Day 6 - The search for Kit Yamoyos continues

report day at school

Our shower was hot this morning which helped to ease my cold and kick start another stupidly busy day. I had banana sandwiches for breakfast and Tracey went with what looked like a scone... pretty good for her considering she struggles to eat at the time we get up (630am!).

baby classes colouring numbers on paper plates

Bags loaded with supplies, we set off on our long, but lovely, fresh walk to work with the other two girls, arriving about 9am, where we found all the teachers outside in the sun at a table loaded with school books and exam papers... it was report day. Parents came and went, sitting a while with Cosi to discuss each childs progress. As such, there were no formal lessons today, which eased the pressure on Tracey and I and we took the children into "our" classrooms and got stuck in. Tracey had her older class designing and colouring paper plates while I led the baby class in some counting games for most of the morning. Bridget, from the project, stopped by mid morning during break to see how we were getting on which was nice, except that her arrival caused Tracey to lose her concentration during a game the kids were teaching us and so had to suffer a painful forfeit or two, (similar to a chinese burn, but with two fingers whacked across your forearm) which they took great delight in repeating everytime we cocked up, which was of course quite often given that neither of us could work out the rules.

break time in the yard

All too soon our time was up for the day and our fellow volunteers arrived to walk back with us to the Sunbird. I was bunged up from chest to head and struggled again with the hot walk uphill to the lodge, all the while conscious that if I feinted at any point, there was no cold water on hand, and none of us would be able to describe our location to the project workers by phone, so we took it nice and slowly... the Zambian amble.... and made it back for a lunch of typical local food... nshima and beef stew.

break time at school

Before we bought yet more supplies, we decided to talk to project managers Rabeccah and Kennedy to be certain we were ok to just spend money on the things we thought would be best. Thankfully they were both delighted with our ideas and reassured us we were ok to continue. So we headed into town again, this time on the hunt for children's story books, toys and paints to make a frieze with the roll of lining paper we'd brought from home.  Sadly we found no paints of any kind and so went with wax crayons and figured they could draw round their hands instead. We did find a really good Christian bookshop though and Tracey came over all excited, grabbing books from every shelf - not sure if it was that we had finally found something worth having or simply that she likes to shop! but we settled on a good selection of touch-and-feel picture books covering colours, numbers and animals. Perfect. We also picked up a set of 4 cheap plastic balls and some gift purses to give to the teachers when we leave.

school kitchen

After a painful (and expensive) second session in the phone shop we finally had a working internet SIM card and the ability to email Colalife about the Kit Yamoyo situation - Simon Berry, the founder, would advise us and fingers crossed we would be able to spend the money we have raised on the kits Zambia so desperately needs. Tired, hot and more than a little frustrated, we stopped in at our usual in-town cafe, the Kubu, for a couple of beers before taking a taxi home.
I say home, the Sunbird lodge; where volunteers queue after every mealtime at the sink to wash their own dinner plates and cutlery, one at a time, under a continuously running tap! This has to stop. There's only so long I can go biting my tongue. We had already purchased washing up liquid, a plug for the sink and new scourers to wash up with, in the hope they would get the message. How hard could it be to teach young westerners to wash up without wasting water?? turns out it's nigh-on impossible, but I'm not giving up.
We trudged back to our room after dinner and I cheered myself up scaring the shit out of Tracey again... this time though I chose the darkness of our front porch... the subject.... frogs! They only seem to come out at night and jump through the dead leaves in front of our room - turns out she's just as scared of them as she is of snakes!!!! Mwah hahahahaha. Sorry Trace. xx