A time in February...

30 January 2009

When I post this it will already be February. Which means the count down has started in a way [10 months]; my neighbros are already stressing out about the potential 'replacement' volunteer and the teachers at school are freaking out about what they'll do without a maths teacher. And everyone is worried that I'll forget them...not realizing how impossible that will be. They are my life here.
But as I write this I am huddled back in my house...had been lesson planning on my front porch watching the drizzle, but the drizzle has become a full on down pour making the porch a bit wet for my taste. Not that inside is much drier - for two reasons: my roof is up to 8 leaks now and I took the risk of doing my laundry this morning and of course 30 minutes after getting it all hung, the rain started. So all those wet clothes are hanging in various parts of the house...and might be dry in a week.
The rainy season is lonely for me. Last year I would have been thrilled with all this rain because it equals alone time. Now I'm just lonely. So it makes kids, neighbors, students visiting all the more welcome. I feel as though something has clicked in me...as though some sort of fog has finally lifted; one I've been under for the last 23 years. I feel free and happy in a way that I never have before. I am less stress about my life [though I should be freaking out with the amount I am teaching]. I am more open with my life, lest bent on controlling how my day moves, I'm less afraid of messing up...or letting people see that I'm making mistakes. I truly don't know what brought about this change but I am joyfully content with my life right now. Does that make any sense?
The most wonderful thing happened yesterday. One of my Form4 students, bit of a smart-ass really, came to my house with a boy I didn't recognize and handed me my graphing calculator...that I had last seen when I left school the day before, sitting iside my desk in the "staff room" [aka leaky closet being digested by very determined termites!]. I took it from him and sure enough there was the 'J.Keller' that my father had engraved on the back when he bought it for my senior calculus class in highschool. I looked at my student in confusion and so he explained taht this boy, his friend, had shown him his 'new' calculator that he had bought off of some little kids for 100mK. My student had seen 'Keller' and gathered that there weren't too many of those wandering around Kalumbu! I thanked them both purfusely and paid the boy his money back...amused that a graphing calculator was sold for less than 60cents.
In other good news my garden is beautiful! And i have grass...I convinced Chimwemwe to NOT pull it all up so that he could sweep properly...that snakes would not move in. I have plenty of pumpkin flowers [that I made soup out of], peanuts, soya beans, maize, basil and dill. The buld flowers we planted last year are now taller that me! And attract this adorable little hummingbird every morning.

5 February 2009

Termites flew today, littering the mud with thier glittering wings and filling the road with children gathering them up for dinner. Cows served as grass trimmers as they ate their way along the road. And the sun shone in blazing glory after an afternoon rain. Life is ever changing here: we have tea in our staff room now, which means that teachers are even later to class. Hambe, my 10 year old neighber, has gone to live with her sister, changing forever the child level heirarchy in the neighborhood. I have a squash growing...and it looks healthy. The tomato man gives me a prizey and sometimes a woman walks by my house yelling "MATI, MATI, MATI" and so I get my tomatoes even cheaper! I have fallen in love with tea again and am learning to like running. The goats are tethered now to prevent them from eating peoples' crops, so they no longer fatten themselves in my garden. And so the days go by....