So Much With So Little

On the drive from the airport to Mfuwe this June, I noticed four rounded red clay buildings rising out of the dry grass behind a chain-link fence. Project Luangwa. They hadn't been there on my last trip three years earlier.

Inside is the leadership program, where about twenty of the area's brightest students spend nine months preparing for university. Some of them started in AHF's literacy centers, and worked their way to the top of their secondary school classes.

I came back with my husband and our adult son to mentor them. On my first trip I had loved the little ones at the libraries and literacy centers, but I thought my years as a lawyer and educator were better suited to older students. On our first day we sat at round tables of four to six, met shy smiles and curious looks, and got to work on how to write a resume for a job at a safari lodge.

Having both men and women mentoring matters. Zambia is patriarchal. Girls are expected to do the household work. They miss school when they menstruate, because sanitary products cost money. They are expected to marry young. A bright girl who wants to be a doctor or a safari guide runs into obstacles at every turn. Many of the young women were reluctant to speak with the men but opened up to the female volunteers, while some of the young men gravitated to my husband and son over photography and computers.

What stays with me is what these students are not. They are not hunched over a phone. They talk to each other. They are curious, they are respectful, and they ask for help when they need it.

I teach in Sacramento now, looking out at bored students watching the clock. In America I might reach one or two out of thirty. In Zambia, one of us reaches so many.

On our last day the students sang, and then called each of us into the circle to receive a handwritten card. Zikomo kwambiri. Thank you so much. Mine is on the board above my desk.

• Lauren