July 7th - Maemory and Kelita
Today we went to to the Day Care and interviewed 5 ladies for the position of cook. I have now hired two ladies. They have both attended some seconday school. Once claims to have attended grade 12 while the other says she has gone to grade 10. Neither of them speaks English very confidently nor do they understand me. I am hopeful that some of this is because of their nervousness. The ladies I have hired are Maemory and Kelita. One of them has a small boy of one year old while the other has no children. I was concerned that those ladies with children would not be able to resist taking food home to their children. I have not yet explained to them that they will be permitted to eat meals with the children. I will explain that when I meet them tomorrow. I chose the successful candidates because of their family status and because they both said that they would spend time playing with the children. One was very confident and said she’d have no problems helping the children with their homework.
I also met the children and some village elders today. I presented them with the blankets, notebooks and pencils. I had to hand the articles to the village elder who then held it out to a child who kneeled before him. Kneeling is a sign of respect and children kneel before elders as women kneel before men. The children seemed a bit less shy today although we still have not spken to one another. I did buy them some sugar cane and they laughed while watching me try to get the bark off of my piece.
Tomorrow the cooks will meet us at Mabvuto’s house to pick up some beans and maize. I will explain in more detail their job description and expectations at that time.
It is nice to see the project getting off the ground. Language will continue to remain a problem. Mabvuto was more open today to encouraging them to speak directly to me but Mrs Chataluka (sp?) still more eager to speak to him. This is my greatest frustration but it’s not so bad because mabvuto and I tend to agree on all aspects of the project so far.
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