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!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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!!
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!
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!
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
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.
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.
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