A week in the life of...

(I thought I’d better write something on this blog too, to justify it being called ‘Paul and Rachel’s blog’. I’m afraid it’s not going to be quite as witty and articulate as Paul’s contributions).

Days start pretty early for us here, getting up about half six, as Paul has to begin lessons at half seven. I get a lift out to yoga practice on Monday with a load of PTA women who I’ve been adopted by (with no one here being our age we swing between acting older and socialising with people nearly twice our age, or act younger and play with their kids!). Paul’s teaching day finishes about half one so I can go and try and use the internet in his classroom, or help make wall displays until he can come home at four. With it being evily hot at the moment an after school swim is always nice, unless there are people having lessons in it etc when we can just play in the baby pool. Bedtimes are fairly early too due to the early starts and the fact that with the current heat one tends not to get much sleep anyway.

I try to get out to Munda Wanga, a wildlife park/sanctuary, once a week to help set up an environmental education programme focusing on birds of prey. As with most things though, progress here is pretty slow, for example they are having problems transferring their funding in to a Zambian bank account. So I talk about my ideas with people which they are always very positive about, but then nothing really gets done, we might paint a wall, and then I spend the rest of the day birdwatching (yesterday I saw a fish eagle!).

I teach piano Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons and have 4 pupils so far. There are older kids who want lessons too but I think I’ll work up to the more advanced ones…

Wednesday evenings we try and go to the cinema or have a meal out at Arcades shopping mall which is the only thing of interest within walking distance. The films are usually rather hit and miss but at least we’ve not been so desperate that we’ve had to watch the one with talking chiwawas in yet. Though today Paul is learning the real joys of teaching by having to stay in meetings all afternoon, but hopefully we’ll still be able to get out before dark.

Thursdays our maid Linda (though I really have to stop myself from calling her Shelia!) comes to do our washing and ironing. We have no washing machine so it all has to be done by hand, and everything has to be ironed that has been hung to dry outside to get rid of putsi fly eggs that, once laid in damp washing, will hatch on contact with skin and live quite happily under the surface of the skin until the larvae are ready to turn in to little flies once again. Delightful. I have my riding lesson first thing Thursday morning. Tis especially nice when we go out on hacks over the surrounding hills and I get to see a bit of countryside (but I get told off for using that word, here it’s ‘bush’). Unfortunately one of the ladies I usually ride with is on crutches at the moment after being thrown off her horse on to a fence last week….

Friday is shopping day and I get a lift with one of the part-time teachers (another Rachel) and go to Shoprite, Zambia’s version of Tescos, where one can buy everything from mealiemeal to pesto (if you’re willing to pay a fiver for it!) and all sorts of kitchen/home/gardenware stuff. As a treat I might buy some proper cheese, their cheese is pretty rubbery and tasteless, or some nice meat, which is usually pretty expensive and of dubious quality. Staples are tinned tuna, which I only ever eat if I have to, and ryvita, great with peanut butter and jam as an alternative to toast as we have no toaster. Friday is also primary school assembly day which I often go and watch in the big outdoor multi purpose hall. There’s also an Indian lady with a cake stall selling yummy doughnuts as our weekend treat.

Weekends at the moment pretty much depend on whether anyone wants to take us anywhere as we are still without a car (‘when we have a car….’ has become our most common saying). This Friday it’s the fireworks display at one of the other international schools in Lusaka with bigger playing fields than ours. Apart from that we usually swim and play tennis as both pool and courts are right on our doorstep. Paul is trying to coach me in tennis (to improve his enjoyment of our games) with varying success.