It's been a long time since I've blogged and I guess that tells something of my life the past few months. We've finally reached our goal and opened the school which has been both exciting and exhausting. Today we have completed our first half term and its been a great start so far! We now have 17 children in our grade one class, 7 of which are also in the Arise orphan project. It was so great to finally open the school and get stuck into what's been my main purpose and passion since deciding to come to Zambia. Seeing the kids all running full pelt, up the path to school on the first day made me realise the hard work has all been worth it. The first half term has been a massive challenge and big learning curve in my teaching career but also really rewarding. I've had to learn how to teach children who have very little concept of discipline and don't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'no'! The language barrier also creates a lot of new problems but we're so pleased and surprised by how much and how quickly the children are learning English. But then you have days like yesterday where you doubt the children understand anything you say. I asked the children 'what day is it today?' and I got replies of 'chicken' and 'bananas' and then one child said 'fruits of the spirit' (which we've been learning about in our God Time) which caused all the children to shout out random fruits and love, peace, patience etc....I guess I should be pleased they're remembering them at least! Despite the tough days I love my new class and they have learnt the class routines and rules really well and seem to love school. One girl, Mabel, even insisted she should come to school despite her grandma telling her she had to stay at home because it was raining. The rain can create issues as Zambians tend to skip school if the rain is heavy enough and doesn't stop, which happened this week and resulted in there being 3 adults to teach 6 children. The class also give us a lot of laughs, one child turned to Cherie and I one day and asked 'do you have a Mr muzungu?' (meaning white person) He also told me today that when he grows up he's going to be my mummy...I'm not quite sure why!

We've already taken the children on their first trip to the farm over the road as that's been our topic for the first half term. They enjoyed sitting on a tractor and then having a trailer ride. They were quite wary of the animals but most were brave enough to sit on the horse. I joined in and then only week a later ate some horse steak from the very horse I had sat on as it had been slaughtered and sold in the farm shop. (Very tasty meat-I'd recommend it!) 

I've also braved one of the local delicacies of fried caterpillar which I bought from a street shop and cooked myself...Im not so quick to recommend them and after eating 6 I still couldn't figure out why the Zambians enjoy them so much. They taste as bad as they smell and are crunchy on the outside and squidgy on the inside. 

Thunder storms are still going strong here and just as scary and exciting as ever. Unfortunately one we had this week meant we didn't have power or water for 48 hours and the generator they used to try and give us power (at 4.30 in the morning!) also blew up causing a lot of chargers and sockets to be destroyed, TIA! 

I've had 3 very interesting/frustrating trips to kamfinsa, the local village where I teach in a community school. The first 2 weeks I cycled there on my own and hadn't been since before Christmas, the grass had grown very long which makes everything look different. Unfortunately they were also cutting down the forest which I normally cycled through so I couldn't find the route and even if I could I wouldn't have been able to get through due to the massive log trucks, all the trees falling down and the insane puddles. I was fairly confident my sense of direction could get me there by going a different way however an hour an a half later I was definitely very lost! 

Christmas seems like a very long time ago but I had an amazing family holiday in South Africa, probably my best so far. The highlight however was finally meeting my scrumptious nephew who is the cutest and smiliest little boy and such a delight the whole holiday. It's hard not being in England to watch him growing bigger and doing more and more things but thankfully he performs well on Skype and gives me plenty of smiles. 

The last 3 weeks we've had a Danish team of 7 living with us, which was a lot of fun and a nice change to have so many young people around. It was surprisingly tiring to have people in 'our house' all the time but great to have more people to play games with, take for ice cream and go for dinner to the new Chinese restaurant. 

And finally I received a marriage proposal from a Zambian, he stopped me as I was going for a walk around the block, he professed his love for me and then told me he was going to marry me. I thanked him and then when I asked how old he was he replied 'I'm 9'...hmmm.