More from Zambia

Blogging just now is difficult and this time its not the computer's fault. Just as I am starting this at this email cafe, just outside has started some very loud singing, dancing, drumming, but I must keep my back to it and blog on...

I have a new friend at school. A second grader named Julius Zulu. Bright open face, always with a smile or that bright, expectant look as if I was about to do something wonderful. He started by greeting me on the playground (not unusual) but he isn't just passing by like the other children. He stands there. So we discuss the weather and what he is learning and what subjects he likes best.

His next appearances have been in my classroom while I am working by myself and the students are suppose to be outside. "I want to learn math" he says with some enthusiam. What teacher can say no to that? Only once I put him off, just long enough to go get my lunch and return, not eating with the other teachers as I usually would.

We do drill exercises in addition and subtraction. He is not a finger counter, that habit that keeps most Zambia children very slow. With those kids, I insist that they sit on their hands when we drill, fast enough that there is not time to count.

Lately Julius has brough a couple of his friends, two or three. If there is not time for math, he askes me for a story, just now its a specific story, "The man whose house was too small". Once in class I was caught without a storybook, so I told a story, rather than read. Thank you UURE folks for providing me with good material, wish I had paid more attention. The first story was a Jewish tale about a man whose house was too small and went to his rabbi. Well here it was about a man who went to the village and got help from the chief or wiseman. He gets the help he needs, the house doesn't change, but the man's perception of his house. Fun to discuss what happens with the children. Anyway, its seems that is the favorite of today and there it usually not time to tell it with voices and actions which a good African story deserves, so Julius, remember Julius, well he'll be back again. If only all my interactions with children were this positive....

One day this week, I was sitting in the lunchroom eating my rice and sour milk. I was on one of those short chairs for preschoolers, had my back to the door. I turned when someone entered and because of my deminished height, I was eye-to-eye with a strange (not seen her before) little girl. She was wide-eyed with surprize. So I greeted her silently by mimicking her experssion. Not good. Fear quickly spread across her face. I looked away, coverd my face, but a few seconds later, I could hear her crying.

I had heard the face of an old muzungu can make children cry. Some Zambian parents, I am told use just the thought of one to make their children behave. "The big, bad muzungu will get you!" Well I got this one and there was nothing I could do.

Blog pressing out of Africa with the drums still throbbing behind me,
Sam