Life In Nzara

Ring of Flowers presented to me upon my arrival 

Imagine a place where you are awakened by a rooster at 5:30am, a place where any little breeze that passes by feels like a God send, a place where gathering under a mango tree is where fellowship happens and school is taught. Compile all that and you have a general sense of how life is here in Nzara. Upon my arrival with the Bishop we were greeted by the whole community. They made rings of flowers for us and had a service that was very nice. I stay in a tukol in Father Bob and Karen's compound. 

Emmanuel and I practicing Zandi

Since I arrived in Nzara I have been laying low, observing, and learning. The language is Pazandi, and a very nice gentleman named Emmanuel William is teaching me the language. Emmanuel is one of the more fortunate youth here. He is 21, he has completed school and at the end of August he will be going to seminary in Nairobi. Emmanuel is also my tutor for learning the Zandi language. I have almost gotten the language down, so next month we will start in on Arabic. Interestingly enough there are only 2,000 words in the Zandi language. 

Showing Grace how to form words

In the mornings I act as an assistant teacher for Karen North's English class. Yesterday Karen was not feeling well and was under the impression that she had malaria. She told me of the time that she had malaria previously and said how she is having the same same symptoms now. After testing for it she found that she didn’t have it and was greatly relieved. Because Karen was not feeling well it was up to me to teach the class by myself although i did have some help from Emmanuel. He translates from English to Pazandi. I really enjoyed teaching these people because of there desire to learn.

Teaching English 

 Towards the end of August Father Bob and his wife Karen are going to return to America for a Church Convention and also to visit all their friends and family. Their plan is to return to Africa in January 2012. In Karen's absence I will be teaching the class for the five months they will be away. The English students range from ordinary villagers wanting to learn English, to priests of the Cathedral and also the Arch-Deacon of Yambio.

The youth are not only just interested in me but also the toys I brought with me. They are completely fascinated by my Ipad, Ipod and MacBook Air Laptop. I also brought with me sports equipment such as, frisbees, footballs, baseballs and soccer balls. It is interesting to teach them these games that we Americans play because it all seems so foreign to them. None of them had ever thrown a frisbee before and a few are actually getting the hang of it. American football is a sport they just cant understand, because here they call soccer “football” so it's just very confusing. Although I am still the only one that can throw the football it's still fun to watch them attempt to. 

The Youth blazing an area for the Volleyball Court

Last week the youth all gathered in hopes of making an area ready to build a volleyball court. Volleyball is a very popular game here, and driving through the town I always see people playing volleyball. After much hard work, the volleyball court was finished last night and we hope to have our first game tonight.

My New Home

The Volleyball Court