Slow down Mister!

I've been at Kayuki for 12 days and things are beginning to settle. I've spent much of the time preparing the house to be actually lived in: ordering furniture to be made, buying various kitchen items, food etc. The surround is spectacular! I am on the crown of a small rise just South of Mt. Rungwe. I'm perched high enough over the rolling hills of the Rungwe tea plantations that in the distant South (in the evening) I can just barely see Lake Nyasa through the haze. The 8-story water tower in the center of School grounds makes an excellent lookout/meditation-spot/owl-hideout. You should see all the pellets. I could assemble a small rodent skeleton every day of the week for the next 6 months. I'm gearing up for all sorts of projects, and in particular getting a compost pile going.

The night I arrived at school I attended the school closing assembly. The assistant headmaster (mkuu wa pili) gave a lively speech and allowed me to introduce myself. When I mentioned I would be teaching the girls physics, I was met with applause. Clearly, I've come to where I'm able to do a lot of work (there are only 5 science teachers at Kayuki and none were currently teaching physics).

The gated school grounds probably cover 20 acres or so of hilly but infrastructured land. The whole area used to be involved with a Chinese coal mining company. Concrete roadways, geometric drainage troughs, and long buildings used as housing speak to the industrial nature of the place, but there is a vibrant quality that reminds me of a sleep away camp in the Adirondacks. Maybe it's the evergreen trees or the thunderstorms or the fact that many of the teachers live on school grounds, forming what turns out to be a neat little community. Faraja, the girl pictured with me, is the house help of the headmistress who kindly fed me for the first 5 days at site, before I had an operable kitchen.

So far so good. I can't imagine how buzzing the school grounds will be when students return in the second week of January.