bamboobikeride

At 6am the school bell rang. Or, in other words, someone nearby my tent hammered a hubcap with a stick for 5 minutes.

Cycling the Great East Road in Zambia, it's a good idea (with permission) to camp on school grounds, primarily because they'll have a source of drinking water, with added bonuses such as extra security and privacy while you rest, cook and clean in the night. Of course, in the morning you'll be the day's hot topic in the playground, so you may as well get involved before you leave. Why not teach an English lesson, for example? You'll most probably be giving drastically overworked teachers a welcome break. That's what I choose to do, anyway.

By 6.20am clusters of students are scattered around my bike and the flag pole. Girls with neat, crop circle hairstyles sweep debris aside the dry earth with short handfuls of leafy branches, zigzagging around the school grounds like Ms. Pac Man. Next to me a boy in a Man Utd shirt empties a plastic bag of pebbles onto a small pile without looking up. They're collecting gravel to rebuild the toilets, which collapsed in the rains. It's the job of the school's Parent's Association to crush the stones with hammers, mix with sand, and mould bricks.

At a cry from The Head, over 700 students snap into single file outside of their classrooms. Everyone's eager to get a good seat, as up to 147 share a classroom furnished for 30.

In the staff room before the lesson I read a 'how to keep your body healthy' poster, that recommends you keep your hair 'clean and well styled'. Well, it's too late for that. Time to get started. We walk into the Grade 9 classroom. In perfect voice, all 85 early teens shout out "How are you sah!" with military oomph. The discipline in class is extraordinary. The lack of teaching equipment, also, is extraordinary. Just a blackboard.

After the lesson I ride on, away from the flat savanna into hills and twisted roads, buzzing and wide awake. And not because of the man with the stick and the hubcap.