Last 2 Week Travel Diary

November 12, 2007


After many tearful goodbyes to all the missionaries, tutors, workers, & Zambian friends we had made, we left around 9:30 am, on our big yellow school bus headed for Livingston. There we caught a 2:15 flight for Johannesburg. It took about an hour & a half for the flight. During this flight we were fed a delicious hot meal & drink. It’s just unbelievable that we take a 1.5 hr. flight here & get a full meal & we flew all the way from Dallas to Honolulu (9 hours) & were only served 2 drinks!! The American airline companies could learn a little about hospitality from the airlines in Europe & Africa! We had an 8 hour layover in Johannesburg which was a long wait for our 12:40 A.M. flight. It was a 4 hour flight in which we tried to sleep – but needless to say it was a very short flight. We arrived at 5:30 on Tues. morning & were met by Monte, Joel, David Underwood from Harding, & Steve Smith,a Tulsa businessman with 1 of the 2 buses that were to take us on our way. After 3 more hours of waiting, finally the second bus showed up & we were able to leave. After all THIS IS AFRICA!

We drove about 7 hours to get to Arusha. On the way we had to cross the border between Kenya & Tanzania which took almost 2 hours to get through. We had sent a travel agent ahead of us with all our passports to help clear the way, but obviously, it did little good. We got about 20 minutes outside of Arusha & our bus ran out of gas!! They had left them idling the whole time we were waiting at the border & had miscalculated how much luggage we were carrying. While we were stopped by the side of the road, we were immediately surrounded by a pack of Maasai children & adults. They were shaking hands, talking, & of course, asking for money & gifts. The Maasai are interesting people that tend to be tall & thin & many of them still wear the traditional dress which include skirts & shawls (shuckas) which are plaid fabric in blues, reds, & greens. They tend to wear a lot of beaded jewelry & are usually herdsmen, so they carry a staff with them everywhere.

The other bus went on ahead to a gas station (about 5 miles) & got jerry cans of fuel for us. Once on the road, it was just about 20 minutes to the Impala Hotel where we spent the night. That night, we dined on a choice of fish, chicken, or steak with rice, fries, carrots, & tomato/cucumber salad. Yum!
We got up early the next morning for 8:00 leaving to head toward the Ngorogoro Crater. We were to be picked up that morning to travel in 5 vans. It took about 30 minutes to finally get all of our luggage in as we had more than they usually have to deal with.

We drove on some pretty bumpy roads to make it there by 1:00 pm at the Crater Lodge where we stayed for the night. We ate a quick lunch & headed out in our vans to go down into the crater. It was a wild ride down there as the roads are just awful! Once there, we saw several kinds of gazelle, a few elephants, a couple of lion (from way off), & a bunch of hippo. We were really disappointed as there just didn’t seem to be very many animals around. I don’t know where they all were, but not where we were driving.

We headed back up to the lodge around 5:30, but our van began overheating & we had to stop & add water to the radiator. It overheated the whole way back & we had to stop 2 more times – Once was in a narrow crook of road with trees all around that looked like a perfect place for lion or leopards to hang out. We had a great story we were going to tell about how brave we were in the face of the lions surrounding our disabled vehicle. Ok – we were embellishing slightly.
That night, we had a 7:30 dinner followed by a traditional dancing program, which was not nearly as good as we had experienced in Zambia, so we just went to bed! All that bumping along on bad roads makes you quite tired!!
The next morning, we ate breakfast & took a group picture on the veranda of the hotel with the crater in the background. Once again, we were ready to leave, but waiting on the drivers to get luggage loaded & get the vans prepared to go. Ours had been switched out in the night for another, so hopefully, the overheating will not be an issue. We headed out of the crater & into the Serengeti. It is extremely dry here & the roads are very dusty, so it makes it difficult to see a lot right along the road & we are constantly opening & closing the windows to balance between getting air & keeping the dust out!

We arrived at the gate of the Serengeti & took a bathroom break. As we were entering the park, there was some disagreement with the agents there if we had paid enough entrance fees. Monte had told them we had 2 children with us & the children are only $10 entrance while the adult fee is $50. The sign read “ Above 16 - $50, Between 5 – 16 $10”. Shelby was 16, but they wanted to charge her as an adult. After much arguing it out, they pulled out a pamphlet which stated “16 & above $50” so, once again, they won & got the extra money. They have certainly learned how to capitalize on their tourism. $50 is more than most people here would earn in a month.


We arrived at the Serengeti Lodge at 1:00 pm for a delicious buffet lunch before resting for a couple of hours & then doing an afternoon game drive. Thankfully, there are a lot more animals here than the crater & we were able to see many cape buffalo, gazelle, elephants, lions, hippos, monkeys, a leopard, zebra, tobi, hartebeest, water buck, reebok, impala & dik-dik. At one spot, we found 3 female lions lying by the side of the road & were able to get our vehicle about 10 feet from them. They looked rather bored with us, but we were glad they were willing to stick around.

We found a small leopard sitting in a tree & watched it for a while. It was getting toward dusk & we commented how we would love to see a kill. Just moments after that, we saw a large male baboon running toward the tree & the leopard got up ready to run down the tree. Just as we thought the leopard would pounce on it, the leopard took off running with the baboon chasing it!!!! It wasn’t running all that fast, as the baboon couldn’t really run that fast, but I guess the baboon was running it out of the area to protect the rest of his family. We tried to chase the leopard, but were unable to get out car turned around fast enough & lost track of it.
We also got in on the tail of seeing 4 elephants chasing off a lion. We had seen her sitting in the field & the elephants walking toward her & wondered what would become of those poor elephants when all of a sudden, the elephants started running toward her & trumpeting. The lioness took off! I’m sure the fact that there were a lot of elephants helped them out.

We saw a gorgeous sunset as we were returning to the lodge & enjoyed a great buffet dinner. Tomorrow it’s off for Mwanza.

We had to get an early start this morning as we had to be out of the Serengeti by 11 am or they would charge us for another day. Our drivers were flying on this gravel road & we fly right by a huge giraffe standing right next to the road. Most of the students didn’t even see it. On the way out, one of the drivers spotted a lion & lioness off in the distance sitting next to one another. We watched for a while & just as we were getting ready to leave, they decided to start mating. That was certainly a National Geographic moment.

We arrived in Mwanza around 5:00 that evening & were assigned missionary families to stay with. There are 5 families here, but 1 of them was on furlough, so our family& 3 students stayed in their house while they were gone. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of ground nut stew. It is rice & you pile as many things as you want on top of it including chicken, beef, ground nuts (peanuts), banana, pineapple, raisins, tomatoes, cocoanut. It doesn’t sound all that appealing with all those piled together, but was really quite tasty. The pineapple here is wonderful!!

The next morning started out early with the groups meeting together & then re-arranging to go to various places. One large group went to visit the local hospital while the rest of us went to a meeting with some village church leaders. We were there for Monte to explain why Zambia was chosen over this place for the location of the HIZ program & for them to make their plea for these students to come back here some day to be missionaries. It was quite interesting to see the interactions of the people. At the end of the meeting, they fed us huge plates of rice with small bowls of goat & chicken meat. Here, the rice is sticky & you eat entirely with your right hand. No utensils. You take a large clump of rice & mash it in your hand until it sticks together. Then you can just eat it or dip it in the broth of the meat first. It is quite tasty! They eat a tremendous amount of rice here, but don’t seem to eat a lot of fruits or vegetables. It is easy to see why they have a lot of health problems in this part of the world with such limited diets.

After the meeting, Monte, Vann, Janice, & Calvin (one of the missionaries) took off for Geita which is a town about 2 hours drive away to look over that area as a possibility for new missions as there is a group wanting Downtown church to sponsor them to go there. Another group of students went on an overnight trip to a village, & the rest of us headed back to Mwanza. That night we had a pasta dinner with all kinds of wonderful pastas & salads. These missionary wives sure know how to cook & are treating us so well.
We enjoyed a short devotional before heading home to bed. Since Vann was gone from our house, we had a girls night & watched the movie “The Wedding Date” .

The next morning, Sunday, we went out in 2 groups to different churches. One small group went to a new plant with just a few members & the other group (including me) went to a place where 9 local churches were meeting together as they do once a month. Eric Guil was taking us in 2 vans & his Land Cruiser. We drove for an hour & a half before turning off the main, paved road. We thought we were surely almost there, but then ended up driving almost 2 hours on a pothole ridden road which eventually turned into a cowpath. Along the way, we had picked up one of the preachers & his family & it’s a good thing as we would never have made it to the place without them there to guide us. I don’t know how those vans managed to make it through the gullies, ditches, & along the cowpath. The church we were going to was even beyond the cowpath & we had to walk the last 200 yards or so. We didn’t arrive there until noon & they had already been going for a while. We spent 3 1/2 hours total there – most of it listening to choirs from each of the churches & then doing the contribution & communion service. The contribution was given with taped music playing on their keyboard (which was powered with a car battery) & each church came forward when they were called. Each member danced his way to the front & gave their contribution – many of them needing to make change first. That took about an hour itself. Then the church choirs sang while each church was called to come forward & take communion. There were only about 12 little cups, so they rinsed each one in water before refilling it for the next person. Thankfully, we were the first to do communion!! After the service, we were once again fed huge platters of rice with chicken pieces & given sweet lemon tea to drink. It was really good! Just as we were preparing to leave, the skies opened up & absolutely poured on us! So – of course, we were wet for the entire trip home. We were supposed to be back home around 6:00 for dinner, but since we started back around 4:00, there was no way – but we absolutely flew on those awful roads & made it back in about 2.75 hours. Not too bad, but I could hardly move the next day from all the bumping around. I sure will be happy to get back on smooth roads at home!

That evening, we ended with a devotional & singing. As we were loading up the car to leave the Miller’s house, it started sprinkling again & by the time we pulled up to our gate, it was pouring once again. The power was out, so we found our flashlight with a tiny bit of power left in it & located a box of candles. Within minutes of Shelby getting all the candles lit, the power came back on! Of course! We were happy, though, as we were needing light to work on re-packing for an early 7:30 am. departure the next morning.

7:00 a.m. on Monday, our driver is at the gate honking the horn to be let in. Of course, none of us are ready, but Vann is dressed, so he goes to unlock the gate. Our driver was anxious to get on the road as they were dropping us off at the border & then driving back to Arusha & he wanted to get there as early as possible.
Our driver says we are supposed to be packed & at the meeting place by 7:30, so we must hurry. We cram down breakfast & run out to the van to load up & are at the meeting spot by 7:20, but of course, no one else is. It is 8:30 before everyone else is there & we are able to leave. Thus is the joy of traveling in large groups!!

Our crossing at the Tanzania/Kenya border is uneventful & much quicker than it was going the other direction at a different crossing. We even have time to run into town to buy a quick take out lunch. We find chipates (like a fried tortilla) & Samosas which are a fried meat pie. Greasy, but yummy!

We arrived at the Siriat Bible School in Sotik around 5:30 & were settled in to the dorms there. There is one large room for girls with about 20 bunk beds & a large room for men just the same. Vann & I were invited to stay with David & Eunice in their home. David is the director of the school & has a western style house. Their 7 year old son showed us to our room, which had a chicken occupying it at the time. He had to chase it out & clean up the mess which he promptly did!! We shared a 3/4 size bed (slightly smaller than a double) with a foam mattress. We slept pretty well considering, but awoke to a rooster outside our window around 4:00 a.m. & found we were each in a giant hole where the mattresses had settled. Hopefully, it will recover again before the next night.

We spent the day, once again, driving over hill & dale to a village church. This one was about a 2 hour drive – mostly on dirt roads which means lots of potholes. We enjoyed a visit with members from 5 different churches who had gathered to meet & greet us. They were a very welcoming group & we enjoyed the visit despite using a translator to speak. Each person there stood up & introduced themselves & greeted us with kind words or a scripture & a song. Then we did the same – singing 2 songs for them. After the service, we were fed a wonderful meal of rice, beef stew, & potatoes with chai to drink. Chai is a very sweet tea with milk added. It is the typical drink of Kenya. On the way home, we stopped at a church which also doubles as a school & many of the local children followed us into the building. I would guess that most of them had never seen a white person as they seemed afraid to touch us. They would just stare & smile, & laugh! While we were stopped at the school, we realized one of the van’s tires was going flat (it’s no wonder on these roads!) so they changed it out while we were there. Then on the way back, their bumper started to fall off. These vans sure take a beating with us!! The whole way home we waved to everyone along the road & Steve Smith ( a Tulsa Christian businessman who is with us) yelled Chomge (hello) to everyone he saw. I’m sure they think these white people are lunatics – friendly, but lunatics nonetheless!!!

Thurs. Nov. 22

Today we’re heading to the Mari-An Primary School to see their facilities. This school was named for Monte Cox’s younger sister as she had corresponded through World Bible School with one of the men who later became a board member of this school. Monte lived close to this area, so knows many of the people in this area & all of those associated with this school. We arrived around 3:00 p..m. to a line of children standing at the gate & singing “We are so happy you are here” to us. Many of the older children (just completed 8th grade) have already left as they had testing this week & are now awaiting their results to see if they will be eligible to go on to high school. Only about 50% of them will be eligible to go on & of those only about 50% will be able to afford it. Primary school is free in Kenya, but high school must be paid for.
We were shown to our rooms for the night. The facilities here are very rustic – no electricity, outdoor toilets, no running water. The facilities that the kids stay in are 2 bunkhouses with bunk beds (many barely standing). You can tell that the children here have very little with them as the houses are very bare. People send their children here to board starting in 1st grade. These kids are remarkably independent & self sufficient.

Since we had air mattresses with us,. Vann & I were placed in an empty office are a with absolutely nothing in it other than a little bat hanging from the rafters. The guys all slept in tents that had been left there previously & the girls slept in a small house & another empty room in their sleeping bags. We had become accustomed to Zambia’s 100 degree weather, but it is much cooler here – probably 80’s during the day & down into the 50’s or so at night. With no heat in our room & only a sleeping bag, I FROZE the first night. Thankfully, it was warmer the last 2 nights & I slept in my sweats & jacket & socks!! We spent the day hiking around the area which is beautiful & visiting with the people here at the school. They are working on putting floors into 4 new school rooms that they have constructed, so we spent a good deal of time busting rocks, moving rocks, & hauling dirt. It was a lot of hard work, but by the time we left, they were much further along & will hopefully be able to use them when school starts again in January.

This school is commendable as it is run with little support from the U.S. & yet have great hopes & plans. At the present, they are hauling water up on donkeys from a spring & using a generator for power at night only. They are working on getting water pumped to them & power lines run as soon as they can raise the money. They have also purchased another lot & are hoping to start a secondary school sometime soon.

On Saturday, we went for a hike up to a forest that has monkeys in it. We walked up & down hills, through the forest brush for 4 hours & only saw a few monkeys & they were way up in the tops of the trees. It was good exercise & a beautiful day, so I guess it was worth it.

On Sunday, November 25, 2007, we had a brief worship period with the folks from around the school before saying our goodbyes AGAIN & heading off for Nairobi. I am actually typing this now as we are on a terrible bumpy road, so I’m sure I have many typos! I’m trying to get it ready to publish tomorrow when we will hopefully have internet access in Nairobi! The road is absolutely horrendous for a major road, but we’re all so excited to be heading in the homeward direction, that we’ll put up with whatever we have to. It has been an adventurous 3 months, but that’s a long time to be away from home. We are supposed to have all day Monday to shop & go to an internet café before heading to the airport around 8. Our flight leaves around 11 p.m. & we will fly to Amsterdam & then on Detroit & then Little Rock. We are scheduled to arrive around 4 p.m. in Little Rock on Tues.

The Baobab tree

Shelby has had an opportunity to use some of her skills this semester! She is enrolled in Art this semester but it’s difficult to do a lot of art when you’re doing an overseas program. So – when the opportunity became available, she jumped on it. The Oldenburgs found out that she enjoyed art & gave her a project to do. They had a large area next to their fireplace where the wall was damaged & paint was peeling. They commissioned her to paint a giant Baobab tree silhouette for them there. So – she did!! It looked really good when she finished. The Baobab tree is sometimes called the Devil's tree here because it looks like the roots are what is sticking up out of the ground. It only leafs out one time a year & that doesn't last for long.

You can see her finished product above!

Goodbye Zambia

Well, we are finally here! Our last morning at Namwianga before heading off to another adventure in Tanzania & Kenya.

Yesterday, we heard that the body of the baby that had died had arrived back here from the hospital & they were going to have the funeral immediately. Most of our group elected to go as it was supposed to be about a 45 minute drive. It ended up being about 2.5 hours Each Way & the funeral was about an hour. They were glad to get to go as most of them had known her & it was good for them to experience grieving in this culture. Most of them came back with sun-burns, though, since they were riding in the back of a truck.
When you try to estimate how far something is around here, it’s really hard to tell as no-one really knows distances & they don’t often drive, so they can’t even tell you how long it takes to get there. The term “nearly there” can refer to just around the corner or still another hours drive!

Yesterday afternoon was spent saying goodbye to all the friends we have made here. We had many of the area children hanging around to see what goodies we would be handing out that we didn’t have room to pack. The missionaries are also getting lots of goodies as we just obviously brought way more than we will be taking back.
This morning (Monday) will be spent packing the big yellow school bus for our ride back to the Livingston airport for our 2 pm flight. More tears to come, I’m sure. While I am certainly excited to head back home, there is a little bit of me that is still sad – especially knowing we will probably never see many of these people again – especially the babies that we’ve become so attached to!! I think most of us are ready just to be boarding the plane for home, but we’ve still got 2 weeks of traveling before we can do that. We’re looking forward to seeing the Serengeti, Kilimanjaro, & Ngaruroro Crater, but unsure about the rest of the trip. We’ll just have to see!

FLYING TERMITES - OH NO!

This week has been a winding up week as we will be leaving on Monday for our 2 week travel before coming home.
On Tues, we had a wonderful big rain - & it cooled things down so much!
On Wed., we were invited to the Oldenburg’s house for dinner. As we were walking to their house, we started to see huge flying termites coming out of holes in the ground in mass swarms. By the time we reached their house, they were starting to swarm at all the windows & around all the lights. These are known to come out shortly after the first really big rain. They will swarm around the lights, lose their wings, & die shortly after. The Africans like to collect the bugs, fry them, & eat them salted – like popcorn. I didn’t choose to try them, but several of our students did & reported “They were OK.”

We had our last Thurs. night devo with the local missionaries on Thurs. It was a very emotional time as we are realizing we are heading out of here soon. I think the Harding group has been a big boost for them & they will really miss us when we’re gone. They have worked so hard to make this a great stay for us & have been such a blessing to us. They have driven us everywhere (since Harding has no vehicle here YET), arranged for everything to be ready for us, & just served us in general.

On Friday, Janice & I & a couple of students started baking cakes, making Jello, & preparing for our big dinner on Sat. This was the last day of finals & a small group of students decided to make the trip to Livingston to go Bungee Jumping as their final Hurrah. That night, they had a tea for their Tonga tutors – mentors from the George Benson College. They enjoyed hot tea & cookies & then had singing & dancing with lots of enthusiasm. They are really going to miss those friendships. Most of the girls’ tutors had suits made for them as going away presents. They have some great looking outfits to wear for their chapel presentations.

Saturday – today – was the big luncheon to thank the workers who have helped us & the missionaries who have also served us. We served a huge pot of stew made from Sable & Eland meat, rice, salad, bread, cakes, & jello. Everyone ate way TOO MUCH but it sure was good. We presented small gifts to the Zambian lecturers & all of our workers.
We had some sad news this afternoon as we found out that one of the babies that had been at the Haven had died. They had 3 babies that had been sick & they took them to Matcha which is the best hospital around here – around a 3 hour drive on awful roads. They had not been able to figure out what was wrong with her, but she would not eat & had diarrhea all the time. We were hoping to be away from here without having any babies die – it is just a very sad reality of this place.

We’re starting to get things packed up around here. It’s hard to get all of the things you need for 3 months into 1 suitcase & just as hard to get part of those things + all the souvenirs you buy into the same suitcase to return. In addition, we’re packing up trunks of Harding’s things – books, paper, batteries, games, etc. & inventorying all that to store away for the next group that comes. Hopefully, they won’t need to bring nearly as many things with them next year.

Winding Down!

This has been another busy week as we are all trying to get the things done this week that we put off until the end. On Friday afternoon, we finally took a short trip out to Klaus Mueller’s development farm called Twin Fountains. Klaus is a German man who runs this large farm & he uses it to teach people how to farm better in this culture. He has up to 40 students at a time who come here for a 2 year stint to learn agricultural concepts. While they are here, they are given a plot of land to farm & Twin Fountains markets their goods for them. If they put into practice what they learn, they will be able to use it to pay for their schooling, housing, & may still be able to take money home at the end. One of his more successful students is going to be leaving with approx $500 which is a huge amount of money for a Zambian farmer!

We took our lovely yellow school bus straight from Klaus’ farm out to Jordan’s rock which is a large outcropping of rock at Namwianga where missionaries have been having picnics under the stars for the last 70 years! Roy & Kathy Merritt arranged for our group to have a cookout there. Their Zambian workers made us grilled chicken & steaks, potato salad, pea salad, baked beans, rolls, jello, & cake. We enjoyed the meal along with a bon-fire & singing under the stars. The Zambians love to sing & most are very good at it! It was a very enjoyable evening.

Saturday was a free day with most of us going into town. We did some last minute shopping & I dropped some fabric off at a tailor who is going to make me an African suit (skirt & top). All total with the fabric, it will cost me less than $20 for a custom-made outfit! I am looking forward to seeing it!

Sunday, several of us went into Kalomo to the High School church there. The boarding students that attend Kalomo high school cannot leave the campus, so they have formed a church there which is run entirely by the High School students. One problem with going with a group of white people, is that wherever we go to church, we are always asked to preach, teach class, do communion – whatever. Unfortunately, this meant we didn’t really get to see how the high schoolers did things, but it was obvious that they were well prepared & organized & enthusiastic!! We had Bible study for about an hour, then worship for about an hour, & then just as we thought things were winding up,. They wanted all the visitors to introduce themselves & say where they were from. To our surprise, we were not the only visitors! There were another 10 or 12 students there from Namwianga High School. The person in charge announced that the church’s choir would sing 2 songs, then the Namwianga singing group would sing 5 songs, & our group would sing 2 songs. Each of the Zambian groups sing a song as they are walking up to the front & as they are sitting down in their seats & these songs are not included in their allotment of sings, therefore, we heard a total of 13 songs - & many of the Zambian songs go on forever!!!
Those students all sat there & with an enthusiastic Amen at the end of every song! I can’t imagine our high school students ever taking on such a project much less being excited about sitting on a hard bench for over 3 hours at a time in 90 degree heat with no fans & listening to group after group after group singing to them!! It was inspirational to say the least!

We hurried home from worship to start lunch only to find that the power had been out for about an hour. We had planned on having spaghetti & had it all prepared except for frying the meat & cooking the spaghetti…. So we commenced to making a fire & just as it was getting going well, --- you guessed it – the electricity came back on. That’s the way it is here!! We all enjoyed our Spaghetti dinner with a big salad – something we don’t get a lot of here. That evening as we were preparing dinner, the power went out again. We had just finished frying tortillas for chips & were warming tortilla soup. We waiting a while to see if the power was coming back on – so when it didn’t we made a fire to finish cooking our soup over. We had a lovely dinner by candlelight that night. Shelby had brought one of the Haven babies home with her this day. Carole has come home with us a few times & is finally adjusting to having people love on her. Shelby is really going to have a hard time leaving her as it just breaks your heart to know that even though she will be clean & fed, that is about the extent of the attention she will receive. She is one of the more introverted kids & not one most people would drawn to, so it’s been really a good thing for Shelby to take her in.

We went to bed that night with no power which means no fan!! It was a really hot, still night & the mosquitoes were swarming like crazy. We had to put our mosquito nets down which makes it all the hotter, but we just couldn’t stand to be covered up as it was so hot & the mosquitoes were too bad not to be. It took forever to fall asleep, but About 3 am., everyone awoke to a huge thunderboom – it appeared to have struck somewhere close. The next morning, revealed that a tree about 100 feet away had been hit.

All this week, we’ve been having a lot more clouds & overcast skies which is nice as it keeps it cooler but also means the rains are coming closer. This is good news for the people here as they wait until a good rain before planting their fields. Unfortunately, this also means the power will be going out a lot more!!

Monday was a class day with students working on finishing projects & books that they have put off until the last. We’re trying to make sure that the girls are pretty much caught up in their studies also as we will probably have limited internet access after this week.

Tuesday, the rains came & in a big way!!! It had been cloudy all morning & as we were eating our lunch on the veranda, the rains started. The house we were in has a tin roof, so by the end of the meal, no one could hear anything but the rain!! Several students got out & played in the rain! It’s amazing how exciting rain can be, but when it’s so dry – & you haven’t really seen it in over 2 months, it’s big news!! It rained off & on all day, which also means the power was off & on all day too. It was amazing how cool it got – probably down into the low 60’s!!! It felt GREAT! I know we’re going to freeze when we get home, but with temps in the 90’s all the time, a little break was great! Don’t worry – I know it won’t last long!

PARTY WEEK!

First of all, I must apologize for not getting my blogs done this week. Someone made the mistake of introducing me to a web site – totally tricky.com – that has 100 levels of riddles that you solve & move to the next level. Since I love puzzles & riddles, I have been obsessed with getting to the next level. In fact, so many of us are doing that here that very little work, homework, studying, etc is getting done!! But, alas, I am pulling myself away as I know many of you just can’t wait to hear what ELSE we’ve been up to!

Vann’s Sunday trip was a very long day – He enjoyed the music, dancing, worship, etc. but sometimes the horrendous bus rides here are enough to drive you nuts! Especially driving 3 hours each way on extremely bumpy roads to enjoy about 3 hours while there. But you do what you have to do!

It’s been a fairly busy week here. Several of us have been shopping for chitenges to have skirts or suits made from. The lady next door is a seamstress & is making outfits for several of us. I went to Choma (45 minute drive) last week & found some fabric, so I need to get it over there to her. We need outfits for our chapel presentation which will be the Friday after we get back.

Wednesday was Zambia’s independence Day!! We cancelled classes (we’ll use any excuse for that!) & attended the celebrations here. They were fairly low key – they had skits & dancing at the basic school here & played soccer games in the afternoon. Shelby even managed to get out there & play a little soccer!

On Friday, it was graduation day at the George Benson College. One of our workers was graduating, so we went to see her. The students graduating were all people who had finished their education several months ago, and had to take exams which take several months to grade & hear scores back from. It was VERY different from graduation at one of our colleges. It was supposed to start at 1:30 pm but as we were walking over, we met someone who told us that the guest of honor (the vice chancellor of the University of Zambia) was in Choma – still 45 minutes away. So – we turned around & went back later. The auditorium was decorated with colored toilet paper streamers wound across the ceiling. There were fluffy couches & chairs for the guests of honor up on the stage. The students came into the auditorium dancing down the aisles & as they came in a family member got up & danced with them to the front. There were no speakers encouraging the students to go out & change the world or anything of the sort. The speakers were the vice-chancellor, who bragged on the college, & one of the graduating students who chastised the college for not listening to the students concerns regarding extra tests required for graduation. I don’t think we’ll ever see that at Harding. Not twice, anyway!! The college choir sang 5 songs (The larger choir includes several of our students) & the vice chancellor bragged about the choir – especially pointing out the one our students were in. When diplomas are being handed out or awards given, the family members yell out & run down the aisles to give flowers, cakes, & gifts to their student. Quite a big deal, of course, as very few people in Zambia get to complete a college education!! At the end, they all dance out again!! Lots of fun!! Of course, our students are thinking Harding needs to make some adjustments to let their students dance down the aisles. It does lead to a more festive feeling!

One of the Zambian teachers here arranged for our group to accompany some of the George Benson College students on an overnight out-reach to a village. We made this an optional activity as it is getting closer to finals time & students are needing to work on papers, study for tests, etc. 8 of our group went with them & reported having a good time, although they got very little sleep. Apparently, the Zambians in that village stayed up a good part of the night visiting & singing, so sleep was difficult. They had a great time on the 4 1/2 hour trip back.

On Friday evening, the girls here planned a party for their Tonga tutors – which are George Benson college students. Each student here was paired with a GBC student to help them learn the Tonga language. I’m not sure how much Tonga learning is really going on, but they’ve really enjoyed spending time together. That is definitely one of the advantages of our being at Namwianga. They baked cookies & brownies all afternoon & then ate & watched “Father of the Bride” together.

On Saturday evening Shelby & Savannah both visited the Haven & brought back a toddler to spend the night. Most of the kids at the Haven have lost their mothers due to AIDS, or in childbirth, or a few of them, their parents just can’t take care of them. Some of the families will come back to get the children once they’re able to eat regular food around age 2. These kids are both extremely quiet & will hardly vocalize. This is true with most of the kids there. They just go to whoever will give them any attention. It’s really sad & I’m so tempted to come home with 2 or 3 of them!! We’re trying to at least give them some stimulation & love while we’re here. If anyone is interested in sponsoring a child here, I believe it is about $50/month. I can find out more info for you!

Yesterday, Monday, we had to make a trip to Livingston to have our Visa’s renewed. It’s crazy, but they require you to show up at the immigration office every 30 days to renew your visa. Vann, Janice, Laura Oldenburg, & myself decided to make an adventure of it & we all went in to spend a few hours “away”. The immigration office was helpful & we had no problems there. We also needed to get money from the ATM’s for several people. We visited 4 ATM’s before finding one that worked & were able to get all we really needed. After that, we hit a local pharmacy to buy more meds for the clinic, did a little grocery shopping, & had lunch in a Chinese restaurant before heading home. We had to get ready for our party that night.

Most of my week has been spent preparing for our “Fall festival” party that we had last night. Even though it’s the middle of the summer here (& 90 degrees during the day) we needed to get into the “fall” spirit. We didn’t want to do anything really Halloween here as there is so much superstition & belief in witchcraft, etc, so we just focused on fun activities. We had a video scavenger hunt that was really fun, did a cake walk, carved pumpkins (small ones) & made taco soup, popcorn balls & caramel apples. I had to make the caramel from scratch with homemade Kayro syrup . It was a little grainy as the sugar here is much coarser than ours at home, but overall they turned out well. I was wishing I had written my friend, Kim, who makes wonderful gourmet caramel apples, to get her secrets. Ours just didn’t look nearly as pretty, but they tasted great. Everyone was on a definite sugar high after all that, but seemed to have a great time.

We are now looking at planning a big dinner to do before we leave as appreciation for all our workers & the missionaries that have been such a big help to us. More later as that comes together! We will probably not be doing a whole lot of other activities since our time here is winding down. Just 2 weeks from today & we’ll be leaving Namwianga. I think we’ll all have mixed feelings when it’s time to go!

DANCE FEVER!

This week has gone by fast since we were in Lusaka for Tues & Wed.
On Friday, Roy drove to Livingstone to pick up Klay Bartee & Jeff Hopper. Klay is on the board of directors for Namwianga Mission & a Harding faculty (& friend of Vann's) & Jeff is the director of Harding's International Studies Program. Both were coming to assess how the semester is going & will soon be determining the future of this program in Africa. I have no doubt they will feel things are going well & will want to continue it.

We wanted to give Jeff a little bit of Africa culture during the short time he's here (Klay comes every summer with the Zambia Medical Missions group). So - Yesterday (Saturday) we went out to Leonard, our cook's, village where his family played instruments for us. They had a banjo that they were given this summer, but the rest were homemade stringed & drum instruments. They were really quite good & Klay joined them on the harmonica. They had several children ranging from about 4 - 10 in age dancing the native dances for us. Of course, we had to join in!! If I would just do that a couple hours every day, I'd be in great shape!! Everyone had a GREAT time! Leonard is really fun & has been such a blessing to this group!

Today, Vann has gone with most of the group to a village about an hour & a half away where they were going to worship, eat lunch, & enjoy native dancing. They left at 7:45 this morning & returned at 6:15. They were exhausted. It ended up that the trip was actually 3 hours each way on a washboard, pothole ridden road so they had to just creep along the whole way.
We had already made plans to have a special dinner tonight before we knew about this big day, so I & a few students stayed to work on that. We worshipped with the George Benson group & then set to work. We're having a special Italian feast that some of the students planned for! Should be yummy! More about Vann's day & some pictures of that coming up soon.

Pictures FINALLY!!

Ok - so the internet saga continues! We finally got out Harding internet system up & running most of the time. When it works, it is very fast, but seems to go out once in a while without any reason. So - since I haven't been able to get pics on because the other system was too slow, I knew this was my chance!! I went to my usual web site for picture hosting, photobucket, & guess what?? THe crazy filter on this system won't let me onto photobucket!!!!! SO FRUSTRATING!!! Thankfully, Vann had found a system called Picasa that allows you to edit your pictures & they happen to also have a web-album feature - SO, I'm trying that one. You should be able to click on the link at the left & it will take you to a page of pictures & you can either click on individual pictures to enlarge them or click on the "slideshow" button to see them in that form. Let me know if it's not working for you to see.

Lusaka

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Lusaka. We had just arrived home from our camping trip on Sunday evening & were home on Monday before heading out again on Tues morning. Lusaka is about a 5 hour trip & even though the roads are pretty good most of the way, we went in a new Land Cruiser that is made for off - roading, so it had like, NO springs or shocks! With the help of our driver, Donald, We bounced all the way there & all the way back.
We arrived there about noon & found a nice restaurant for lunch. Then decided to go to a movie since they had English movies - we saw Rattatoille (sp?). It was pretty cute! We wanted to see another one as movies are less than $3 pp to see, but since we had already been sitting for 7 hours that day, decided to do a little shopping. We finished up shortly & with my exciting husband & daughter who wanted to do nothing else, we headed back to the guesthouse at 5:30.
We stayed at the Khaki & Dust guest house which is just a large house with about 6 guest rooms. Ours had a king bed (best bed in the last 6 weeks!) & a twin bed for Shelby. Shelby fell asleep around 6 & slept until 6 the next morning when we woke her. Vann & I watched TV for a little while & then promptly fell in bed around 8:30. I have never in my life slept as much as we're sleeping on this trip!!
We got up early the next morning as we had to drive the 20 minute drive to the American International School where Shelby was scheduled to take the PSAT Test. She finished a couple of hours later & felt good about the test. We had been running errands all over town while she was testing - meeting with the internet company to try to get something done & shopping for other things. When someone comes to Lusaka from Namwianga,, everyone gives them the list of what they need. Thankfully, our list was fairly short.
Before leaving town we ate lunch at an Irish Pub in the Monda Hill shopping center & Vann & Shelby got their last ice cream for a while! We arrived home to find that the internet has been off & on all day (we added a new electric line & some voltage meters) but on a lot more than off!! Maybe we're actually getting somewhere!!

Camping in Zambia

We headed out at 5 am on Friday, Oct 5 on our exciting 9 day trek across Zambia. We were in a rattletrap yellow school bus that had been used for a primary school, so the seats were short & extra close, an 11 passenger van, & a truck, all of which were piled to the brim with people or supplies. We rambled along at 45 mph with frequent “comfort stops” along the way. Along with our family, Janice Bingham, Roy Merritt, & the 24 college students, we took 5 Zambians along who were going to set up & take down camp & cook for us as well as a mechanic. Vann, Janice, & I were blessed to be able to cram into the air-conditioned van so the trip was much more tolerable for us.

First, let me just say that anywhere you go in Zambia in a big yellow school bus, you’re going to attract attention! Everywhere we stopped in Zambia, people would come out & gather around the bus & stare. This was not a problem until we stopped for our “comfort stops” (using the toilet in the bushes) & then we even had a few people following us there. Fun! Fun!

The first day, we traveled into Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. It is a moderately big city with modern shopping centers which we were excited to visit. We were all going to Subway for sandwiches, but when we arrived, found they had no bread ready, but were baking some. We waited for that delicious bite, but must say they were disappointing as the bread just wasn’t nearly as good as it is in the USA. Oh well … We were excited to find a store that sold Snickers candy bars & some great ice cream!! That night we traveled to a farm called Fringilla where we set up our tents in a field. The adults all got to stay in cute thatched roof chalets & ours even had a TV with 8 channels!!! Our first look at a TV in over a month!! We also enjoyed the hot showers without having to worry about using too much water!!

Next morning, we awoke early as the peacocks outside our door were crowing – or whatever loud noise peacocks make- so we headed over to the campsite for a breakfast of bread & cereal, tea or coffee. This was to be our breakfast choice for the next 9 days. Zambians tend to eat the same foods over & over every day, so they don’t really think about varying the diet much for us.

We headed north from Fringilla to a place called Ibis Gardens. It is a resort type lodge & has a large (but freezing cold) pool where we were allowed to swim & relax for the morning. This was a nice change for us & it was a lovely place. We feasted on Chips (French fries) & cold cokes & ice cream before heading off for our next stop at the Forrest Inn.

The Forrest Inn is a nice place with a wooded camping area that has a large round thatched roof gazebo where we could eat our meals. Again, the adults stayed in little chalets. We enjoyed a buffet of rice with stroghanoff, stir fry chicken, & some funky vegetable salad. We hit the bed around 9 as it was going to be an early morning. It gets dark so early here (around 6:30) so there is usually not much to do at night besides go to bed early. Next morning we were up & on the bus headed to Kapiri Imposhi?? , a small village about an hour drive away. There we met with the church members for a 3 hour service followed by a traditional meal of nshima (the staple - cornmeal mush), chicken, beef stew, tomato & onion relish, & the traditional drink, Chibonte? Not sure about the spelling! It is made of cornmeal which has been cooked in a lot of water & you add sugar. Definitely not our favorite, but the people here drank it as fast as they could get it!! We were fortunate to be holding some little kids who loved it, so they drank most of ours! The people here were friendly & very welcoming as they have been each place we’ve visited. They had a group of about 10 ladies which formed a choir & they sang & danced for us.
It was back to the Forrest Inn for another evening. We had bologna sandwiches w/ cheese for dinner & a birthday cake celebrating one of our cook’s birthday. In her honor, we had a “talent(less)” show.

Next morning we headed out early toward the Kundalila Falls area. As we move north, the trees get taller & there is more green! There are even a few hills around here as opposed to Namwianga where it is flat, dry, & sandy everywhere. Here we were “rough camping” as there was no electricity or water besides the stream. We took a 15 minute hike which took us across the stream & down a steep canyon to see a beautiful waterfall!! Most of the students & Vann & the girls all swam under the falls. I, however, only waded as the water was FREEZING cold! I was wishing I had gotten wetter, though, as I was about to die of heat stroke climbing back UP the canyon wall. We took quick baths in the stream above the falls before settling in for our dinner of rice, sausages, tomato relish, peanuts & cooked cabbage. (This would be our dinner for 6 of the 9 nights we were out – alternating the sausages w/ chicken). My Dad would have loved this trip as we ate bologna sandwiches nearly every day as well. By the end we were all craving some fresh fruit or vegetables!! We all stayed in tents this night. We were all in bed by 8:30 or 9 as there was no light other than flashlights. Next time – remind me to bring a lantern of some sort!!

Next day started out early as usual – eating breakfast usually between 6 – 7 am. We packed up & headed out for the Livingston Memorial. Here I will say that most of the main roads we traveled on were excellent. We traveled the great North – South Highway which was built in the 70’s by the Swiss. It is surprisingly smooth for Zambia standards, so made for a pleasant trip. HOWEVER – when we would get off of this road, most of the roads were unpaved, pothole ridden roads – like the one taking us to the Livingston Memorial. On it, we drove about 16 miles taking us over an hour to get there. All along the road, there were little houses & children would run out to wave & then would follow us so that by the time we arrived at our camping area, there were probably 100 people standing around staring at us. The memorial is really not much to see – just a large concrete structure with plaques on it. The story is that this spot was where David Livingston died of malaria. The people there cut out his heart & buried it under a tree at the spot of the memorial & then dried out his body & carried it over 1500 km to the coast of Tanzania where it was placed on a boat & taken to London to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Livingston was the first missionary to enter Zambia, so opened the way for others to follow.
One of the people who met us at our campsite included a 73 year old man who was obviously a Livingston historian. He gave us a talk about Livingston & his influence on the people of that area.
That night, the crowd finally left around 7 o’clock as we were eating our dinner. We built a large bonfire & sat around telling ghost stories for about an hour. Just as some of us were talking of going to bed, the flocks of children re-appeared. ( We called them the children of the corn!) We went on to bed, but some of the students stayed up & talked, sang, & danced with the kids.

Next morning started out early (again) which I didn’t really mind as we were going to bed at ridiculously early hours. We visited Chief Mialo’s village which had a new church which had just been started 3-4 months ago. There were approx. 40-50 people there besides us & we enjoyed a 2 hour service with them. At the end, they served us Chibonte again which we drank as little as possible without being rude. I hate to even take the food or drink if I don’t like it as I know the people there have limited resources & would love it.

We were back on the bus for a trip further north to Sanfeya which was on the shores of a huge, beautiful lake. Our lodge was definitely a bare – minimum kind of place but the beautiful view of the lake was worth it. It had a white sand beach & the lake was so large, you couldn’t see the other side, so it was just like being at the ocean. The only problem is that this lake has parasites in it, so we couldn’t swim in it. (Although I saw some locals doing just that). Again, we had a huge thatched roof shelter that we could cook & eat under. That night, we had a man who had formerly been a witch & one that had been a witch-doctor who had been converted to Christianity. They both spoke to us out on the beach about their former lives. It was fascinating & just a reminder to us that the evil spirits are “alive & well”. It was really quite freaky as we were sitting out there listening & off in the distance, it began to lightning & the wind began blowing harder. Before it was over the wind was fierce & the lightening had moved even closer. Maybe a sign that satan didn’t like the testimony of leaving evil ways to follow God!!

The power had gone out before we had dinner, so when we went back to our rooms, we lit a single candle that was left in the room. We quickly got ready for bed & shortly after blowing our candle out, we could hear the rain start pouring down. Within minutes, all the students were yelling that their tents were leaking & they started running up to the lodge with all their sleeping bags. So – we had a camp out in our 4 rooms!! Thankfully, the rooms were nice size & had a little carpet on the floor, so everyone slept peacefully!

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise, which Vann took about a hundred pictures of. It was a gorgeous day & the sun rising over the lake was stunning. After breakfast, we again headed out to a nearby (hours drive over awful roads) village to meet with a church there. We enjoyed a 2 hour service sitting on mats under some mimosa trees. Afterwards, we visited with the people, played with the kids, & enjoyed traditional dancing lessons from some of the women. The congregation fed us a meal of kasava (like nshima, but made with the kasava plant), fried & boiled fish, boiled okra, kasava leaves, capenta (tiny dried fish – like minnows), fried caterpillars, & cabbage. Yep – you read right – fried caterpillars! I can’t say that I ate a lot except the fried fish, but I did try everything once. After we finished, the members came in & finished up everything we had left including the fish heads!

We had another night at the Sanfeya resort before heading back toward home the next day. This was our longest driving day – about 6 hours back to the Forrest Inn. We again enjoyed their buffet, nice thatched huts, & hot showers! One of our students was having a birthday this day, so they made a chocolate cake for him. His name was Brian, but the cake said “Happy birthday Brain”. He thought that was pretty funny!

The next day we drove to Lusaka where we again enjoyed the shopping center & eating out. We ate at an Irish pub where I got my much craved salad & shared a basket of ribs, chicken strips, & sausages with Vann. It’s great to eat some of our more “traditional” foods. We had definitely had enough of the Zambian food for a while. After 3 hours at the center, we drove to the Eureka campground just outside of town for the night. This was a lively campground with lots of people from all over the world staying here. There were people from South Africa & Australia & who knows where else! They had a great thatched roof reception with restaurant & had a large screen TV to show the Rugby World cup game. There are even zebra, giraffe, & antelope running around the grounds.

I didn’t even eat dinner as I was too tired of the rice/sausage/cabbage/peanuts meal & was still stuffed from our lunch. We headed to bed around 9 again, although I heard that a lot of students stayed up visiting with other campers.
Next morning we set out for home which would be about a 5 hour drive. We made it to within 1 hour of home, when the fan belt on the pick-up broke. Of course, it was Sunday & we didn’t have an extra with us. We left the driver there & went to the next town (20 miles away) to find a belt. After he had called around & walked all over town, he finally found one & caught a ride back to install it so that we could go on home. We arrived HOME about 3 pm. & were excited as we had heard that our internet system had been repaired while we were gone. Students were on within minutes of arriving back, but about 20 minutes later it kicked them off again – thus continues our saga.
We are having to reset the system frequently & sometimes even that doesn’t work.

Vann, Shelby, & I are going back to Lusaka tomorrow for Shelby to take the PSAT test on Wednesday. We are hoping to go to the office of this internet company & let them have an earful of the problems we are having with it. I don’t know if it will do any good, but we sure hope so!
By-the-way, today has also turned out to be a good day as we FINALLY got Savannah’s retainer in the mail. I don’t remember if I blogged about this, but she just got her braces off the week we left & ended up leaving her retainer sitting on the kitchen table. The girls staying in our house mailed it to us that week & we just today finally got it!!! It’s a tight fit, but she thinks she’ll be able to get it all the way in pretty quick! Praise the Lord!! We sure didn’t want to have to put her braces back on!! Keep watching – if we can get this internet fixed, I’ll be able to get some pictures of the trip on soon!

Trip to Livingstone

We’re continuing our saga of limited internet access this week. The part that was ordered from the UK came in & the man came from Livingstone last Friday to repair it, but the electricity was off, so he could not fix it. While here, however, he noticed another part that had gone bad & had to be ordered putting it another week or 2 behind. At least we have this slow dial-up service to fall back on which is better than nothing! It just makes it very hard to up-load pictures or to complete online classes. But once again – TIA!

On Friday morning at 6:00 a.m., we all piled into the old yellow school bus for our first trip! We headed off on the 2 hour journey over some good & some very bumpy roads to the city of Livingstone. Once there, we made a quick stop at the ATM for some cash & then off to the Zambezi Waterfront Hotel where we would be staying for the next 2 nights. No – not in one of the nice waterfront hotel rooms or chalets – we were camping in tents! They have about 30 tents set up on platforms in a field with 2 foam beds & a lamp in each. Pretty primitive, but overall not bad! At least there were clean bath houses available with hot showers in them!! Best shower I’ve had in a month!

First thing, we headed off to do some Adventure Sports. 17 of our group decided to white water raft (including Shelby). It was a half day adventure in class 3 & 4 rapids of the Zambezi river. She has a video showing them flipping at most of the rapids!! She said it was a blast.
Savannah chose to do a half day Adventure package that included rappelling down a canyon wall, doing a zip-line type run across the steep canyon, & doing a gorge swing which was basically like bungee jumping, but you swing across the gorge rather than dangle by your feet. All this took place in the gorge of the Zambezi River. Vann & I satisfied ourselves by going with Savannah & living dangerously vicariously through her!! It was pretty exciting! I'll try to get video or pics on soon!

After the adventures were over, some of us headed to the Royal Livingstone Hotel, which is an exclusive hotel right on the banks of the Zambezi river, just a few hundred feet from the head of the falls. You can see some of the mist from the falls off in the distance. This hotel has beautiful grounds & there are cute little monkeys all over the place including some with their babies! They were a lot of fun to watch. While there we enjoyed High Tea in their tea room with a selection of hot or iced teas & all sorts of sweets & pastries. That was our lunch for the day!
Next stop was Victoria Falls which is usually spectacular!! It has a mile across opening to the falls which in wet season is so full, you can hardly stand close to it due to the mist coming off of it. However, at the end of dry season like we are now, it is less than spectacular although there are still some nice waterfalls coming off of it. You can see some of the pics of it at the links on the left.

That evening we enjoyed a stir-fry buffet dinner back at the Zambezi Waterfront Hotel before turning in to our tent for an early evening. Roy, who is accompanying us on this trip, is an early riser, so we’re sure he’ll be around bright & early to get us started!

Saturday started bright & early as expected with Roy stirring everyone around 6:30 a.m. After a continental breakfast, we headed toward the Botswana border to the Chobe Game Reserve. We had little difficulty getting across the border & were loaded into open air vehicles for the drive into the park. I must say this place was very barren & desolate looking. It is the end of the dry season & there is little green to be found. What little there is is being eaten by the wildlife as there’s just not much for them to eat right now.
The first part of our tour was on a boat where we floated the Chobe river. We had to make a quick stop at a little booth to report how many people were on the boat & when we did 3 or 4 monkeys climbed on board to try to snatch some of our food! As the boat started to leave, they all jumped off except 1 small one who stayed until the boat was about 15’ from the shore, then lept off & swam back to shore. It was really funny!!

On the boat tour, we saw a lot of unusual birds, some hippos, monitor lizards, & a few crocs. They fed us a delicious meal of kudu (an antelope) & fish with all the trimmings, before heading out on land cruisers for the land portion of the trip. We saw some kudu, elephants, giraffes, sable, antelopes, water buck, cape buffalo, & even a couple of lions that were hiding under bushes. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see them very well & for some reason our driver didn’t want to stir them!! It was a little thrilling being in an open air vehicle about 20’ from lions!

That evening, we arrived back at the hotel just in time for a quick shower before dinner. The food was great at this place! It is definitely a tourists place & caters to all coming to see the Falls & do the Adventure activities.

Sunday morning we started off with a breakfast buffet before piling back into the yellow school bus for a short trip to the Livingstone Central church of Christ. There we enjoyed fellowshipping with around 300 Zambian Christians. It was interesting as after the service they introduced a couple who was going to be married in December. They stood up in front of the congregation with the boys parents indicating that they knew about their plans to marry & approved. The girls family was from a ways off, so someone else stood up for her. She stood with her head bowed the whole time & a sad look on her face. She is supposed to do that as she is mourning that she is leaving her family. That was a nice cultural experience for us. Afterward, we stopped at the Hungry Lion for some take out chicken & headed to a rest area by the river for a picnic lunch. Next was shopping at a curio “mall” just outside of Vic Falls where the students enjoyed practicing their bargaining skills & purchased bowls, baskets, masks, drums, jewelry, paintings, & all kinds of other fun stuff!! Back on the bus for the 2 hour jaunt home.

As we got closer to Namwianga, we could tell that it was starting to cool off (thank goodness) & there were a lot of clouds in the sky. We found out it had rained all afternoon, & we shortly enjoyed another round of lightening & thunder that evening, but only a little bit of rain. We ate a quick dinner & headed back to church services where we sang a couple of songs for the group. After almost every service, they have at least a couple of groups sing songs. There are a lot of great singing groups here & the people love to sing! Dad would like a couple of the quartet groups that sing – even if we can’t understand a word they’re saying!!

All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend! Traveling here is certainly much different than we did on our Greece trip. No 4 star hotels – no air conditioned chartered buses – no tour guides, but still a lot of fun!

Monday morning I awoke with stomach cramps. We’ve been passing this around since we’ve been here, so I guess I won’t get to go to the Haven again today. I really miss getting to see the babies!!

We had a little excitement the last couple of days. On Sunday night, our night watchman killed a black mamba snake in our driveway. Then, tonight one of the girls came into our house & left the door open behind her for just a minute. As she turned around to leave, she saw a cobra coming into the house. She screamed & a couple of guys & the night watchman came running & threw bricks at it to kill it. It has rained only a couple of times now, but is apparently enough to bring them out!! I think I’ll take my flashlight out with me from now on!!

We leave on Friday for a 9 day camping trip to Northern Zambia, so this will probably be my last post for a couple of weeks. We're really hoping that by the time we get back, our internet will be up & running & picture loading will be much faster.

Pictures Added!

I have been able to add just a few pictures to my first African posts, so if you want to see them, you can scroll back down through the old blog posts. Hopefully I will have more of those & even some slides shows on the way. We are now using a dial up internet as the one Harding had installed has still not been fixed. It is VERY slow with so many people trying to use it, so uploading pictures has been a chore. I'll hopefully be able to get several more on this week!

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!!

TIA - This is Africa!

Unfortunately, our internet service has been out for the last few days, so I haven’t been able to post on the blog, answer emails, or pay bills!! So - when you see this, it may mean that our internet is finally working again~or we're borrowing the neighbors. You sure do miss something like that when you’re so far away & that’s the only means of keeping in touch.

We’ve had some fun firsts this week! On Friday evening, most of us piled into a few vehicles & headed to a nearby village that has a Bible Study/ Devo every Friday night. After bumping over “roads” part of which required 4-wheel drive, we arrived at a 4 room school house which has no electricity. It was pitch black & looked like there was no one there yet. We unloaded & walked toward the building to discover there were about 30 men, women, & children already there. We lit a lantern & sat in school children’s desks & for the next hour had one of the most up-lifting times of worship. The people there sang beautifully & their strong voices echoed through the room. David Gregerson, one of the missionaries here, gave the devo with it being interpreted into Tonga. Afterward, they asked our group to stand in front & sing for them which they answered with many “amens”. At the end of the service, everyone went outside & as you go out the door, you stand in a line & greet everyone coming out the door after you, so that by the end, there is a huge line & everyone has shaken hands & greeted everyone else!! Every man, woman, & child participated - it was really a neat thing.

The Greeting line at Kisibi Church.

Saturday morning we went on a walk through the Paddock with a herbalist (medicine man). He shared many of his secrets with us of the plants he uses to treat ailments from snake bite to infections to infertility to even “unluckiness” such as not being able to find someone to marry. It was quite interesting & we were surprised to find that he was willing to share his secrets, as most will not tell them as they could hurt their business once people around here know.

The medicine Man

Saturday night is going to be our movie night & tonight we watched Cry Freedom about aparteid in South Africa. We sat out on the veranda & used a projector to watch it. After the movie, we all went back to bed pretty quickly & about 15 minutes later as Janice was locking up her house, she heard a “whacking” sound. It turns out that Justin, our fearless night watchman & his friend were killing a snake up on the veranda where we had just sat minutes before. He said it was a cobra, but none of us actually saw it to be sure. Janice said it looked like it was about 6 ft. long as they were carrying it away!!! I guess the Lord was watching over us! A little excitement for our first week!

On Sunday, most of us worshipped with the Namwianga church of Christ where there were over 400 in attendance. This is the congregation where most of the students from the secondary boarding school & George Benson teaching college attend. It was a pretty Americanized service. On our way home on Sunday night, several of us heard a group of students singing over on the secondary campus & they let us listen in while they sang - They were a singing group called Sweet Aroma & were 8 students from the high school. They had wonderful voices & were obviously unafraid to use them to praise God! Hopefully, I will be able to get some video or audio of them to include in the blog.

On Sundays, our cook is off, so we are in charge of our own food for the day! He had left us banana bread & cereal for breakfast & we pulled out leftovers for lunch as several people had gone into other villages for morning services, & for supper fixed chili with fixins & baked apples. Not bad for our first meal to cook in Africa! Thanks to the leftovers from the Zambia Medical Missions group, we have a lot of food from America that we had not expected to have.

On Monday, during chapel we had a couple of visitors from the college here. One of them is the choral director & he taught us 3 or 4 songs that they sing in Tonga. We will be having chapel with the school some days & he is hoping we will learn these songs enough to be able to sing with them by Friday!! For the most part they repeat verses often, so that makes it a little easier. They stopped by again after dinner to go over them again. The people here sure seem to enjoy singing which fits just fine with our group!

Thurs. - Well, it’s now been a full week without our internet. They are having to replace some parts - it is a month old system, after all, & is taking much longer than we had hoped. We also found out last night that our water lines had been cut by a man wanting to water his cattle. Which means we now have no fresh water either. Thankfully, one of the houses has a small reserve tank, so we can still use that for meal prep, drinking, etc. but no real baths for any of us for at least a couple of days. There is lake water we can treat & bathe in (a bucket bath) but most of us are just skipping it for today, anyway. After all - this is Africa!! We’re having lots of “this is Africa” experiences!! Some of the students are really kind of excited, though, as it gives them a chance to practice some of the things they learned at HUT. Like - purifying water by placing it in a clear bottle & setting it in the sun for the day.

Today on our way to chapel over at the George Benson College, we saw a green mamba!! Fortunately, it was already dead, but was neat to see what it looked like. I would just as soon not see one alive, but I’m sure I will before the 3 months are up!

Friday~
Our students sang in chapel for the George Benson college - they sang 3 Chitonga songs & 1 English. I think they did really well considering we've only been here less than 2 weeks! We received word today that it will probably be another week before our internet service is up & running, so I'm borrowing a neighbors. Several of us piled into a truck to go into town to check out the internet cafe there, but when we arrived found that the power was out there & stayed off the whole time we were there. Some of us went to the small outdoor market area & walked around - they had mostly older clothes, some new, & chitengas (fabric wrapped around the waist like a shirt or can be used to sew with). Kalomo is a very small town, so when Macua (white people)show up, we're easily noticed! People here, though, have been very friendly. It's a different feeling to be in such a minority!
When we arrived back home, our power was still out & is still out, so I am now at a neighbors house ( the Oldenburgs, from Abilene) using their dial up service! We're feeling very much like we're in AFRICA!!

Settling In

We're all unpacked & starting into a routine now. Most of us are still waking up at the crack of dawn (the rooster down the road doesn't help with that) but that makes it easier to get up for early classes.

The weather here has been really very pleasant. It is the dry season & they are going from winter into summer. It is nice & cool in the mornings, then heats up quickly when the sun comes out & then cools off again in the evenings. There is a light breeze blowing most of the time, so it is pretty nice. It will start heating up soon & then the rainy season starts in November. Everything here is dry & brown (although a few things are beginning their spring blooming) since they have not seen a drop of water since March. That means we must be very careful of our water usage & not waste a drop!!

One interesting thing we have here are wall spiders!! They are big flat brown spiders that sit up on the wall every evening. They tell us not to kill them as they are our friends - they eat Mosquitos!! I guess I'll put up with them as long as they stay in their area & not mine!






We had our first official Zambian meal today: Nshima (a corn meal paste), rice, boiled chicken in tomato & cooked cabbage. It was actually pretty good. Our cook, Leonard, does a great job! He is cooking mostly western foods & has made us pizza, fried chicken w/ mashed potatoes, pancakes, biscuits, cookies, & several cakes!! He & a helper cook 3 meals a day for 30 people - no small job! I have a feeling I'm not going to lose any of the weight I was hoping to on this trip!

I am still having difficulty getting pictures on my slide show. I may have to investigate another way to do pictures. Hopefully, I'll fix it soon as I want you to see for yourself what we're doing!

Zambia - Our home away from Home

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!

Summer Fun!

Since arriving home from Europe, we've spent most of the summer resting, catching up, spending time with family & friends. Vann started back to work almost immediately & I have been working off & on. Last week we traveled to Myrtle Beach to be with Vann's family. We spent the week relaxing in the condo, playing in the water, & sun-bathing, & eating! The whole family went to see the Grande Cirque which was a really good show. The weather was great the whole week - partly cloudy with a nice breeze & cooled off beautifully in the evenings. We drove 16 hours straight to get back home - we're just wanting to hang out here as much as possible knowing that we're heading out again pretty soon!

The girls started school on the 10th & so, basically, even though it's over 100 degrees these days, summer is over for us. We'll spend the next 2.5 weeks getting ready to go to Zambia for the fall semester where Vann will be directing Harding University's new international program there. We're excited, but at this point so busy trying to get things together, we really haven't had much time to think about the fun part!

Stay tuned for more info about the HIZ program as we travel to Zambia!

Berlin & Spain

Leaving Greece~
After 2 days of tearful goodbyes to all our students who were heading out for free travel all over Europe, it was our turn to go. We we taken to the airport by the Myhans on Friday afternoon for our flight to Berlin. It happened that there was a ground-crew strike at the Berlin airport, so our Easy Jet flight was delayed by an hour. It was an easy flight there & we arrived in Berlin around 9:30 pm. After collecting our luggage, we found the metro station & headed toward our hostels metro stop. It was located in what was East Berlin & in order to reach the ground level, we had to go up & then down flights of steps twice. That wouldn’t be any big deal, except we were each pulling a 50 lb. suitcase along with a carry on bag. Yes - we were seeing that we should have shipped a lot more stuff home!! We just weren’t expecting to have to do this many steps! We finally found our hostel & checked in & guess what?? Our room is on the 3rd floor. Again - no big deal - except there’s NO ELEVATOR! Here we go again!! At least we’re getting our exercise!! We hadn’t had a chance to eat anything since lunch, so we headed out into the neighborhood around 10:30 to find food. We hit the jackpot at a wonderful Italian restaurant where we each ordered a main entrée of pizza or spaghetti, drinking water & we all 4 ate for around $10!! That’s unheard of in Europe!!
Next morning , Saturday, we got up & headed to breakfast provided at our hostel. We jumped on the metro & headed into town. We got a ticket that allowed us to travel unlimited for 2 hours, so we rode to the other side of town to get a feel for where things were & see the city a little. We decided to check out the sights & found the Check Point Charlie stop where the East & the West faced off & the Brandenburg gate. We also visited Museum island where we saw the Gallery Museum & Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon museum had wonderful, huge displays of the Alter to Zeus as well as the gates of Ishtar. They were really something to see. We probably would have appreciated all this even more if we hadn’t just spent 3 months looking at other great ruins!
We found a Dunkin Donuts at one of the metro stops, so had to indulge in a donut for tonights dessert. The girls thought we deserved a treat after spending hours walking through 2 museums! Yes,, we’re about museumed out!
We turned in for an early (anything before midnight these days) night & got ready for our last day in Berlin.
Next morning we set out determined to find “the wall”. We finally found it as we visited the “Topography of Terror” exhibition which was on the location where the 3rd Reicht headquarters had been. We soon realized we were just a few blocks from Checkpoint Charlie where we had been the day before. We just had a half day today as we had to get back to the hostel, collect our luggage, & head to the airport. We all agreed we really liked Berlin & would like to spend more time here.

Hola! Hablo Espanol??
Sunday - We’re off to Southern Spain!! Our flight took us from Berlin to Malaga, Spain where we arrived Sunday around 4:30 pm. We had already reserved a car for the week so all we had to do was load up & find our resort. We had no trouble finding the Club La Costa resort & were soon settled in. We have a 2 bedroom condo that is first floor with a small pool only steps from our doors. Our condo is on a bluff overlooking the ocean, although since we’re on the first floor, you can’t really see the coastline from here. Our first morning, we just hung out around the pool & relaxed. It is a little cool & breezy here but the pool is heated, so it’s at least tolerable. In the afternoon, we headed out to town to eat lunch & buy groceries. We found a wonderful Chinese restaurant. I said we should have started years ago taking pictures of ourselves in front of all the Chinese restaurants we’ve eaten in as we’ve eaten Chinese all over the world!! That afternoon, while the girls watched TV, Vann & I walked around the resort & down the beach a little way. We’ll have to do more exploring later.
Gibralter~
On Tues, we decided to head out to find Gibralter. We didn’t have a map except a very simple one that pointed the direction, so we took off in that direction! After driving about 20 minutes, we realized Savannah didn’t have her passport, so we had to turn around to get it. Back in the car & an hour later, we’re wondering if we’re going the right way as no signs include Gibralter in them. BUT - there’s really only 1 major road going this way, so we continue on. Soon we see a sign for Gibraltar - 7 km. Yea! We walked around the town of Gibralter, which is a British ruled area (everything in English - another YEA!). We opted not to spend the $100 for our family to do a tour of the rock since the girls weren‘t all that interested, ,but just enjoyed it from below. Maybe we’ll return another time to see it without the kids.
The rest of the week has been spent basically chilling out around the pool & getting a little sun! The weather has been beautiful the last half of the week with clear, sunny skies. It is really beautiful here - it reminds me a lot of Greece with the mountains going down to the sea with small towns dotted all along the coastline. We even have an old castle just down the beach from our hotel!!
Sunday, April 29 - We checked out of our resort around noon & had some lunch before our 3:30 flight from Malaga to Madrid. In Madrid, we collected our bags & headed to find a storage area for the bags so we could go into town & look around. After dragging them to the far end of the airport, we found that all the large lockers at that location were taken - so we dragged them all back to the other end to find enough large lockers to hold all our bags. So - finally around 6:30 pm we were heading into town. We found the metro to be really easy to get around on. We stopped in the center of town & just started looking around. There are lots of really neat older buildings - very ornate - & great statues. We didn’t really have any plans, so basically just wondered the streets. We came upon a Hard Rock Café, so had a relaxing American style dinner!! We decided we were really just tired, so headed back to the Airport where we spent the night until time for 4 am. Check in for our 6 am flight out. The flight was very smooth - no problems, thankfully. We arrived back home around 6 pm on Monday night after having gotten about 4 hrs. of sleep in the last 48 hours!! We were exhausted, but glad to be back home sleeping in our own beds!!
I’ll get the pictures from Berlin & Spain on soon!

Saying Goodbye!

I finally got around to putting on the pics from our Greek Island Cruise & Ephesus!! Take a look.

Well, the time has come for us to say goodbye to all the wonderful friends we have made this semester. The time has flown by & we have grown to love so many here. Our students are leaving over the next 2 days & we are hugging each group goodbye & sending them off with prayer. Most of the students are going off in groups to travel on their own in other parts of Europe. It's been a wonderful time of learning, growing, & experiencing new things for all of us!! We've had a wonderful group of students & the Myhans & rest of the staff here have made this a great experience for all of us.

We will be heading out on the 20th flying to Berlin for a couple of days before heading to southern Spain for a week of R & R!! I'll keep you updated!!