So today was our first day back at work. To start the day off neither of us really felt that great. We got up early and go to Munali at 9:45, only to find out that our first session wasn’t even happening – great. That means we had to wait until 11:50 to do anything. When I find out that I missed out on about 2 hours of sleep I am not too happy. That’s especially true when these days are so exhausting. The combination of the dust and the heat and the frustrating bus commuting just drains all of your energy by the time 6 o’clock rolls around.
The reason that there were no sessions at the other schools was because there was an inter-school sports day going on. It seems like all the schools have been having these sports days within the last 2 weeks. Because there was such a big event going on at the Munali grounds, William had informed me that the team I’m coaching wouldn’t have basketball practice today. He had told me this 2 days before so we had planned the rest of our day around it – go back to the office to work on our HIV/AIDS program and then skype with our parents for a little while.
We had a good session at Tionge, playing that games that correspond to critical thinking and problem solving. Then we went over to the Munali Girls’ High School and ran a quick session on HIV/AIDS. The girls really enjoyed the games we played, especially the dizzy bat. They were falling all over the place and laughing. One of the girls fell and hit her knee so we had her go sit on the side until we were done. Meanwhile, William decided to go tend to her. When we came over we saw that he was vigorously rubbing her knee and you could tell by her facial expression that it hurt. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was taking the pain away – huh? From all the injuries that I’ve had and all of those I’ve studied in sports med classes that is not a way to treat any injury. I told him that rubbing the girl’s knee might not be helping. He asked me if I had taken a first aid course and proceeded to tell me that he had so he knew what he was doing. I didn’t know what to say so I just let him do his thing. It really made me wonder if in countries like Zambia they learn to treat minor injuries differently since they don’t have access to ice or ace bandages. It’s sad.
After the session Chrissy still wasn’t feeling too great so we sad down in the shade to eat our lunch. We were getting ready to leave when William came over to tell me that basketball practice was happening. I’ve had patience with this lack of organization and communication for almost one month now, but this was getting ridiculous. I was still feeling sick, hot, tired, and annoyed – so I snapped. Poor William had to take my wrath. I didn’t yell, but I surely got my message across clearly. I told him that this couldn’t keep happening, and that there was so many problems that needed to be fixed. I can’t be expected to pick up the slack of others when they don’t know how to plan or prepare for anything. Chrissy and I have very good organization skills, and when we have an opening in our schedule we fill it. Things that come up last minute are not our problem if we weren’t told about them in advance.
So anyway we headed back to the office, did some work, and then walked to a nearby internet place to skype. This one really sucked and had the worst connection ever so we decided to not waste our money there again. Frustrated and tired, we headed to catch the bus to go to pizza night with the girls – that would definitely cheer us up! When we got to the bus stop we boarded an empty bus (always a bad sign) and had to wait about an hour before it was full and we could start moving. We really hate that part of the bus system, it always makes us late!
While we were on the bus a man came to the door and said hi to us. We said hi back, but apparently we weren’t enthusiastic enough for him – he proceeded to say “Why are you sad? I know, you’re sad because I’m black, well you shouldn’t be sad or scared because we are all one people.” We looked at each other dumbfounded and pissed because there is no reason for people to always assume we’re racist. Like seriously dude, why the heck would we have come to volunteer in Zambia if we are racist. Afterwards I got into a conversation with the guy sitting next to me (a university student) about many different interesting topics. I found out that here in Zambia the girls have a lower standard in school and in order to pass their grade 8 exams they need only 2/3 of the points that the boys do. The reasoning is that girls don’t have as much time to spend on their school work because they have to do cooking and cleaning, so they are told that they don’t need to be as smart – I found this really depressing. I explained that it’s not like this at all in the US and that women’s rights are a big deal. This led into him talking about how he doesn’t like feminism or women’s rights and at that point our friendly discussion turned into who can defend their arguments/ideas better. This day was only getting more aggravating.
When we finally got to our destination our pizza had been sitting there for a while and the girls were already finished eating. They sat there while we ate but it was sort of rushed and we felt sick after. We did some grocery shopping, went home, and went to bed. It had been a long day.
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