from the director of HIZ

Dear Friends and Family,   I apologize for the several day hiatus in news from us. It's been tough to find the time to sit down and write with as much as we've been doing day to day. Everyone is healthy, happy, and learning a lot. I know I am.   Unfortunately, I don't have too much time to write tonight because the clock is ticking for our next Tonga class, which starts in just under 8 hours (6:30 am).   The group is doing so well, I've been blessed through our time together and am constantly impressed with their level of maturity and sincerity through everything we do.   Last week was our first full week of classes, and we were all pretty tired by the end of it. We did Tonga conversation in the mornings and Tonga singing in the afternoons, and began to meet our regular classes. The class I'm teaching, Missionary Anthropology, met every day last week, and we had quizzes on several days. Ba Janice's nursing classes (Health Care Missions and Culture of Poverty) started as well, as did Ba Katie's Kinesiology class (Conditioning). Since the term for George Bensons Christian College of Education hadn't started yet last week, we got to wait til after 8am breakfast to start classes.   Not true this week. Today, and for the rest of the semester, we'll start each day at 6:30am. It's still very cool in the mornings which we enjoy, because it gets hot by mid-afternoon. It will get to the point this semester where the earlier we start the better.   Now that we're getting into more of a routine the students are getting into a rotation of spending time with Janice, Louisa, and Katie in the clinic, and are making it over to the Havens frequently. Mondays and Tuesdays are the busiest days at the clinic, so we've set up our schedule to allow for most of the day to be given to those areas.   This past Saturday we drove the 7km (about 15-20 minutes) into the nearest town, Kalomo, and we all practiced the Tonga we'd learned in class throughout the week. Each student was given an item to buy in the market and only enough money to buy it at a fair price. For most that meant they had to bargain (hopefully in Tonga!) to get the items they were assigned. Ba Siaziyu has done a great job so far getting the students excited about trying their best in Tonga and it'll be fun to see how everyone progresses. Pretty soon all the students will be paired up with a Tonga tutor, students at GBCCE, and we'll have that outlet to work on Tonga.   On Sunday we drove about 2.5 hours out to a village called Kanchele and worshiped with the church there. They asked us to lead the entire worship service. Chris Jackson preached, Greg Chambers spoke before the Lord's Supper, and Parker Burgess and Luke Larsen prayed. It was all translated by a dear friend from Namwianga, the man who's been working with us on singing in Tonga, Ba Nelson Simafuta. I led the singing, which was a mix of songs from a songbook and some of the choral songs we've been taught in Tonga that aren't usually sung during a church service. The Zambians were thrilled that we knew as many songs as we did; this group really has done well learning songs. They show that they care about the people, the place, and the culture with their dedication to singing their songs.   We also attended a wedding in a village near Kanchele. Ba Siaziyu set up this "cultural event" and we definitely got to experience some culture. Some of the items we bought at the market (a set of pots, 4 plates, 4 spoons and knives, and 2 chickes) we brought to the wedding and presented as gifts. Phil, Parker, and I walked into the middle of the "gift-giving circle" and handed over the gifts. There's something really special about seeing to Makuas (that is, white people) handing over a couple chickens, to the delight of a big group of Zambians. There will be more to come on the blog regarding the wedding.   We should have some of the first blog posts coming through this week to HIZambia.tumblr.com It's a student project that is meant to reflect different areas of the HIZ program. I wrote the kick-off post for it last week, trying to explain some of our motivations and perspective regarding the experience. We hope you'll enjoy it.   Blessings,   Jeremy Daggett HIZ 2012 Field Director