Today was fantastic. We managed our program of science demos for three different sessions, then regrouped around some lunch (the school kindly provided us a delicious hot lunch when they heard we were going to get something) before heading into an afternoon with the science club group, beginning the solar workshop for reals.
All of the students were excited by our demos and it was a pleasure to share science phenomena with them. From Miles' flame-happy showstoppers, to my space telescope presentation, Erik's trick with the happy/unhappy balls and optics suitcase experiments, Leah's crystallization and Maria's vampire tricks with liquid crystals, it was a non-stop oohing and ahhing session.
Jokes about how many of us were unmarried seemed to persist through the day. It seemed to be a Swazi culture thing to ask this personal question of someone upon meeting them. We tried to go with the flow and joke along, but of course, teenagers tend to exaggerate everything.
The students were a lot less shy today. They asked questions about everything - the demos, how they work, our lives, what America was like. During one break, the students wanted to see what American money was like. Quite a few told us they wanted to visit America someday. A few shyly asked for pictures with us as if this was a large or nearly impossible favor we were sure to turn down, and were happily surprised to find us enthusiastic about posing for pictures with them. It was a day of excitement for science, for opportunity, and for hope.
Near the end of lunch, two young girls approached the group to ask questions (after getting permission from their teacher). One of them seemed a little quiet, but determined to ask her two questions and get the answers she was seeking. She explained that in Swazi culture, girls were taught and expected to stay with their families and parents. She said she wanted to travel, but was worried she would be unsafe and miss her family. She told us she was scared. Maria jumped in and described her own experience coming to the continental US for the first time; speaking little English, being far away from her family and small island culture for the first time, and being scared. But with time, Maria said, she soon forgot her fears as she got excited about the new things she was learning. Her second question concerned funding such an opportunity. I did my best to speak to that, advising her to apply to as many things as possible, and also to apply to anything with a free application, and told her some stories.
The solar workshop went fairly well, though the students seemed to enjoy sticking to one station and getting practiced at one skill as opposed to making the rounds. Also, our soldering irons were rated for 120 V whereas the wall sockets for 240 V, so they were glowing red. The students did not get injured (we were on top of them like glue), but it completely changed the properties of soldering with them and made things a lot more difficult. One iron started to melt the rubber base holding it! 
We were also called out to the faculty meeting for three minutes to meet the whole faculty, introduced partly by the principal. He wanted us to meet the whole faculty as well as the students, and asked us to introduce ourselves. I began by saying my background and what my PhD was to be in, and mentioned I had been a teacher for 2 years, and then we started moving on when the principal interrupted and asked us also to specify if we were married or unmarried. So we obliged and laughed through the jokes.
By the end of the day, we'd made many friends and ignited a number of curious scientists. We obviously needed a lot more time the next day to do the solar workshop, so the head of science told us the principal was going to give us the whole day, and we would split the demos and workshop. We quickly reorganized around this model and headed back to Mahamba lodge with Sifiso after cleaning up the classroom.
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