day one.

Shantel is here! She is settling into our home just fine, not without a few bumps in the road, but nevertheless just fine. Here she is holding her new journal when she saw the room we had prepared for her. She has her own space and still plenty of quality Auntie time, a good balance.

We enrolled Shantel in a school just up the road from our house for what is called "extra lessons", meaning that she can be tutored in all her subjects while on break. That might sound dreadful to most 12 year olds, but Shantel was so excited that she couldn't sleep last night.

I walked her up the road at a very early hour to speak to the "sister in charge" at the Tionge Basic School. She informed me that since Shantel was not a student there, the fee for 2 weeks worth of lessons would be $8. In Zambia, school costs money for every student that attends. Shantel's family has never had the funds to send her to school over and beyond the usual three-term year. So, this opportunity kept her awake most of the night and woke me up to her intentionally noisy chores in the kitchen at around 6 am. She was so ready to go that we ended up arriving almost an hour early.