Happy Cinco de Mayo! Today meant we could sleep in. J But not too much, because we have lots to do yet before Saturday! In the morning T and I worked on crossing things off our to do lists. We assembled everything for the awards ceremony. We printed off pictures of us to give to the families as they had requested. We found kids to give us “testamonials” aka the kids would do or say something from tutoring or preschool on camera. Cute. J We walked to the market to get more food for the party. The morning went by too quickly; I definitely did not have as much done as I had hoped!
After lunch, we locked the gate and set up for the party. Good thing we locked it, because all the boys tried coming in early! We have never been to a Zambian party, so we didn’t know what to expect, but it sure was a good thing we got more food, let me tell you! It was all gone very fast! We let them eat and chat for the first half hour and then started the awards. Each student—wives, school aged children, and preschoolers—got their work from the past few months back, with a completion certificate and a personalized award. T and I had fun switching back and forth and presenting awards to the students. They laughed at the funny ones with us and cheered and clapped for everyone. J My favorite was the little preschoolers coming up and receiving 50+ pieces of paper with a lollipop and watching them take it to their mothers! Adorable! The preschoolers preformed their ABC chant and the older kids did the math chants and the parents loved it. J The dads had motorcycle training, so they came over in shifts to watch and to take family photos for us. J Yay! All in all it was a fun time. We tried closing with having them each sign their names on a sheet of paper for us to mount a picture on later, but they had other plans! While we had planned the party, one of the wives came up and had a nice speech and presented us with LCCA chitenges, which she wrapped around us proper-like, too. She wants us to wear them on the plane so everyone will know we’re from Africa. J It was so touching, especially knowing they don’t have much money and pooled together to do that for us. One of the sem students gave a speech, too, and some of the parents spoke up. Mrs. A also had a speech and a beautiful chitenge for each of us. I am surprised I wasn’t crying by this point! We threw the party—we weren’t expecting anything from them! It was so nice; I cannot even express…The ladies even helped us clean up after the 50+ people that were there. Saying goodbye to some I would not see tomorrow was tough, but I had to do it. I’m going to miss these people so much!
After the party I just wanted to sit and remember all the good times, but it was time to tackle more on the to do list. I had been helping Mrs. D&D with a penpal project for a church back at home, so I needed to find the two girls to finish it so I can take it with me on Saturday. Well, we found the first one right away, but she was playing a game, so the preschoolers and some of the older kids surrounded us again and I had children sitting on my lap and being my best friends. J I love it. J We got some more testimonials done and some signatures we had been missing and eventually the penpals done before running off to the next thing!
D&D had invited us to the movies for Thursday Date Night. Well, the movie that was supposed to be playing wasn’t actually there. Well, that’s Zambia. Since we had all seen all the other movies (well, 3 of the 4…it’s the only entertainment in Lusaka!) we decided just to go out to eat. So we went to Revolucion, a Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo. Really good food and margaritas. J I cracked up at the Zambians saying gracias each time. J They also had salsa lessons going on, so we listened to some Latin and Caribbean music and watched the dancers. It was a very entertaining night! The power only went out once. J Dinner in the dark. J It was great to have one last time with D&D, just the four of us. Oh how I will miss them! Back at home, T and I weren’t in the mood for anything, but as it was still early, we ticked off one last to do list item: watch ALL movies. We watched Slumdog Millionaire (yes, I was sleeping through half of it) but now we have watched all our movies here and we can head home!
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