Week 8: 26/03/11 ‘Elephants and power-cuts’ (Cultural Development)

Feeding an elephant, as you do

playing pool at the Braii

When I first moved to Belfast from Dublin to start Uni, I had absolutely no idea what was going on for a fair few weeks. The only time I had been in Northern Ireland was for my interview, so I was totally unfamiliar with all the ways of life that I’ve now come to love there. I can recall in my first couple of weeks up north, people asking me “are you for going to the cinema?” to which I would reply “I am…. but who are the other 3 people?” (thinking that ‘for’ meant ‘four’).  I arrived to class one day to find everybody muttering about a “Mazz” test which we had and I literally had no clue what they were talking about. When I found out that it was mathematics, the same subject which I referred to as ‘mats’, I was a little relieved. On my first year of teaching practice, I had to teach the ‘ou’ sound to my p1 class and the teacher actually told me I had to put on a Northern Irish accent to teach it.

With so many differences in a place 2 hours away from where I grew up, you can only imagine the differences between Zambia and home. Though, I think we’ve adapted to most of them by this stage.

My elephant was called the "mother-in-law"

This week, we had a pretty relaxed week soaking in life here and getting some more dissertation stuff done. Not actually too stressful, because if we were doing essays at home, we wouldn’t be getting a tan at the same time! We’ve also discovered the joys of freezing juice in a yogurt pot with a spoon in it- instant ice pops!

 We went elephant back riding which was fantastic. We got to sit on top of the elephants while they walked through the Bush, and then we rewarded them by feeding them. The elephant I was on was cute and kept going off to the side and pushing down trees and things, quite a fun experience!

feeding the elephant!

With regards to language here, we found out this week (from Patrick) that one of the reasons the kids we were teaching kept writing ‘l’ instead of ‘r’ was because there’s no letter ‘r’ in any of the Zambian languages. Also, one of the kids used to sit at the back of the class shouting “teacha, teacha” all the time, waving his hand about when he knew the answer, which nearly drove us up the wall. Apparently, the reason they say “teacha” and “Puta youra baga ova therea” is because in all the Zambian language (which there are like 73 of), they have a vowel with every consonant.



Making Veggie Sausages at the braii



On Saturday evening we went to another braii with some of the teachers from our school. We were told it was starting at 4pm, which meant that we turned up at about half past five. There was practically nobody there when we first arrived and when a teacher turned up after 6pm, she greeted us with “oh, you came early”. We haven’t quite adjusted to the African time thing so.

Blessing skipping away

The orphanage this week was especially lovely because we brought some of our friends with us. They got to experience the joys of throwing around bouncy balls and having their hair played with by the kiddies too. There’s a strange little Zambian dude that greets us with a fist pump every time we get off the rickety minibus to the orphanage. At the start we were so weary of him, but now, we’re the ones going over to him to say hello!

There are loads of little differences here that we’ve gotten used to, like there was a massive power cut the other night. It was so peaceful though because they lit candles everywhere and a bunch of us just sat under the stars playing some South African game.

Other than that, we’ve been for meals out; been amazed by the colour-changing skills of a chameleon that was climbing on us; had a few nights of dancing (where we have actually started to recognise the songs!); appreciated a couple of dirt cheap group cooking experiences; and loved a bit of swimming in a sudden downpour of rain- not a bad week! I’m also really enjoying the numerous jokes about Amy’s accent, it makes me feel a little bit better about the way I say the “ou” sound that I mentioned I had to teach in first year…

The chameleon we named "Noble"