Zambia 2013, Day 11 - Last Day in Monze
July 5, 2013. We arrived in Monze three days ago, and it’s been a very different experience from Lusaka for me. The spiders and hornets were a little tough to deal with at first, but getting used to the lack of a full bed was pretty easy. From the very first night, Matt, Lauren, Sophia, and I dragged our little tent mattresses out beside the fire and slept under the stars. Zambia has a lack of light pollution that the DMV is populated with and so the stars here look awesome. The next morning, even though waking up was an extremely cold experience, a warm shower woke me up and everything was okay.
Today was our last day at the Malambo School, and our last full day here at Monze. We leave tomorrow morning and I look forward to being back at the guesthouse in Lusaka. We spent the day painting the newly built building that has a science lab, computer lab, and library. One side had a couple books, stars, and science beakers, while the other had a large map of Zambia that Gaby skillfully sketched out yesterday. I was strangely good at painting in edges, so Gaby recruited me to spend most of my day outside drawing small lines. It was kinda relaxing actually, and it turned out really well.
The other two days were spent teaching the kids, and I spent them with the fourth and third grades. Hangman, multiplication bingo, and musical chairs have been very common in my life the past few days. Either way, I felt a great connection to these kids that I didn’t feel as much with the kids at Chikumbuso. They would follow us back as we walked back to the campsite, and would greet us in the morning before we even got to the school. I even know a lot of them by name, and always gave them a high-five or hug when I saw them. I spent break times playing futbol (it’s not soccer, I’m in Zambia) with the older kids, and played a lot with the small preschoolers. A valuable lesson I’ve learned here is that small children love goofy faces and chasing them around for no reason. It’s the easiest way to become friends with them, which is what we were trying to accomplish on this trip.
Anyway, back to what we did today. After spending hot hours in the sun painting, we had a closing ceremony with the kids where they sang and danced for us, and we sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow; the exact same song we sang at Chikumbuso for their closing ceremony.
Then, we split up into small groups and brought food and gifts to a few families that live in the Tonga tribe; the tribe that lives in this village. Matt, Zora, Quenton, and I went to Gertrude’s house, who used the food that we brought for them and made us n’shima and mundyoli (my attempt at spelling it), which is a corn meal mochi-ish food with a pumpkin leaf and peanut relish. It was a great experience to have, and it felt cool to have a traditional Zambian experience.
We then came back to have dinner with all the teachers from the school, and are now spending our last night with a big fire made by Matt and yours truly.
Malambo/Monze was an amazing experience. We go home on Wednesday, and while I am excited to go home and pig out on some much needed Chipotle, I’m gonna try to enjoy these last few days in Africa. To everyone at home I miss you, and I’ll see you soon!
Kaoru Y., Sidwell Friends School