Pre-school students

Beauty Kabwe is five-years old, with a lingering grin and almond-shaped eyes. She's polite, a natural leader and a clown, doing impressions and hamming it up to make the other kids laugh. She's a gifted dancer, and is always the first to tie a citenge around her hips when there's drumming and singing.

She's the last-born child of her family, being raised alone by her mother after her father's death. She helps her mother by drawing water, sweeping and harvesting in the fields.

(L to R: Muso, Beauty, and Mapalo)

Most kids are unable or unmotivated to continue school past grade 7, and end up as subsistence farmers like their parents. However, Beauty's older sister works in Kasama and an older brother attends grade 10 outside the village. Beauty, too, is smart. She started pre-school six months ago, after talking excitedly for several months about going to school. She's learned to count quickly and her mother proudly told me that she writes her numbers and letters very well. It's true. She even helps other children when they have trouble.

I persuaded Muso and Mapalo, or banabwinga and bashibwinga (husband and wife; I swear those kids are going to get married one day), to start attending the school a month ago. Muso and Mapalo are the two equally mischevious children that always find their ways into my blogs. Mapalo picks up really fast with writing too. Often children who are just learning have trouble reversing their letters or getting the shapes right, but I've watched Mapalo get them right on his first try.

Musonda, also five-years old, is Ba Allan's niece and another pre-school student. She also is not an OVC, but her aunt and uncle passed away from AIDS, a contributing factor to Ba Allan's HIV activism.

Musonda is a little shy but a natural model. This photo shoot was actually a riot. Chris got out his camera and Musonda immediately started posing with her hands on her chin. She changed her position and facial expression slightly with each shot. Chris in turn starts shooting her from all different angles. I'm afraid her brothers and cousins, behind her, got neglected.