Naw Ruz!

Happy Naw Ruz!
Naw Ruz is the Baha'i New Year, but it's also the Persian and Zoroastrian new year as well. Our 19 Day fast is over, and I'm eating as much as I can today hehehe

For the past few days, the youth have been working on a hip hop dance that we presented at the Naw Ruz party this morning. We also sang some songs and had a little play. Last night was a formal dinner at the school. It was really pretty. Most of the students have gone home for the Easter weekend, so I only hae about 10 girls in my dorm! It's nice and quiet.

We've also started playing Ultimate Frisbee almost every afternoon. During the fast, it was one way to keep you busy until supper time! Now it's just fun :)

It's been a really uneventful weekend apart from last night and this morning. Wait, no. The other night I had to extract a spider from our room because Shiva was scared. It was quite big as you can see... but not the dangerous kind.

I will be leaving Zambia in exactly two weeks! I can't get over it. I'm really going to miss hearing all the kids call me 'Miss K' or 'Aunty Karrie' when I leave. I should make a list of all the things I'll miss here so that for the next two weeks I really take time to appreciate them... these aren't in any order!
• The kids at the primary school
• My children's class
• The girls I serve with!!!
• The community
• Being woken up by the noisy gate of my dorm
• Shouting QUIET TIME and LIGHTS OUT each night
• Having toast for breakfast every day except weekends
• Hearing the doves and noises of the bush
• Having my back covered in flies (they just sit on your shirt)
• Youth deepenings
• The music here
• Being squished in a minibus
• Having sandy feet
• Everything...

I hope the pictures work!

Fasting

Sorry for the delay, it's the Baha'i month of fasting now so my brain activity is a bit slower than usual... I love fasting. As a Baha'i, for 19 days in March I don't eat while the sun is up, but before sunrise and after sunset I can eat as much as I want! I think my favorite part of fasting is being more conscientious about praying and meditating every day, and seeing the sunrise. It's just a very spiritual time, although it can be tiring. I think that the difficulties of fasting are also a reminder of our spiritual nature, so in a way, having it be a bit difficult is good :)

Last Friday we had an Ayyam-i-Ha party with the children's classes. We had a treasure hunt, a piñata, a water balloon fight and some arts+crafts! The kids had so much fun. I had so much fun watching the little kids take a swing at the piñata and miss. Every time. It was so cute.

This week passed quite uneventfully. I've discovered napping though - usually napping makes me grumpy, but I'm starting to really enjoy it!

Taher Taherzadeh, a Baha'i who recently moved to Lusaka and who's father is a well-known Baha'i scholar, has come two weeks in a row to Banani to host youth deepenings (studies). They've been really great. Yesterday we were asked to give 5-10min introductions to the Baha'i Faith just to practice speaking, and it was really interesting to see other people's styles of speaking. For the next few weeks we'll be studying about the Covenant, which I will tell you a bit more about when I understand it better!

Yesterday, Shiva arrived from South Africa. She's a new volunteer and she'll be living and working in my dorm with me. She's from Australia, Zimbabwe and Botswana and she's really nice. It'll be great to have another dorm mother with me!

The photos are of the Ayyam-i-Ha party, a dance party the volunteer's had in Rae's room during a power failure and Traditional Dress Day at the school.