Friday mornings are short – just one tutoring session and then English class. Only two ladies were able to be at class this morning, so instead of doing what I originally planned, I pulled out a list of conversation topics and told them to decide what they wanted to talk about. It was just Sarah and Thokazani, and I wasn’t sure what to expect since these two are the quietest of the bunch and usually rely on Regina to translate for them. Being two-on-one with these two was fantastic because I got them both to speak a ton. It was awesome! Sarah talked for probably ten minutes straight. She finally got over the fear of making a mistake and just tried as hard as she could, and she even called me “Miss Erika” without cringing too much. She said the sweetest thing in response to the prompt “describe your perfect day.” She said that her perfect day is everyday because she’s married to a wonderful man, has two children that were sent from God, is able to take wonderful classes on English, health, and cooking, and is preparing to be a pastor’s wife, which is a gift. I told her at the end of all that how proud I was of her for speaking in such excellent English, and she said it was only because I was there to help her learn. That is not true…I definitely did not teach her half the vocabulary she was using. I left class with such a good feeling – I felt like my relationships with those two ladies are stronger now, and we made huge leaps and bounds as far as conversational English goes.
Then we took the busy, congested trip into town to extend our Visas and get bus tickets for our trip to Livingstone/Victoria Falls tomorrow. Christine, the woman who works in the office with Dave, drove us. Thank God for that; without her we would have had absolutely zero clue what to do. She’s lived in the Lusaka area her whole life, so she’s an expert at maneuvering through the traffic (and avoiding the people who’d rather not obey certain laws, which seems to be the majority) and knows the ins and outs of the government and immigration offices. I won’t bore you with the details of our Visas, but we only could extend them for two weeks. By next week, we’ll be able to apply for 90 day business Visas, so unfortunately we have do this all again soon. Then we went to the bus station. We leave early tomorrow morning on a very nice coach bus. We’ll get to Livingstone sometime in the afternoon – I think it takes eight hours or so (I am so excited – Google Victoria Falls and you’ll see why). Driving around the bus station with our windows down is an invitation to get harassed by various men. “Sister! Sister from another mother!” “Sweet sister!” “How are you today, my sister?” are just a few examples of comments we heard. I pretended I didn’t speak English and just turned my head the other way. Christine wanted someone to wait in the car to protect it but also needed someone to come with her to buy the tickets, so Rachel was the unfortunate one who stayed back while I pushed through the crowds with Christine. When we came back to the car, Rachel had her head buried behind pieces of paper pretending to read them and was ignoring the smiling man trying to get her attention by tapping on her window. I came around to the other side and had to tap on the window and shout her name before she was convinced it was me and it was safe to look up and unlock my door. We were in a busy, safe part of town, so it’s not like there was any danger; it’s really just a nuisance to be fighting off overly-friendly vendors.
Random sighting of the day: three men standing on the side of the Great East Road holding turkeys. They were gigantic, still alive, and extremely docile. It was strange how relaxed these birds were, especially since I’m pretty sure they were going to be killed as soon as someone bought them.
Other funny sight of the day (for me): Rachel falling down the stairs. Rachel’s flip-flops did not agree with the rather slippery staircase in the immigration building and she slid down the last few steps on her bottom. Instead of helping her up and asking if she was okay (which is what Christine did), I dissolved into laughter for the next fifteen minutes or so. I have continued to laugh about it intermittently throughout the day.
Anne made us the most delicious things of all time. They were like little chicken pot pies. There was a homemade, flaky crust with onions, green peppers, cheese, and of course chicken baked inside them. I cannot describe how amazing they were and how much I love this woman.
The rest of the afternoon was spent not doing what I should have been doing (packing and planning for next week) and doing things that are much more fun (laying in the sun and playing with the kids). After dinner, Rachel and I had a little National Geographic show in our very own living room. A couple hours earlier, I found a dead grasshopper lying on the table (right next to all of our food, of course) so I threw it away in the garbage can. I was walking past the garbage when I was horrified to see a multitude of little ants carrying the huge grasshopper down the side of the garbage can. It is amazing how quickly they found it. Also, watching them carrying it was even more amazing because it took some very impressive coordination and communication. We watched them for a while and then wondered where they were going to take it. We were hoping it’d be outside to one of the ridiculously huge ant hills in our yard. We figured it’d take them a while, so we went and washed the dishes. I came back in to see where they were (praying they weren’t under my bed or anything like that) and was unpleasantly surprised to see the ants trying to force their meal through a hole and underneath the carpet. Soooo…apparently we’re living on top of an ant nest. They never did get the grasshopper underneath the carpet. They were trying so hard – they even ripped its wing off – but then Anne came in and ruined their hard work by throwing it outside. Pretty gross, but also quite fascinating at the same time.
I definitely slipped down those steps too!
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