Yes its been a long time

So, yes its been a while....

Sorry about that, i can't remember the last time we blogged but, it was sometime before our Break in August. 

Since then things have been pretty busy, last half term we were dorm parents for a weekend and some evenings which was good fun even tho its quite a tiring job. We really enjoy spending time with the girls in the dorm over the last 2 years they have become our family. We're just glad we don't have to pay to feed them as a food bill for 30 must be quite large!

Amano hosted the national volleyball and basketball ISAZ finals, which meant about 200 players from schools all over zambia turning up. Amano finished in the girls basketball other team played but, didn't do quite as well. The event was ran really well and even finished on time which isn't always the case here in Zambia. Lucy spent a lot of time getting things ready before it happened and was in charge of the basketball side of the event.

WE also had a baptism where 5 of our students got baptised  which was obviously pretty cool!!

Towards the end of last half term we started exams, all of secondary took exams in the last week and the grade 12's started their IGCSE's which are still continuing and keeping them busy.

During half term we had a wedding here at Amano, our Youth pastor and english teacher got married which was quite exciting! Jarrett is an american and Lukundo is a Zambian so it was a cross cultural wedding which made it quite different to a boring old English one! The main diffrence was that we didn't go inside at all during the day and just sat out in the garden for the reception. Rich was a grooms-man so was part of the wedding party so that was fun. The most daunting part of the day was when he had to dance in to the reception, there is a video somewhere and he's hoping that it never seems the light of day. His lack of dancing ability would have showed up anywhere in the world but, in Africa it was particularly evident despite some last minute coaching from Tina who is one of the girls in the dorm, she was quite dissapointed that He didn't "feel" the music.

Other than the wedding we made a trip to kitwe market which was good fun and Rich played golf and lost 5 balls which is about average it turns out. Also exam invidulating... which it turns out is very dull.

We've got 5 weeks of term left then we have a week to pack up our stuff before we head back to the UK in december. We now hoping that we can manage to find jobs to start after christmas so, if any of you know anything!

Home in 4 weeks

So, this time in 4 weeks we'll be on our way to Lusaka ready to get on the Emirates flight out of Lusaka in the evening. It'll be very exciting heading back to the UK after 20 months but we're both looking forward to it. We're hopeful that during our month back home we'll have a nice break from Zambia and also have a better idea of what we're planning to do after the school year here finished in December.

In the last month since we wrote a very quick catch up blog we've been pretty busy, which is generally a theme of everyone's life i've noticed.

To start with We had Lucy's sister Bekah and her husband Andy come and visit. As part of the cornelius clan half of Zambia wanted to have them over for food to catch up with them so, we had to go with them as well which as you can imagine was a hassle, going to peoples houses and having them cook for us. Don't feel too sorry for us!

ISAZ at Ndola Stadium

On the first Saturday they were here we had the ISAZ national athletics finals at the stadium in Ndola. Its only about 3 years old and is quite a decent place to be having athletics! Amano did well, but we're only small and with hefty restrictions on who is allowed to take part in an Amano team we didn't have a full squad and so we came 5th out of 10 or so schools. It was a good event and its always good to watch the pupils take part in things especially out of the normal confines of the classroom.

Our cabin in Nsobe

After that was our half term which we spent mostly with Bekah and Andy. We stayed a few nights at Nsobe game camp which is on the way to Lusaka about 2 or so hours from us here. We stayed in a cabin tucked away looking over a lake which was lovely. We'd only been there a few minutes and a water buck came walking past and we saw plenty of animals about the place. It was a really nice and relaxing place to be. Also we cooked pretty much completely on fire which is just better (when you're not in a hurry). Unfortunteley Andy got bitten by something, we're still not sure what but it wasn't good so we drove down to the local clinic and got seen to but weirdly didnt have to pay anything which didn't make sence to us as everyone else did. But we checked and they said we didn't have to pay. TheDoctor thought it was an Ant bite which seemed unlikely to the rest of us but hey. He did have to check the spelling of ant as he wasn't sure if it was an Aunt bite but seeing as any of Andy's Aunties were in Europe that seemed unlikely.

We then drove down to Kabwe and Visited a friend of Bekah and Andy from the Ship who is working at OM Zambia where there doing heaps of building. Then we went to Lusaka and dropped them off to get a bus to Livingstone. This did involve going in to the intercity bus terminal which is something most Zambians don't look forward to so, as 4 white people we did receive a fair amount of attention. But with pockets and bags protected everything was ok and we left with 2 bus tickets from the correct bus company!  

Some time rich Climbed up here, This is a bit of Chingola!

On the saturday morning we headed back to the bus station, dropped them off and made our way up to Amano.

On monday we were back at school and spent a lot of lessons going through exam papers that had been marked at various places in Zambia on our half term break.

This last week has been spiritual emphasis week. We've had a team from GLO in Ndola who have come and done different sessions with the pupils along the theme of who do you say Jesus is. As teachers we've not had a lot to do with it but, it seems to have been run well and we've had at least 1 person become a Christian which is obviously good news!

Most of the primary athletics team

Last weekend we had the excitement of primary athletics event again in Ndola but in the shadow if the stadium at Ndola Trust school. Again it was a good chance to see the pupils take part, and we were very happy with how they got on. Unfortunately Rich had to drive pupils there in our car as the school bus got taken to take some teachers to a private event which didn't quite seem fair. But handily we traveled safely and without hassle and Rich managed to judge the 5th place runner and spend another saturday driving!


This weekend is a long weekend so we don't have school until thursday as monday and tuesday are public holidays. Wednesday we are having a staff vision day which we don't really know much about apart from we have to go. Other than that, Hopefully we can change oil in the car and have a look over it and check nothing is about to fall off (we don't think anything is) and get reports written!

3 Months update

So, its been a really long time since our last blog, its not that we've nothing exciting to mention more that we forget that thinkgs are exciting as they're becoming familiar, which i guess is a good think and what you'd expect when your somewhere for a second year. Our Easter holiday in April was really great, we had a few days away in Lusaka and spent the rest of the time pottering about the place getting bits and pieces done. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get up to sakeji but we kept our selves busy about the place even helping build a retaining wall for the new rugby pitch which had to be done quickly with few workers as the Chinese are building a road outside amano suddenly arrived to dump their dirt which has helped move the pitch on by a huge amount but meant we had a lot of work to do in not so long. It was really good to be out of the classroom doing something very different to what we normally do. We were moving trees and so by the end of the day we were aching all over but it was good.

School started in May and we've suddenly got to almost half term which seems to have happened really quickly. Its been a busy half term as we've had exams to prepare for this week which is exam week so pupils aren't in lessons and are just doing exams all week!!! Fun! Other than that Lucy has organised a primary athletics event which took place on Saturday and was very successful and very well planned by her. She also went to the ISAZ athletics regional qualifier at the levy stadium in Ndola. Its a 30,000 seat stadium thats only a few years old and they've managed to book it for athletics which is a great opportunity for the pupils who are competing. Only slight issues are that they only really built it for professionals (not sure how many professional events they've had there.... i'm going with none but don't know) so the board for long jump is 4m from the sand pit and triple jump is 10 so, they had to make makeshift boards to stop people landing short and just landing in the track rather than the sand!

Last week we had the Grade 8 class over for food in the evening which was really good. They seemed to have a lot of fun holding hands and running down hill in the dark. Which we didn't quite understand but it was really good to see them enjoying each other's company. We had pizza and spaghetti all cooked by Rich and none of them got ill because of it so thats a tick for rich's cooking! After we had brownies and marshmallows cooked on the fire outside. Which reminds me that we got ourselves a fire pit thanks to Steve Studd made out of an old truck wheel with some legs welded on. Its been great to sit outside next to it looking up at the stars as its getting pretty cold to sit outside otherwise. Our next project is to see how much stuff we can cook on it, So we can cook when the electricity it out. Although its dry season so, the power is a lot more reliable without thunderstorms.

I'll try to put some pictures up soon.

It keeps on raining.

Hello everyone. So i know its been a while since we updated this which is bad of us.

So, whats happened since last blog in Jan? Well as the title suggests its rained a lot, its definitely been a lot wetter here this year compared with last year, and a lot more dull rainy days which remind us of home. Its quite often that we have more than 20mm of rain in a night and its not uncommon to have more that 40 although thats only happened a handful of times. So, everywhere is wet, and green. Its quite amazing really how the scenery changes in 6 months from now towards the end (hopefully) of rainy season to 6 months time as the end of dry season when everything is brown and nothing is growing. Apart from meaning we seem to have wet feet often the rain is problems when it comes to the state of the roads which are pretty bad between here and town. Its fine in day time when you can see things coming but you nights are more alarming. Things aren't made any easier by the standard of driving. A blind bend on the brow of a hill is the favourite place to overtake in Zambia it seems.

Very nice board room at Chambishi metals!

While we're talking about bad driving i best make a confession. On Sunday while on the way to church i reversed in to a taxi.  Very little damage was done damage on our car was fixed in about 5 seconds by our personal panel beater (thanks Mr Studd) there car possibly was bend before but who knows it was all sorted pretty quickly and hopefully that's the last we hear of it. Oh i was avoiding being reversed in to by a truck, in case you're wondering why i was going round town reversing in to things. The truck would have resulted in more damage so, wasn't the worst thing i ever did.

Oh also in motoring news Lucy went and got our fitness certificate (think MOT but not really) last year i managed to get it without the car being seen, this year the car was seen from a distance but no checks were done. Again we need to thank Steve Studd with going with Lucy.

Primary girls hanging round at crosscountry.

At school all is going as normal, its very busy and teaching a lot of classes means its quite difficult to keep track on who is doing what. Lucy is doing pretty much what she did last year with iGCSE PE instead of AS PE, she is also helped by being able to organise herself.

We had our first house event of the year in early feb and our house Luano struggled, we won the girls netball but that was the lot. which came as a shock to the guys after winning last year. In a few weeks we have our second event involving baking, drawing and an air band!

Waiting for medals at ISAZ cross country event

Lucy's girls football team came 3rd out of 8 ISAZ schools on the copperbelt and so qualified to go to Chengelo next weekend for the national competition. They came 4th in the netball and also qualified. Unfortunately the boys didn't qualify.... maybe next year!

We had the ISAZ copperbelt cross country here a few weeks ago, Amano won both girls and boys secondary competition but under 13's struggled. ZNBC came and recorded some footage and interviewed some people for a program that went out on Tuesday which was quite cool.

I went with grade 11 and 12 chemistry students to a copper& cobalt plant which is just down the road. From a chemistry point of view it was quite cool to see this stuff happening on our door step and ite just so happened that i was just covering extracting metals with grade 12 so it was good to see its not just written about in Chemistry books.

Girls & steve's bike!

We've also started to take a few of the students to Steve and Muriel's for youth on a sunday night, its a good opportunity for our pupils to get out and meet other young people in Chingola as well as being a good opportunity for us to meet with other people as well! The first time we went no one else turned up until about 20 mins after we did, so we figured no one was coming but the girls were kept entertained by looking at Steve's bike as well as pictures of other bikes he's built!

Starting year 2!

So, its been ages since we last did a blog which is bad of us.... So sorry about that. We had a great time at christmas  where we were staying at Phil and Hilda Cracknells house in Musenga (down the road from here) it was nice to be away from Amano for a while but in the end we were glad to be back home in our place and generally enjoying the noise of business next door in the girls dorm!

Mum and Dad at the Falls!

Over Christmas we had Rich's Mum and Dad over to visit which was good as it'd been a year since we'd seen them. Plus it meant no one had an excuse to not buy us Christmas presents!! We (well to be honest Steve Studd drove as we all went down in his mini bus!) took them from the airport down to Livingstone to see the falls and went an bit further by adding in a trip to Botswana for a day trip to Chobe game park which was very cool. Its always good to see the falls and just marvel at Gods amazing creation but, it is a long drive so we're done on trips to the falls for a few months!


We didn't have any power for the 2 days before Christmas so Lucy iced the Christmas cake by candle light. It was a little frustrating as the temperature on a fridge full of food ready for Christmas rose. We managed to keep it all cool by borrowing other people's fridges and kept our food waste down low.

Lucy making icing Snowman for Christmas cake by tourchlight

On Christmas we had a house full with everyone who was still at amano over for the day. Quite a few have left or went back home for the holiday but it was nice to have a group of people together for the day. It was very hot while cooking food and we ate it amongst a plague of flies and as we finished eating it started raining but it was still warmer than a normal Christmas day (for English people that is).

We started school on the 6th having had staff day on the 3rd so were straight in to it after the new year which after the whole of december off we were actually quite looking forward to.  So far term has been going ok. Lucy's been to a few sporting fixtures around the place and Rich is getting used to having 5 different subjects  to 4 different years on his timetable including all 3 sciences to final year GCSE students.

We've just got results in for iGCSE and AS level students from last year they were generally as predicted and so people are happy on the whole. The student Rich was teaching AS physics to got an A as predicted and the student that Lucy was teaching AS PE to got a B which was well above what was predicted so we're both quite happy that our work last year wasn't wasted on those 2 at least!

Hopefully we'll manage our next blog a little sooner now school is in session there is a little more going on round the place.