Our internet access in Kapiri is very limited, so it might be difficult to blog. We arrived a few days ago, and went to meet Karolyn and Martin for dinner. They have set up and run the school here. It was great to catch up with them and get some ideas about the work we will probably be doing here.

The next day we got a tour of the school. There are currently 3 classes, all in the equivalent of year 7. The children are between 12 and 20 years old, and there is a huge range in abilities. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, they get to do some science experiments so one of my jobs is to plan these. I have quite a good range of equipment to work with, but there are no chemicals or heat source. I’m going to start small, with some basic lab skills and crystal growing, but I’m hoping that I can find the stuff to make some rockets soon! We are also going to be teaching PE and giving general support in other lessons. Some of the more able children need to be stretched a bit, so we might take them out and do some extra work. The netball team have just played – and won- their first match. This is a huge achievment when you consider that they have been training in a field with no goals to shoot at. They team and the teacher trained 5 times during the school holidays, showing how committed they all are.

The building work for the next three classrooms and a science lab has just started too. Graham has already helped with a bit of foundation digging, and I think we will help more when the next stage begins.

There are three other girls in the house: Lana an English teacher from Belarus, Kelly a science teacher from the US and Nachila a Zambian who helps at the pre-school.

We stand out a lot here. There are only 7 white people in the whole town, and currently 5 of us are at the school. The other two are nuns who hardly leave the Catholic School, so everyone who spots us knows where we come from! Almost everyone we walk past stops to have a chat. Although English is the national language here, people don’t learn it until they are at school. The only phrase most young people know is, ‘Hello, how are you?’ so this greets us wherever we go. Children here are very brave and quite happily run up to us all the time. Everyone smiles and waves as we walk up the track.

People in general seem to be happy, although things can be hard here. Some of the things we take for granted at home just don’t really exist here. Running water can’t be relied on. It should be on from 06:00-09:00, 12:00-15:00 and 18:00-21:00 but often isn’t. We keep lots of buckets of water filled up for the other times, but it is amazing how much water is used even when you are being conservative. We don’t have a conventional shower – just a bucket and a jug. We do have a washing machine, which I think is rare here, although we do have to connect it by hosepipe to the outside tap. Apparently some of the boys who were here to help with building were mesmerised by it. I am now ironing all clothing, as there are some nasty little flies who lay eggs in damp items, which can then get under your skin and have to be cut out – yuk! There are also so many spiders, and other horrid bugs. The spiders act like they are hiding, but you can see long legs poking out from under skirting boards all over the place. I am obsessive about keeping my mosquito net tucked firmly in around my bed at all times to stop them venturing in!

Food is also quite different. Seasonal produce is available at the market, tastes delicious and is very cheap. At the moment we can get white sweet potato, tomoatoes, onions, cabbage, green beans, water melon, avocado and guava. A whole water melon is 5 kwacha (50 p). Dry food is limited and expensive though, and dairy is almost impossible to find. No cheese – eeek! We bought enough sweet potatoes to last a month for 50 p though, so if you have any recipe suggestions then let me know!

• Kapiri Mposhi