"A teacheraffects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

(Henry Adams)

Nathan, Jenny and Ceri survive Liteta

Hey folks, Nathan here blogging on the Liteta lot.

So Jenny, Ceri and myself spent our 2 week rural visit in Liteta. I can't put into words how much this experience affected everyone. Of all the 3 villages ours had the grubbiest sleeping conditions, we were sleeping in what was effectively a mudhut inhabited with huge spiders and a number of lizards and other bugs far away from any of our placements. Whilst the others walked 10 yards to get to their one school, we had to walk 10 km (there and back!!!) to get to our numerous schools. This did not affect our spirits though, we had a cracking time (even with the weight loss, my smell (i apologise for my lack of showering girls) and the size of the spiders).

We encountered a number of fresh problems in this rural placement as I know the others did too. Notably the language barrier was even greater than in Lusaka. We managed to overcome everything though and left after having a fantastic and highly successful time.
All the kids seemed to want to do with me was football, football and football which has done my tan and hair colour the world of good but I did aid in netball and PE also. Whilst Ceri and Jenny spent effectively all their time in the classrooms (except when walking) holding sessions on life skills, sex ed, HIV and AIDS, hygiene etc etc.... and from what I saw they did a phenominal job.

One weekend the girls held a workshop for the zambian peer leaders and I organised a footy and netball tournie for 8 communities, though 11 turned up and it was sooooo hectic, they both were brilliant!! Along with visiting 8 different schools, the tournament, the walking!!! and the workshop we also visited a hospital, vaccination and VCT programs (in which I embarrassingly fainted), the chief of Liteta (who lapped up his Man Utd shirt as a present) the district commissioner, had a traditional african dance, ate Nshima till we dropped, ate bushrats (B U S H R A T S), termites, goat, silly amounts of rice and beans and made friends for the rest of lives in the peer leaders.

It was a very intense period, very early mornings with pretty early nights too as we were sooooo exhausted each day. The relationships were heightened in this period but Ceri, Jenny and I never had any problems with each other at all, helping each other out whenever we could. I tried to get everyone going with banter when the chips were a bit down but that was about the only struggles with our relationships that we had. There was always going to be low times as we were mixing with children with HIV and a far lower standard of living day in day out and this is very hard to take.

We worked so hard over this period and leave hoping we have had a lasting effect on the children, teachers and peer leaders. I believe we have and look forward to hearing what next years PZ lot have to say about Liteta and what the Liteta lot have to say about us :o)

On a side, after this project we spent 2 nights at a government run project that helps street kids in Zambia (along with Isla and Mel). These kids are delightful and literally everything we provided and did with them they saw as such a privelege no matter how trivial we saw it as. There is so much love between the kids and they look after each other so well. It was very sad saying bye bye to them all but I hope we keep in touch and some of us see them again in the future. "There's no rainbow without the rain" - to have the good you have to put up with some bad and these kids are the best representation of that that I have ever seen.
Over and out for now. Nathan. x