First Day of Work (by Matt Porter)

We awoke early this morning and made our way to Eastlea in the hopes of meeting with the headmaster of the school. Previously he had been adamant that we needed to have our classes from 11-13 hours, which would effectively kill any chance of visiting two schools per day. Fortunately, he was willing to accept starting at 10 and knocking off at 12. The kids were well behaved and we could see that many of them were very intelligent. We taught about the immune system with games and demonstrations. Some of the students were labeled helper T-cells, some B-cells, Killer T-cells and of course we had a compliment of random diseases. For some reason, you don’t get many volunteers when you ask “who wants to be Syphilis?” maybe it got a little mixed up in translation. I think our only two problems were the short teaching time and the language barrier. I have a hard time judging whether or not they just aren’t confident in their English abilities or if they have no clue what we are saying. After class, we went outside for games and the most peculiar thing happened. Johnny asked if anyone wanted a bible lesson and he actually drew a huge crowd, larger than the groups playing soccer, Frisbee, or any of our other games. I found it to be very refreshing that kids would actually want to learn about the bible. We walked to the bus stop to catch a bus and waited for about a half hour before one of the Zambians said that buses don’t run during the lunch hour so we would have to take a taxi. It makes you frustrated at first but if you don’t adapt it will make you go crazy, just remember TIA (This Is Africa). Finally we made it to the bus stop for Murundu, our last school of the day and climbed aboard. I learned that sunglasses are the most valuable thing that you can bring with you on the mini bus, if you want to know that story I’ll have to tell you all about it later. Either way, Murundu Basic school was great and the kids were easier to teach than last year. By the time we made it back home, all of us were exhausted and in need of sleep, but we still had to cook dinner together. Johnny and Jill are amazing chefs who actually enjoy cooking, while the rest of us are merely helping where we can in the hopes of sharing the load and of course eating sooner. I think that our group will get along just fine and have a great trip.