds like the Sundays I spent in Florida.  We went to Good Shepherd again.  We took Communion, and during the hymn (310 -I Come Oh Savior, To Your Table, I think it’s called – the one with fifteen verses, which we sang all of by the way.  I told you it was very traditional!) I was thinking about being in heaven with all these people someday.  There, we won’t have any language or cultural barriers and we’ll be able to communicate and worship perfectly together.  The people I met in Ukraine will be there too…it was such a mind-blowing thought!  We’ll understand each other and love each other perfectly.  How crazy!  Anyway, I’m rambling…

                After church, we went to a marketplace outside the mall while waiting for Sue to be done with a meeting.  I posted what I bought on facebook – the Africa carving and two paintings.  We had so much fun there and will probably be back often, spending too much money. We’re getting better at bartering, I think – we were able to talk them down to just about half the asking price. 

                We went to the American International School to swim laps again with the Birners.  On the way there, I discovered that I had run much of the route when I had been lost.  Again, this school is twenty to thirty minutes away, and I ran almost all the way up to it.  The gym (where I was offered a free trial) is maybe a mile away from it, and that is where I turned around.  What’s funny is that if I had not stopped at the gym and kept running, I would have seen the school and realized just how far away I was and been able to go in there and get some help.  My adventure would have been cut short about two hours.  Oh well – live and learn!  Now I can be the poster child for all future Americans coming to Zambia and warn them all about the dangers of running by yourself. 

                Rachel and I are getting along really well – we’re very similar and spent a lot of the afternoon just sitting around and talking.  What a blessing, because we were both admittedly a little nervous at the thought of spending the next three months with a person we barely knew. 

                Tonight, we made some eggs with tomatoes and onions.  Anne doesn’t cook for us on the weekends, and she had been busy with some surprise visits from pastors in the area, so we have been fending for ourselves for a few days by eating lots of peanut butter sandwiches and cereal.  Even I can’t handle that much peanut butter, so we were forced to get a little creative and actually cook something ourselves.  While we were cooking, a group of boys saw us in the windows and came and watched.  I think Damiwe has a little crush on me…when he saw me, he smiled really big and then came and sat at the window, staring at me and smiling the whole time. 

                Tomorrow we begin teaching!  I’m a little nervous because we really aren’t sure what to expect.  I hope what we planned isn’t too hard or too easy for the women, and I hope the kids we tutor give us some idea of what they’re capable of so we can plan some specific assignments for them later in the week.  I can’t believe we’ve been here for a little over a week! 

A Hot, Rainy Saturday

                Not a lot of news over here.  I slept in a little late because I was up from 2:30 until around 4 watching the basketball game.  (They lost by about 10 points, but played very well, especially considering they were playing the fifth-ranked team in the nation.  They had a great season!)  It was a hot, muggy day here, and we didn’t have water until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, so we were a little gross this morning.  The heat, combined with the fact that my foot is very sore to the point that I’m limping, kept us inside for the much of the day.  We played Bananagrams (Rachel won, but just barely), read a lot, and watched Friends.  In the afternoon, we headed out to find Pastor Phiri and give him our schedule, but while looking for him, a big rainstorm hit.  The group of boys that are always playing together – Damilwe (still don’t know how to spell that), Elias, Justice, and Paul, accompanied by little Peace – followed us as we dodged from tree to building, getting soaked.  I’m getting to know these boys’ personalities – Damilwe is a sweetheart who adores me and never let go of my hand in the entire hour or two we were outside.  Paul is a stinker – he actually got my watch off my wrist without me noticing it at first and kept trying to grab my camera.  When the rain let up, we noticed a double rainbow, so Rachel ran inside to grab her camera.  While waiting for her to come back, Damilwe gestured that he wanted to touch my hair, which was wet from the rain.  I squatted down and soon had four or five (muddy) kids running their fingers through it and playing with it (Rachel added this to facebook – it’s in my tagged pictures).  Then we started taking pictures on our cameras – the kids loved it and started getting crazy with it.  There was a group of older boys (like age 10 to 12) who were playing soccer the entire rainstorm on the dirt field, which was soon just mud.  They were sliding around in it like it was an ice skating rink.

                Rachel and I are planning out the big trips we want to take.  In April, we’re hoping to go to Malawi to see where she grew up.  Soon we want to get to Victoria Falls, where we’re debating on whether or not we can afford to go on the elephant safari.  I have a feeling we’re going to end up splurging, but we have to budget because we’re also planning on going to Luangwe, the famous game park, for several days.  There we’ll be able to go on both night and day safaris and stay in a pretty nice resort.  I’m so excited! 

                I saw a lizard in my bedroom and went to grab my camera because I haven’t seen one up close yet.  Of course, when I came back, I couldn’t find it, so it’s probably in my bed or something right now.  I might be in for a lovely surprise later…

                Speaking of wildlife, when Rachel and I were hiding from the rain, we came up to a humongous spider web with two huge spiders working on it.  These were nothing like the gray ones I’ve taken so many pictures of – these have insanely long legs and are even bigger than the others.  I remember seeing pictures from Abby’s album of these things.  Rachel accidentally walked into part of the web…a little gross, but it’s funny how little we care about these things.  Back home, if I see a spider, I make my sister kill it for me because I’m too afraid to do it myself. Here, they’re just part of the landscape.  We’re just partners in crime, fighting the mosquitoes together. 

                Anyway, that’s pretty much it.  Again, we’re still enjoying our last quiet days.  Tomorrow we’ll go to church and hopefully get to do some bartering at the market. 

A Relaxing Friday

                Today was a pretty quiet day.  I got up, made some coffee, worked out (but no running – I think I pulled a muscle in my foot from my long run on Tuesday), and then pretty much just read the rest of the morning.  Rachel and I went over to see the preschoolers some more and had fun playing a game with them for a while after school. At one point, I had four kids hanging off of each hand, which definitely made me feel loved.  There were some older boys (I’m guessing seven? Eight?) who are so cute.  Their names are Elias, Justice, and Dmalye (I’m completely guessing on that last spelling) and they were fascinated by my watch and kept pushing Violet and Peace out of the way so they could push the buttons. 

                We walked with Dee and Sue, and I tried to figure out where I got lost.  I realized I must have gotten lost way earlier in my run than I thought.  Sometime I’m going to have to go on Google Earth and figure out exactly what route I did.   

                There was a problem with the water pump today, so currently we are without water.  Dave, whose birthday is today, spent the day fixing it, only to hear a couple hours later that there is another problem with it.  We have enough drinking water to be fine for a day or so, but the shower situation could get a little iffy.   

Dave and Dee took us and Pastor Hartmann (visiting from Livingstone) out to a pizza dinner and then invited us over for dessert.  Pastor Hartmann pointed out the Southern Cross and Orion’s Belt, so that question has been answered.  We'll do more research on other constellations we can see down here.

I’m going to try to get a few hours of sleep before the WLC game!  They're playing Calvin in the NCAA tournament.  It’s on around 2:30 in the morning my time, and I’m hoping the internet cooperates so I can get at least live stats.  Good luck!  I’ll be cheering!

School Visit, Cooking Class, and Not Much Else

                Rachel and I woke up (late – our alarms are too quiet and we’re having trouble waking up from them), quickly got ready, and went to a local Lutheran school with Sue Birner.  Sue gave a short presentation on America to the school there (I’m having trouble remembering the name now – I’ll ask Rachel later).  Rachel and I really wanted to see the school because we’re planning on having a teacher in-service with this school and Matero, the other Lutheran school in the area.  The school surprised me in many ways.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the classroom management.  I was reminded of St. Marcus a little when we entered each classroom and the students sat up and said to the principal, “Good morning, sir!” The principal responded, “Good morning, how are you?”  Students: “We are fine, thank you, how are you sir?”  “Fine, thank you.  Please be seated.”  “Thank you, sir!”  (When they said “sir,” it sounded like "sah."  I love these accents!). 

                I was saddened to see the conditions that these kids learn in.  It’s completely run-down.  The walls are decorated with pieces of paper with hand-written drawings and notes on them.  They’ve obviously been ripped off the wall a few times and are dirty, but every piece of paper is valuable.  Everything on their walls is something that an American would throw away without thinking twice about it a long time before. 

                HIV/AIDS is rampant here.  Most of the students at the school are orphans, most likely from AIDS.  This means that many of the students probably have it too.  There have been great strides in Zambia (at least in the urban areas) as far as medicine and education goes, so it is slowly becoming more controllable, I guess.  It’s heart-breaking.  Americans are so blessed, yet often still so unhappy. Here I see lots of smiling, happy people, yet they have nothing compared to what even a poor person in the states has.

                When we got back, we went to the guest house kitchen to watch Dee and Anne teach cooking class to the wives.  They cooked fritters, which are basically just doughnuts.  They’re delicious!  Rachel and I rolled ours in sugar because the women don’t put much sugar in them.  One thing about Zambians is that they can’t handle sweet stuff like Americans can.  Dee said the cakes they sell in the stores aren’t sweet at all – they look pretty but would not taste good to an American. 

                At the end of the lesson, the women sang an African song.  It was so, so beautiful.  I noticed this in church, too.  They have such strong, throaty voices.  Hearing them sing an African song praising the Lord brought tears to my eyes.   

                Overall, our day wasn’t very busy.  I did some laundry, worked out, and planned a little more for Monday.  We’re trying to enjoy our last few days of peace and quiet before our busy weeks start.