Our journey has continued to this rural town about four hours north of Livingstone. The Moorings Campsite is very pretty, but it gets freezing cold at night. We spend the evenings in Under Armour, fleece, hats, and gloves before we head to our tents (or “insakas” for those brave enough to sleep outside). We’ve even had fun trying to guess which woodland animal or insect is making noise in the dark.
On Wednesday morning, we ate breakfast and headed off to the Malambu Basic School. We passed cows, farmers surrounded by mountains of corn, and a small village before arriving. Excited students in grades 1-4 spent the day practicing English skills with us (writing letters and words), colors, and body parts. Sometimes the English lessons were a challenge; however, teachers Loveness and Audrey, and student teacher Alex, translated in Tonga when necessary. I made fast friends with Tryness, Beatrice, and Florence who loved giving us high-fives. The colors and body parts lessons were really fun. We had the most laughs watching the 3rd grade boys play against the girls during the game “Twister.” Students also played Frisbee, tossed tennis balls, and taught us the Zambian version of “Duck, Duck, Goose”.
While we were with the younger students, the upper grades practiced advanced math skills including multiplication, division, mean, median, mode, and graphing. What a busy day of studies! Tomorrow we plan on practicing more classroom skills with the students at the Malambu School. But for now, the sun is going down, so I need to put on more layers . . .
-Ginea