So 2 weeks into my life on the Bookbus and here I am sitting on the Bus at Linda Community school surrounded by the sounds of kids in class singing and others laughing and playing and the everyday lives of Zambians passing by on the street. The sun is high and the sky is brilliant blue! The volunteers are sitting on their mats with their groups of grade 5s doing a variety of activities from acting, singing, drawing and reading! Everyone is smiling!!

Our week has been disrupted by public holidays and teachers strikes but wherever we go we find kids willing to learn and with a real enthusiasm for our books!! The holiday day we used to give the bus a thorough clean and tidy and to decorate it with pictures drawn by the kids (move over Quentin!!), postcards and posters! The community schools are unaffected by the strikes so that is why I find myself at our Monday school on Wednesday!

The Zambian people are so laid back and friendly and always ready with a hello and smile for the “m’zungos” in their yellow t-shirts! We are quite a fixture wandering around town in the afternoons. Bright yellow is not the colour to wear if you want to blend in!!!

Life at camp is everyone mucking in with the cooking and cleaning and laughing about the most random things. At the moment we are trying to rework the Elvis song “in the ghetto” into a Bookbus anthem of “in the grotto”!! (That’s the name of our campsite!!) Every so often we will take a night off and enjoy some type of activity, last week it was a sunset cruise, tonight it is Champion League final…African style in the local cinema…should be an experience!

Kelly Geoghegan, Book Bus Leader