More news about good food I've been eating!

Saturday was a pretty chill day with me mostly lesson planning and doing some computer work at home with a brief visit to the internet café. I’ve defiantly got a full-blown (pardon the pun) cold now, and I slept through most of the afternoon. I’ve actually been really blessed health-wise during this trip. I came here with a cold that maybe lasted a week, and apart from that I’ve been completely healthy. With all the sick kids that I’m around every day it was bound to happen sooner or later that I’d get sick and I’m happy that it was later. J In the evening, Chris, Josh and I watched this movie with Nicholas Cage where we sells weapons, and afterwards we continued with deep theological conversation late into the night.
Sunday started off with Leeland leaving on another business trip, and Chris, Josh and I making French toast for breakfast. We headed to church after that and then picked up Alissa (a girl we met while on safari) at the mall and headed to the school for the well ceremony. Some people sang, and the vice-chairman of the community spoke, and Tanya spoke and then they pumped the well for the first time. It was pretty cool. People went and drank the water and the kids were splashing and laughing and the ladies all started dancing. It was pretty sweet. Pastor Chiza, Sharon and Haniel all came over for dinner in the evening.
Monday it was back to school again. I really feel like I’ve pretty much gotten into the flow of teaching here. I know all the kids in my classes and lots of kids in other classes and I talk with so many people every day (I love talking). It gives you a really good feeling to have kids coming up to you all day saying, “hello tee-cha Deh-na” and “how ah you?”. They respond to pretty much every question with “yes”. I also tried a new drink today. It’s called “Munkoyo” (AKA “Maheu”) and is made from left-over nshima that is mixed with water and then left to ferment for a few days. Right before it is drank, sugar is added. Basically it looks like grainy milk with lumps inside it. And it tastes sweet, but smells bad and has such an unfortunate texture that I was very happy to eat a biscuit afterwards and wash that taste out of my mouth. Monday we work on reading in the afternoon. There’s one new boy in the school called Thomas. He is 16 and he can’t read (like many of the students). He asked me if I would give him some extra help. We’ve started working together during recess. He’s so determined and he works so hard that he very rewarding to teach and he is learning really quickly. That’s pretty cool. In the evening, Tanya and the boys and I went out to an Irish restaurant (who’s motto is: “where good friends meet”—which made me wonder where you would meet a bad friend), and then had ice-cream. Here I must take a moment to say that I’m sure that you (like my mother) have noticed how much I talk about food here. One of my biggest anxieties of coming back to Africa has been not being able to find food that I can eat. I have been quite relieved to find that there is a fair amount of good food in Africa light that suits my taste… and so I have lots to write about.
Tuesday we only stay for the half day, but we were able to go and do some shopping in the afternoon. Fabric shopping in Africa—love it! For dinner we went out for some Italian Pizza. We came home and had a great evening watching movies on the lap tops (I say ‘tops’ because the power was out and we would run one until the battery was almost dead and then continue watching on the next one). I decided to check my e-mail quickly before bed and got a letter that my Granddad had gone to heaven about 4 hours previously. That was tough—but I know without a doubt where he is, and I have a lot of peace.
Wednesday is clubs day (my favourite)! When we arrived, it turned out that one of the students had just had a seizure. Tanya took her and another boy who has been having pain in his side to the clinic, and Chris and Josh had the grade fours for PE. I interviewed Sharon for a movie I want to make about Grassroots Heroes which will be able to pass on information to potential sponsors about the work here. Then I played “sight word bingo” with the kids. My grade 2 class went well today, but for some reason I was really exhausted. After the class, Chris, Sandra, Josh and I and some of the students walked up this hill and had lunch on the top. It was beautiful up there- plants and butterflies and great lighting. Really nice almost 360 view—a great place to relax and take some pictures. Lots of people actually gather on this “mountain” to pray and have praise services. After that we headed down the mountain for clubs. I did some filming of the music and dancing, and then it was time to head home. Had a good conversation with my dad on the phone via skype (technology is beautiful), and then we headed off to a fast-foodish Chinese Restaurant called ‘Curry in a Hurry’ at Manda Hill. They have some of the best buttered chicken I have ever tasted. Half-watched “Terminal Velocity” as I did some work on my computer in the evening. It’s a pretty bad movie- I was glad that I was multi-tasking.
Thursday was a pretty busy day for me. Started off with the grade four class writing about where they would like to travel in the world—with South Africa, Mozambique and Canada being the most popular destinations. During the break I worked with Thomas on his reading. He has improved so much! Grade two was great too except I was really starting to feel sick. My head cold makes me feel so much pressure in my head that I just feel really sick. One of the funny things that happened in that class was that I was trying to teach them to sight-read the word ‘she’. Before this we have been working on sounds, and they will repeat the sound and then I generally ask them to think of words that have that sound. So today they are repeating ‘she... she’ and then one of the students excitedly calls out ‘nshema’- which does have the word ‘she’ in it. After that was lunch and I gave a teacher’s workshop on seizure management. Since we have a couple kids in the school who have seizures I thought this would give them some confidence. We also talked about choking. Then Tanya and I headed home so I could do some prepartions for my upcoming adventure. In the evening we headed back to the Irish restaurant where they had a live band that was pretty fun to watch.
So tomorrow, early in the morning I am heading off to Victoria Falls. I will be out of internet contact until Sunday evening. Should be a good adventure. Wonder what I’ll eat…good thing I packed some snacks.