Beth on a Mission: June 2020

Life in Lock down at Amano.

From the 1st of April Amano site went into ‘lockdown’ which basically meant we could only go out for essential shopping. I spent a lot of time with the Wardle family and many other families on site. To begin with I mostly helped with home schooling the children but then when the Easter holidays came and we still couldn’t go out all of that stopped and we didn’t have a lot going on during the days. I would go for a run if I could (not always possible with my knees still playing up) or do a work out or call someone. I had a lot of fun just spontaneously calling people back home who I hadn’t really spoken to since I left.

The last week of the ‘Easter holidays’ was spent frantically learning how to use the new online learning platform called NEO that we were going to use to teach through. We also had to plan and create a weeks worth of lessons which would be ready for the children to do from the Monday. It was a lot of work and now 6 weeks later I really think we are getting into the swing of things.

What NEO looks like (well a very little bit of it anyway)

Me and Diana in our house

I have been living with Diana Shakwelele for over 2 months now which has been really lovely. I’m so thankful that she moved in, my house would have been so lonely without her around. The grade 12 students will come back to school from the 22nd of June so Diana will have to move back into the dorm. I’m looking forwards to seeing the children again but I’m not looking forwards to loosing my house mate and living alone.

At the moment my days have all looked pretty similar. I aim to arrive down in the ICT room from about 8am to start work. We have a short break at around 10, this is my favourite part of the day I think because I get to interact properly with the ladies in the office and the other teachers that are down in school. We all sit out in the sun and have a laugh. Then we then work till maybe about 1 and then I go for lunch and then back to school in the afternoon most days till about 5 ish.That’s for Monday to Friday. We also go in on most Saturday mornings to make sure the children can all access all of their work on Monday. On Tuesday afternoons we have been going swimming but it’s too cold now really. On Wednesday Lunchtimes and afternoons I go for lunch at the Wittmann’s and then we have the Volunteer’s meeting. I currently teach Music and Art to the whole of Primary as well as helping out with anything else I possibly can. I have also sort of taken on teaching the PSHE topic of Refugees to the grade 4 & 5’s which has been interesting.

I have been learning to play the Guitar together with Diana so we spend most evenings playing together and worshiping through our practice. It has been really lovely to learn something new while I’ve been here. I also learnt how to do hand lettering since being in Zambia and I now run a club with the secondary’s which is lovely, we’ve even managed to keep it going while online. It’s so great to see what the girls have been up to and to see how they’re developing their creative skills.

Lockdown is now over so we are super excited to be able to go away for half term next week (13th – 21st June 2020). The Wardle’s are taking me on holiday with them and I’m super excited to go and see new places. We are going to Nsobe which is where I went last October with the other volunteers and then we are going to travel on down to Lower Zambezi which I am super excited for because I haven’t been there yet. We are going to be camping though which is going to be very cold. It can drop to around 8 decrees Celsius here at the moment overnight. I am so not used to that kind of temperatures!

Prayer Points

• Please continue to pray for healing in my knee. It is just very frustrating to not be able to join in with the kids especially when they are charging round and playing.

• Please pray for Primary teachers as it is a lot of work to prepare all the lessons online for NEO and its rather frustrating when only a handful of children are doing the lessons.

• Please pray for the Grade 12’s as they come back and have to adjust to life in Amano with all the new Covid-19 related rules.

• Please also pray that living alone won’t be a big stress for me and that I will find healthy and practical ways of entertaining myself in the evenings especially.

• Please pray for an exciting yet restful holiday.

Praise Points

• The students are coming back (well some at least)

• We can go on HOLIDAY!!!

• We can now go and ‘sensibly’ see friends outside of Amano.

• I am so thankful for all of the space we have here at Amano, and all of the lovely people who live here.

Beth Richardson, Amano, 12/06/2020

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