We arrived safely in Zambia after a LONG journey. We left at 4 a.m. on Friday & arrived at Livingston around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. We had an overnight stay in Johannasburg where we discovered that 8 of our bags had not made it there with us! After trying to figure out which bags were missing - which was not easy as the airline person in Little Rock had just slapped tags on the bags - not matching them with the names on the bags - we finally determined which ones were missing. THEN we had a bout with the customs agent who wanted to confiscate our trunks because we had brought medicines & med supplies into their country. After all kinds of cajoling, he finally agreed to let us pass as we were leaving again the next morning. We finally climbed in bed at 1:00 am that night.
Upon our arrival in Livingston, we again had customs difficulties with the trunks of supplies & it took another 2 hours to secure an agent to negotiate for us. They did (thankfully) agree to let us take the trunks on & they would finish with the paperwork & let us pay later!! We arrived at our home away from home, Namwianga Mission, 2 hours later - about dinner time. We enjoyed a delicious dinner of pizza, garlic bread, & cake! Everyone fell in bed that night!
Vann & I & the girls are sharing a 4 bedroom house w/ 8 other female students. Thankfully, there are 2 full & 4 - half baths in this house! It is a really neat place with concrete & tile floors, & a hugely tall ceiling w/ a straw roof. The walls don't go to the ceiling, so it's all open, but shaped in a U-shape, so at least you can't hear a lot going on in the other wing. There's a large living/dining/kitchen area, so it's become the social - hang out place!!
Our first morning up, everyone woke up around 5 am. We enjoyed pancakes w/ home made maple syrup & took off for a tour of the mission. We stopped at the medical clinic, Erics house, Haven house, & the basic school. The medical clinic is an outpatient clinic but they are working to make it into a hospital. It is a really nice facility & several of our students will be doing volunteer work & clinicals there.
Eric's House is run by Roy & Kathi Merrit & their many workers. They have a really nice home & there they care for up to 20 children that have been abandoned. Several of these they have adopted as their own children. Also there right now are about 20 more orphans under the age of 2 that are waiting for their facility, Haven House 2 to be finished. It's pretty wild around there!! The girls had a great time holding & playing with the children & will be spending a lot of their afternoons at Eric's house & Haven house. Haven house is also an orphanage, but for infants. They keep kids up to age 2 there until they are old enought to move to the Haven 2. In Zambia, approx 25% of the children are orphans as the AIDS/HIV disease has taken so many of their parents & many women also die in childbirth & the babies cannot be taken care of by their families. These babies are well taken care of at Haven House, but it is obvious that they cannot possibly receive near the amount of attention & stimulation that they need to thrive. During our visit to the Haven house we were told that they had just received a baby boy the night before & they were going to name it Vann. Check my pictures for a picture of our family with Baby Vann (also nicknamed Mini-Vann around here!)
Tues. is our first day of classes here. In the afternoons all of the students will be rotating through the 4 places - the clinic, Erics house, Haven house, & an after-school tutoring program. I'll have tons more to tell you about those later.
Here are new Pics added of Baby Vann. I'll have pics of the other babies coming soon!
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