Another Day in Zambia

It’s another gorgeous day at Namwianga! One thing we cannot complain about has been the weather. It is nice & cool in the mornings, probably about 60 degrees, heats up in the afternoon to about 90 (but with almost no humidity it is definitely tolerable), starts cooling down around 4:00 & is cool again by night-time - in the 60’s. So far there’s been a nice breeze blowing most of the time, so even in our unairconditioned houses, it feels great with just a fan. We are going into summer, so there are a few things starting to bloom like Jacaranda trees which are a bright purple flowering tree. I wish I could send a picture, but until we get our own internet service going, we can’t do pictures.
We’re now going on our 5th day without fresh water in the pipes, although they just brought us some from another source in a big trailer. They say our tank is now starting to fill up. We haven’t had access to enough water for a decent bath in 5 days, so I’m sure everyone will want one as soon as it’s available. With the water shortages, lack of internet, & occasional loss of power, the missionaries here say we’re getting to experience the real Africa! They have been gracious enough to allow us to use their internet services, so at any given time there will several people sitting on their veranda with their laptops.
Well, this has been a fairly quiet weekend. We did all get to go into “town” - Kalomo - on Saturday morning. When I say town, it consists of about 2 blocks of small shops, restaurants, a post office, & outdoor market. However, it does have an internet café which is why we were going in. A few people got to use it, but the service was slow & spotty, so most of us just went to the market & a local bakery. The market has rows of stalls which are made of sticks bound together & they sell all kinds of clothes, shoes, & chitenges (about 2 yards of fabric which all the women wear wrapped around them as skirts). The chitenges are what most of us went for as they can be wraps or made into skirts, tops, or purses.
On Saturday afternoon, we had a woman come & give a cooking lesson. She made several things of which I don’t remember the names of but one was a drink which was made from corn meal & water (not my favorite) & chicken & nsima which is the favorite meal around here. (also not MY favorite). We even got to watch & help them chop the heads off the live chickens & pluck the feathers. Fresh from the farm to the table!!!! The poor chickens were so skinny it was hardly worth taking their lives for!
Saturday night was spent watching Blood Diamond out on the veranda. After 45 minutes of trying to get the sound to work on our video set-up, we finally got it going. Which of course, meant that it was late getting over, so I had perfectly good reason to fall asleep toward the end -right, J.D.!?!
Sunday morning we bounced over 40 minutes of “roads” - probably 10 miles or so to a village called Kisibi, which is the home village to Leonard, our chef. Most of our group went & we were a large part of the crowd. It is interesting as the men sit on one side & the women & children on the other side. They sang “We love you in the name of the Lord” to us & requested us to sing 4 songs. I love that after you sing a song they all say “amen” together. After the service, we again did the line greeting where everyone shakes everyone else’s hand. It is so sweet the way the little girls shake hands & do a slight curtsy.
After the evening service, one of the secondary school students was baptized in the Gregerson’s water trough. A great start to a new week!!