Today we’d like to share a different kind of story with you. It’s a story best told from our points of view separately because we experienced it differently, but it has a very happy ending!
Here goes:
Jenny: Last Sunday was our one-year anniversary. We didn’t make any major plans, but we did tell our friend Philip here at Chishawasha that we’d love to go into town for a nice dinner or something along those lines. He later came back to us and told us he’d made arrangements for us to have dinner with him and his wife Mary at a nearby safari lodge that one of the Chishawasha local board members manages... cool!
Jimi: At least that’s what Jenny thought. You see, for over a week I’d been working with Philip and a few others at Chishawasha on a few top-secret-stealth missions to make our anniversary one to remember!
Jenny: Must’ve been awfully top-secret... I had absolutely no clue, and Jimi and I have been side by side literally almost every minute since we’ve been in Africa. So, on the 8th, we were having a totally relaxed day, or at least, I was. Jimi seemed restless, but I didn’t think too much of that. Actually, I barely noticed. Jimi told me that Philip would pick us up at 5 for the evening, and I was content to chill out until then!
Jimi: Restless is hardly the word, I may have seemed pretty average but under the surface there was a lot going on. I had recruited one of the house mothers, Martha, and two of the older children, John and Thokodzile, to help arrange with some of the children to surprise Jenny with a message for 12 – noon, but Thoko came by in the morning to let me know church was going to go late, so we rescheduled for 2pm. In the meantime, the surprise also included singing a song for Jenny – so to prepare her for a horde of children and a song, I let her know that a few of the kids wanted to jam at 2pm. But by 2pm there was no one in sight. A drummed-up excuse gave me the opportunity to slip out to check on things while Jenny chilled out reading on the couch – but to no avail, the children were around but there was still no sign of my three partners in crime.
Jenny: The entire day, I was blissfully unaware of anything unusual. Jimi seemed a bit anxious for me to be ready well ahead of 5 PM, but I wasn’t in any hurry... I figured I had all the time I wanted for a nice long shower!
Jimi: I finally got her to get into the shower shortly after 4pm and I saw Philip drive up in his truck – still no sign of the children. I was a bit panicked (at least as panicked as I get, which isn’t much – after all, I was prepared for such a situation). I intercepted Philip who said that the church service our co-conspirators were attending went extra-long and that they’d likely not make it back in time, so we knew we had to switch to “Contingency 1.5A”. I immediately went back and let Jenny know that Philip thought it would be cool to have a jam session after dinner so we should bring our instruments (her drum and my guitar) and we packed up and headed off – passing John, Thokodzile and Martha as we turned onto the main road... oh well, “Contingency 1.5A” was a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Jenny: I was just excited for a nice dinner out at the safari lodge! I figured we’d have a great meal with good company, and maybe see some animals as a nice bonus, and jamming would be cool. So off we went! The lodge was beautiful. We had some drinks out on a lawn that continued into some wide fields and a pond, where we saw zebra and kudu grazing in the sunset. As it got darker, the animals came closer and closer to us, until they were passing directly beside us while we relaxed on the lawn chairs. Pretty amazing, I thought to myself. What a great anniversary!
Jimi: The view was breathtaking and the animals were so comfortable. A few curious ones came to investigate us, including a number of puku and a mother water-buck and her doe. It was amazing. We simply chatted with Philip and Mary over drinks as the sun went down behind the herd of Zebra. At the right moment I excused myself to use the ‘gentlemen’s room’.
Jenny: The rest of us went to meet Jimi at the table, which was behind a screen. As I walked around the screen, there was Jimi playing his guitar and singing my favourite song: “I’ll Be” by Edwin McCain... completely romantic. I was floored. He forgot a few of the words, which actually made the whole thing even more endearing, and I absolutely loved it. When he was done, I got up to thank him properly, but he wasn’t actually done yet... Once I got finished hugging and kissing him, he said, “Jenny...” and then got down on one knee, and finished, “will you marry me?”
Jimi: I had to concentrate so hard on keeping the lyrics from flying out of my head... I was more anxious than I think I’ve ever been. When I knelt down Jenny’s eyes and mouth took a shape I’d never seen before – both shocked and excited. I could barely get the words out, and for a while I was terribly afraid they came out in some kind of dyslexic jumble, but it must have been intelligible enough, because before I could hold my breath she squeaked out ‘Yes!’ Smiles and laughs and near-tears came next, followed by ‘I think it goes on the other hand’ (which for my part, I couldn’t reach because it was covering her mouth in shock).
Jenny: I was in absolute shock – my whole body started shaking, and I remember that my voice sounded nothing like me when I said Yes – but I was completely ecstatic! When Jimi produced a ring, I was even more surprised... I couldn’t imagine how he’d had time to organize all of this without my knowing about it. He says he’s a ninja like that, and I’m starting to believe it! So as I was covering my mouth in shock, I somehow registered that Jimi was trying to slip the ring onto my right hand (not sure exactly how I picked up on that one), so I let him know that he might want to try the other hand. After that point (strange, I know), I became temporarily speechless, and just couldn’t stop hugging and kissing Jimi. It was such a beautiful moment... so pure and honest and perfect in its imperfection... so completely “us”.
Jimi: I tell you it’s the only hand I could find! Aw... who am I kidding, we all knew I was too anxious to be paying close enough attention. Humbled in the moment I slipped the ring on... a perfect fit (which is awesome because my only measurement was subtle comparisons between her ring finger and my pinky when she was sufficiently distracted reading a book or such). Now originally I had wanted to design a ring for Jenny, but given our world-gallivanting plans, I thought I’d find something more appropriate when I got to Africa – not an easy task. I knew diamonds would be a tricky thing in Africa and generally risky to buy given the market of conflict diamonds, and I knew neither Jenny nor I would be happy with that. The answer came to me in Jenny’s favourite song. There is a lyric in the second line of the song that always struck me: ‘Emeralds from Mountains’ – knowing that some of the world’s best emeralds come from Zambia, I thought it was too much of a beautiful coincidence to pass up, and it also gave me a chance to support the local economy a bit. But most of all the song had taken on so much meaning for us, and there were a number of uncanny parallels to our experiences so far here in Zambia... it was just meant to be – I could think of no better symbol for our engagement in Zambia than an emerald ring.
Jenny: It’s absolutely perfect. Aside from all of the beautiful symbolism that’s attached to it, the ring will always be a reminder of the place where we got engaged. So, afterwards, we had our dinner (or everyone else did... I had completely lost my appetite out of shock), and were generally deliriously happy for the rest of the evening.
Jimi: Endless thank you to Philip and Mary for sharing our special night and especially to Philip for making so much of this possible – Philip you are a ninja, a romantic, and a friend. Thank you!
Now that we’ve had a chance to talk with our families, we’re completely thrilled to share our great news with all of you. As promised, a happy ending: We plan to live happily ever after!
Much Love, Jimi and Jenny
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Learning Reconsidered
We've now finished our first workshop series at Chishawasha, a personal and leadership development program for students ages 14 (or so) and up, and we're pretty exhausted, but so happy with the results! We ran workshops for about 25 kids total on such topics as risk-taking, trust, leadership styles, communication, problem-solving, role modelling, coaching, and mentoring. To the children, our 'facilitation' was clearly a different way of approaching education, so it was amazing to see them get more and more comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions throughout the week, and to see them begin to grasp the concepts and how important and applicable they can be in their own lives. Living in families of 8-14 children and only one or two mothers, all of the children this age have an important leadership role to play in the teaching and mentoring and caring of their younger 'siblings'. It has been so clear that many of them take their roles very seriously and really want to be the best role models they can for their younger brothers and sisters. The things these children have seen and experienced and the responsibilities they hold are humbling. When we see them playing games and coming to our workshops so eager to learn, the resilience of children becomes clear, and is a truly awesome thing to witness.
We've been noticing that as a whole, the children here have some really interesting and important skill sets that seem to be a bit less common in Canada. In general, they're very kinaesthetically intelligent - they understand their bodies so well and use them with so much skill! This observation was driven home to us pretty clearly and in a very humbling way when we asked a group of the leaders-in-training to teach us a traditional dance. They just seem to have an ability to move so fluidly and seamlessly... impressive. We, apparently, have no such abilities, so the kids had a great laugh while they patiently kept attempting to explain to us how to loosen up our hips. It's also amazing to watch young boys play football (soccer) - they are so quick and skillful, they could probably put Canadian boys much older than themselves to shame.
In our leadership sessions, we ask the students to do a variety of problem-solving tasks, and we've really noticed how important it is to them that when they are given an assignment, they do it as well as possible. They will spend a long time talking through possible solutions and strategies, and they really want to be sure that their plan will work before they begin. They've come up with some really creative approaches that we've never seen before to tasks we've facilitated many times, which is really fascinating - again many involving that kinaesthetic intelligence in new (to us) and creative ways. Some of the insights we've heard this week, and the connections that are being made by these students, have been exceptionally high level, so we're learning as much from them as they are from us, if not more!
One really interesting challenge has been navigating the language barrier. All of the children speak Nyenja, and they all speak English to varying degrees. Because the group's process is more important than our facilitation, and because we quickly found they have a difficult time expressing feelings (maybe cultural?), we've encouraged them to speak in whatever language they feel they can express themselves best. So often their discussions in our sessions are conducted in Nyenja. It's pretty fascinating to analyze group dynamics when you can't understand what's being said, but you would be amazed at how much you can still tell without the words. We've had to be very conscious of the way we communicate as well, and we always need to make sure the language we're using is accessible yet not condescending. It's an ongoing process, and we get better all the time - yet another part of our own education in this journey.
The most rewarding part, though, is when you have the opportunity to see one of the children really connected to the material. When we hear that they've told their mothers how much they enjoyed it, or when they come to us and tell us, "I took a social risk today!", for example, that is such a reward and fortunately for us there have been many such rewards already.
Next up is a series of workshops for the Chishawasha staff, and based on the talk about our leadership workshops, we've got a lot to live up to! That will be our main project for the week, followed by some "playshops" for the younger kids. So we're really busy, but completely excited, and finding some time for ourselves in between workshops, language lessons (we're learning Nyenja, they're learning French!), card games, and reading with the kids.
In other news, Jimi took a pretty big emotional risk of his own recently... but that's another story. Stay tuned!
Much love, Jenny and Jimi
We've been noticing that as a whole, the children here have some really interesting and important skill sets that seem to be a bit less common in Canada. In general, they're very kinaesthetically intelligent - they understand their bodies so well and use them with so much skill! This observation was driven home to us pretty clearly and in a very humbling way when we asked a group of the leaders-in-training to teach us a traditional dance. They just seem to have an ability to move so fluidly and seamlessly... impressive. We, apparently, have no such abilities, so the kids had a great laugh while they patiently kept attempting to explain to us how to loosen up our hips. It's also amazing to watch young boys play football (soccer) - they are so quick and skillful, they could probably put Canadian boys much older than themselves to shame.
In our leadership sessions, we ask the students to do a variety of problem-solving tasks, and we've really noticed how important it is to them that when they are given an assignment, they do it as well as possible. They will spend a long time talking through possible solutions and strategies, and they really want to be sure that their plan will work before they begin. They've come up with some really creative approaches that we've never seen before to tasks we've facilitated many times, which is really fascinating - again many involving that kinaesthetic intelligence in new (to us) and creative ways. Some of the insights we've heard this week, and the connections that are being made by these students, have been exceptionally high level, so we're learning as much from them as they are from us, if not more!
One really interesting challenge has been navigating the language barrier. All of the children speak Nyenja, and they all speak English to varying degrees. Because the group's process is more important than our facilitation, and because we quickly found they have a difficult time expressing feelings (maybe cultural?), we've encouraged them to speak in whatever language they feel they can express themselves best. So often their discussions in our sessions are conducted in Nyenja. It's pretty fascinating to analyze group dynamics when you can't understand what's being said, but you would be amazed at how much you can still tell without the words. We've had to be very conscious of the way we communicate as well, and we always need to make sure the language we're using is accessible yet not condescending. It's an ongoing process, and we get better all the time - yet another part of our own education in this journey.
The most rewarding part, though, is when you have the opportunity to see one of the children really connected to the material. When we hear that they've told their mothers how much they enjoyed it, or when they come to us and tell us, "I took a social risk today!", for example, that is such a reward and fortunately for us there have been many such rewards already.
Next up is a series of workshops for the Chishawasha staff, and based on the talk about our leadership workshops, we've got a lot to live up to! That will be our main project for the week, followed by some "playshops" for the younger kids. So we're really busy, but completely excited, and finding some time for ourselves in between workshops, language lessons (we're learning Nyenja, they're learning French!), card games, and reading with the kids.
In other news, Jimi took a pretty big emotional risk of his own recently... but that's another story. Stay tuned!
Much love, Jenny and Jimi
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