WAITING FOR THE SHADOW SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSE OBSERVING REPORTS AND OBSERVATIONS - ZAMBIA 2001

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Back to the village and then all good things must come to an end.

On eclipse day I promised to return as a guest teacher to conduct a special follow up class on the Sun and solar eclipses. On Monday June 25th, I returned to Kapini. I taught the upper school (12 year olds). The material I presented was relatively simple. I conducted the class in a tutorial manner and asked the children to come up and present any aspects of the eclipse that they had noticed. Any material I presented was presented in English. Their teacher then reinforced the material in Lenge - the children are bilingual with English being their second language. English is the official and first Language of Zambia. During this class I asked the children to draw their impressions of eclipse. Some of those drawings are included in this report.
Photo 's" Left : The upper school". This photo gives a false impression of overcrowding
in the school. Two classes were combined and squashed into the one classroom
for the special eclipse class.

Right : Joe Cali writes up in a mud brick hut. Camera is facing up. The grass thatch construction of the roof can be seen in the background. .

I spent some quiet time in the village writing up my observations and taking notes for this project report. During this time I learned that our efforts had been an outstanding success. Everybody in the village that wanted to had enjoyed watching the eclipse. There were no reports of eye damage as a result of the eclipse. In some nearby villages, they hid inside their shelters in fear thus missing out of the experience of a lifetime. In other villages, I am certain that inappropriate filter materials were used to watch the eclipse. The situation around the rest of the country will never be known for certain. Zambia was in the midst of an election campaign. Few governments anywhere in the world would publicise the results of such shameful neglect in the midst of an election campaign. Finally, it was time for me to leave. I packed up and said goodbye to my hosts Gideon and Florence and their three children and began the 3km walk out of the village. This walk usually takes 45 minutes. On this occasion, everybody I passed stopped to talk to me and thanks me. Four hours later, I reached the road and waited for a minibus to take me to Lusaka.

Photo below : Chitambo and Musa do the washing.

All of us involved in the project found it to be an incredibly rewarding exercise. I whole heartedly recommend other expert observers undertake this type of project at future eclipses in developing countries.

This article was illustrated with photographs by Joseph A Cali unless otherwise stated and drawings by some of the upper school students of Kayosha Middle Basic School. These students are 12 years old. Their names are printed next to their drawings throughout this site.

Acknowegements
Thanks Bengt Christian and Jeffrey for your assistance, good humour and good company. Hopefully we can do it again in the future. To Alva, Tolsten and Sana, thank you for turning up and helping at Kapini on the day. When I asked you to come, I didn't realise that there would be so many of us there.

A special thank you to the people who donated eclipse glasses to the cause especially Udo Hoffmann who donated more than half the total. I really appreciate the gesture as I'm sure do the people of Kapini. The eclipse glasses remain in the custody of the Kayosha school ready for the December 2002 eclipse which will be visible as a partial eclipse from the Lusaka region.