Do you see what I see....(pictures!)

Left to right: 1) My 9th graders joining me for some craft time. 2) At the waterfalls. 3) Hendrix and I. 4) Me stirring Nshima in the biggest pot ever. 5)Jen and Julie my unofficial Bemba/Zambian culture teachers. 6)Sunrise on the Savanna...waiting for a hitch to the boma. 7)More water falls. 8)Hendrix falling asleep in my backpack. 9) My HOUSE! See told you I had a bright blue door. 10) My bathing shelter and Chimbusu (toilet)

Miss. Rae is teaching. Miss. Rae has been teaching all day

First let me say thank you to everyone taking the time to donate to the Girls Leadership Camp(camp glow) and for the interest in pen pals! You can still donate to the camp through the PeaceCorps website and let me know if you want to be a pen pal! This week was crazy busy! Wednesday I co-lead a community training. This week was about my role and expectations as a pcv and the concepts of development and sustainability.Thursday i taught 3 classes and had 2 meetings all before 11:30am! Friday was open day, think parent teacher conference! But it was a good week even found a new carpenter and tailor this week. The new carpenter was cheaper and is less busy so maybe just maybe by halloween ill be sitting in a chair and not on a jerry can. The tailor is pretty good. I ordered a skirt and a dress from her. Of course they are made from chitenge material. I love both my skirt and my dress but it looks like I need to ride my bike more and fry my soya less! So on thursday I taught all 3 classes by myself all grade 9. I co-planned 1, talked about the other and the 3rd class that was really just for fun. The 1st class was a 80min english comprehension for 9b. The subject was our favorite animals and the passage was about my favorite animal the giraffe. It went well and they did a good job with the lesson. They also wrote about their favorite animals. Their stories were fun to read. In 9a we worked on structure in English. The lesson was on present continuous and present perfect continuous(hince the title of this post). Role play/acting was involved in this lesson and they loved that! They had to create sentences using our new tenses and they got all fancy on me. They really tried, I was proud of them. I continued teaching English when I realized (after the pupils pointed it out and begged me to stop teaching English..hehe) that the period was over and it was time for Religious Education (RE). The teacher was out so I asked them if it was ok for me to teach RE and they said yes. Id never taught RE before and didnt know where to start. We spent approx. 2mins reviewing their previous lesson on sexual feelings but I switched topics because I knew where that was heading! I started by asking them their thoughts on spirituality and religion just to get their opinion. They then started discussing religious text. They told me all the ones they knew and I added 4 noble truths just to see if theyd heard of it. This lead to questions about Islam. We then created a "characteristics chart" of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. For each faith we discussed: phrophets, name of the creator and the meaning of the name, who wrote the text and the language, place of worship and name of worshippers etc. It was AMAZING! They filled in what they knew and I helped with the rest. The topics came from their questions. The whole class was based on their questions and interest. HANDS DOWN THAT WAS MY FAVORITE CLASS/LESSON SO FAR! (Also partly due to the fact that I knew the answers to their question without looking at notes or a book!) I even had 7 pupils come to me during their break to ask me MORE question about the 3 faiths and Buddhism/4 noble truths. Ah cisuma sana! Ill teach that class until the teacher comes back next month. For a Hendrix update: Hendrix is a girl! Long story but my puppy is a girl and her name will stay the same. She had her 1st visit with the "vet" and she did well except for using my hand as a chew toy! The pigs near my house gave her maggots in her paws but shes all better now. She has started staying on a chain when Im at school so she stays out of trouble and doesnt reck my house. All is well this side and Ill be traveling to Kasama next week for a workshop and to visit other pcv's sites. LOVE YOU ALL! P.S. I hate ants and the mouse in my roof! Ants are much worse here and come out of no where and the mouse is annoying and keeps getting louder! T.I.A! AMAPALO...

Help from Americaland!

Greetings from Bembaland! Its been a busy day. I had a convo with a elderly bamama (grandmother) on my way to school. She was impressed with my Bemba, so was I. I co-taught an 80min 9b English class. The lesson was on past simple/past continuous tense and comprehension. We played a game called "Think fast" where I threw a ball to a student, told them a verb and what tense I wanted them to put the verb in. They had fun with the game. Then I told them a story I made up (but prepared before hand) where they had to identify the verbs, tell me what tense (past or past continuous) the verbs were in and give my story an ending. Lets just say the story ended with Hendrix being eaten by a lion. I will teach the same lesson tomorrow to grade 9a, hopefully they wont kill off my dog. Also tomorrow, we have our 1st Girl's club meeting of the term. Im excited to talk to all my girls again! Im also preparing for a workshop/ community sensitization training im co-leading with the Community Development Officer next week. The training is on my role as a volunteer and community mobilization/development. Super busy but busy is good! So...the real reason for the update. I need help from Americaland! Ive gotten a lot of people asking me what I need or need help with. I added a wish list of sorts on here but there are 2 things I really need help with now now (Zambian for ASAP) : 1)DONATE TO CAMP GLOW! - My district is putting on a empowerment/leadership camp for girls in Dec. Its up to the volunteers to find a hosting site, speakers, materials and funds. All 7 of us have a role (Im helping with arts and crafts and ideas are welcomed) and we all are bringing 1 teacher and 2 studentr to the camp. We have already started planning but we still need to raise money. This is where you can help! But DON'T SEND THE MONEY TO ME! Go to www.peacecorps.gov -then go to "Donate to volunteer projects". You can then either search by volunteer name, in this case its "FRITZLER" or search by the project number, which is "611-062". The project title is "Girl's Leadership Camp". Any amount is helpful! I really appreciate it! Plus its a tax write off! You would be helping at least 14 girls gain self esteem and they will in turn become leaders in their schools & communities. This is why I started the girl's club at my school. 2) PEN PALS!- So my classes are learning how to write letters and they want American pen pals. My classes are grades 5-9 and are between the ages of 10-16. If your kids, family members, classes, youth groups, student teaching classes, the sports teams you coach and even if you want to write to a child in Mpumba Zone PLEASE email me (raekenya.walker@gmail.com) and let me know! We all would appreciate your help with this one. Its also achieves pc goals 2 & 3...CULTURAL EXCHANGE! They have so many questions and want to be heard. It could turn into a good outlet for them too. Im working with 7 schools so the more interest the better! Im willing to sacrifice getting my own letters if it means letters for the kids ;-) Thank you all in advance! I have amazing friends and family back home who I know will help if they can! Ill keep you posted on the Camp. Feel free to email me any questions, suggestions, quotes, positive vibes, etc. Id love to have them! THANK YOU! As a side note to all of this Hendrix got into a "fight" with a goat and lost! He is fine but he has a battle scar on his nose now. Also after spending a full day cooking with bamayos I was told I am a good cook, a good dancer and that I speak the truth! So there you go :-) ... LOVE YOU ALL and miss you much! Amapalo!