eight

For the past week four members of some choir have been at the institute. We have gone every day from 1600-1700 and learned new songs. I have only managed to learn two songs, well three I guess. For one of them, I have no idea what I am saying. It could be really offensive for all I know:

Eyi nzamba zambi yami, bayi wutali.

Hakufwila kwami hela, hayilwilu yamiku.

Ilana wutali mwanta, hakufukula kewyi.

Iku kunanyemuki mawula nimaseki.

Kuhitila kuhitila mwanta, minizhina deyi

Dalema eyi mwanta mwanta wamutuma ezhima

Nafwili nafwili mwanta, zhozimwafwila enu

Nakeni nakeni mwanta, zhozhimwakena enu.

All I know is that it starts off my saying, O God my God. From there, I am lost.

They translated the other song for us, I don’t like it as much though.

Helen, Stella and Lucia playing with the choir members HOMEMADE guitars.

I have some pertinent information to share with you on behalf of the grade nines of Banani:

We don’t live in trees. We live in houses.

We watch TV

We play video games

We have HD TV

There are a lot of animals here

They believe that Canadians are misinformed. Well, they think Americans are misinformed and they think Canadians and Americans are the same since we’re both from the same continent. They’re a little misinformed themselves, haha.

They are always playing this game that’s kind of like jacks, except they use rocks instead. I made them teach me today. It is harder than it looks, but I got the hang of it. Now I just want to play it all the time.

Shalom said that she will put my hair in cornrows for me. I am more excited than I should be.

I made some very good purchases on Monday. I bought Tabasco sauce, chips, chocolate, cereal, bananas and BILTONG. I am a happy camper. Chips come in strange flavours here. Fruit chutney is the most absurd one I have seen. They’re made by Amigo, which is a Zambian production. I laugh every time the girls say Zambian production. It just sounds so funny, why not say made in Zambia? There is also sparerib, and roast chicken. I bought some Caribbean onion and balsamic vinegar chips that I am excited to sample.

I’ve been helping the girls with math a lot. I secretly love it so much. Right now we’re combining equations. We do both the substitution and the addition method, although I much prefer substitution. I really like their word problems though. The other night I was helping Kruti figure out how much a goat and a sheep cost at the market. I laughed a lot. Then I asked her if I was annoying her and she said yes. I was happy that she was being honest.

We had a talk about lying on Monday night. It ended with some of the girls hating me since I gave them consequences. Lights out was pushed forward to 2100 instead of 2130. They were good about it though, so it’s back to normal now. One of them wouldn’t even look at me for two days though. I thought it was funny.

LYLT!