Service in Zambia

Home Again

2009-07-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm home again. On my last day in Zambia, the staff held a going away party for me, where we shared some funny stories, and we ate chicken wings! It was pretty bittersweet. Being back home is pretty new & strange...and its taking some readjustment. Living in a house again with carpets, a microwave, a TOASTER OVEN, a bath tub, and other luxurious things is pretty awesome... and seeing my friends and family again was so great. Again - everything is just really weird for me though, and I'm sort of afraid I'll eventually get the feeling that I've never left. But I can never lose the life lessons, experiences & values I've gained, and I know for sure, that within a few years...I'll be out somewhere in the world again doing another period of service. So until next time!!

2009-07-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

With some of the youth in Lusaka

Neda was craving Chinese food, so that's where we went!

I'm done! Wait. What???

2009-06-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my last post in Zambia. I can't believe my year of service is over. The thought of leaving Africa doesn't even seem real. Nor do I have words to express what I'm feeling. Even though I'm so excited to see my friends & family that I can hardly contain myself, at the same time, I never thought it would be this hard to leave! I feel like I'm at tug of war, and my arms are being pulled in opposite directions of eachother. The past 10 months have been a huge growth period for me, and when I look back on it, I can see how much I've changed, and what I've learned about others, Life, myself, my capacities, and my strengths & weaknesses. The memories I've made here will truly be cherished and kept close to my heart, because the truth is; I will miss Zambia terribly. Banani has become my home, and there are so many people I've grown to love and consider as family.

I will really miss my girls & the rest of the students here. I never had a little sister, or even a sister at all.... and after coming to Banani, I was suddenly blessed with over 200 of them! I love them that much.

Here's also a small taste of what I'm going to miss...
I will miss the youth I've served with along the way, the travels I've made to various places in Africa & the breathtaking scenery, the friendly culture, the music & singing & dancing, deepenings with Mr Taherzadeh, teaching at the Primary school, the goodnight hugs from the girls, the friendships I've made, laughing hysterically with the grade 10 girls during quiet time when I'm not supposed to, the kids attacking me every children's class with their very loving, yetsometimes violent hugs, the smell of burning smoke in the air, waking up to the singing of the birds, the monkeys breaking their fruit over my roof (actually I really won't miss that), having black tea 3x a day, listening to Mr. Mahoney's turkish jokes and Mr Moore's cheesy one-liners, being covered in red dust from my walks to and from the Primary during dry season, the starry sky at night (you can see the milkyway!), the sunsets, attempting to speak the local language(s), eating with my hands and I will really miss being a mother to these girls.

I learned a lot life lessons.... like having patience, relying on God during difficult times, having faith & trust in others, confidence.. and I've learned that the best thing you can do for others, is to just love them. There have been many experiences that I seriously thought I couldn't do: taking care of 100+ girls at night all by myself, jumping off the gorge in Livingstone, taking a 16 hour bus ride to Malawi, sleeping only God knows where, eating fried termites, 10 months of extremely loud girls, dealing with obnoxious behavior, living with the bare minimum...the list goes on. But I did it, and came out with nothing but strength, & wonderful memories.

This whole experience has seriously been an incredibly fun, insane, & happy 10 months. I'm sad to leave Zambia, and saying goodbye is so hard....but I did my part, and it's time for me to go back. Life goes on I guess.

Well I just want to say some Thank Yous.... a huge thanks to my wonderful parents for supporting my decision to go to Zambia, a big thanks to my supportive friends back at home, who were always there for me via phone call, text, or mail.... a big thanks to the Mrs Mukendi who was truly a mother to me, the Mahoneys for always opening their home for us (They once let ALL 6 of us have a huge sleepover in their living room!) and for Mr Taherzadeh for being such a fatherly figure to us...he was always showing us love, and making sure we were Ok, and caring for us in general...including driving an hour up here every week to hold deepenings for us, which was a huge highlight during my time here! Also, last but not last, a big thank you to the youth that I served with... Kat, Shaudi, Nora, Neda, Kakweji, Shiva, Anita.... I feel so honored to have been given the chance to serve with you -- my world-wide sisters! I love you guys! It was these people mentioned...that have made my year of service absolutely unforgettable.

So I guess my advice to anyone who is thinking of doing a period of service: Doooo it! Have with no expectations. Go with a positive attitude, patience, love, & always remember your purpose, and you will have such a blast! Seize the chance to serve, because the memories, experiences & friendships you will make, will be some of the happiest times of your life!

This is a poem a dear friend gave to me before I left...I found myself looking at it a lot. Each month I saw this poem differently, and learned something new from it. Simplicity is sometimes the best way to go...

To teach is to learn;
To learn is to work;
To work is to serve;
To serve is to love;
To love is to sacrifice;
To sacrifice is to die;
To die is to live;
To live is to strive;
To strive is to rise above all earthly limitations
and enter the eternal realms.

-Bahiyyih Khanum (written for Martha Root, 1939)

.....

WHAT AN AMAZING YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures!

2009-06-17T03:02:00.000-07:00

view from the top of the mountain we hiked up at Ndubs...

At ruhi...

The whole grade 1 & 2 class

Virtue Crowns! (grade 1& 2s)

Soooo yeah I have a lot more that I wanted to post but no more time!!

Ndubaluba

2009-06-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been a while.... we've had some pretty bad problems with the server for the past few weeks and so it's been hard to update. Seems like its getting worse over time...

Over the past couple of weeks we've been visiting the villages of Niyrenda for devotionals, and we've recently started a women's group. I really love going into the villages... its a really nice experience, and fun to learn about the peoples' lifestyles. Even though the kids don't own a lot of toys, they are really creative and they make their own and are just as happy... I saw dolls...heavy, heavy dolls made out of clay with grass hair, and rock eyes... and I saw this other kid before with a homemade kite that he made from a ripped plastic bag and some string & sticks... and even this other women ripped up a plastic bag into strips and was knitting a bag out of it.

It really bothers me that some people who go to Africa bring loads of food & money to villages, in trying to help the people and "save" them from their poverty and problems, because it's just a temporary fix that will cripple them more in the future. I learned that if you really want to help the people, you must teach them to fend for themselves.... teach them to start their own businesses and make their own money so that they can take care of themselves. I've heard so many stories of this exact situation, and sometimes its hard to find out what exactly you can do to really help. Even when we started this women's group, the first question was that a lady asked was if we could lend them some money, and we made it very clear that we were not here to do that. The women's group that we started will be with Mrs Mahoney in charge, where she will go to these villages every week and for instance, sew with them. After the women learn how to sew, they can start sewing things like bags, or even school uniforms, go on the street to sell them, make money, and then buy more fabric to make more things...and eventually it turns into their own business, where they can make their own money to support their families and send their children to school and be successful. It's really hard sometimes... the school fees for children here in Zambia are so expensive, and unaffordable, so its hard to think that such capable & smart children can't get a proper education. It's so hard to see.

So a few days ago I left for an "African Expedition" called Ndubaluba! It's pronounced "En-Dooba-looba" and its about a 3 hour bus ride from Banani. The Ndubaluba place itself is settled in the bush, and the girls had little chalets that they stayed in, with lots of bunks fit inside. I went along with the PE teacher, Mrs Tembo, and we stayed inside of a house, which was pretty much the same as a typical Banani house. Well, the girls were the ones who did the proper expedition - they walked for 24km total!!! And Mrs Tembo and I just walked and met them at the checkpoints. At this one checkpoint, we trudged through the forest, with no trail or anything, just a compass, and we hiked up this MASSIVE hill!! At some points, it got to 90 degrees, and we had to climb up rocks and we were just grabbing anything to keep from falling, grass, branches, fungi... and we were soooo tired afterwards, but it was such a beautiful view once we got to the top...and the girls were really happy to see us. One night we even set up tents in the bush and we camped out and cooked our own food over a fire... no toilets... no shower... the BUSH. I must say I was so thankful to get back to Banani and have water to bathe in! The water at Ndubs was brown...and smelled like rust, so it had to be purified...and it still tasted bad, but I guess it wasn't as bad as Banani water. Banani tap water is pretty gross! On the last night we even roasted marshmellows!!!! Soooo nice!!!

Even though Ndubs was fun... it was really nice to get back to Banani, and bathe in hot water! The shower has been broken for the past week or so, so I've had to bathe out of a bucket & wash my hair in the sink... which is new, but seriously - the tap water is hot, and I couldn't be happier. Truly a gift from God.

Well, we have 3 days left until midterm break, where I think I'm going to Soheyla's place in Lusaka and staying there for a week... finishing up some last minute gift shopping, and relaxing... and packing! Ah. My least favorite word! Well, I have 2 weeks left in Zambia and I have no words to describe how I feel about leaving. I'm trying not to think about it.

First IPG Launch for Chibombo cluster!

2009-05-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend has been a party! There are a whole bunch of youth visiting from various parts of southern Africa for a jr. youth animator training (Ruhi book 5). They are from places like Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa, Namibia and Malawi. On Friday night, it was the declaration of the Bab celebration and there was an incredible turnout! We sang, and everyone got up and danced and it was just so much fun! It's such an amazing atmosphere when a whole group is singing loudly, harmonizing, dancing, clapping, stomping, doing various dance steps, with drumming.... they are definitely highlights of my year of service by far... and it's the best mood lifter I know!

On Saturday morning, we had the very first IPG (Intensive Programme of Growth - teaching the Baha'i Faith) launch for our cluster!! So exciting! The National Spiritual Assembly was there, along with 12 different chiefs (or headmen) from the neighboring villages nearby. These headmen got a huge kick out of Neda and I, and they took a lot of pictures of us. There were about 25 jr. youth from the village, Ngala that did some skits/traditional dancing, and the youth that were visiting from S. Africa all got up, and burst into song, with the rest of us joining in a second later... singing, clapping, dancing, drumming, ... it's such a spiritual high! There was a brief introduction to the Baha'i Faith by Mr. Chungu Malitonga, who is a regional councellor, followed by many other peformances by the jr. youth from Ngala; more poems, songs, and dancing. Also, our childrens class performed 5 songs! 'O Lord My God', 'Love for Baha'u'llah', 'Ye are Even', 'King of Kings' and 'He is God'! They are a great group of performers! After the launching of the IPG, we all went outside to take group pictures with the village chiefs, and then had a delicious Zambian dish for lunch! A lump of Nsima, chicken/sauce, and boiled cabbage. After long goodbyes, and more pictures, we headed back to the secondary school.

On Sunday was devotions at the institute, we again, got up, danced and sang. I will really miss these youth who are up for a brief visit, then heading back to their countries on Thursday.

Today was Africa Freedom Day, where we celebrated the liberation of Africa from colonization...and the various countries. The girls performed some traditional Zambian dancing, some songs, poems and some skits that showed Britain's control over various countries including Zambia & the liberation that followed... apartheid in South Africa...etc...

Nora left Zambia last Tuesday to go back home to Germany. I'll admit, it's been pretty hard adjusting to Banani life without her, and I miss her terribly. We were so close! So much laughing, having fun, joy, happiness, going through difficulties, crying at some points, ranting to each other about latest problems that have happened in the dorms, having our days off together, sleepovers, rooming together in April, seeing that first snake, traveling to different countries & interesting places, exploring the unknown, encountering the monkeys, laughing over goofy pictures, and LOADS of inside jokes.... what's more sisterly than that? Nora joon, you are truly missed!

Frogs in the Toilet, and the Super-hero Spider

2009-05-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

Ok so this term isn't as bad as I thought. Internet Prep that we used to supervise, and Internet sessions on the weekends have been completely canceled due to some of the girls abusing the privilege by doing various naughty things....like finding out a teacher's password and logging on to their accounts to go on illegal websites like Facebook or Myspace... which is fine with me, because it gives me more free time to do my own things.

I've been having so much fun teaching Art and Music with the primary kids...for the older kids I'm doing an introduction to different genres of music like classical, jazz, blues, rock, hiphop, pop, R&B, rap, alternative, ...and much more. Each lesson I go through each genre in depth, and they learn a little about what it is, and how they can tell the difference. I'm bringing in my laptop & speakers and they are really enjoying listening to different kinds of music.... these kids are just so absorbed in their Hannah Montana/High School Music/Jonas Brothers stuff, that they have never heard of people like Beethoven, Bach, or Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Jackson (ok, they know Michael Jackson...well, most of them I think), Nat King Cole....
They are responding really well, and it looks like they are having fun listening and learning about different types of music. For the younger kids, I just picked up where Shaudi left off... I think my favorite class is the grade 1&2s, even though they are crazy, they are the best & most enthusiastic singers! The other day we marched around the classroom belting out Teaching Peace at the top of our lungs! The kids are so much fun to be around. For art once, I had the grades 4-7 class listen to different songs and then draw how they feel in patterns and colors.... they had a lot of fun doing that too.

When the girls came back, I realized that I really missed having them around... my grade 6,7&8 girls are so sweet and loving and it was nice for the dorms to not be so eerily quiet.

We've had some major creepy crawly problems these days...the newest problem is the "Frog in the Toilet" issue where there are literally like 5 frogs in each toilet...and when we try and flush them down, they just jump up. It's grooosss. The other day at the Mahoney's I saw probably the biggest wall spider I have ever seen in my entire existence. It was hairy, and as big as the stretch of my hand. And my hands are big. It was like a super-hero spider, because Mr Mahoney chased it around with a broom trying to kill it, and it took about 5 tries until it died... they are really fast. Other than the frog issue though, the amount of bugs have died down, because the seasons are changing. The weather is moving to "Winter" where it gets like 50 degrees outside in the morning, with fog and everything. It doesn't seem like much, but when you're used being really hot everyday and then suddenly it's 50 degrees...it's COLD. There's no insulation, no heat, so you can't really escape from it. These days I've been sleeping in sweats, socks, sweatshirt and I'm still cold! I think I'm going to die when I arrive in Seattle - July or not.

Last Sunday we went to Lusaka to go shopping at the Sunday Market, and we bought so many souvenirs and gifts.... they took up one whole suitcase! Ahh.

Well, this is the second to last whole month of my year of service, and I would really like to dedicate my service for the month of May to my parents. I could write a book on all of the things they have done in the past to help & support me out of love, and I am so thankful for the way they have raised me, and how much they have contributed... it really makes a difference of who I am today. This is the least I could give back.

I'll try & upload pix soon... internet here is really terrible.

Preparation for the final stretch.

2009-04-29T03:51:00.000-07:00

April 28th was my 8 month mark here in Africa.

8 months!!!!!!!!!

I am really unaware of who really reads this, but to those of you who were reading my entries of my first time in Zambia, don't you think that time has gone by fast?
Maybe not.

So this is the last week of our holiday before the girls come back this Sunday.... I must say we've had a lot of time to relax since Malawi. At Banani, we've been watching pirated DVDs, cooking, sleeping, taking walks, going on the internet...a bit too relaxing. Actually it's been incredibly boring. I'm looking forward to starting work, and being super busy and stressed out once again. It's good to have things to do.

This last weekend was the National Baha'i Convention of Zambia; where Baha'is gather together (including the LSA and NSA) to vote for the new NSA members. The National Convention was held at the Institute, so naturally, we were there to help out. There were probably about 50 people or so... maybe 60... not much for what I'm used to, but a lot more compared to last year! We went there a few days before to help set up chairs and decorate the institute hall with flowers and such.... then during the convention, we helped sell Baha'i Books in a room nearby. I actually bought a book called The Great African Safari, a thick volume that talks about Ruhiyyih Khanum's travels in Africa. She drove a land rover across the entire breadth of the African continent... from east to west... then went down to Cape Town, and back up again to the east. It took her around 3 years. Pretty inspiring, hey?

The 19 day feast was on Sunday, and there was an incredible turnout! There are a lot of Baha'i youth visiting from Liteta and Lusaka who have come to do various Ruhi courses, so there were a lot of people. This time, they completely skipped the Business portion (can't remember why), and we just sang and danced and then ate some watermelon! Singing here is just so uplifting, I've really learned to just belt it out.

So these days we are preparing/trying to fit in those last hours to relax before the girls come back. I have to start moving back to my old room in Junior Dorms (its been so fun rooming with Nora!) & do a deep cleaning: wash sheets, clothes, wax & polish the floor, organize, get bugs out of the bed, etc. I'm trying to stay up late, and sleep in late, just because I CAN....We've also had to attend endless meetings with the rest of Banani Staff to prepare for yet another term... my last term....the final stretch...

I have a feeling it's going to be a really difficult 2 months that lie ahead of me, due to lack of youth (2 left, Nora is leaving in 3 weeks). It will be a test to manage the entire junior dorms with just Kakweji - that's around 100 girls! Neda has the entire senior dorms by herself... 60 or so girls. I'm trying to do everything I can to prepare myself for the tests ahead, and trying to get things to maintain my sanity: upload new music, get some books, buy snacks from town, lesson planning for all of the classes I'll be teaching, praying, working on my memorizations of the Writings... Mostly I guess it's just the fear of doing things alone.

I'm really going to make the most of my last term. July 2nd isn't far away at all!

More pix from Malawi

2009-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

National Baha'i Center of Malawi...sooo nice!

Packin mah stuff...I'm so disorganized, ha ha!

They were smiling so I took a pic!

The 2 amazing kids I was talking about, who just sat there on the aisle of the bus and didn't complain at ALL for 16 hours! Real troopers!

...cramped on a bus

Kids dancing on the beach!!

Meeting with the Baha'i Youth at the National Baha'i Center

Malawi

2009-04-17T00:39:00.001-07:00

Nora trying to climb where I was, and Neda's foot included :)

Chilling with Neda on the rocks.

A (beautiful) view from Lizard Island

The sunrise on Lake Malawi. Pretty amazing, eh?

Wow a lot has happened in the last week!

So a few days after Kat left, we took Shaudi to the airport to watch her fly off to her home in Seattle. Even though Shaudi and I live in the same area, I’m really missing having her around…. She was the only piece of home I had, and was always there for me when I was down, and now she’s gone. She has this crazy sense of humor and always had us rolling on the ground laughing because she would say something random and funny. I miss you Shaudi joon!

After dropping Shaudi off and saying goodbye, we stayed for one night in Lusaka at Soheyla’s place. At night, we went to a cafe with some Lusaka youth then from there, went to a talk at Tahir's place. The speaker's name was Natalie Anne from South Africa and she was a pretty amazing woman - just like Kelly! She gave an inspirational talk about service and spirituality.

The next day we woke up early and went to Malawi for a week! Wow, that was so easy to say. Let me tell you… the bus ride was pretty interesting. 16 hours of being hot, and cramped on a bus with a billion other people does things to you….like learning how to appreciate personal space! Character building! Horray! There were even people squished in the isle of the bus no joke. Next to me there were two kids in the isle...sitting on a hard bucket the whole way through, and I didn't even hear them complain once. They looked so bored too! I have them some skittles and showed them pictures on my camera and they were grateful. I let them use the armrest of my seat to lay their heads on and sleep, but seriously?? 16 hours like that?? These kids were incredible!! There was Zambian music blaring on the radio, which in this circumstance, was pretty miserable. Honestly though, it wasn’t as bad as I expected.

So just some really quick info on Malawi so you can get an idea where it is: It's directly east of Zambia, a really small country and has a gorgeous lake about the same size! On the other side is Mozambique, then the Indian Ocean. Just above it is Tanzania. Actually if you drive further up the lake, you can also see Tanzania on the other side, but we didn't do that. Geography lesson of the day :)

Malawi is a lot more urbanized than Zambia is, and much cleaner. In Zambia people just throw trash on the streets and later burn it, Malawi not as much. We stayed with the Hakimi family in the capital city Lilongwe… the father, Farshid Hakimi, with 3 daughters: Vafa, who’s my age, Mona who’s 22, and Tahirih is the oldest. The mother unfortunately passed away pretty recently, last month or so, and so two of the mother’s sisters – Baha’is – where visiting from Iran. It turns out that one of these dear ladies went to University with one of my Dad’s sisters back in Iran! How cool is that! Anyway, after learning about that, I really felt as if I got to see my aunt face to face… and this lady felt like family. It was so cool because Farshid had lived in Malawi so long that he spoke the local language.

Actually, we saw a lot of people that we knew! I saw Anneleis, a youth from Australia who used to work with us, and Mr. Chipatela and his family! Mr. Chipatela was the principal of the Primary School for about 10 years until last December when he and his family moved to Malawi. It was so nice to see them again.

We were in Lilongwe for the first two days where we met with some friends, and got a tour of the Bambino Baha’i school – a Baha’i inspired Secondary and Primary school! The campus itself was much smaller than Banani’s. It’s funny because there are about 800 students at Bambino, and only 200 students at Banani! Anyway, after spending 2 days in Lilongwe, Neda, Nora, Anneleis, myself and another Baha’i youth named Mercy went on a 2 day trip to the Lake Malawi! Luckily, Anneleis had a car. It’s a huge lake…about the same size as Malawi itself. It’s between Malawi and Mozambique, and we even saw Mozambique on the other side of the lake! It was about an hour and a half drive to the lake… which means we drove across the entire country in that time. Malawi is really small. It’s SUCH a beautiful country though! It has a more tropical/East African flare to it than Zambia by far. We drove through some pretty amazing scenery; small “mountains”, grasslands and villages.

The hotel thing we stayed at was sort of an outside hotel, and each room was inside of a hut. It was quite nice actually, and it really felt like we were on vacation! This hotel literally, was right on the beach. The Lake itself is huge, and the part of the lake we stayed at was called Salima…and it was beautiful. It sort of reminded me of Hawaii, but with a much more “African” flavor to it…and it’s a lake, not an ocean. These locals hand carve wooden canoes and take them out on the water to catch fish. It’s pretty amazing. There were swirls of yellow and jet black sand, and the water was blue, and there were islands out in the distance. It was paradise. At night, we paid a local to go and catch some fish for us and BBQ it right on the beach, and it was so delicious! They also made us rice & sauce & veggies, so we all sat on the beach and ate with our hands. Yes, the sunsets and sunrises were breathtaking….but the most amazing thing I saw was the moonrise right over the water. Sooo beautiful! I think its fair to say that photos could definitely not capture the beauty of the moonrise… or even of the lake itself.

Thousands of kids come from the neighboring villages to play, and nap in the sand… and at night there is an outdoor club, blasting music, so we sat there and watched the kids dance on the beach. Let me tell you, every single dance move originates from Africa.

On the second day we woke up around 5:30am to watch the sunrise, went back to bed, woke up again around 10am then drove to a particularly beautiful part of the beach, with really cool rock structure on the side of the cliff, and Nora and I climbed on some of it to sit there, and look out at the gorgeous view and take pictures. Nora and I also took a boat to Lizard Island – a tiny island smack between Malawi and Mozambique. Well, its kind of obvious, “Lizard Island” is known for it’s lizards! There were so many lizards of different sizes… kind of disgusting actually. And there were really cool birds too. A Malawian took us on a hike through the jungle of this tiny island. We all got to act like annoying tourists and buy trinkets and take pictures of everything. A real vacation! It was actually the first time all of us could actually RELAX together since our holiday to Livingstone.

Then we drove back to Lilongwe and Nora and I stayed with the Hakimi family for about 3 more days before we left. During that time, we just hung around the family, mostly with Vafa, took their aunts to the airport to fly back to Iran, and on Sunday we went to the National Baha’i Center and met with the Friends. Nora and I also joined a youth meeting, and met with about 20 or so youth! All of us were trying to brainstorm some ideas to make the youth more active in this area and just to hang around each other and do more things. I was throwing out so many ideas that I used to do with the youth back at home and it made me miss them!

The Baha’i community is so huge in Malawi…about 400 Baha’is or so just in Lilongwe. Anyway, Malawi had such a loving atmosphere and we met so many amazing people. The Hakimi family itself was probably the most incredible family I’ve ever met. They are just so loving and supportive of each other and you can see it so clearly. I really fell in love with that family, and after a short 5 days, they became a part of my family. I was sad to say goodbye to the aunts at the airport even! Meeting with those two aunts inspired me to dedicate my service for the whole month of April, in the name of all the Baha’is in Iran, who are being persecuted and will never be able to get the chance to serve freely and teach the Faith.

I was truly sad to leave Malawi, and all of the Friends I had grown close to in that short period of time. Such loving people!!!!!!! Even the Malawians on the street are nicer to us, and don’t yell Muzungu every second and don’t push you until you explode like the crazy Zambians do. Anyway the bus ride back actually wasn’t as bad as the bus ride there… probably about 2 hrs shorter! And we weren’t as cramped. This was the longest I have ever been out of Zambia since my time here in Africa, and it was refreshing.

So after that we stayed in Lusaka for 2 nights at Soheyla's place before we went back to Banani. We had a chance to stay longer, but I kinda missed being at Banani, having my own bed and not living out of a backpack. Banani has really become my home.

Sisters for Life!

2009-04-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

My sisters!!!!!!!!!

Hanging out with some kids @ children's class.

Sitting on the hill after a children's class... eating guavas, singing and enjoying the view!
(From left: Nora, Kat, Olinga, Kakweji, and myself)

Today we had to say goodbye to Kat.... who went to the airport today to fly back to her home in the UK. It was actually much harder to say goodbye than expected... it was like I was saying goodbye to my sister! I can't imagine myself making it through this 3 more times - saying goodbye I mean. Shaudi is leaving this Tuesday, and Nora is leaving the 19th of May... which is coming up FAST. It's really sad, and it's more difficult than saying goodbye to everything I knew back in Seattle. We're a family now, and everyone is leaving! It's tough. The past 7 months all of us had so many great times together and I know next term things will be really different with half of us gone. Anywayyy...

Sorry I would upload more pix, but Nora is bugging me to get off so we can start moving! (We will be rooming together in Senior dorms -- Kat's old room, for a month...) Will hopefully post more later, if the internet doesn't hate me!

Thankful

2009-03-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

The rains are drying up and the night is starting to get chilly as we are heading into the cold season... yesterday morning was the first day I could sort of see my breath! it's the last week of work until we have our end-of-term April break! I have a feeling that April break will go by fast... and by that time I will only have 2 months left in Zambia.
Let me just sort of write down some things I'm really thankful for from my experiences in Africa so far. I guess this is sort of a personal thing that I want to look back on in the future. (No particular order)
-a loving family with a strong foundation
-the Baha'i Faith
-having such a tight knit group with the youth serving here with me! (Neda, Kat, Shaudi, Nora and Kakweji)
-deepenings with Tahir
-the unconditional love the kids at the Primary school show!
-my supportive friends back at home
-hot water
-3 meals every day
-bug spray (the most precious thing I have with me)
-safe tap water at the school I can drink!
-power & running water. Both very good things.
-salt and sugar.
-good company in general. I've realized that I prefer gross food with good company than the other way around.
-and of course, getting to see Africa :)

Well, there's a lot, and I could probably write about 500 pages worth of what I'm thankful for don't want to bore you all!

Well we had a deepening with Tahir yesterday and he brought his Baha'i friend Kelly who is an amazing woman! She's worked in 60 countries, and even lived in Iran for 4 years working there! The Baha'is in Iran have been persecuted for over 150 years and it is still happening today, unfortunately. For a Baha'i to make a trip to Iran to this day is taking a major risk. Kelly was brave enough to go there (and was very careful in doing so) and she told us the story of meeting the first Baha'i in Iran after 18 months of living there, and it was such a touching story that all of us had tears in our eyes. She's of British decent, but she was raised in Malaysia and is currently residing in Beirut, Lebanon as a pioneer there and she was saying how desperate they are for youth to come and serve! We got her contact information for future references.... Never say never! :)

Anyway, back to the deepening, Tahir asked each of us to prepare a talk on the Baha'i Faith and get firmiliarized with the idea of public speaking, etc.... which is a good tool to have. I've memorized about half of the long Obligatory prayer..... ok so I didn't have it memorized by Naw Ruz, but hey? Not bad? After the deepening we had cake (yum!) and gave Kelly a tour of the school.

This past week has been really tiring....It's my last week teaching grade 4 and I'm trying to prepare them best I can in crunch time for when they move on to grade 5. I'm noticing a major difference in them though! They are more enthusiastic I think about learning, and are more courageous, not afraid to ask questions... and they are really absorbing what I am teaching them because I hear them admonishing other kids outside of school what I just taught them the day before! They also no longer say "Me, I am" (bad grammar), they can recite their multiplications much faster, their reading has improved, and they no longer laugh at each other when someone slips up -- which was a major problem before. I'm so proud of them! I will miss my class. I think I'll buy them candy or something....
Along with teaching Art, PE and music next term, the principal has asked me to take some time during the week to work with the grade 1 & 2s to help improve their reading and spelling. It's a tough class.... 22 screaming little monsters! I'll do my best! Pray for my sanity!

This is also our last week to be together before Kat and Shaudi go home. We've been taking group pictures like crazy! Formal and funny.... I'll try and post soon :)

Happy Naw Ruz!

2009-03-24T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

So fasting is over now. I really loved fasting here.... even though the food isn't as appetizing and we barely got to eat at a proper dinner table, I will miss the other luxuries I got to see that I don't normally see at home -- like the beautiful sunrises and sunsets!

When the last day of the Fast is broken, that night and the next day is Naw Ruz...which is actually a Persian holiday that Baha'is also celebrate. Naw Ruz means "New Day" in Farsi...it's March 21st, and is known to us Baha'is as the new year on the Baha'i calendar. March 21st is also the first day of Spring!....well, in the Western World. Zambia doesn't really have a "spring".

Naw Ruz was pretty interesting. Usually every year, they have a really nice programme at the Secondary school, where there is a "devotional" with prayers, Writings and singing, and then a candlelit dinner under a tent outside. Well, 2 hours before the whole event started, we (I'm talking on behalf of the youth) got a pleasant surprise from Mrs. Mukendi that we had to round up all of the grade 10s together, and prepare a programme for the Secondary/Primary staff/students...which is a croud of 200+ people. SO STRESSFUL! Well, we finally pulled something off quite well, and practicing it was much more fun than performing it.... we sang a lot of Zambian songs in local language and all of us had these cool harmonies to share. I learned a lot of Zambian-Baha'i songs in local languages these past 7 months or so like Bemba, Lozi (sp?) and Tonga.... I can't really tell which is which though! Once we got up in front of the audience, I think the girls were a bit nervous, because they weren't projecting their voices as beautifully as they could. We still had fun singing though! Then after the programme (keep in mind all of us are still fasting) it was time to break the fast because it was sundown... so while all of the staff/students got food, it was the job of the year of service Youth to serve everyone appetizers, dinner and dessert... so we didn't really eat that night because most of the food that was for the main meal sort of ran out. We broke the fast finally around 8:30 with a Coke.

A nice cold Coke is really a luxury though.... we never get Coke at Banani!

The next day, there was a celebration at the institute...for actually the whole Chibombo cluster (our cluster!) including the Baha'is of Liteta North and South ...and the Banani Baha'i community. It was a really nice gathering that had a great turnout! A couple of really nice stories: first, there was this elder man sitting next to Shaudi and saying how much he liked the Baha'i Faith, and he asked her how to become a Baha'i, and she said it's really simple, you just need to sign a declaration card. So she asked around, and no one really responded in getting her one, so I ran over to Alvin and asked him to get one quick...so he went and unlocked the LSA room and got one, and I came running with it in my hand and gave it to the man. He declared right on the spot!! We even got a few pictures of it unintentionally! Also, there was this Baha'i girl from Liteta was there who looked about my age, maybe younger...I don't think she could speak English very well and she had an extremely dark complexion, which had a very unique beauty to her...and for some reason I couldn't stop staring at her because it was beautiful! She couldn't stop staring at me either, because of the contrast of our skin colors... and we just smiled at each other, and it was just such a magical moment that I can't really explain. Even though language is a barrier, we both shared the same love for the Faith, and that is really special.

We had to go back to escort the Banani Baha'i girls back to the Secondary.... but there was a huge rainstorm, so Michel had to drive us back in 2 trips ... so during the first trip, I thought I could eat a plate of nsima (mealie meal...really common food all Africans eat) and some sauce, and I almost downed half of it until Michel came again. The school's lunch had french fries...but honestly, I prefered the nsima and wished I could go back and finish it.

Also, I'm not quite if I mentioned this, but Shaudi, Neda and Kat put together a drama production in the last couple of months...where the students wrote scripts, songs, and choreographed some dances for the theme of Justice and Equality... and it was presented on the Sunday after Naw Ruz for the parents. They did a pretty amazing job, and the whole cast did a terrific job of capturing the emotions of the audience. About half way through one of the teachers was sitting on the side of the audience and his chair broke under him, so there was a really loud CRASH during one of the songs... which in my opinion, I found quite funny, but I couldn't laugh at the time because (a) I was video taping and (b) I was an "example" to everyone else. It seriously took all of my strength to not laugh, because even Nora was next to me when it happened. But after that we were sporatically exploding of laughter pretty much all night long.

As we are wrapping up our last 2 weeks of service until the April holidays, the girls/students at the Primary school are currently taking end-of-term exams. My grade 4 kids just finished an English exam today which says whether they pass grade 4, and can move on to grade 5. I really hope they do....they are such a smart, and sweet group of kids who deserve the world. I only have 2 weeks left teaching them, and then I'm switching jobs next term. Because Kat, Shaudi and Nora are leaving soon... Neda and I are taking over the entire PE, art, swimming and music classes at the Primary school. Which means I won't see my grade 4s so often. It will be nice to switch jobs again and experience something new...but I will really miss my grade 4s. I had a lot of fun working with them, and having a class of my own was such a great experience, and has definitely taught me a lot. It takes a lot of dedication, hard work, dicipline, effort and love & support to really create that special environment for the kids to grow and blossom. I have a new found appreciation & respect for all of the teachers out there! It takes a LOT of hard work....

Also, Kat and Shaudi are leaving in 2 weeks! Well... less than that. Kat is going back to her home in the UK the Saturday after the girls leave...which is next weekend, and Shaudi is leaving the following 4 days or so after. I will really miss them both... we have grown so close, and they are like my sisters. I'm so thankful that Shaudi lives in my area.... but I will go through a lot of adjustment pains in the next few months, being without her.
Gahhhh the internet isn't letting me put pix on this blog. Check Facebook! :)
Love & hugs to everyone! =)

2009-03-14T01:54:00.000-07:00

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful.... but I'll fill in on a few things.

Fasting was pretty good for the first few days or so, but for the past week or more, I've been really sick! I think it was some sort of the flu or something because I was stuck in bed for probably a good 5 days before I could get up, move around and get things done. I went to work for the first time again the other day and I really missed my class! I started off with my reading program (which is going great -- their reading is improving bit by bit) and then played an educational game to brush up on the things they just learned in math and science. After that I left half way through because I wasn't feeling well... ok, so I'm on the slow road to recovery!

Yesterday I did a "Diversity scavenger hunt" with my children's class (I'm in charge of ages 8 and up or so), where I passed out lists with what to hunt for... it had things like "5 flowers, 3 stones, 2 fruits, 2 pieces of rubbish, etc" but they each had to be unique. After that we talked about the beauty of our differences and how boring the world would be if everyone looked the same! The kids had fun running around the area and hunting for the things on their lists! I'll post pictures later. After children's class, Nora, Kakweji, Jens and I all went to Mrs. Yanika's house (the school nurse) because she said that her red guavas are ripe and that we should come take them before the monkeys do! We picked so many, and are planning to go back today with Shaudi. They are delicious! ... monkeys are such pests!
Yesterday Shaudi and I sang "If Thou Lovest Me" for the school during assembly.... it went pretty well, considering that it was Shaudi's second time performing with guitar, and that my voice was dead from being sick. Then at night, Shaudi had a collection of Michael Jackson's music videos on DVD so we fun watching that on my laptop.

There is a new addition to the Banani/Primary staff. Shiva's parents! Mrs. Mahoney is the new counselor of the secondary school, and Mr. Mahoney is assisting at the primary school with Neda's grade 3 class. They are such a sweet couple, and they had us over for persian food the other day....

We've been dining at the Moores, the Mahoney's and Ms. Davis' place for the past few weeks.... it's been nice to break the fast around a proper dinner table with loving people. Usually we eat in the dining hall with the students.

So Kat and Shaudi are leaving Zambia in 3 weeks. I really can't believe how fast time has gone... it still feels like I just got here! Well, sort of. Anyway, I will miss them both terribly. Nora is leaving the 2nd week of May.... I'm the last person to leave out of our little group! It's sad to say goodbye, especially since we've all gone through so much together. The weeks here are just mushing together and going by so fast.... March 28 will be my 7 month mark!
Ok well, I'll post more soon! This next weekend is Naw Ruz, where we get to dress up and eat under a tent!

Happy Fasting and Naw Ruz to everyone! Much love!

March!

2009-03-07T05:05:00.000-08:00

Dancing at an Ayyam-i-Ha party we hosted for our children's class.

Some kids in our children's class. From left: Anthea & her sister Lillian, Rachael, Shineid, Wamu and Chilufiya

Traditional Dress Day!

(We are wearing a traditional Zambian dress, and Kat is wearing Old English fashion.)

I also put loads of pictures of Livingstone, the Ayyam-i-Ha Party, etc on Facebook if you want to check those out :) Hope everyone is well!

Ayyam-i-Ha and Fasting!

2009-03-02T09:16:00.000-08:00

Happy Ayyam-i-Ha everyone!

Basically, Ayyam-i-Ha is about 4-5 days that the Baha'is celebrate at the end of February. It's a time for service, spending time with loved onces (like feasting, yum!) gift giving, and preparation for the Fast. Yes, I have to admit that celebrating Ayyam-i-Ha this side isn't the same as it had been at home the previous years, and I really miss celebrating with my friends and family, but we made the most of it, still had a great time. For our children's class we hosted a small Ayyam-i-Ha party where we had dancing, and gave out candy afterwards! Dancing with the kids was a lot of fun, and I'll post some pictures soon.

Also, from March 2 to March 21 is the 19-day Fast for Baha'is. During the Fast, we cannot eat or drink when the sun is up, so it means we have to get up before sunrise to eat breakfast, and break the fast after sunset. Fasting is a spiritual cleansing for soul, and during it, we have more time to pray, meditate and deepen on Writings of Baha'u'llah. I really love fasting, even though sometimes it is difficult. Fasting this year has been much easier than expected, and maybe because I'm looking at it through a different perspective. Deepening on the Writings has certainly turned things around for me, so I'm going to post a few of my favorites below. Yesterday, Tahir Taherzadeh had a deepening with us and gave us a bunch of materials to look at during the Fast, and told us to try to memorize the long Obligatory prayer. The Obligatory prayer is a prayer (there are 3 of them: short, medium and long, and you can choose 1) that Baha'is are to recite everyday. The purpose of this is to remind ourselves of God, and to call upon Him with humility. So my personal goal is to have it memorized by Naw Ruz! Some of the materials Tahir gave us are selected Writings on the following topics: Teaching, Prayerful meditation on Baha'u'llah's Teachings, Regular reading of the Sacred Scriptures, Service, Praiseworthy Character, and the Obligatory Prayer.

Here are some of my favorites. I hope they touch your heart and soul, as much as they have for me:

Regular reading of Sacred Scriptures

"Intone, O My Servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attracted the hearts of all men. Whoso reciteth, in the privacy of his chamber, the verses of God, the scattering angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every righteous man to throb. Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul." (Baha'u'llah)

Service

"O people of God! Do not busy yourselves in your own concerns; let your thoughts be fixed upon that which will rehabilitate the fortunes of mankind and sanctify the hearts and souls of men." (Baha'u'llah)

"For service in love for mankind is unity with God. He who serves has already entered the Kingdom and is seated at the right hand of his Lord." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace 18)

Praiseworthy Character

"Guidance hath ever been given by words, and now it is given by deeds. Every one must show forth deeds that are pure and holy, for words are the property of all alike, whereas such deeds as these belong only to Our loved ones. Strive then with heart and soul to distinguish yourselves by your deeds." (Baha'u'llah, The Hidden Words 48-49)

"...The first, fundamental purpose underlying creation hath ever been, and will continue to be, none other than the appearance of trustworthines and godliness, of sincerity and goodwill amongst mankind, for these qualities are the cause of peace, security and tranquility. Blessed are those who possess such virtues." (Baha'u'llah)

"The sword of a virtuous character and upright conduct is sharper than blades of steel." (Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf)

I'm sending much love to my family and friends during this special, special time of the year, and I hope you all make most of the precious time during the Fast. It's truly a blessing, despite the difficulties. I just want to say to the communities back at home: KCNE & Woodinville; that every one of you are in my thoughts and prayers so much. I'm sending hugs to my dear children's class I used to do during Feast, and MUCH MUCH LOVE to the youth!
Will post pix soon.

2009-02-25T01:14:00.000-08:00

Standing on the cliff of Victoria Falls...

Pix from Livingstone

2009-02-23T09:10:00.000-08:00

When we went to Botswana! (From left: Nora, Me, Kakweji, Neda, and Shaudi)
Baobab tree where Shoghi Effend took a picture by when he visited Livingstone.

This is Mukuni village... where they line up their buckets to collect water.

Okkkk so the internet is being sketchy right now, so I'll upload more in the next post!

Livingstone!

2009-02-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

So during midterm break, we went on a 6 day trip to Livingstone, which was absolutely wonderful -- I think that was the most fun I've ever had in my life!! We did so many things, so I really hope I'm not leaving anything out as I type this!
So first, and foremost of all, we saw the famous Victoria Falls (one of the 7 wonders of the world), and the Falls is just amazing. I really can't describe it with words, and the pictures can't even capture half of it's beauty. It is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen... and because it's the peak of the rainy season here, it's just huge! The sprays are so strong that it soaks you immediately to the bone. It was so great though... to see the Falls, and get soaked in the spray and absorb the sunlight.... it really makes you feel so alive. There were baboons walking everywhere and at one point, I left my stuff on a rock, and a baboon ran towards it to grab my things, but luckily a tour guide chased it off.... I think I just have really bad karma with monkeys of all types!

So the first day, we just checked out the Falls. Sorry, I really can't describe it. And we also went on top of the cliff itself where the water fell... and we just sat on the rocks of the Zambezi river and gazed out at the amazing view. Victoria Falls is a natural boundary between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe was just on the otherside of the bridge where you can do the famous bunji jump :)
The second day, we went on a safari! We got an amazing view, because we sat on the roof of the bus as we sped through the savana... and we saw wilderbeast, warthogs, impalas, giraffe, zebras... lots of great birds... unfortunately, our luck wasn't very good because all of the elephants had gone on the Zimbabwe side for the past month or so....
We also went on a crocodile farm tour, where our tour guide would just hit the crocs with sticks to stir them up and make them angry so we could see them move. They also did that with the snakes, so I got to see a cobra get mad and flare up it's head and spit at us. We actually saw a lot of snakes; cobras, tree snakes, black mambas, green mambas ... I actually had a small encounter with a green mamba when I went to Botswana but I'll talk about that later! But yeah, black mambas are known for their name not because they are black, but their mouth & tongue is black... sooo yeah.

We did a tour through Mukuni village to see the lifestyle of the Mukuni peoples... and as I was looking around how they lived and stuff, I realized that I'm totally OK with living in a mud hut and being just as happy. The kids are pretty adorable, and just embrace you with nothing but love. We went into the cheif's "palace" which were a couple of huts in a courtyard...
After Mukuni village, we went to the Baobab tree where Shoghi Effendi (Gardian of the Faith) and his wife Ruhiyyih Khanum had taken a picture by years back. There were 2 ladders connected to the tree, where I climbed up and got an incredible view of the Falls. I didn't get a picture though, because I was just terrified of the height, that was all I thought about.

On one of the days, we decided to drive down and take a boat to Botswana!! Actually, on the Zambezi river, theres a point where the 4 countries; Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana meet... so we got to go to each country (we went to Zimbabwe twice actually). When we went to Botswana, we actually got to get our passports stamped... and once we got into Botswana officially, we had nothing to do really so we said a Unity prayer, laughed... enjoyed the moment, then left. It was pretty hilarious. The boat views were amazing, because the cloud structure in the sky was gorgeous.

On our last full day, we decided to be dare-devils and do an adrenaline pumping activity... I did the "Flying Fox" where they hook you up to a line, and you have to sprint and jump off the cliff... then you fly across the gorge on a cord. It was terrifying, but the best adrenaline rush of my life. I liked it so much I did it twice! Nora was more brave and did the gorge swing where you fall off the cliff on a bunji cord, drop 50m then swing across the gorge. I sort of chickened out on that one! It was great though, and the view was absolutely breathtaking.
After jumping, we took the bridge to Zimbabwe, where I got to see proper bunji jump (chickened out on that too) and got to see the view of the Falls on the Zimbabwe side. Then we just chilled out by the Falls one last time and enjoyed the beauty.... the Falls is just so beautiful, I really can't describe it.

After Livingstone, we took a bumpy 10 hr bus ride back to Lusaka where we stayed at Soheyla's one night and had a 2-day deepening with Mr. Taherzadeh and the Lusaka youth on the Covenant! Bascially the Covenant in the Baha'i Faith is a promise between God and man. Man promises to God to live and abide by His laws... and God promises that He will never leave man alone. Hard to explain, but it was great. The food that Soheyla cooks is amazing no doubt, but because I'm so used to eating empty carbs, when I eat something rich like pizza or persian food...or something simple like fruit, my stomach will be hurting all night.

The trip was amazing, and being back at Banani has left me rather down, after such a fun adventure. But I know that once I settle into the rhythm of things, service will be groovy once again!

Here is the Unity prayer that we said in Botswana:

O my God! O my God! Unite the hearts of Thy servants, and reveal to them Thy great purpose. May they follow Thy commandments and abide in Thy law. Help them, O God, in their endeavor, and grant them strength to serve Thee. O God! Leave them not to themselves, but guide their steps by the light of Thy knowledge, and cheer their hearts by Thy love. Verily, Thou art their Helper and their Lord. - Bahá'u'lláh
(Compilations, Baha'i Prayers, p. 203)

I'll post pictures soon... Don't really have time right now.
I'm sending my love to everyone, and I miss you all so much. A simple email that says Hi will mean more to me than you will ever know... ransari29@gmail.com

2009-02-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone!
Just a few updates...

So this past week was pretty busy.... we're wrapping up things for the midterm that's starting tomorrow, and for the last couple of days I've been helping Neda out with her grade 3 class at the Primary because the assistant is in South Africa. Even though Neda only has 8 kids in her class, her kids have double the energy of my class of 14!

Last Monday my cousin Brad came up to Banani for a visit!! He was part of the Peace Corps in Senegal for the past 2 years, and is now traveling around East Africa before he goes home. It was really cool... and a bit surreal that I got to see him. The last time I had seen him was about 11 years ago, when my family went for a visit in Indiana. It was nice reconnecting with some family again. We (well, mostly Kakweji) made him a traditional Zambian meal consisting of nsima, chicken, mushrooms, ochre (ok, I can't spell) and some other things that I don't know the name of....and then Nora and I gave him a mini tour of the school. I couldn't really take him into the buildings because the students were there, but it was enough for him to have a taste of what I was doing. I also showed him the Primary/Institute, my classroom, and he got to meet some of my kids! Anyway. It was really cool seeing Brad again, and it was fun sharing stories of our experiences in Africa.

So Kat is flying out to South Africa, while the rest of us are off on a bus trip to Livingstone this Sunday! We are very much looking forward to the adventure ahead, and I can't wait to see what's in store so I can blog all about it.
Hope everyone is well, and I truly miss you all. Much love!!

Some Pictures....

2009-02-07T05:07:00.000-08:00

A lesson on Cleanliness.

The first, and probably last time I'll see Wamu's hands clean.

Children's class!

Faith and Besa doing a presentation on their science project.

A handful of my students: From left, Carole, Besa, Violet, Shineid, Christine, and Peace is in the front.

My grade 4 class! ... mixed in with grade 5s for Art with Shaudi and Nora.

A few of my grade 4 students. From left: Vizenge, Faith & Peace. Faith and Peace are half brother and sister, and probably the 2 cutest kids I've ever seen.

2009-02-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

So last Sunday we started our weekly deepening with Taher and they are really great. He's very well spoken and knowledgeable and tells great stories! And he always gives us something to really think about. Last week was our first meeting, and we talked about the different relationships - marriage & chastity was what we talked about last week, and it was really interesting!

I'm also getting very attached to my grade 4 class... I am definitely seeing an improvement in their learning capabilities... they are more courageous now and sure of themselves. This is such a great thing for me to see, because they are now raising their hands and asking questions if they don't understand, which is a pretty big step. These kids are so smart, and it's important for them to know that too. I'm starting to see that each of these kids have different learning styles, so I'm trying to incorporate all of that into my teaching so they can get the most out of school in general. I hope it's working!

These kids really have a lot to work on in the reading field, so I'm starting a timed reading once a week where I will time them to read for one minute. I'll then, record down the word-count and see if it improves week by week. I really hope it does, because reading is such an important aspect in a child's life. I'm trying to get them excited about reading, but it's really hard when the Primary school has such limited resources, and the lifestyles that the kids live aren't focused around the importance of education.

Children's classes are going pretty well, a little disorganized but it's improving by the week. We had the kids try to think of rules themselves so that they understand that children's class isn't a human jungle gym (yes, we get attacked every week) and one kid said "no stoning your friends!" It was pretty hilarious.

So one thing learned: If you love your friends, don't stone them! :)

And I do love my friends. I miss you allllllll!
Will post pics soon.

All is well :)

2009-02-01T02:31:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been a while!

So these days, everything is groovy... I'm really learning to make the most of my time here. Everyday here is so precious to me. Work is going really well, a few weeks ago, there was a short cholera outbreak, so more than half the kids at the Primary school were asked not to come to school for about a week or so. Then, after the students coming back the grade 4/5 class that I was working in split into 2 different class rooms, so I'm now working full time co-teaching grade 4 only teaching math, english, and a bit of science. Sometimes it really drives me crazy because the kids are slow learners when it comes to school work, so I'm constantly asked to repeat myself about 5 times. When I write directions on the board, the kids will still ask me what they have to do and it gets frustrating at some points. I'm using different teaching tactics on them so that they can learn to the best of their ability. The whole "lecturing" thing really doesn't work on them, and I wouldn't blame them either -- they are only grade 4!! I have the kids take turns playing "Teacher" and to come up and lead the class on how to do a problem in math, and explain it to the class so that they understand it for themselves. It seems to work pretty well!! I also do different things to get everyone's attention to look at me (they have a pretty short attention span sometimes) so I'll do jumping jacks, disco moves, make different noises with my mouth -- anything to get their attention! When it's something really important that I want them to get, I'll say "Ok class, this is really important! I'm going to dance for you so you remember!" It works!

Another problem that the kids have is getting into the habit at a very early age of saying "Me, I am." Such as "Me, I'm happy." or "Me, my sister went to the store today." It's bad English! Every day I'll write on the chalk board "Me, I am", circle it, and cross it out. I can see a bit of an improvement with my class... however, the rest of the kids in the school... I'll work on it. :)

Things are going really well. I really, really love my class. The kids are so sweet! Every day I show up to work, and the kids come and attack me with hugs!

Last week Nora and I took a bus to Kabwe, got a couple of marriage proposals, did some shopping. The usual. Then this last Wednesday, we took a trip to Lusaka and had some iced coffee and shopped some more. We really had fun browsing different stores, reminicing about home and laughing. On the way there and the way back, I bought a couple of clusters of finger bananas for about 10 cents. They were delicious. It was the first time I got to eat a banana in 5 months. It was a nice day off.

Everything here is pretty much the same, other than the change of work for me. Nora and I like to take frequent walks, and just catch up. We pick mangoes or lemons and sit on this one hill and eat them. It's probably one of our favorite past times, just because we finally have time to stop and think about life... and how much we really enjoy it here! I've really learned to embrace the sun here. I've gotten used it's intensity and now when I feel the sun on my face, I feel happiness.

It's about 2 weeks until Midterm break and all of the youth including myself are going to Livingstone for 5 days or so, and all of us are pretty excited to see Victoria Falls! It's a 7 hour bus ride....

On January 28th was the 5 month mark for the majority of us. We're having a jello party tonight to honor that. Big thank you to Shaudi's mom for bringing that for us!
We've also started deepenings with Mr. Taherzadeh every Sunday, so today is the official one, and we are looking forward to that very much.

Ok, hope everyone is doing well! I miss you all so much and I'll post pictures soon.

"O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty, ancient, imperishable and everlasting." - Baha'u'llah

Happy 2009!

2009-01-14T01:14:00.001-08:00

Out in the bush aka the middle of nowhere...

where we got caught out in the rainstorm!
First time I played a proper piano!

Our night out to Fringilla!

So these last couple of weeks have been fun, and emotionally challenging at the same time. We have a new youth serving with us - Kakweji ...who was a grade 12 at Banani last year! It's really nice to see her again, and it's been really fun having her with us!

During our last week of break or so, we went to Ester and Musonda’s house in Lusaka for a huge party to celebrate New Years! It was a full house and there were so many youth that showed up! It was fun to see them again and to laugh together. It was also the same day that Nora arrived back from South Africa and so before the party we had finished our grocery shopping and then went to the airport to pick up Nora. Kat also booked a ticket to make a trip to South Africa in February to visit Shiva! She is very excited. All of us were so happy to see Nora again – as soon as she stepped out of the terminal we all screamed her name! All of us were finally reunited again, after Nora’s trip to South Africa, Shaudi’s trip to Lusaka, Protea lodge and Livingstone, and the rest of our trips to Lusaka and Kabwe. At the party there was chicken cooking on the braai which was quite tasty, and music for dancing, and we lit off fireworks at midnight. It was so beautiful because it was on a compound sort of area, and so there weren’t any hills or anything so we saw fireworks blasting off all around us. Most of us pretty much stayed up all night… I think Nora and I crashed around 3:30am and everyone else fell asleep after 5:00am or 6! All of us were exhausted the next day, but it was really fun because half of us ended up on the same mini bus on the way back to Banani!

We also finished a 10 day Ruhi book 5 intensive (series of 7 work books that help you deepen on different aspecs of the Baha'i Faith - book 5 is about junior youth) at the Institute, where I got to taste Inswa for the first time! These fatty termites are fried with salt and eaten on the spot! Neda and I were the only brave ones to try them, along with Jens - a youth who just arrived from the Bahamas for his year of service, and he's the Pollock's nephew. They were actually quite tasty, and I ended up eating a couple of handfuls. It’s like popcorn without the kernels. Kind of lost my appetite though when the last one I ate was only half cooked. Well, that’s life.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this already… but I acquired a Zambian name about two months ago. It’s Chiloto, which means “dream” in Bemba. It’s nice because Roya means “dream” in Farsi. I got it from last year’s grade 8 girls because they said, “Roya, what does your name mean?” And I said “It means dream” and then they said “Can we call you Dream?” And I replied “Sure, whatever” and they started calling me Chiloto ever since. It’s very convienient because some of the Zambians that I run into on the mini bus will say “Sweetie, what is your name?” I’ll tell them that my name is Chiloto and it’s very entertaining to watch their reaction.

So we’ve already started a new term… and there have been some very big, exciting changes! First I don’t have the same girls in my dorm, which is sad because they all meant a lot to me and I miss them! I got a new set this year – the grade 6s, 7s & 8s mix to be exact which will be refreshingly easier because they are so young and cute, and they don’t have attitude problems yet.

Also I switched jobs! Before I was the librarian and receptionist… and now I work full time at the Primary co-teaching and assisting the grade 4s & 5s class with Mr. Chivunda (Alvin). I am known as Miss Roya. On my first day at work Mr. Chivunda took the grade 5s outside and had me teach the whole grade 4 class (14 kids) for a while… I gave them their first spelling lesson of the year, and then later I took over the grade 5s and gave them a lesson about the human body & the digestive system. Afterwards I spent the rest of my time marking papers. Then the next day I started off my day with marking papers, then helping out the grade 4s with their math, and then took the grade 5s out again to discuss the digestive system some more and then move on to the Teeth Unit. I had them pair off and count each other’s teeth for an activity. Work now is very productive… and busy. The time passes fast, the kids are adorable and I’m having a lot of fun teaching them. They are so eager to learn! It’s nice because I was thinking about becoming a Primary school teaching back at home, and now I really get the chance to have my own class to teach. So far it’s great! I also teach music classes now at the Primary twice a month when Shaudi has her day off…. So it should be a good experience. I’m just so glad that there have been some changes now because I can get a good learning experience in a different field. Library and reception really did teach me something though – patience. I’m so skilled now that I can sit in a chair and stare at a wall for hours on end, no problem! It’s a very handy talent to have if I do say so myself :)

Funny story: On the way to Ibis today, Nora and I first waited for a whole hour to catch a mini bus…then we decided to take the short cut through the bush (Let me explain the term ‘bush’: the middle of nowhere, tall grass, snakes… dusty/muddy pathways, villages, Bushmen). So this bush we cut through is huge – I mean, it’s acres long, in the middle of nowhere and the grass was much taller than we expected but we just decided to cut through anyway. The pathway we were walking through is pretty long, about a half mile. The pathway was extremely muddy because of the rains last night, and there were dark, menacing clouds overhead. We were really afraid it was going to rain, because when there are heavy rains – not only would our laptops get wet, but the snakes normally crawl out of their snake holes to escape from the water. About half way it starts to rain extremely heavily. Picture this: two light skinned, young women, stuck out in the middle of nowhere yelling nonsense and cursing at the Rain Gods (well…figuratively) for pouring water on them, surrounded by tall grass, muddy pathways that are impossible to walk through without slipping, and possible snakes lurking around. Yep – it was ridiculous.

This is what we did: we luckily each carried an umbrella, so I put my backpack to the front and pulled my umbrella very close to me so my laptop wouldn’t get wet. We pulled off our sandals because bare feet can get much better grip through the mud. We ran through the bush like this; barefooted through the squishy mud, jumping over snake holes, stepping on a lovely selection of insects that could’ve been poisonous? Not sure. We were screaming the whole way. At the time, we were actually terrified because it’s very possible we could’ve stepped on a snake. In fact, we were so scared that we ended up taking the wrong path when we reached a fork, so we ended up farther away then where we started. So frustrating! We reached Ibis – shaking from the adrenaline rush, out of breath, our clothing was soaked, barefooted, caked with mud up to our knees, and with all of the trouble – the internet was down!! What a frustrating day!
Yeah I’m sure it will be a hilarious story in a few weeks.

My half way mark is February 2nd! That’s next month!! All I can say to that is wow. Time is flying by so fast! I can’t believe that I’m almost half way through my year of service – the adventure I’ve been looking forward to since the 7th grade. I will live my life so differently when I come back home. Actually, this past month has been rather challenging… I’ve had a really hard time for a while because I was missing my friends and family, probably because I’ve had a whole month off to really think about home. But now that work has started, time has started flying again… and in times of trouble, I keep thinking to myself that my time here is limited, so I should just absorb every minute. And service is joy. Because it really is!

Souls, dreams, life after death... things to think about.

2008-12-23T03:14:00.000-08:00

Singing and dancing to the song "Fellowship"

So not much has really happened since my last post, but I thought I would say a few things that have happened... or what I've learned in the past few days. Shaudi and her mom just came to Banani yesterday and it's really nice to have a parent around... we cooked her a Zambian meal consisting of rice, sauce and chiwawa (sp?) which is cooked pumpkin leaves! Yesterday night we went to the Moores' place to help cook dinner, and we made the most amazing food... curry chicken boiled with apricots, prunes, dates, raisins, nuts, and lots of spices... and a ground beef stew with chilli peppers and tomato sauce... and lots of spices. We also made a fresh salad from various greens from the garden outside that was drizzled with pickled sweet lemon juice... and a mixed berry & apple crumble. Sorry. We've accumulated a new appreciation for food since we've got here. Lets just say that I ate so much that my stomach was in revolt probably for the next 6 hours.... silly me.

While we were having dinner at the Moores, we had a really deep conversation on sleep, and the progression of the soul, and life after death. We talked about how the body is merely a physical temple for the soul, after we die, our soul being immortal progresses on to the many spiritual worlds of God... being in this material world, Earth, is just one stage. I'm definitely not an expert, but that's how I interpret it, and that's what I believe. It's interesting how sleep is linked so much with the soul... in that when your dreaming, it's like a connection to the world of the spirit. Even though the body is shut down, the our souls are still enlivened. It's interesting that God has ordained that we spend a third of our lives asleep... there surely must be more of a reason than just rest. We talked about how dreaming is like a lake in which we see reflections of the spiritual world. However the surface of the lake isn't usually clear, and so our images (or dreams) are distorted and need interpretation. Every dream has meaning and will be of significance in the future, there is no doubt about that. The soul is something where I'll never be able to understand the capacity of. Anyway, this subject is certainly something to think about and I am definitely not one with answers... I guess I'm just typing out whats running through my mind I guess. There are so many things that I've learned to look at from different perspectives since I've come here, and it brings up so many more questions... about life and its meaning.

The other day I stepped on a lemon tree branch with my barefoot! If you've ever seen a lemon tree branch, then you'll know that it has thick gigantic thorns. Yep, it hurt.

We went to Kabwe last weekend and stayed with the Patel family and they fed us so well! They make the most amazing Indian food. On one of the days we drove to one of the farms that they owned and we got to stand up on the back of a pickup truck, holding on to dear life to a rail and screaming at the top of our lungs while the driver whipped 50 miles an hour through the vast lands of Africa. It was so much fun, and was a huge adrenaline rush! After the driver went around half the farm (about 300+ acres -- its huge) we begged him to take us around again because it was so much fun... so we did it again!! He sped through these dirt roads between the crops, splashing through muddy puddles and streams.... the wind whipping through our hair and faces... screaming the whole way. It was definitely a highlight. They gave us sweet corn from their farm, some chilli peppers and 2 huge bags of mangos for us to take home.

Anyway, I was just talking to my parents on the phone last night and back in my area I hear that there's a foot of snow!! It's crazy to think that considering that I'm dying under 90 degree heat everyday... honestly it doesn't feel like December. I feel like I've been stuck in summer for 7 months.

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and happy new year! Drive safe ;)

Ants on Toast... a delicacy! -- NOT.

2008-12-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

So we've been SO busy this break, which is really good because we are being productive and full of service, but I am so exhausted from what has happened in the past 2 weeks! So I'll start off with a story that happened about a week and a half ago.

We have this huge ant problem in both the youth kitchen, and the kitchen in Neda's house. If we don't immediately wash up after we eat and put the dishes away, the ants will smell the food left ou and just attack. It's disgusting because the food is black from ants and looks like it's moving. It's pretty gross. So we came to the house one day just famished (I couldn't remember what we had done...) and so I decided to make some toast. I pull out some bread, pop it in the toaster without noticing that the loaf had been just attacked by ants... so when the bread popped up, it was beautiful enladded with toasted ants, lodged inside the bread... but I was so hungry that I just buttered it and ate it. I didn't really realize how shocking that was until AFTER I ate it, thinking "What have I done?" Because at home, I wouldn't even drink milk a day after the expiriation date.
The shocked didn't last long, because I ended up putting 2 more pieces of ant-filled bread in the toaster.... yummyyyy...

I'm starting to realize that my standards are much lower than I thought they were... everything new that I try... like living in the bush, bathing in cold water, killing cockroaches, eating mouldy cheese, anty bread or powdered milk... it's really not so bad. You get so used to it.

Some youth from New Zealand are here to visit -- Nina and Viviene (sorry I can't spell their names!) and funny enough, they both know Natalie Kutches who went to New Zealand/Tonga for her year of service... anyway, it was Nina's birthday one night so we baked her a chocolate cake and decorated it with Smarties and took it to the institute!! It was kind of sad because the power went out half way through cooking the cake. There were a bunch of youth there already, and we stayed out late playing games and eating half cooked birthday cake. It was so fun.

For the past week and a half, we have been staying with a Baha'i Family in Lusaka preparing probably the most stressful, challenging and mind straining project of our LIVES. Basically, there are junior youth & childrens classes due to happen next week with the arrival of 200+ kids and so we were asked to prepare a 40-lesson curriculum for those kids. We had to type up the lesson plans, make examples of the art projects, and even hand copy some things because it was too expensive to get them photocopied in town. On top of that, Kat and I went back to Banani about half way through to record a CD of our songs that we have prepared so the kids could learn them ... from scratch. Voices + guitar + percussion + harmonizing... and we only had one day to do it. Funny enough, the power decided to go out and it stayed out for 12 hours all day and so we had to stay up all night recording. I barely remember what we did because we were so tired, but I remember making lots of coffee during the night... and taking Facebook and dancing breaks. That morning we had to leave at 4:30 am to take Nora to the airport (She met her parents in SA). When we arrived back in Lusaka at about 7:30 am, we were so tired that we had to literally drag ourselves to the nearest coffee shop La Mimosa, and I ordered the strongest thing they had - an expresso. It worked a little bit and I had some energy for the next two hours or so until I felt like I was dying again, and then I had some more coffee. By the time Marcia (the lady we were staying with) picked us up, we both fell asleep in the car and then we got to her house in the afternoon. We just went to bed around 3:00pm and didn't wake up until the next morning - TOTAL ACCIDENT. The next day we had to definitely crack down back on the curriculum and we spent 12 hours every day for the next 2 days until we finished the entire thing. I was so tired.

The last night we stayed at Marcias, Mr. Taherzadeh invited the youth over to his house for dinner and a deepening. Dinner was spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and coke - a rare treat, with tea and cake (sorry - after being here for 4 months I've started to obsess over food)... and Mr. Taherzadeh told us many stories of the early Baha'i followers, and about his grandfather, who actually had the priviledge of meeting Baha'u'llah Himself. After working so much in the past week it was so nice to just sit and relax with all of these wonderful youth, sip tea and listen to Taher's stories... We also had an interesting dicussion of the progression of the human soul... the difference between a man and a Manifestation of God... life after death... the unknown I guess. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him!

We got back to Marcia's around 11:00pm to find the gate locked, and the guard was apparently sleeping!! We honked the horn, tried everything... but one one opened the gate -- so we went back and crashed at Ester's house, a youth who lives close by.

Our whole time in Lusaka... we would work like crazy all day... and then Nora, Kat and I (we shared a room) would gorge on chocolate, play cards and pretty much laugh all night long. It was the first time that all 3 of us were rooming together and we were so tired yet sugar hyped that we did some pretty crazy things.... I have never laughed so hard. If I blogged about it, it wouldn't seem funny because only the 3 of us were there.... I remember my stomach muscles being sore the next morning from laughing. Ah, I'm laughing as I type this. Ha ha ha. We had such a good time rooming together. But now Nora's in South Africa for the next two weeks. I'll have no one to punch until then (we like to punch eachother when we are mad... or happy)! I miss her.

This morning I just got back to Banani. It's good to be back. Our plans for the rest of break are still in the air so I can't talk about it just yet... but I just hope everything works out! I feel like I'm forgetting to type down a lot of things that have happened... but I honestly can't remember. I'll post again soon.
Love to all!

December Already....

2008-12-03T03:52:00.000-08:00

Rainy season! (Notice how everythings green)

Rockin' the corn rows with Lucia... ohhh yeahhhh

Wow I can't believe that it's the end of the year for the Banani students already!! Time is going by so fast.... only one more day until our whole month break starts ... on Dec 5th! There's a staff party that all of us will be attending at a nearby restaurant called Fringilla. Still haven't gotten the chance to eat there yet, but I've heard so much about it -- AND we get a free meal! Yippee!

So let me summarize what's happened in the past couple of weeks: First of all, we had our Children's Class celebration, which turned out to be close to a disaster because absolutely no one showed up! But it was all good in the end.... we turned on some music, and gave the kids sweets. It was a bit harder on the older kids who actually knew what was going on... because all of us had worked hard for 5 weeks on this presentation. It wasn't all that bad though, because they ended up performing most of their material at the Fundraiser that was hosted at the Institute a few days ago, which was quite successful!! Nora, Shaudi, Kat and myself got sponsored many times to go up and sing for everyone... from our time here, we had about 10 or more songs perfected on our repetoire so we kept getting called up. One of the times I announced that the little kids wanted to dance while we sang the song "Fellowship" and it was just too cute to watch.

Of course, I must say... on November 28th was the "I've-Survived-In-Zambia-for-3-Months" Anniversary! Wow. Three months. It went by so fast, yet it seems like I've been here longer. I'm seriously starting to enjoy every minute here. I think the two-month mark was the hardest month I ever had encountered regarding homesickness, but ever since the conference then everything has been so great. Talk about Divine Assistance.

I think it's nice that it's over 90+ degrees and sunny... and I can lounge by the pool & palm trees... and say it's DECEMBER! I really feel like I've been getting away with something, hehehehehehe. All of us have some pretty awesome plans for this break, but I'm not going to let any out until everything is set in stone. Next week Shaudi's mom is coming on Dec 6th for three weeks and I'm so excited so see her, because it's sort of like my mom is coming too! I must say it's going to be pretty interesting to see another person from my hometown here. Zambia is just a completely different world from the one I once knew....

...And I'm mad right now because it's not letting me post any more pictures... my FAV pictures... darn it. Will post em soon.

Love to allllll!!!!! xoxo

Graduation & Creepy Crawlies of the Rainy Season.

2008-11-18T23:22:00.000-08:00

"We came... we saw... we conquered" - Class of 'o8!

So on November 15th, the seniors Class of '08 graduated! I was so sad to see them leave... but happy for them at the same time. I think I cried more at this graduation then my own, which, I know, is pretty pathetic considering I didn't cry at all at my graduation. They were such a sweet, tight-knit group that I thought I connected with the most because all of them are my age. Plus -- I was class of '08 myself, so they'll always have a special place in my heart. =) I just miss them so much. I'm so thankful for modern day technology with all the texting messaging and Facebook and email... so we can all stay in touch. The graduation ceremony itself was so beautiful.... full of life, and music, and dancing. It was outside under a tent, it was sunny and the birds were singing. It was cool because the graduation had a personal touch to it. Rather than just playing "Pomp and Circumstance" and handing out diplomas, they played the song "One Step at a Time" by Jordin Sparks as they marched onto the stage with a choreographed dance sort of thing... they had speeches from various students and from the guest of honor and then they recieved their certificates with flowers and all got hugs from the people handing them out... then when they exited the stage, it was to the song "Forever" by Chris Brown...

Afterwards, we had refreshments!! Chicken wings, meat/veggie pockets and this AMAZING chocolate cake, after the youth finished serving, we all snuck into the kitchen where the cook saved us an extra tray of food and we literally stuffed ourselves with chicken wings, chocolate cake, and other food until we were sick!! It felt so good to be full...

The rainy season has officially arrived... it's sunny pretty much all day still, but towards the night these dark rain clouds roll in and we have these freak thunder and lightning storms. The other day we had such a bad storm that there was lightning flashing across the sky every 3-5 seconds and it was so bright that it looked like we were in broad daylight, when really it was 9:00pm. When the first rains come, there are swarms of Inswa that fly everywhere!! Inswa I guess is a flying termite thing...? Not quite sure, but they only survive for 24 hours and then they lose their wings and die. People usually collect them, fry them and eat them -- it's a delicacy here... I'm still waiting to eat some! Not only is there inswa, but there are bugs that have come out that I never knew existed.... giant beetles the size of my fist, giant spiders, big centipedes... Zambia is just the extreme in everything -- extreme heat, extreme storms, extreme cold, extreme natural beauty and gigantic bugs. It's crazy!

So let me tell some stories of these creepy crawlies... first, I was in one of the youth's houses and I was wearing sandals and all of the sudden I felt this tickle on my foot. I looked down and yelled because there was a tarantula on my foot! I jumped and yelled a few phrases that would've made my parents cring if repeated. The spider crawled away. They're harmless really, and I'm pretty much used to them now. As long as they aren't on me! Ugh.

Then after my day off, I walked in the dorms with my girls screaming telling me that there was a deadly centipede in the dorms that they had just extracted... at first I didn't believe them because how could a centipede be deadly? Well, they are! I saw the one that they took out, and it was still alive... it was bright blue, and slimy ... the nurse took a look at it and warned us to stay away from those because they move like snakes and have venom just as potent. Then as if I hadn't had enough of a scare, we found a snake by my dorm... it was the first snake I've ever seen since I've been in Zambia and it's the only thing I'm afraid of!! At first I couldn't believe it, so I went closer and took a gooooood look and then it moved! So I ran to get Mrs. Mukendi, and I had to herd all of my scared girls into the dorms while she killed it with a stick.

So ever since the snake incident, I lost my fear for spiders - any size... lost my fear for giant bugs flying at me, inswa, bees, scorpions, beetles, whatever. As long as they are harmless I'm good.... I don't even bother to kill the spiders in my room anymore. There are also 2 geckos that live in my room. Am I scared? No. I got over it. Wow.

Regional Baha'i Conference of Zambia, Zimbabwe & Malawi!

2008-11-12T00:33:00.000-08:00

The conference!

Attempting to teach some kids the "Peace" sign... that kid on the far right got it all wrong... haha!

Doing childrens activities during the conference.

Cutest girl EVER.

Having fun with some kids at the conference.

Nandi and I

Messing around with during the dance :)

Hanifa and I... this girl who looks, uh, exactly like my cousin Kiana. Had to post this pic :)

When the seniors cut up their uniforms....

Some oh-so-gorgeous senior girls...

Don't know what I would do without these youth :)

So lots of things have happened in the last couple of weeks! So I will start with the most recent news…

A few weeks ago we got the news that the Baha’i Conference of Zambia will be taking place right at the Institute! So of course, all of us were jumping with joy and excitement that the Baha’i Conference would be taking place right where we lived pretty much, but at the same time, it was stressful because there was a lot to do in preparation. I kept running back and forth, between the conference and the school because I had so many jobs at the conference, and at the school that I was responsible for, so I got quite a workout! I think all of us are still recovering from that fantastic/crazy weekend.

The conference took place on Nov 1st and 2nd, and it included all of the Baha’is of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. I met a bunch of Baha’is from Zimbabwe who send their love to the Steiner family (very close family to me that I know back at home), and miss them terribly. There was a gigantic tent that was placed in the middle of the field next to the Primary school and we fit 750+ people underneath, which was pretty impressive. Even more impressive than that, everyone that attended also spent the night and ate meals there as well. They fit about 40 people per classroom at the Primary school & Institute, they slept on these very crowded bamboo mats. It made me appreciate having my own bed and the privacy of my own room. These ladies were cooking gigantic pots of Nsima, cabbage, rice & stew over open fire pits to feed everyone. It was amazing, really. The weather was hot and dry. That weekend, I could really feel the sun on my back.

There was a representative of the Universal House of Justice who came and gave a few inspirational talks and stories, and when I was talking to him later I found out that he was originally from the United States as well, and it was his first time traveling to Africa. The National Spiritual Assembly of Zambia was there as well, and I got to know the chairman. It was funny because at the time, I had no idea he was the chairman of the NSA! There were a few continental Counselors including Mr. Pollock and some Zambian –Baha’i Chiefs and they gave some talks as well. There were choirs that were organized and performed for us multiple times, and it was so nice to listen to their harmonies. All in all, the conference was absolutely amazing, inspiring, and truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience! It really revved me up and motivated me to do my very best on this year of service, even when times get rough. It was so great to meet people all around the world who share the same love, even though language may have been a barrier. Honestly, I can’t really describe the conference in words, but I will say that I feel so blessed to be able to have been in Zambia the same time that they are hosting the first of the 41 conferencecs around the world.

Some of the youth would rotate and take turns organizing activities and games for all of the kids that came, with Sandra. But most of the kids didn’t speak English. I remember once, I was trying to explain “Duck-Duck Goose” and then Sandra would have to translate that into Nyanja – the language that the kids spoke. But the kids were adorable in general – what else is new?

There was this cool handmade drum set out of rice bags and cardboard or something like that, and some symbols with little pieces of metal on it so when you hit it, it makes a cool noise… (it made me miss my bro!) then there were also a couple of handmade guitars carved out of wood. On the last night, some musicians came to them and started making music, and everyone joined in singing, harmonizing, clapping, dancing…. It was so special to see it and be a part of that.

This conference really refreshed me and left me prepared to tackle yet another week of service back at Banani… or so I thought…because the next day, I woke up with a fever! In fact, I was so sick that I couldn’t even get out of bed or talk in a normal voice. I was scared because I just had no energy to do anything, lift anything, walk, eat, all I did was sleep. I had a fever and didn't go to work for 5 days straight, until the nurse made me see a doctor in Kabwe to get a blood test for malaria – but luckily I didn’t have it. Just the flu. But it passed, and I survived and I’m back my busy schedule once again. Whew!

Last night was the Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration at the school... and it was really beautiful. It's sort of like a "prom" for the girls I guess, because they dress up like mad! We had a really nice devotional which was prepared by the grade 9's... a series of prayers and songs, then there was dinner by candle light under this big tent outside, and we all got sparklers! Afterwards, we had ice cream and candy bags. There was also a dance, which was super fun.... there are some really good R&B South African artists out there I must say.

The U.S. elections were broadcasted here on TV as well, and when the results of the election came up, the girls started screaming, cheering… some crying, I think. It was quite something to watch…. I heard that other countries in Africa were partying on the streets as well. Nora told me that back in Germany, the citizens were in their cars honking their horns all night. My other friend who’s in France right now said that people are going crazy. It’s amazing how much the United States elections affect the rest of the world. I guess I didn’t realize how much until now. Last week was also the Zambian elections for the new president, because the former president passed away, so now our president is Rupiah Banda!

On October 24th, it was Zambian Independence Day. The girls dressed up in traditional clothing and got on stage and sang some songs and did some traditional dancing. These girls are just amazing dancers… dancing runs in their blood really, I mean everyone can dance. Everyone.
On October 28th, was the “I’ve-Survived-For-2-Months-in-Zambia” anniversary for Shaudi, Nora and myself. I can’t believe I’ve been here for 2 months already, it went by so fast!! Even though when I think about my first day here – it seems like forever ago. Being in Seattle sometimes seems like a mere memory , which scares me a bit. I’m forgetting how I used to pass my time back at home! I’ve learned so much since I’ve been here… and have gone through so much with these youth that I’m serving with. I’ve learned a lot about myself, and about my capacities…. and that my standards are much lower than I thought they were. It will be weird coming back home. When I first arrived in Zambia it was like “Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?” And now I’m completely adjusted and don’t think twice about anything. Guess it’s something I can’t really explain quite yet. I think homesickness is slowly easing itself out of the picture completely. Which is good. :)

So on November 22nd, we are hosting an end of the year Children’s Class celebration at the Institute. Of course, we didn’t know that we were hosting it until 5 weeks before – and we meet with our kids only once a week, so it’s been quite stressful. It’s hard to get everyone’s attention sometimes, especially in the group performances we have planned…. And Nora and I are in charge of the ages 6 and under performances so you can imagine how hard that is to keep everyone in line. But it’s fun, and the kids are fast learners…. We have some good things in store. But I will blog more about it after the event.

I miss playing the piano terribly – I’ve only gotten the chance to play it once here, which is TORTURE! So let me describe the drastic measures that I do to get the pleasure of making music:
I’ll pick up the guitar once in a while and try to figure out chords. Kat taught me some chords on the guitar… and now I can play “Ye are even as the fire” on it… verrryyy poorly. Playing the guitar is SO not the same, because I don’t even consider myself able to play it. Yep, I’ve tried to play guitar. That’s how desperate I was. We’ll also form our own little choir and harmonize… we’ve sung “Joy”, a song that some of our friends wrote back in Seattle (which we taught ALL the kids here by the way) and sometimes Kat will beat-box with her mouth while I freestyle. I’m actually not that bad when I get myself going. Ok fine – I’m bad. But it’s good for laughs, because I have no idea what I’m doing. A few days ago we started singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and I would do the harmonizing “awimowe awimowe,” while everyone else would sing “In the jungle, the mighty jungle… the lion sleeps toniiiiiiight…” then Kat would sort of “remix” it and at her own beat-boxing skills. It’s pretty hilarious. Even Kat, she has this really nice computer and she’s really into filming/recording so she’s going to record us and make a nice CD so we can take them home and listen…. And remember the ‘good ol’ days’ of the desperate measures we took for survival in Z-Town. Ha ha.

Anyway…..

Something cool that I saw 2 nights ago – I went on a walk during dusk, and the sky was full of clouds, so there was a gentle roar of thunder, and I would see lightning across the sky – but it was bright red lightning because the sun was setting in the sky. Soooo beautiful. The weather is slowly changing… and think that’s one of the reasons why I was sick. It’s going from hot and dry to hot and humid because we are inching our way towards the rainy season. The sky is full of dark rain clouds now and then, and when we’re lucky, it will rain very heavily. It’s nice because I think that’s the only thing that Zambia has in common with Seattle. Rain. The mangos started growing on the trees everywhere, and I can’t wait for them to be ripe!

Our December break is coming around fast, and we have some pretty big plans! All of us are so stoked to have a whole MONTH off to play around and have our own schedules. My grade 9’s are leaving about 8 days early due to finals and so I’ll have 8 extra days of going to sleep in quiet… and waking up to the quiet! It’s kind of sad because I’m not sure if I’ll be their dorm Momma next term because it will be a new year. I hope I am! They are truly, a great group of girls.

The Birth of the Bab celebration

2008-10-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

Some girls trying to plait my hair.

Birth of the Bab celebration...

So last Monday was the Birth of the Bab celebration! The Bab is a Manifestation of God as well. His name means "the Gate" because he served sort of as the "Gateway" and prepared His followers for the coming of Baha'u'llah. Anyway, there was a small devotional at the school, and then we went to the Institute for a devotional as well, which was absolutely beautiful because it was held outside underneath this blooming tree with bright red flowers! It was really nice to go to the Institute and see the youth who live on the other side.

Also, a week ago or so, was the 19 day Feast again, but it was really hilarious, because during the business portion, the chairman said "Any announcements...? Anything....? Anything???" And no one said anything! So Feast was cut short, and instead we all sang songs and then Mrs. Mukendi got up and danced as we sang! At first we were like "Woah" and then some other people got up and joined her... and then more people joined... then I joined them... and then before you know it, the whole Banani community was in the middle of the circle singing and dancing and harmonizing and clapping a rhythm! It was so uplifting!

The papayas are ripe now... and they are so delicious! Here, they don't call them papayas but they call them "Po-pos"... anyway they just look at me weird if they hear me calling it "papaya".

I also discovered that there is a passion fruit vine here somewhere but I still have to hunt it down.

Recently I recieved a letter from my dear friend Nichole (by the way that totally made my day - thanks!) and a package from my parents which both of them were SO NICE! It was like a taste of home... which is greatly appreciated once in a while. :) Thanks guys!

So I posted some pictures .... mainly they are from the Primary, and the last one is from the Institute. There was a sports day at the Primary school where another school came to play football with them! (Or soccer... whatever). Anyway, pretty much all the girls crowded us and started playing with our hair when they found that we were sitting there watching the game! It was fun! The kids are just so darn cute! :)

Kabwe, bee stings, motor bikes, monsoon!

2008-10-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Baha'i Centre in Lusaka
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens..." -Baha'u'llah

So scared, because the slide was steep!

Really tired from walking...

Downtown Lusaka

Eating hamburgers at Ibis.... soooo good

Sunset

That's the moon.

Attemping to hide ourselves on a minibus at Lumumba station

Art class with grade 6's

Nora, Kat, myself and Shaudi at Ibis

My grade 9 girls :)

Carol and Susan laughing

Art class with the grade 1's and 2's (Susan's smiling in the front)

This was mostly taken for my mom... but we were walking in the bush back from Ibis

From the top left - Ms. Davis, Shiva, Kat, Anita, Nora, myself, Neda, Shaudi and Mr. Moore, and then Mrs. Mukendi (our mother) is sitting on the floor in front of us.

So the girls are back yet again and we were thrown full force back into the busy schedule at Banani... this is the last term before the year ends, and we have some exciting events coming up in November! There's the Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration and graduation for the seniors. My grade 9's also have their finals coming up, which means that they go home about 8 days before break which means I get 8 extra days with no quiet time! :) I don't know if I get to keep my girls for the next year, or if I'll get a new group.... well, I'm really going to miss my girls if I have to switch.

This break was really relaxing and fun! We went to Kabwe for the day to have lunch at the Pollocks and we had some time to spend before we went to their house, so we shopped at little and then went to the Patel's house (they have a daughter who goes to Banani) and they gave us some pretty amazing Indian food! They have this walk-in pantry thing with sooo many jars of spices. Anyway, after that, we went outside, and Anneleis spotted a motor Quad bike in the Patel's garage area and so she asked to go for a ride on it and they said "Sure, why not?" and so Anneleis got on the motor bike and drove it around the block -- really fast and there was this little cart thing attached to the back. Anyway, Neda wanted to drive it afterwards and so she gets on it, and she's like, "Anyone want to ride in the back?" And I was thinking "Wow, whoever would do that is nuts because they could fall out any minute -- there is no support!" And then I thought "Hey, why not? I'm never this nutty!" And so I sat on the back of the cart, and held on to dear life while Neda revved the engine to life and sped down the block... we drove around for about a quarter of a mile, of course with me clinging to the cart thing screaming the whole way down... a lot of the Zambians just sort of stared at us. Well, on the way back Neda started to speed up faster and faster over these pot hole things and I was screaming "Neda, slow down SLOW DOWN!" But she wouldn't.... and she finally lost control of the bike, ran over some bushes and crashed into a brick wall. I have never laughed so hard in my life I think.... because Neda is the oldest out of all of us. Ah man I was scared out of my wits at the time we she lost control but I laughed really really hard. The ONE time I get on a motor bike, we crash. It's always me.

Then the other day, Nora and I were at the pool, and Nora stuck her hand on the pool edge and accidently hit a bee and it stung her pinky. The next day, we were swimming again together, and this time I stuck my arm on the ledge of the pool and got stung by a bee as well!! It's always Nora and I .... well, I'll just say I have never laughed so hard when I got stung by a bee.

The last nights of our break, we spent the night at Soheila's house in Lusaka and it rained for the first time! It was the first time I saw rain in a month an a half, and I was so happy to see it. No - let me clarify ... it didn't rain. It POURED. It was like a monsoon. The rain was pelting the roof so hard that we had to yell at eachother to hear ourselves over the noise. When I stood outside, the rain was heavier than a shower, I was immediately soaked. It was so incredible that I video taped it... the water was flooding the streets - everything. There was also incredible thunder and lightening. The next day, we met with the dance workshop at the Baha'i Center and some of us learned the hustle while the rest of us worked on a poster for their upcoming performance.

Midterm Break

2008-10-06T03:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a crazy-busy week this has been! ... All throughout last week I've been running around, doing my jobs, running errands, managing the girls... and now that all the girls have gone home and we have 10 days to relax and enjoy the quiet, the exhaustion has rushed to finally catch up on me. I've been catching up a LOT on my sleep, which is nice... and I don't have to wake up around 4:30am anymore due to my noisy (but wonderful) girls. Us youth have just been chilling at Banani, watching movies, sleeping in, doing our own cooking with what we have, swimming, going to Ibis and town...
So last Monday we had a going away party for Shiva and Anita -- Shiva already left for South Africa last Friday and Anita is leaving in about 2 weeks or so. But at the party we had fried chicken wings and this gigantic chocolate cake was served, and it was much appreciated.... we got to move the chocolate cake to the youth kitchen after the party, and we finished it in about 2 days! It's pretty hilarious how much food that we are capable of shoveling in while we are here. Some new youth also arrived to serve at the Institute from Swaziland and SA and Kat and I met them a few days ago.

The girls all went home last Friday and so now the Banani campus is eerily quiet. Which is really nice. It's so different without the girls here. Yesterday (Sunday) we went to town, and at one of the little strip malls there called Archades, was a huge market! It's called Sunday Market and it's there every Sunday at Archades and they had everything for amazing prices... chitenges, beautiful silk scarves, jewelery, beautiful ebony carvings, paintings, masks, drums, spears, bowls, dresses, everything! I couldn't believe the prices either... it seriously took some strength to hold myself back from buying everything because I kept forgetting that I'm still here for another 10 months. I did buy some things like chitenges because that's pretty much all I wear now, and some silk scarves that were only $4.00 each and they were absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I saw this awesome drum that reminded me of my brother that still had hair on it, from the animal it was made out of... and I bargained it down to $5.00 just to see how low I could get it, but I didn't buy it because I didn't need to... but I will when I go back home! Ha ha.... it's pretty amazing. I've really gotten the hang of being assertive and bargaining... or haggling, whatever it's called.

This Wednesday we were invited to go to lunch at the Pollock family's house in Kabwe, which is a province just north of where we live... about an hour's drive. I haven't been to Kabwe yet, so I'm excited! I'm just sooo happy that we are on break. No words can describe this happiness.

Heading towards October... the hottest month in Zambia!

2008-09-28T02:44:00.001-07:00

As we get closer to October, the weather is suddenly getting drastically hotter! When I first arrived, the mornings and nights were very cold, and now I wake up and go to bed sweating. When I just stand in the sun, the heat is so intense that the sunlight burns my face! As in… not sunburn, but burns as in, it hurts to stand in the sun! Of course, there is no way to avoid it, so sunscreen is my best friend and I jump in the pool a lot…. If you can believe it, I haven’t gotten a sunburn yet (except a very tiny one the first day I got here). I’ve just gotten really dark… honestly, I’ve never been this dark before. It’s scary.

All of us youth get desperate sometimes and we just jump in the pool in our clothes. It feels so good because the pool water is extremely cold. Especially when Nora and I get back from riding in a hot, crammed minibus for an hour from Lusaka, we immediately just go to the pool and jump in. The sun dries our clothes very fast, so the “soaking wet” feeling doesn’t last long. I’m just so thankful there is a pool here! It’s not humid yet, because it hasn’t rained since last year….it’s just hot and dry. My skin gets dried out a lot, and it cracks my feet. I can’t wait until the rainy season (November) because that’s when the mango, avocado and banana trees start producing fruit!! I’m so excited to make guacamole! If only we had corn chips…. Alas…

On Tuesday night (our night off), the Moore couple invited us over for dinner, and boy can Mrs. Moore cook!! She made us sweet and sour pork, fried vegetables and rice with soy sauce, oh it was so amazing! It was just the type of food that just makes your mouth water to look at and it tasted even better! It was definitely something that I appreciated – a LOT. Wow, it was amazing! And they let us watch TV afterwards, which was nice because it reminded me of home and Nora and I watched Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The next day Nora and I went to Lusaka by minibus and we went to downtown and shopped for a while, and then ate at a restaurant called Kilimanjaro which had the most amazing food! I ate a hamburger and chips (fries) and a Coke. It was nice to have all American food for a change. They also have some really awesome pieces of art, like beautiful ebony carvings and elaborately painted giraffe statues, and paintings, purses, chitenges, jewelery….lots of good stuff.

We were stuck on the minibus for an hour before we even left Lusaka because they were waiting until they could pack in as many people as possible! We had a hard time with a bunch of merchants this time and I had to really be tough with some. If anyone would like to learn how to be assertive, just come to Zambia and you’ll learn it in less than a week! Nora and I also put rings on our left fingers so we were “married” in case anyone proposed to us – which did happen, and it was fun to describe our make-believe husbands. Ah, man that was funny to see the looks on some people’s faces. We missed dinner because we got home so late, and we just jumped in the pool because it was so hot! Then we made Top Ramen that Nora bought. Back in Seattle I used to eat that stuff on rainy days when I was sick or something. I just miss rain I think, which is rare because I hate rain.

On Thursday, it was extra hot so Nora and I went to the pool and we were just swimming and hanging out until we saw this GIGANTIC blue bird … I think it was some kind of heron or something, but it was HUGE. It came, and swooped all the way down to the pool and flew about 10 feet and landed next to us on the edge of the pool, and Nora and I were just sort of grabbing each other and gawking at how gigantic this bird was. We were joking and called it a “dragon bird” because its wing span was probably 10 feet. Or more. Its beak was really big…. And it was a black/iridescent blue color. It was beautiful.

A few days ago Kat and I were walking underneath this tree, and I saw these two huge things hanging from there… and I was thinking “Wow that’s really cool! Look at those big things that grow on the tree!” I went closer, and stood immediately under it (it was about 5 feet above my head) and looked up and suddenly I heard this rather loud humming sound. All the sudden I screamed and said “THOSE ARE BEEHIVES!” And it was!! We immediately booked it from the tree and into the common room. Pheww!

Yesterday was the children’s class, which was fun as always because the kids are so darn cute! During devotion time, they each say a prayer, some even sing them. It’s so precious to see a 4 year old little girl singing “O God, guide me”. The class I teach is the age 6 and under and we played games like Tag, Quack Diddly Oh-so, and Duck Duck Goose! Last night was also the 19 day Feast! Except there was no power, so the community had Feast by candle light! It was nice, and it felt so great to sing and harmonize. I’m learning some harmonies that I’ve never heard before, and it sounds so beautiful. It’s funny because at home I never liked to sing or harmonize in public, unless someone else was doing it with me (aka Ariana, haha!), but here it’s just the norm. So I don’t mind!

Last night there was a dance! I have never seen so many amazing dancers all in the same room.... it was like a mix of hiphop and Zambian style dancing and it was so amazingly cool! Usually I love to dance, but I was scared to go out on the dance floor because these girls had such awesome moves. Afterwards, one of the girls found a gigantic spider right next to the bathrooms.... it was HUGE! At first I didn't see it, so I almost stepped on it! It was bigger than a tarantula and about 1.5 inches tall, and I was so flustered that I accidently took a video of it instead of a picture, and so it didn't come out too well. The spider picture that I posted earlier has NOTHING to compare with this one that I saw last night.... uggh.

I had nightmares that night of giant spiders...

Roya vs. the Monkeys ....

2008-09-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

So I was just listening to music in my dorm during break... and relaxing... (I really enjoy taking naps in the dorms when it's QUIET because the girls are in class!) when I heard some noise outside. I heard some branches snapping, and fruit falling and smashing against the ground. I looked out my window and I saw about 10 monkeys! This was my chance to get some amazing pictures of these creatures, so I took my camera, and snuck outside to get some pictures of them. At first they ran away, and then we started playing a peek-a-boo game, because when they ran around the corner, I ran to the other side to snap pictures... and so on. I actually got some amazing pictures and I will try to post them ASAP!
Then I just sat against the wall of a dorm, and then the monkeys forgot I was there! So they were just doing their own business while I was secretly snapping photos of them left and right. I felt very sneaky! :) Even one of them got about 3 feet away from my foot, but ran away. These monkeys are so smart.

A few days ago, on mine and Nora's day off, we all went to Ibis (a nearby lodge) together and even Kat and Shiva came too because they had nothing to do! Originally, we were going to catch a minibus but then this father drove out of the Banani campus with his 2 children, and we got to hitch a ride in the BACK of his pickup truck! As in... the "illegal" part. It's not illegal in Zambia though so I was excited and felt like I was getting away with something. Even though Zambians do this kind of thing all the time... it's still very dangerous considering that we went about 50 miles an hour -- eak! But we were safe and held on tight. It was fun.

Then on the way back, Nora and I lost track of time so we had to walk about a half mile to catch a minibus back home... and we made a dumb decision and decided to take a shortcut into the bush.... at dusk.... which now that I think about it was even stupider because there could've been snakes. About half way into the bush we decided that this was so idiotic that we just turned around and ran back to the road. I guess that wasn't so smart. But I got some really nice sunset pictures!! The sun gets so big and red! Anyway, I did a lot of walking that day and so my foot was hurting the next day.... it won't swell down!! Shaudi got me some Ibuprofen from the pharmacy in Lusaka and it's much stronger than in the USA because the tablets were made in Germany. So I've been taking those, and hopefully my foot will get better.

Then yesterday about 5 of us, (Me, Nora, Kat, Shiva and Shaudi) went for a walk on a trail into the bush at Banani.... and about a mile in, we get to the fence but it was locked!! Kat and Shiva were brave enough to climb over (it was about 8 feet high) but the fence wasn't very sturdy... so I climbed up to the top and then got stuck there because I was too scared to jump down because of my foot (another stupid decision I did...) about a few minutes later, I some how managed to get back down on the WRONG side to where I wanted to go....
eventually someone got a key....

On Saturday night, the power was out so there wasn't a dance again.... so I went into the primary girl's dorm and they all got into their PJs and we had a movie night!! I showed them a Mr. Bean movie and then my parents called.

I was talking to the girls one night and I picked up on a few terms of "slang" there... or just phrases that they say that are all part of the social "norm". Like the term "Ahhh... iwe..." Iwe means "you" and so they say "ahhh ... youuuu..." when you did something wrong. The girls say that a lot! I also learned how to do the click sound that is sometimes used in African dialects! They don't use it in any languages here in Zambia... but they use it when they are annoyed at someone... or when something says a lame joke, or something boring, they go "ahhh...*click*"
It was funny because the second they taught that to me, a girl walked in and said "Hey guys! What's up?" and I said "Ahhh *click*".
Then everyone burst out laughing.
They also have some other noises that they make with their mouths but it's something I definitely can't describe in typing! Also they say "you're so dry", it means "you're so boring". Or they say "that's a dry joke... or that class was so dry today". Things like that. They also say the prefix in front of the word "Ka" for small... like "ka-bush". They say "Chi" for big. Chi-Roya... hahah.

This morning, Kat, Shaudi and I sang a song "We are building.... building a new world..." that Kat taught us from the UK, and she also played guitar! It sounds pretty good because both Kat and Shaudi are singers... and I just harmonized. So we performed it today for the school and at first we didn't think it was too good because they didn't join in on our clapping... but MAN, how they applauded and screamed for us afterwards, I was so surprised! It felt really good to perform... and it was really fun!

Oh what I would do for a slice of cheesecake at this precise moment....

Art classes with the cuties!

2008-09-19T00:55:00.000-07:00

What a tiring week this has been!
This Wednesday was my first art class with Neda!! Did these 3-D drawing things with the grade 6's and it was really successful, and the kids looked like they were having a lot of fun. It was so cute because the second they saw Neda and I walk through their classroom window, they cheered and said things like "YESSS!" and "ART!". It was so cute.
Then yesterday we went into the grade 3's and did fingerpainting! We did one painting where they had to draw a picture first and then fill in the colors with their fingers, and then the second painting was supposed to be abstract.... where they could just do whatever they wanted. Boy are these kids creative! They were so adorable... they called me either "Teacher" if they didn't know my name, but most of them called me Miss Roya ... or Miss Loya, ha ha. This class had a lot of fun as well, and I can't wait to see them again next week!
I've been really taking advantage of my free time to go on walks to the Primary school, especially after dinner. The girls back at Banani are just so full of life and it can be overwhelming sometimes, so the Primary is a nice quiet oasis to escape to for a while and it lets me recollect myself and think. And also, it's the best time and place to see the beautiful sunset and moonrise. I really love the Primary school.
I will try and post pictures of them when the internet isn't being so sluggish.

Moon Rise

2008-09-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

So last night I saw the most amazing thing.
Honestly, I still can’t get over it….
Nora and I ate dinner…. And so we decided to go for a walk to burn off the horrendous amount of carbs that we just consumed. We went past the Primary school and past the Institute, and we went into this field sort of thing where you could just see the sky and there were some trees…. And I saw this big orange ball bigger than the size of a basketball in the sky and Nora and I were saying “Wow, look at that sunset…. That is an amazing sun!” and it was funny because on the opposite side, the sky was orange….
So on one side of the sky, there was this orange ball right? And on the other side, the sky was orange and I was thinking, how could that be scientifically possible? And then Nora and I were telling Annaleis about it and she said “You guys, that’s the MOON.” The moon!!

The Banani girls laughed so hard at me for marveling that muchl…. Honestly I was probably yelling in excitement, “THAT’S THE MOON! THAT’S THE MOON! YOU GUYS LOOK!!!”

It’s called a “moon rise” …. There’s a certain part of the sky, when the sun and moon rises that it magnifies them and makes them look super big…. But I had no idea that it did it to the moon too! Oh, it was so beautiful and bright and orange. I wish I had a picture to show, but unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me.
So tomorrow night Nora and I are planning on going out to the same place again to see the “moon rise” and this time we’re going to actually go OUT in the field to get a better look…. Equipped with rainboots (protection against unknown creatures), cameras and glasses in my case! :)

Astronomy and planets and stars and all that good stuff has always been so interesting for me to learn about, and so that made it even cooler. It’s times like these where I wish I could just yell for my family to run over and share my excitement with me. Miss you guys!

….

So this last Friday night was good and bad! About 6 of us youth met up with Amy Davis (principal at Banani) and Alan Moore (VP of Banani) to talk about starting up Ruhi courses with some of the girls at our school (FYI Ruhi is a sequence of books that help us deepen in the Baha’i Faith)! It was successful, in that we planned on having Ruhi study sessions every other Friday, and then the Fridays in between we have deepening classes…. Where we just discuss certain issues. So this Friday we’re having a potluck/social sort of thing with a bunch of the youth to sort establish a “get to know you” sort of thing… and then discuss more in depth of what we want to discuss.

Ha…. But then I had an accident afterwards!! The power went out after our meeting, it was pitch black, there were 3 steps in front of me, I didn’t see it. You can guess what happened next. I totally ate cement. AKA I missed the stairs because I took a giant step, fell, and landed on my ankle. My ankle swelled up to the size of baseball (yeah pretty gross) and I just sort of sat there and was starting at it thinking “How idiotic was that?” …. And it was pretty idiotic of myself. It was even more idiotic, because literally 2 minutes before that happened I said out loud “Wow guys, it’s dark… I can’t see anything!” Then I slipped and fell. Wowwww….
The first night was pretty bad, and I guess it makes a good story now, because there was absolutely NO power, no heat, no running water, I couldn’t walk, I had no flashlight, I couldn’t brush my teeth because I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t get dressed, I couldn’t light a candle or do anything! And I had my swimsuit on too from swimming a few hours earlier. So I just sort of sat there and then fell asleep on my bed in my swimsuit with my foot throbbing.

But who cares about if it’s a good story or not? It was horrible!!

But I’m OK! My ankle is not fractured or broken. It was a very bad sprain and I was on crutches for a few days but I can totally walk now…. I even went swimming! But it’s still wrapped and I have to ice it now and then, and it’s still swollen but definitely not as bad as the first night! I can also move my ankle more and more every day. I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to go to the hospital that night because that would’ve made life much more complicated.
So then the next night, there was supposed to be a dance for the girls, but the power was out! So about 30 girls came to my dorm (why is it always me??) and a couple of them started pounding a rhythm on the table in the “common area” place, and then the girls starting singing some songs in some language that I didn’t comprehend and they started dancing! The sudden musical improvisation sounded absolutely amazing so I recorded a lot of the songs they did! And boy can these girls dance…. I have never seen such great dancers! It was loud though, so I quickly sought shelter in Nora’s quiet dorm with her sweet primary girls.

It was so cute because these girls were very scared when I came in, because they thought they saw a “ghost” and so they said “Don’t leave! Don’t leave!” They were scared to go to bed because it was so dark, and so I just stood up and said “Everybody, it’s Saturday night, there’s no power, we’re all scared, so get your blankets and pillows and come back to the common area, we’re having a sleepover!!” All of the little girls sounded really excited about that and so they ran really fast and got their blankets and pillows and we just camped out in that room for a couple of hours until the power went back on! Shaudi and I took turns telling stories while we had a bunch of flashlights on, and then we had the girls sing some songs like “Siyahumba” and “Oh, I Feel So Good” and “We Are Drops” in English and German. Then my brother called so I left, but all the girls sounded excited that I was talking to family on the phone and so I had all 20 of them say HI really loud to him! It was so cute.

I’m so thankful for the youth volunteers. They show that they care in so many different ways…. And even though we haven’t been together for long, the experiences that we share are so powerful on different levels. It’s a friendship I’ll never forget.

What an experience these last 3 weeks have been!

Some funny Incidents in Lusaka.....

2008-09-12T04:38:00.000-07:00

YAY I finally uploaded!! This is a pic of a gigantic spider I found in the youth kitchen... and Nora and I after breaking open a lethal Monkeyfruit!
Nora and I had a great time on our day off, and we survived going to Lusaka and all the way back to Chisamba all by ourselves! There are some funny things..... on the way there I got my first marriage purposal! This funny Zambian kept pointing at me and saying "That's my wife, she's mine" and all these other funny phrases. I just waved him away politely. It was really harmless.

There were these 2 bus drivers, one in charge of the minibus and one in charge of a larger bus that requires more $ to ride and they got into a physical fight right in front of us, to see who gets to ride who's bus. It was pretty lame because I kept saying that we wanted a minibus because it's much cheaper and just easier to get where we wanted to go, but this other dude kept pushing us to pay more money and get on the bigger bus. I got so fed up that I just turned around and yelled "NO! I want a MINIBUS!". He stood in front of Nora but I put my arm under, and grabbed her hand and yanked her out in front of him and rushed us to the mini bus, I had to put other hand in the guy's face to keep him away. It was annoying. I have to be really assertive. It's a good learning experience though. I'll have no problem when I'm back in Seattle, ha ha!

Then the next day, 4 of us volunteers and a student named Mona from Tanzania had to get our permits to stay in the country longer, but the bus broke down so we were all stuck at Archades for like 5 hours or so.... it wasn't too bad, I got some shopping done and then we went to a movie for $3.00!! I love Zambia!!! So it wasn't all that bad....
I saw these really cute kids when we stopped in one of the villages to fill up the gas on the way back and they kept waving at me.... I tried to teach them the Peace sign with my two fingers, but I don't think they got it. It was so cute.

Shout out to Steven Moses: Mona knows you!! Her dad owns or works at that one computer place that you served at in Tanzania, and so she says Hi. Small world, eh? I guess it was a long time ago but still....

So I had my first children's class yesterday! (I teach childrens classes every Friday now) and it was so much fun!! We sang some songs, and played some games and the kids are just so precious. They all mix up their R's and L's so they all call me Loya! It's adorable. Sorry.... I don't think I'll ever get over how sweet these beautiful kids are!
Oh and Neda and I are starting up Arts and crafts classes at the Primary! I'm only going twice a week because I have other duties as well, but I'm really looking forward to planning them!

So I found some cockroaches in my room last night. I killed them.
Gooooood times....

Busy busy busy!! ...and having fun as well : )

2008-09-09T07:41:00.001-07:00

So I have some jobs now!! I'm the librarian from 8-12, and then from 12-1 I take over the reception at the administration building, and I do things like photocopying, answering phones, taking messages, checking out books to kids, sorting out books, etc. I also am going to the Primary school once a week to tutor French, and I will be supervising swimming and volleyball at the secondary school as well. So I'm pretty busy now! The days are going by a lot faster.... and my girls are so sweet and funny! They have a lot to say, and they ask me so many questions!
Tomorrow is mine and Nora's day off, and so we're going to Lusaka for our little "getaway vacay" and we're going to shop around a little and look for chitenges and such.... but we still have a year to get those. But we're looking! It's actually very important to have because in some of the villages I have gone to, it's the culture to wear one, and it's more modest to cover up your legs.

All of us youth are trying to plan a trip this year or maybe two! We're all going to Livingstone I think in December during our 1 month break to see the famous Victoria Falls (it's one of the 7 wonders of the world FYI)... and then we really wanted to either go to South Africa or Uganda or Zanzibar or something during our break in April..... but everything is in the air right now and we aren't totally sure about it, but we're definitely trying to plan something exciting!

*sigh*..... I'm really learning to be patient here. I can't even begin to describe how frustrating these computers/internet can be.... and just everything. Seriously, when the internet is even remotely fast, the power will go out with my luck. And if the power is full on, then the internet is either SO SLOW or it just doesn't work at all. It drives me crazy. But it's my test, so it's OK. I'll get over it.
Random thought: I'm so glad that I stocked up on food! Literally... when Shaudi and I went to Lusaka we STOCKED UP on all kinds of snacks like granola bars, dried fruits, chips, crackers, popcorn, just about anything because we wanted "emergency snack food" for when we were hungry. The meals are planned, so it's not like you can just waltz into the kitchen and demand for food. I'm trying to be really careful not to attract bugs in my room....groossss....

All of us volunteers really miss hanging out all together in the youth room during our break! We used to just hang out there all day and watch Friends episodes and watch movies and try to improvise food that we crave from the little ingredients that we have! We also used to play cards and sometimes the youth that lived by the school came to hang out with us as well! I miss that a lot! We also had a couple of dance parties and those were just so fun.

Last night we had an hour break, and had a really funny incident.... we were really rushed and tried to make a cake in the youth kitchen but there was no milk, no eggs and no butter! So we just threw in a bunch of ingredients.... like, we substituted in custard power mixed with water for milk... and so the "cake" never really cooked all the way because half of it was custard. And there were no eggs, so the cake wasn't very fluffy. We mixed in like a cup of Nesquick coffee powder to give it flavor... It was actually pretty nasty, but Shiva and Kat were craving it so much that they ate more than half of it!! They even spread peanut butter, jam and syrup on top of it because they were craving sweets so much and then started pouring lemonade on top, it was SO GROSS! Shiva was totally sick afterwards and she vowed never to eat food again..... I think it was the mix of lemons and custard in her stomach.
We couldn't stop laughing after that.
I'm actually cracking up really hard as I type this.

Dinner at Soheila's...

2008-09-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of me playing with the kids at the primary school!!
Dinner at Soheila's was absolutely amazing. I have never been so thankful to have clean feet, a clean shower, a nice bed with no need for a mosquito net, and to be living in a bug-free environment! .... and the food. She made us gourmet Sabzi which is my favorite Persian dish! Shaudi and I literally stuffed ourselves, because we don't get much to eat from our youth kitchen during break....the Alavian couple was also invited and we got to met them, and then Taher Taherzadeh also came over because he wanted to meet us! He is the son of Adib Taherzadeh, a well-known scholar in the Baha'i Faith. It was so nice to finally meet him! It was funny because his son Naim is very close to one of my best friend's younger sister! Small world I say..

The next day, the three of us met some other Baha'is and we went out teaching in a village called Ngombe I think, and the kids there were so incredibly cute! They kept saying "Muzungu, Muzungu! Come back tomorrow, Muzungu!" It was so funny! Everyone said hi to us, even if we have never met before. That's what I love about Zambia, everyone is so friendly and peaceful with each other. I have never felt so loved by so many people.
But the girls have finally arrived!
...
They are so incredibly loud.
They know I'm new, and so they try to test me and ask permission for things that they know they aren't allowed to have.... but I've been dealing with it quite well so far. They are all very sweet though and ask me a lot of questions about myself, and where I'm from and if I've met any celebrities! It's pretty hilarious.

All of us are going to the 19 day Feast now (a gathering every 19 days for Baha'is in the community to pray and consult various things), for the first time at the institute! I will write more later....
Gosh, I'm having such a wonderful time with the youth here!

Monkeys!

2008-09-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

So a few days ago, Nora and I were hanging out around 7:00am (we wake up with the sun) and we walked past my dorm, and we ran right into a huge crowd of about 30 monkeys!! At first I thought they were little cats or dogs or something, because I'm totally not used to seeing monkeys around my area, but then as I looked closer I realized that they were monkeys. It was so awesome!! By the time I finished screaming and scrambling around for my camera, they all were gone... so within the next few days I got up early and became a "monkey-hunting-paparazzi" person, and sneaked around the whole campus for miles to look for monkey and snatch some photos. No such luck.

But then this morning, about 200ft away I saw about 4 monkeys climbing up the short brick wall (it's about 6 ft) and I spotted them! I was really careful to approach them, and even snuck a few pictures of them, but by the time I got close enough for a good shot, they all ran away. I wasn't done giving up yet. So then, I got up to the brick wall, and stood up on my tip toes and JUST as I peeked my head over, a monkey jumped out at me, and our faces were about 6 inches apart! Well, the monkey didn't know that I was on the other side of the wall, nor did I know the monkey was on the other side of me, so naturally both of us jumped and ran in opposite directions of each other. Now that I think about it, it's pretty hilarious.

There's also this fruit that grows on trees here called Monkeyfruit, and the outer shells are really hard, and the inside it's very very heavy, and so we have to be really careful when we walk under these trees because honestly, these fruit can knock you out if they happen to fall on your head. Anyway, these monkeys here pick up the Monkeyfruit and throw them at you! It's pretty scary, and luckily I haven't encountered that yet.

Yesterday was really fun. First, Nora and I were bored, so we went for a walk and decided to go to the Primary school and meet some of the Zambian kids, and we met these 2 really cute little girls (I forgot their names!) and they played with us on the awesome playground that they have here... and the tire swings! I took a bunch of pictures, but it's so frustrating because they don't post! I managed to post one earlier of a sunset, but after that it didn't let me! Then later on, a bunch of the youth & Zambian youth who lived nearby invited me to play basketball again, and it was even more intense than the other day! I never play basketball, but honestly I have never had this much fun. It was so great. Shaudi, Nora and I also tried one of the guavas that grow on the tree and it tasted... interesting. After the game was finished, the 7 of us volunteers went into the youth kitchen and made dinner, and then a couple of the youth who were playing basketball with us joined later on and we turned down the lights and had a dance party! They showed us some of the traditional Zambian dancing while I attempted to teach one of the guys Persian dancing, which was pretty funny to watch.

Because the 7 of us are all from different countries, we're starting to pick up each other's accents already! I'm picking up some of the slang/a slight accent from Kat, who's from the UK and it's pretty hilarious because I have no idea when I'm doing it. Kat is also picking up an American accent quite fast....

Because I'm in such a rural area, the Black Mambas (poisonous snake) are very common here so it's very important to have a flashlight at night to spot them and avoid from being spat at or bitten (Black Mambas spit in your eyes to temporarily blind you, and then they bite you)! Especially when the power goes out, all of the lights on the buildings go out too, and you can't see your hand right in front of your face. It's the blackest black I've ever encountered, and it's quite scary because I don't own a flashlight! So I have this big fatty candle thing that I melted to an empty coke bottle and that's my only source of light if I'm by myself -- which is scary.

Shaudi's cousin Soheila joon who lives in Lusaka invited Shaudi and I over for dinner and to spend the night! So Shaudi and I are going to catch a mini bus this Friday into town! It will be nice to get back into Lusaka for a while.... maybe we can finally get Chitenges :)

Muzungu

2008-09-03T03:07:00.000-07:00

Dance workshop was really fun. Shaudi, Shiva, Nora, Kat, 2 other Baha’i youth and myself all squished Zambian style into one of the youth’s car and all of us drove to the Baha’i center. By Zambian style, I mean that 7 of us crammed together illegally into a tiny 5-seat car. Good thing, it was a short drive just from Manda Hill so we weren’t crammed for too long. I was really shocked how squished we were in the car and I was afraid if we got into a car accident, but one of the youth said that fitting 7 people in was nothing…. Because they can fit 10! AHH! Once we got to the Baha’i center, we met with 3 more youth from Lusaka and then they taught us one of their dances called the “Hustle”! It was really fun.

After taking about an hour to learn the dance and then use our steps with the music, we all squished back into the car and were dropped off into downtown Lusaka. There was this huge outdoor market thing and we went in to sneak a little peek because I wanted to get a Chitenge (African style dress) but we ended up being chased out by merchants trying to sell us their stuff. The merchants or any other Zambian call us “Muzungu” which is a term used for someone with lighter skin….. like they said “Muzungu! Come buy this!” or, “Muzungu! Welcome to Zambia!” The 5 of us were trying to push through the crowd of merchants who were forcing their merchandise in our faces and some of them even followed us. Some of the things they said were pretty funny now that I look back on it, and they were really harmless. It’s taught me to be more assertive though. After we got into a mini bus, merchants were still pushing their things through the windows of the bus until Shiva turned around and told them off. These mini buses are really tiny, maybe the size of a Minivan back in the States and the ceilings of these buses are really low, probably 2 inches above my head – so every bump that we went over I had to duck my head or else I would hit the ceiling. Anyway, it’s amazing because these mini buses are so small yet the driver packed in about 20 people! It’s super crowded and a bit claustrophobic, but you get over it really fast. I lost my true care for personal space that day, because it doesn’t exist here. Anyway, we were stuck in the squished bus for an hour and a half, plus some delay because half way through we got stopped by the police because the bus was overloaded. But the police didn’t even make anyone go out, they just made the driver pay a fine. And you know what the driver did afterwards? He drove us for another 10 miles or so and then picked up a couple more people to try and make up for the money that he lost!! It was crazy! But even though when I list these things about the mini bus, it wasn’t really as bad as I thought….

By the time we got back to Banani all of us were starving, and we ran over to Annalise’s place for food because she made dinner for us that night (She’s been here for a while… 4 months). Shaudi and I ran out on the grounds right before and picked a bunch of lemons for more lemonade and we were praying that the power wouldn’t go out, or else we would’ve been lost for life! At this time of year, the sun sets around 6:00pm or so and the sky gets so black that it almost hurts my eyes in a way. After dinner Nora and I sort of had a freak-laughter attack because we were talking about dangerous snakes in Zambia and how we were really scared of them, and then both of us stepped on a hose on the ground at the same time and screamed and grabbed each other and then started to laugh really hard. No seriously, snakes here can kill.

Shaudi and I went to her dorm (she has showers in her dorm) and we took cold showers because “cold” is the only temperature in water unless you happen to get lucky for 5 min. There are geckos on the walls of the bathroom that crawl really fast, and there are so many flies here that just land on you and stay there like you’re a horse or something. They used to bother me a lot because they buzzed in my ear and stuff like that, but I don’t really care as much anymore. Oh, and there are these GIANT ant hills on the way to Banani, seriously, I mean 1/4^th the size of my house NO JOKE. I am not exaggerating!! The spiders and bumble bees here are really big (something which I’m still in the process of adjusting to…) and there are these huge thick crane/dragon fly things that bite you if you try to shoo them away. I took a picture of this giant spider, which I will try and post very shortly. Not the dangerous kind, luckily. There are these snakes called Black Mambas which are extremely common here, so we have to wear closed toed shoes at night. I’m adjusting to this place very very fast and I’m starting to really enjoy my stay here! I’m becoming more Zambianized by the day. J

I’m on the time schedule now that I eat dinner and go to bed around 6:30 or 7 because I get so tired…. Then I wake up at 5:00am and I’m ready to start my day! It’s nice to be able to wake up so early with lots of energy, but it’s a bad habit to go to bed after dinner, so I’m going to try to stay up later tonight to get myself more on the sleep schedule that I’m used to! Tonight we are invited to go to a Sheila’s house (English teacher @ Banani) for a pizza party!! She’s getting the dough ready for us and she’s going to have us make our own pizzas! This is one food that we’ve definitely been craving since we got here, and we are all really stoked!

Every Sunday the Banani community holds devotions (a Baha’i gathering to say prayers) and guess what song they were singing as Shaudi and I walked in? SIYAHUMBA! Except they were clapping their hands and stomping their feet to a different rhythm that I’m not used to, but it still sounded really awesome. (This whole summer practically I’ve been singing this song with my friends) It was really cool because it was a mix between my old home in Seattle and my new home at Banani. And everyone found awesome harmonies to add in, so it sounded so beautiful!! I’m glad I’m not the only one who tries to harmonize J. They did that with a couple of songs and I just love how everyone takes music and singing so seriously here! It felt really good to sing.

I still can’t get over how loud these birds are!! They wake me up around 4:30am for, there are hundreds of birds calling, cawing, cooing, warbling, singing, wood pecking, and just plain talking! They make the weirdest sounds I can’t even begin to explain…. I’ve videotaped some of them though because they’re just so weird!! There are some Cukoo bureaus (wow I can’t spell them sorry!) who say “Cukoo!” and it was the first time I’ve ever heard their call in real life, which is actually really cool because I heard about them all the time in that one song that Barney sang when I was a little kid. I think my mom used to sing it to me too. Sorry – I remember everything.

We still have one more week of quiet and serenity before the girls come.

Swimming, lemonade and basketball

2008-08-30T02:10:00.000-07:00

So yesterday the 4 of us woke up really early because we're still pretty jetlagged.... we ate breakfast which was toast and eggs and I'll have to be careful about my heart/cholesterol because it's going to be really hard not eating eggs everyday because the eggs are so fresh and amazing! There is a chicken coop near by and so I think that's where they get them from.
Then, us volunteers went to the big pool on campus next to the workout room and we sunbathed and swam... the water was actually really cold, but it felt really nice because it was probably 90 degrees yesterday. So I think I got about 5 shades darker :)
Then during lunch, after swimming all of us were really craving lemonade, and there are so many lemon trees abundant with fresh ripe lemons so we picked a bunch of them and made lemonade to have with lunch! It was so amazingly good. Lunch consisted of pasta with a meaty-tomatoey sauce (which we get a lot here) and it was really good..... food always sounds good here. Then the cook gave us some chocolate cake, and only Nora and I took a piece and it was so funny because we both took really big bites and then somehow we looked at eachother when we did that and apparently it was hilariously funny so we were pretty much choking of laughing on huge bites of chocolate cake. Guess you had to be there! Then the 4 of us went back to the pool to lounge around some more (we still have a week before the girls get here). After that, all of us were kind of bored, so Shaudi and Nora went back to their dorms to unpack and Shiva went running or something like that and so I walked around and found a bunch of the locals that lived by the school playing basketball. They all look my age or so (and Mrs. Mukendi's kids) and so I walked over there and asked if I could play. It was so much fun because no one really cared if you had skill or not so we had a really good time!! They all kind of laughed at me though and to this day I still don't know why. It was really great for learning names as well because they kept calling eachother's names to pass them the ball and stuff like that so I learned about 15 different names! I just hope I remember them....
Three more youth arrived yesterday! There is Annalise who is from Australia, Kat, who is from England and Neda who's from Malasia (her sister's name is Roya!). All of them are really nice and funny and we had a really good time eating together and laughing.
Today we all took a bus to Lusaka to do some shopping around the markets and stuff, and then we all squished into a mini bus to go to Archade (sort of a strip mall place) to do some more shopping. People who passed us by would always look at us and say "Nice ladies" which was kind of awkward, but we'll probably get used to that. In a few hours we are going to the Baha'i center in Lusaka and we're going to do Dance Workshop with a bunch of Baha'i youth who live in Lusaka so I'm pretty excited for that.
And tomorrow our plan is to do a yoga video and hit the pool with the new youth so that sounds like a plan! It's really nice here.....

First Day in Lusaka!

2008-08-30T01:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!! Just FYI the power goes out here about 70% of the time so I don't get internet very often..... and I'm having issues uploading pictures, so you'll have to check Facebook within the next few days.
After 24 hours of straight travel, we finally landed in the Lusaka airport!! Because planes don’t land there too often, they connected flights of stairs going straight down from the doors and we got to climb down just like the movies! Well…. I think I was the only one who really showed my excitement about that while Shaudi and Nora just laughed at me. The flight itself was super boring. I slept sporadically, watched movies and stared off into space contemplating what Zambia was going to look like. The flight to London went faster than usual which was 8 hours and 10 min! So we were stuck in London for an extra hour and a half. The three of us all landed at the same time, so we got to stand in line together to go through customs before we could get to our gate. When we were finally let loose by the security we browsed the different stores that were available (the London airport is like a gigantic mall) and we went to a coffee shop and sat, talked, and had 2 huge laughing attacks! It’s because the first time I was trying to read out loud from Nora’s magazine (which was in German) and I stumbled upon the words “Damit Lippenherpes” and for some reason, Shaudi and I thought that was hysterical, and so we couldn’t stop laughing. I think it’s because we were so loopy from staying up all night. And the second time we started laughing, well, I guess you had to be there.
We landed in Lusaka at 6:30am, and so the three of us saw the most BEAUTIFUL sunrise. I have no idea what’s up with the atmosphere, but it magnifies the sun by 10x, and so it was big and red colored. I tried to take a picture, but honestly, no camera could’ve captured such beauty. Then, I saw a bumble bee, but it totally wasn’t like the kind at home…. It was like they take steroids over here seriously. I mean, this bumble bee was HUGE. Like… the 1 inch thick. It was creepy.
A Baha’i named Allan Moore picked us up. He is a very funny and knowledgeable man. He told us all kinds of things about Zambia’s culture and other random things. We went to a couple of strip mall things to do some shopping and pick up the other volunteer Shiva (she’s from South Africa/Botswana). Shaudi and I got Zambian cell phones which is cool because people who text/call us whether it’s local or internationally, it’s free !!!
Lusaka is pretty crazy. I can’t really describe it. The drivers are pretty daring, and the people are too because they walk on the roads (while people are driving) and go up to your car and try to sell you stuff! There are huge pickup trucks filled with people. All of the Zambians I have met so far are very very nice. I’ve talked to some of the locals who I don’t even know, because it’s polite to say hi to pretty much everyone on the street…. I also think more people talked to me because of my skin color and they are curious where I’m from and why I’m here. The weather is really hot (apparently, Zambians call it “cool” right now) and the plants and stuff are really dried out because it’s the dry/sunny season…. There is dirt everywhere which is actually a pretty red color, and the air is so dusty and smoky because people just stick all of their trash in piles on the road and set fire to them to get rid of it, so when I breathe in my throat gets dried out, and my feet and hands get dried out as well. It’s really important to keep hydrated. Lusaka itself is pretty urbanized, but once you get out of the city and drive through the villages (which we did – Banani is out in a very rural area…aka the middle of nowhere) there is pretty much nothing…. As we were driving through villages, I was actually really shocked and a bit disturbed at what I saw. People were living in huts either made of clay/mud and straw or these brick things. 80% of the Zambian population is below the poverty line, and I was aware of that, but I have never seen such poverty. It made me pretty much hate myself for buying things on the whim or not being happy with what I already have. There are people everywhere, riding bikes and just sitting in the middle or nowhere staring at our truck drive by their homes. There were people, and sometimes children, sitting in front of little market stands, trying to sell fruit, cell phone airtime cards (texts/calls are prepaid over here), clothes or little trinkets. I saw so many children, dressed in bright colors and smiling, dancing or waving at us as we drove by, it was so cute. My heart went out to all of them. Zambian kids are so incredibly adorable.
Like I already mentioned, Banani is an hour’s drive out in the middle or nowhere. But once we pulled into the drive, I saw the campus and was stunned by how beautiful it was. It was sunny and birds were singing, and there were so many colorful trees and flowers! It sort of reminded me of Haifa in a way…. Just the beauty aspect. And it is so quiet. When the sun goes down, because there are no city lights for miles around, there are so many stars, and planets (well, Mars I think) and galaxies I think. I have never seen so many stars back at home. So we went into the institute building and we met Amy Davis, and Mrs. Mukendi. Mrs. Mukendi is the dorm mother and will serve sort of as our mom while we are here, and she is one of the nicest people I’ve never met. All of the cleaning ladies are very very nice and they all said hi as I walked by, and one of them even gave me flowers in a vase for my room!
So I’m in charge of the junior dorms, dorm B to be exact, and I have my very own room. The mosquito net was provided for me…. And it doesn’t really look like a mosquito net, it looks more like a bed drape that a 5 year old would have because it’s pink and has butterflies on it! Paring that with my princess blanket that I brought, if someone walked in they would probably think that it’s a 5 yr old’s room. But it’s nice I really like it….. It makes me feel more at home in a way. I unpacked everything and stuck my suitcases under the bed. The power goes out here everyday, so Mrs. Mukendi gave me this huge tall candle that was stuck on a glass Coke bottle and gave me a box of matches as well. That’s pretty much my only source of light for 60% of the day. After I unpacked and set up the mosquito net, I crashed on the bed and was out in less than a minute, I was so incredibly tired. Nora and Mrs. Mukendi woke me up 4 hours later and told me it was dinner time, so I went to have dinner with the other volunteers. And that is where I had my first giant spider encounter. I said the spider was huge (which it was – like 2 inch radius) and Shiva said that they get a lot bigger than that. Eek! There are also a lot of geckos climbing all over the walls and stuff.
After that I went to bed and that was my first day in Zambia!!! It was a pretty crazy first day, I saw and learned a lot of things about the country, and myself. This morning I woke up at 4am from the birds singing. There were these really weird warbles, and chirps and there was even this one bird who’s singing sounded like a baby laughing. It was pretty funny, and I know my mom would really enjoy listening to them because they are really beautiful. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and so I got up and tried to figure out the whole internet/cell phone thing here – which I will straighten out shortly. Adjusting is going to be hard and I’m feeling a little homesick, but I love Zambia already and I know for a fact that I’m going to have a great time serving here.
Well, until next time!! I miss you all!
“Heed not your weakness and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God…Arise in his name, put your trust wholly in Him, and be assured of ultimate victory….” (The Bab)

Last month in the States/Getting ready!!

2008-07-24T16:24:00.001-07:00

So this is my last month in the United States before I head off for my trip!! Time has gone by so fast, I can't believe it's already been a year since I've applied...and I feel so incredibly lucky to be given this opportunity to serve.
These days I've just been working out the medical details and perchasing my ticket - both which I have completed! My official departure date is August 26th at 10:00pm, but I don't arrive in Lusaka until the 28th at 6:30am because the flight is so long! I'm flying with my good friend Shaudi Vahdat, who is from Bellevue and is going to be serving with me as well! It makes me feel a lot better to travel with someone I know, and I'm postive that we are really going to grow close over these next few months. Both of us are connecting in London, and I just found out that another volunteer named Nora Poschmann (she's from Germany) will be connecting in London the same time as us! The three of us will be on the same flight down to Lusaka. It's about 10 hours to fly from Seattle to London, and then another 10 hours from London to Lusaka. Very long.
If anyone has any questions for me you can feel free to contact me via email: ransari29@gmail.com and I will try to be as helpful as I can. :)

Also, here is the address to the school:

Roya Ansari
Banani International Secondary School
PB R.W. 199X Ridgeway, Lusaka, Zambia

What is a year of service?

2008-04-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hello! This is officially my very first blog that I am putting here which is very exciting!

As you know, I am setting off to do a year of service in Zambia at Banani International Secondary school which is about 80km from the capital city, Lusaka.

I am leaving this summer in the end of August and I am coming back next year in either late July or early August of 2009. I've been busy still trying to work out all of the details i.e. purchasing my ticket, vaccinations, things to bring and being in contact with previous volunteers, the NSA of Zambia, the principal at Banani, the International Office of Pioneering, and the LSA who have all been very helpful! Thank you!

Banani International Secondary school (there is also a Primary school very close by) is a female boarding school that is centered around the teachings of the Baha'i Faith, which is my religion.

The Baha'i Faith is a world religion founded by the Manifestation of God, Baha'u'llah, with a main aim to unify mankind. A year of service is something that most Baha'is usually take to mind some time in their life, but it is certainly not obligatory. This is my personal choice because I want to be of service and make a difference in the lives of others. In general, service is service, no matter where it is done or what religion you are part of, or what organization you choose to join. No matter what kind of service one decides to do, it all has the same value and it should be your personal choice.

I am very much looking forward to this trip and I really think I am going to grow a lot and have an idea of what I want to do occupation wise when I come back. It's a pretty big jump and I'm ready to dive in, head first.

From the maps I posted above, you can see that Zambia is located in south-east Africa and is surrounded by the neighboring countries of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Angola, Dem. Rep. of the Congo, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique.

Well, I guess the next post will be when I'm in Lusaka!