Life and Death

Most happy to announce the arrival of Shabach Mvula. (Philip & Maria's) Long awaited, assisted finally by a doctor and cesarian delivery. Both parents are recovering rapidly. Certainly hard on the mother. But I was most aware of the toll it took on the father, who in Zambia is kept at a good distance both physically and informationally.

Hospital staff are not open nor forthcoming regarding the status of ones spouse. Briefest of info offerred at long intervals. An expectant father lives via his cell phone waiting for THE call, but instead he is sharing his lack of current knowledge with innumerable friends who call for updates, only to be told, "No word yet." It took three days before we got the positive news.

On a completely opposite note, the father of one of our teachers died and to show our respects, faculty divided in half each going on consecutive days. The first group visited outside the home (house remains empty until after the burial) with family, friends and relatives. Meanwhile back at the school I was left with the 3rd grade class for a couple of hours at the end of the day. They had their assignment to finish their drawings of the "food groups" they had studied in science and then each was to select a story book and read it to the class. The drawing went fairly well with minor clashes over the least available color of crayons and the very slow student who was more intent on hording crayons than finishing his work.

Third graders have a hard time making decissions, especially those having to do with earth-shattering importance: which book will I read in front of the class? A few quickly grabbed the one they wanted, others though could not be satisfied, every book had to be inspected, then tossed aside. Several of this sort make the problem more acute. Finally the subsitute-teacher had to step in and decide for the last ones.

This is not the way I would have chosen to spend one of the hottest afternoons we've had. The readers were shy and seemed to know that if they spoke softly (mumbled) they might finesse the hard words.

The listeners couldn't hear enough to hold their attention. I got one of the better students to assist the "reader" while I tried to keep some decorum. But order slowly melted away in the heat like ice cream at a 4th of July picnic. I got to abreiviating the stories to a couple pages, finally the last student tried to read a story way beyond his skill level. I beleive there is a process in physics which describes going from order to chaos, need not review that here.

Suffice to say that it is sad when an old would-be sub teacher is defeated by a class of third graders. Doesn't leave much self-esteem. Yet I know, had it been filmed, it would be classic comedy. Took longer to unwind that evening.

Next day was my turn and we went to the funeral and grave site for the burial. The church was packed. The deceased was 78 with 11 children. We stood outside the church in a hint of shade. From there we drove to the cemetery. The intense African sun encourage me to take my hat. "No hats at a funeral" said Philip with some authority. Thinking this would not take long, I went bare headed.

Beside the grave was the usual piles of dirt but also freshly mixed cement. The casket was lowered and some dirt followed. Then the cement and finally the remainder of the dirt. By standers helped the two-man cemetery crew with this work. When all the dirt was used up, more had to be acquired near by to nicely round off the grave with a mound a couple of feet high. The minister spoke a few words and then folks moved off. It took about 45 min. Philip explained the cement was to discourage the coffin robbers. They can be resold as new, there being no used-coffin market.

We returned to school, I had to wait for one class period to end the day and run home to my aloe for a tender head.

A-peelingly yours,
Sam