First rains of the journey!

Ever since we arrived in Africa, everyone has been telling us that the rains would be starting any time now. You can feel the tension and heaviness in the air during the days leading up to the first rains, and the resulting anticipation is unlike anything that Canadians experience. We’ve seen clouds roll in, then dissipate again several times, so that on many days we’re asking ourselves and everyone else, “will today be the day?” There is no weather forecast to let us know, so we’re left to guess (and the children are left to make bets about when it will rain!). The rains change everything here – the temperature, people’s moods, and the entire diet here at Chishawasha. The community is partially self-sufficient, so they grow much of their own produce. During the dry season, especially at the very end, pickings are slim (cabbage twice a day), but we’re told that once it’s been raining for a while, there will be a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, and everyone is very much looking forward to that!


This evening, as usual, we were enjoying some nshima, cabbage, and beef with one of the houses, and all of a sudden we noticed that the children were all outside running around, playing, and yelling. We’d never seen them so energetic just before bedtime! Then we noticed that a wide variety of animals seemed to be furtively insinuating themselves into the kitchen where we were washing dishes. Something was clearly afoot. Then, a little later, as we were hanging out in the yard telling stories about Canadian winters to some of the more curious children (one particular character named Charles told us that if he came to visit us, he would eat all of the snow in Canada – we warned him to avoid the yellow snow), we thought we felt some sprinkles. A debate ensued about whether this was really it (and the requisite arguments about whether Charles or Monica had won the bet), and then the first drops of our first African rainy season hit us. (The spirited Charles insisted that it was not officially raining yet, and that Monica had not actually won the bet.) It was a pretty amazing moment, both for how beautiful it felt and for the children’s joy. They were so happy and so excited about everything that the arrival of the rains meant for them – from fresh mangoes to the best sleep they’ll have had in a long time. Sharing that moment with them was such a unique privilege.

Otherwise, we’ve been very busy and having an amazing time running leadership and personal development workshops for the older children here. First of all, we’re just really excited about the fact that we have the opportunity to contribute – let alone do leadership development (which we both love so much) with the children here. Beyond that, though, leadership is such an important part of these children’s lives, whether they’ve ever thought about it or not. We’re realizing more and more that many of them have incredible skills and potential as leaders already – some of the high school students earned their places in prestigious schools through stellar academic performance, and have been chosen as prefects in their schools. All of them live in houses with at least eight children and as many as 15, most of them under 10 years old, so the roles they play as older brothers and sisters are absolutely crucial to the younger kids’ growth and lives. We’re so thrilled for the chance to help further develop their potential.

Facilitating sessions that involve a lot of discussion has been a significant learning curve for us. The children have a wide range of proficiency in English, so some are much more comfortable than others with discussing their thoughts and feelings. We also have to be very conscious of the terminology we use, and of the fact that our style of teaching is completely different from much of what these children have ever experienced. We’re getting the sense that they are not often asked to share or discuss how they feel about different ideas – so exploring personal development is quite a new experience for most (if not all of them). So progress happens slowly sometimes as we break down concepts and expand the way many of the students think about topics such as personal risk taking and developing trust. We’re constantly reassessing our approach, but it has been amazing to see the way some of the children have responded. We’ve often been thrilled by their insights and how eager they are to engage with the topics, and for a few, our sessions have quite clearly been really inspiring. There have been plenty of moments of silence, head scratching and clarification but there have been equal moments of ‘ah-ha!’ and epiphany and big smiles as some of individuals grasp new ideas and discoveries about themselves. It is such a privilege for us to be a part of this and it is clear from the feedback that we’ve been getting (students, teachers and mothers alike) that these are important skills for the children to develop. But we’ve only been running workshops for two days, so we’re confident and excited that the best is yet to come - stay tuned! It sounds like there has been a lot of discussion at the houses about our workshops because the mothers keep telling us how much they’re looking forward to next week’s staff sessions (definitely a taller order for us, so we’ve got a lot of preparation to do!), so hopefully we can pull off something that will live up to the hype! But in general, we’re pretty thrilled with our situation right now – we’re spending our time with wonderful people, in a faraway place, and on top of it all we have been offered a chance to do what we do best and realize how much of a privilege that is in and of itself.

So here’s to hoping for more rains! We miss all of you, and we wish you could be here to share this experience with us.

-Much love, Jenny and Jimi

Our First Weekend at Chishawasha

It’s the weekend and we’re happy for it. We’re quickly realizing that our weekends here will be very valuable, not so much for adventures as we’d first thought, but for resting and spending time with the kids. Over the last five days we’ve been working around the site, enjoying lunches at the school – sometimes with the students, sometimes with the teachers, and dinners with the children. We’ve been to six of the seven ‘homes’ so far. We’re starting to get good at eating with our hands (as is customary here) and are very familiar with nshima (sp?) – the staple food served at all meals. Nshima is a maize (corn) based mash like corn-meal. It looks a lot like mashed potatoes and is used as the base with which every other part of the meal is eaten. All of the lunches and dinners so far have consist of a large helping of nshima, some cabbage-based slaw (very tasty) and a single portion of a meat or a helping of beans – all eaten with your hands – we’re still mastering the beans! People have been patient with us and understand that we’re in the “remedial class” – they sometimes provide a knife and fork for us, just in case, although no one else ever needs one.

This weekend was a nice break from the work we’ve been doing – especially Friday as we were working outside, and experienced the true effect of the sun. As our work partner Sam pointed out while watching us apply sunscreen, we're the wrong colour for this kind of weather!  Our weak, pasty Caucasian skin is no match for the African sun at noon, whereas the other workers think nothing of spending the entire day on a tin roof in a heavy work suit.  We were exhausted! 

Saturday morning Chishawasha was participating in a monthly market where they sell books. Philip offered to take us – more to experience the market than help with the book sale. We’d been dying to visit a craft market since we got to Africa, so we jumped at the chance. The market was fantastic and vibrant and everyone was nice enough to offer a ‘special price’ just for us! The crafts and works were amazing, and while Jenny is a bargaining expert, Jimi has a long way to go! There was a very diverse crowd – we have apparently discovered where all the tourists in Africa are.

Today, we embarked on yet another new adventure: Doing laundry by hand. Jimi has some (limited) experience in this area, so he was able to help Jenny (the extravagantly spoiled city girl) learn the process. As we were finishing up, a whole gang of the younger Chishawasha girls descended upon us, and when we told them it was our first time doing laundry by hand, they laughed at us and promptly informed us that we were doing it wrong. As they whispered and giggled at our ineptitude, we realized that it’s actually pretty embarrassing that these young children already have skills that we have never needed up until now.

Our embarrassment soon turned into one of the best times we’ve had since coming to Africa when the girls asked us if we could play them some music. They loved Jimi’s singing, and they really enjoyed taking turns on our mini djembe drum. Some of the girls really had some rhythm, and they are all great dancers! They offered to teach us some songs and games as well, so we spent the next few hours playing hand-clap games and singing and dancing games with them. Later, we had to get back to our laundry, and they sang their entire repertoire of gospel and school songs for us! This whole experience was somewhat of a departure from some of the experiences we’ve had so far as the kids tend to be a bit shy when we visit their homes in the evenings. It was so wonderful to have them come to visit us and want to get to know us. These girls were so happy, and so full of life, and quite obviously in their element while singing and dancing. It was really amazing to see their true personalities shining through – hopefully this is the first of many such experiences!

-Much love, Jimi and Jenny