January –March Randomness

Victor came to visit.  The Sakala’s moved the beginning of November and I miss their boys a lot.  Victor came to pick up his reports and stopped to say hi before he joined his family in Petauka. 

My Dad bought all the kids at the CRC brand new books.  They were so excited about it.  Even now, they keep their books with them in their beds and love to look through them.  Thanks Pops!

Valley High School from Salt Lake City prepared 60 Christmas presents for all the kids at my school.  These are the moments when I wish every person who has ever donated to our little school could see what joy their donations bring to our students. 

Two of my most favorite people in the world came to visit in March.  If I could have just an eighth of the goodness these two have I would be forever grateful.  BJ and Sandy are the most compassionate women I have ever met.  I’m so grateful for their incredible examples.

Phillip the fix-it-man.  It is sure nice having Phillip around to fix all the little things that have been broken since the last time he was here.  Had to get a picture of his outfit.  Hilarious!!!

Alice is super tired lately.  She falls asleep in class frequently.  One day she fell asleep and then fell right off the chair.  So sad.  Sweet little girl.  She’ll fall asleep anywhere.

We had a District activity and Thelma and I made almost three hundred sandwiches for all who attended.  We spent a good two hours just putting the sandwiches together.  That’s a lot of food.

Phillip put in a zipline for the kids.  Do you think our kids are spoiled?

One of the happiest changes at the CRC is having Ireen and her boys with us.  Ireen and the family moved out here in December.  It is such a blessing having her here.  She is forever smiling and happy.  She works harder than anyone.  She is a dear friend.  She’s always telling everyone how much she loves them.  She keeps the kids clean.  If it weren’t for her I would never have clean clothes.  I LOVE having Ireen around.

Festus needed his picture taken.

Gift’s shoes.  Do you think he needs another pair?

Game Night and Water

Game Night

Once a week we have a game night.  After dinner, we clean the common room and then I pull out all the games.  The kids have their favorites and are easily entertained until bedtime.

Justina and Josephat LOVE playing memory.  We have lots of versions of the game but their favorite is the I Spy cards.

Just a little twister action with Lweendo, Charles, and Gift.

Blocks and toy cars.  The little kids love to play with these.  Robert plays while he eats (it takes him FOREVER to finish his food).  Emmanuel and his big grin.

Lovemore and Alice

They like to line up the blocks from one end to the other and watch the domino affect.

Rabecca and Kennedy playing Mancala.  It’s definitely the most favored game.

Festose jammin’ to his little radio.

Robert praying…always praying.  When you ask Robert to pose for a picture he immediately holds his hands up as if he is praying.  He is always casting out demons and sending them to the devil.  True Pentecostal blood.  This boy makes me laugh.

Water (or lack thereof)

I would like to invite you all to join me in my pity party while I lament about the absence of water.  For the past 6 weeks we have not had running water at the CRC.  Do you have any idea how many things you use water for and how much water is needed to do all of those things?  Let me just list a few things that come to mind…flushing the toilet, washing hands, brushing teeth, washing hair, bathing, drinking, washing plates, washing clothes, cooking, and the list goes on and on. 

This is how I clean myself everyday.  I squat in the tub (too scary to actually sit) and then splash water on myself.  I don’t think I’ve been really clean for six weeks (thank goodness for the weekends and the chance to actually shower in town.)

This is where we get our water.  We fill up all the yellow buckets and carry them back to the house in a wheelbarrow.  We use this water for everything.

Here I am pretending to be pumping the water.

When in actuality this little boy pumps all my water.  I keep three buckets outside my bathroom.  When they are empty I stack them all up.  A few hours later I come back and the buckets have been filled…it’s like magic. 

Don’t know what I would do without my sweet Bwalya.

The good news: the pump should be fixed on Monday and we’ll have running water by then.  The bad news: that’s what they said last week.

School Updates

Parent Day

We started our second year at the school with another successful parent day. I think we had every parent show up (for the kids outside the CRC). I loved being able to introduce the new teachers and the new headmaster. I have loved working with these parents and their children.

Here they are waiting to get their reports.

Giving a thumbs up to Rozaria’s mom because Rozaria is doing such an awesome job.

We have parent day at the start of every term. It’s nice to be able to connect with the parents and let them know how great their kids are doing.

New Classroom

We have a new classroom and it’s beautiful. We’ve been meeting in the little hut on top of the termite hill and now we have an actual classroom with desks and everything. It’s such a blessing.

Before picture…

After…

The Teachers

Our teachers are absolute dynamite. I just can’t even begin to tell you how lucky I am to have such awesome teachers. They’ve made my job so much easier and I’m confident that when I leave in August the school will be in good hands.

From left to right: Lord, Thelma, Me, Brenda, Phales, and George

Lord is the headmaster. He also teachers a grade 1 math class and a grade 1 reading class.

Here he is with his reading class…

George also teaches one hour of reading in the morning.

Thelma teaches the Grade 1&2 class.

Brenda teaches the Grade 3&4 class.

Phales teaches the grade 5&6 class.

We had a wonderful volunteer from the States come and stay with us for a month. Austin was a huge help to us.

The whole school