/ On bed in Miss Bhalo’s house /
Crickets singing, dog howling and I have no idea of the time. I'm under a mosquito net in a bare unpainted room. Finally going to bed in Zambia, after the longest day.
After we got out of the airprt we were greeted by many staff and two students (Lucy and Adrian) from Monze Boarding School. They loaded our luggage + us onto a little bus and off we drove to Monze. The drive took about 3-4 hours with two stops. One for Christina’s glasses in Cairo Road (main street of Lusaka) and one for the shopping mall at the town of Muzabuku for the mosquito nets.
When we finally did arrive to Monze we were greeted by many new faces and had lunch served by a real mommy. The food was by far one of the grossest I've ever had, especially the green gooey stuff that resembled spit. It’s made from a green vegetable called Oakma (?). Otherwise there's the nshima. Anyway, we were sorted out into our different families and I'm so immensely lucky to have go Miss Bhalo - the mom of everyone.
She took me to her house, a small simple place where she lives with her "son (actually orphan, son of a good friend of hers) who she’s trying to educate, and there I got a little room. She had even bought mosquito nets and 101 Dalmatian bed sheets for me.
We sat out on the veranda in the afternoon sun and she told me about her life. How her husband left her 7 years ago for another woman, and left her the two children. Now they are soon graduating school and he wants the children back, and there's nothing she can do. Since he's a lawyer it makes everything even harder. She showed me lots of pictures, of her real daughter and son, and so many pictures of how pretty she was when she was younger
She's so open and considerate about me. I asked how much she earns each month, and she showed me her bank payment for this month that she just recently received. Around 500,000 kwacha which is 100 dollars and this covers her children's school fee. But she believes in God and has a bright view of life even though so many hard things are happening.
In the evening we had dinner with the teachers and some students, or only prefects and head boy & girl. The teachers and some education board person all sat on the high table and made very very long speeches. The most overwhelming thing was probably when we stood outside of the Assembly Hall, when all the hundreds of students emerged from the darkness and wanted to say hi and shake hands. It started off with a few, and ended up being us surrounded by seas of new black faces. That was quite something.
I've been so shocked; I don't think I have processed anything yet. I'm touched by their warmth and helpfulness. I feel guilty for having so much luggage, so much materialistic things… I wish I could give her something more than just a pair of pants!
