Last Entry

            My African adventure is officially over.  When I first heard about this opportunity, my initial reaction was, “Sure, why not?”  I wasn’t really nervous about going so far away, nor was I overly excited or enthusiastic about it.  I looked forward to it, but I wasn’t expecting the experience to be what it was.

My attitude completely changed soon after landing in Zambia.  Somebody told me that once you’ve been to Africa, it gets in your blood and always stays with you.  They were right.  I fell in love with Africa.  I had no idea that I would grow this connected to it.  My time spent in Zambia wasn’t always perfect: there were moments where I felt sad, homesick, tired, and irritated.  But those moments were few and far between.  Most of the time, I was supremely happy.  I loved the weather, the animals, the plants, but most of all, the people.  Never before have I had the pleasure of working with such happy, pleasant, and content people.  The kids played outside all day long with nothing but sticks, avocados, and a deflated old football to entertain themselves.  The women worked all day in the garden, cleaned and cooked, and usually worked an additional job but still found time to come to English class and work hard.  Everywhere I went, I was treated like a very welcome guest. 

I’ll never forget my time spent in Africa.  I believe it has changed me for the better.  I hope the next time that I complain, I’ll think about the families I met who each own about six pieces of clothing or about the schools that can’t even give each child a single piece of paper.  Material things don’t make you happy; I was reminded of this every day in my short time in Zambia. 

Thanks for reading along and allowing me to share my experiences with you.  I am so blessed to have had this opportunity and to have so many people praying for me and thinking of me.  If you ever get the chance, go to Africa.  I promise that you will love it and never regret it.   

Sightseeing in London

            I think I saw nearly everything there is to see in London today.  We took the tube into downtown and walked all over.  Just some of the things I saw include: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye, the London Bridge, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, Globe Theater, and about a thousand other cathedrals and monuments.  We also walked briefly through the Victoria and Albert museum and the Natural History museum.  I’ll have to match up my pictures with the maps to remember everything.  I had a great time exploring the incredibly beautiful city.  There are lots of construction projects going on in preparation for the Olympics and I’m looking forward to see what they turn out to be. 

Some weird things from today:

-          I was taking a picture of this artwork on the sidewalk of different country’s flags.  I took a picture of Zambia’s flag, USA’s flag, and was looking for Estonia’s flag when a middle Eastern man came up to me and said, “No, stop taking pictures. You have enough.  No more pictures for Americans.”  I was really confused because I was in no way doing anything disrespectful.  He actually started walking on the art so he would ruin my picture.  And how did he know I was American?  I was taking pictures of several different flags and I don’t think I was speaking this entire time. 

-          There were people dressed in different movie characters along the Thames River by the London Eye.  There was Shrek, Captain Jack Sparrow, the tin man, and a bunch of others.  It was strange and kind of creeped me out.

-          I thought the Tower Bridge was London Bridge.  London Bridge is actually very boring and looks just like a regular bridge. 

I was constantly surprised by how many different accents I heard.  I rarely heard an actual British accent – most of the time it was some other European or Asian accent.  I had no idea how diverse London was.  Anyway, it was a good day full of sightseeing.  I’m very tired from all our walking and am looking forward to my (surprisingly comfortable) bed on the floor. 

Travelling to London

            I woke up at 5:30, showered, ate a quick breakfast, and packed up a few things quickly before heading out to the airport.  Everything went smoothly, thankfully.  The flight was uneventful.  There were lots of new movies available (The Vow, New Year’s Eve, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) so I watched more movies/TV than I usually do in a two-week period.  I experienced a bit of reverse culture shock when one of the movies showed a person driving in New York City and I wondered why they were on the wrong side of the road. Being in London is strange. The buildings and cars seem so beautiful and clean: again, I think this is another example of reverse culture shock.  I can communicate with everyone so well, too, so I have this feeling of being extremely comfortable and not at all concerned that I’m in a strange city.  We figured out the bus system and got to our hotel.  While this hotel is very nice and clean, it is completely bare bones.  There’s only one bed (which probably means I’m sleeping on the floor), no telephone, no remote control for the teeny little TV, and no shampoo.  That last one is definitely a bummer, especially since we both have fine, blonde hair that does not do well without .  Rachel and I are already staking out which women we are going to try to borrow some from.  Right now we’re sitting in the café/bar area, waiting for some dinner, and enjoying a nature show on Africa.  There’s nothing else very interesting for me to talk about unless I type reviews on all the movies I watched.  I hope tomorrow’s walking tour of London goes well and we enjoy our last little mini travelling adventure.  

Sad Good-byes

            I feel very emotionally drained right now.  Today was so much fun yet so sad at the same time.  This morning we had a little ceremony for our ladies.  We gave them certificates, a picture of Rachel and me with a letter written on the back, and a picture of the class.  Afterwards we served some biscuits and juice and showed a PowerPoint of pictures we had taken in our time here.  I didn’t think I was going to cry, but when Sarah came up to receive her certificate and hugged me tight and whispered in my ear, “I will miss you.  Go with God,” I pretty much lost it.  She was crying, Rachel was crying, and some other ladies started crying too.  We hugged all the ladies and said we would see them later in the afternoon and then went with Dee to Kabwata again.  It was so sweet of her to drive us all the way down there again – it’s through downtown, which means confusing round-a-bouts and tons of traffic.  We had a really fun time shopping and bartering and then Dee offered to take us out to lunch.  We went to Mint, this adorable restaurant in the mall, and had some very delicious, fresh, healthy food. 

            After returning home, packing up our new purchases, and changing clothes, we headed over to campus to see the kids.  We walked over to Pastor Kawiliza’s house to give him a card.  He wasn’t there, but we had spoken to him earlier in the day and had said our good-byes already, so that was okay.   Then we walked down the street to the Mutetamis house.  Pastor Mutentami, his wife, and his second-youngest daughter Margaret were there.  Pastor invited us in and then thanked us profusely for our work here for a good ten minutes.  I started tearing up when he said, “Say hello to the people in America for us.  Some people we know, and others we do not yet know.  Remember us and think of us.”  He led us in prayer, which got me crying harder.  I hugged his wife and daughter, who were also on the verge of tears, shook Pastor’s hand, and Rachel and I walked out the door completely sobbing.  We must have looked absolutely ridiculous on our five minute walk back to campus. 

            We stopped by to give Regina her certificate and pictures since she wasn’t there this morning and then sat by the football field to wait for kids to come and play with us.  Charity and Bridget came out with the preschoolers and we could tell something was going on.  A littler after 4:00, they all came over with cards for us.  The older kids (the ones who I taught) gave me their cards, shouting, “I love you!” and “I will miss you!”   Then the younger ones came with theirs for Rachel.  Charity handed us two of the LCAA chitenges, which was so sweet and exactly what we wanted.  Charity then gathered the kids together and she sang us a song while they kind of swayed back and forth to it.  The whole time I was continuously crying.  During this time, Dave was getting the older kids ready to play kickball, so after we hugged all the preschoolers, I watched the kids play kickball until the ladies started congregating on the field.  Charity said that they wanted to learn how to play, so I got Dave to come over and explain the rules, and after a while we started a game of ladies versus boys.  We got absolutely crushed, but the ladies had so much fun.  They’re so competitive and were so thrilled when they finally scored a home run or got some of the boys out.  I wish I was able to videotape the boys when they were up to kick.  They started doing cheers like Chipolopolo does (the Zambian national team who won the African cup). 

Kickball got over at 5:30, and then Rachel and I knew the moment finally arrived when we had to say good-bye to everyone.  We started with the ladies first.  Rachel and I were sobbing and most of the ladies were too.  Regina and Sarah asked for our addresses so they could write us, and the other ladies hugged us tightly and murmured things like, “God bless you,” “I will miss you,” or “Thank you for all you’ve done.”  Then we started in on the line of kids.  At first, they were all doing well – no crying from any of the younger ones yet.  But then I got to the end of the line and I saw Barnabas N. and Given leave the line to go stand behind a tree.  I walked around and they were both standing there crying.  These were the two boys I feel like I had the closest relationship with and I knew these would be the hardest good-byes for me.  I hugged them both tightly and we all stood there crying for a while.  Given kept asking, “You are coming back, right?  When will you be back?”  Rachel and I both answered him several times, but he kept asking, not wanting to accept that we couldn’t give him a better answer.  We wanted to wait around for the other kids coming back from school to show up, so we stood there while the kids one by one started bawling.  Mwandida was crying hysterically.  Mirriam, Samuel, and Bertha stood off to the side, crying continuously as well.  Bismarck, Steward, and Sarah’s husband came over to say their good-byes.  They expressed their gratitude and said that the campus has been changed by our presence. 

The only student I didn’t get to see was Mildred, which is so sad for me.  We couldn’t stick around long though because the missionaries were all leaving at six to get to dinner, and by this time it was already time to go and we were still in athletic clothes.  We said good-bye to Dr. Wendland and made our last trip back over to the guest house.  Our faces were streaked with tears and we could barely talk.   We quickly changed into nicer clothes and met Dave and Dee to get to dinner.  We joined the Birners, Sargents, and Hartmanns at Rhapsody’s, a very upscale restaurant at Arcades.  Sue gave us a very funny present consisting of things that will remind us of our crazy Kafue trip together, as well as a malaria-testing kit since they’re difficult to come by in the states.  The Hartmanns gave us some chocolate (inside joke – not funny if I try to explain it).  We were then given LCCA chitenges as a thank you.  It was a very nice evening and a good way to say good-bye.

Writing this right now is of course making me cry again.  I will never forget Given’s heartbroken face staring at me, waiting to hear that I will be back in a couple weeks.  Nor will I forget the feeling of Brian pulling on my leg, begging for a hug, Emily clutching to my hand and never wanting to let go, or Barnabas acting like a dork to make me laugh.  I have to come back someday to see these people again.  I just have to. 

Now it’s late and I need to finish up some last minute packing and cleaning before going to bed.  I can’t believe it’s over already!

Kabwata and Last Day of English

            Most of the ladies were working today, so unfortunately we only had four ladies show up for English class.  We had the two highest ladies and the two lowest ladies, but our class actually went really well.  It was so great seeing the two lower ladies doing really well and speaking English with the two higher ladies.  We played a mix of charades and Pictionary to review English words we learned these past few months. The ladies loved it.  After that, I showed and kind of tested them on a PowerPoint of America.  I tried to make lots of comparisons to Zambia: a mountain lion is our version of a lion, Florida has alligators instead of crocodiles, the northern part of the states has snow (they loved talking about snow – it still is such a crazy concept to them), we have four seasons, you have three, etc.  Tomorrow is our last day of English.  We’re not really teaching; instead, we’re handing out certificates, pictures, and some treats.  It should be fun and a nice way to say good-bye. 

            After class, Dee took us to Kabwata, the cultural village.  When the British started settling Zambia, they tore down all the little huts the natives were living in and built westernized houses instead.  Someone realized that the culture was being destroyed and wanted to preserve a part of it, so they saved these last huts to show people what Zambia used to look like.  Next to these huts, artists and craftsmen sell their work.  Dee knew we were interested in looking at some of these things, so she offered to take us.  We didn’t buy as much as we wanted because we were nervous about packing, but we went back home, packed quickly, and realized that we both have tons more room.  We’re hoping to go back tomorrow to get some other things we liked. 

            After we packed (and joyfully celebrated the fact that our luggage is in no danger of being overweight) we walked over to preschool to drop some things off to the teacher.  We played with the kids – or rather, they hung off our arms and legs while shouting “Teacher!” – and then walked up to the store to get some juice for tomorrow’s party with the ladies.  Then we returned to campus, watched the kids play for a bit, and then played volleyball.  No ladies showed up because of a meeting or something, which was disappointing, but we played with a bunch of the older boys, and that was really fun.  Then we made a strange dinner consisting of all our leftover food (half a chicken breast, some cabbage and onions, and lots of rice) and actually cleaned our house.  Dust gets blown in constantly no matter what we do, so everything in here is pretty much just covered in a film of dirt.  Then I played around on the internet for a while trying to find out easy ways to get from our hotel in London to the touristy stuff downtown.  It was a busy but extremely productive day!  I’m happy we have tomorrow to just enjoy ourselves and not stress out about packing. 

Tutoring Party

            Today was busy!  I had Given, Mildred, and Barnabas show up.  After Mildred and I finished “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” we played a matching game that I created and then Simon Says.   They all loved it, especially the matching game.  After English class, Dee took us into town to get some last minute things we needed for our party this evening.  We had lunch and got everything we needed and just made it back in time for our afternoon tutoring session.  I had a bunch of kids show up for this one – Obey, Daliso, Jeremiah, Stone, Mirriam, Shain, and Given again.  I kept asking why Given wasn’t in school but I couldn’t get a straight answer.  I think he got in trouble for not bringing his books or something.  We played the same memory game and Simon Says and invited Rachel’s kids – Mwandida, Pimbi, and Shadreck – to play with us too.  It was a very competitive, long, loud game.  The kids had a lot of fun and didn’t want to leave at the end of it. 

            We went back and prepared for our party.  The purpose of our party was to hand out certificates that show that the kids were taking English classes; this is very important to the people here.  It can help later with jobs and things like that.  We also gave each kid a picture of us with them and their tutoring group.  Each preschool child received a group picture of Rachel and I with them.  All the kids got a piece of candy, and then we served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, biscuits, and juice to the kids and their parents.  The parents loved it; the moms ran over and swung their kids around, kissing their faces and telling them good job after they got their certificate.  Afterwards, several of the dads came over and thanked us for our hard work and repeatedly said that they were so sad we have to leave so soon.  We took pictures with many of the families and then cleaned up with some help from the boys.  It was a really fun party and it really couldn’t have gone better.  We were so happy to see that nearly every single person was there.

             We ate a quick dinner and then went over to the Sargents’ to celebrate Nathan’s birthday.  Now I’m faced with the dooming dilemma of trying to pack.  I’m so tired and unmotivated to do that right now and will probably end up pushing it back to the very last second. 

Last Sunday

            Last church service at Bethel today.  I played for it and it went much better than last time – the cables were working so the piano stayed on this time and Rachel held the pages down for me so the wind wouldn’t close the hymnal.  After the service, we got some stuff ready for tomorrow and tried to begin organizing all our things.  Then Rachel’s aunt called and invited us out for dinner.  Afterwards, we went back to their house and watched “Rio” and ate ice cream.  It was a very nice, relaxing evening.  Not much else to report – the next few days will be a whirlwind of teaching, packing, cleaning, and saying good-bye. 

Camping in Kafue: Wild dogs, Lions, and 19 Hours of Uncertainty and Helplessness

When I think back to our trips to South Luangwa and Victoria Falls, I feel like they were as close to perfect as possible.  Everything ran smoothly and we just had such a wonderful time.  After this recent camping trip to Kafue, I’m not leaving with exactly the same feeling.  We had fun, saw lots of animals, and enjoyed each others’ company, but there was a period of time that was certainly less than perfect.  That period of time lasted nineteen hours.  But before I talk about that, I’ll start from the beginning. 

We left the seminary a little after 6 Thursday morning.  We stopped to pick up Ethel and then were on our way.  We beat traffic in downtown Lusaka and made it to our campsite about four hours later.  We found this perfect spot to camp right on the river and even had Gibson, one of the workers, set up our tents for us.  After a relaxing lunch, we got ready to go out on a game drive.  Because Sue brought the cruiser (a nice big car with bench seats and four wheel drive) we could go on self-drives.  We even had a spotlight for when it got dark.  We brought along our coolers of food so the monkeys wouldn’t get into them while we were gone and a case of water, just to be safe.  Since we wanted to sit up on the roof rack at some point, we threw in a sleeping bag so we could sit on it.  Before entering the park, we stopped at another campsite, Mukombi, to see if their pet hippo was around.  He wasn’t – he lives in the wild part of the time, so he must have been off somewhere.  Sue asked one of the drivers if all the loops were open (meaning not flooded still from the rainy season or ripped up) and he assured us they were. 

We saw some elephants, zebras, various breeds of antelopes, and buffalo.  After doing some river loops that we had done earlier with Dave and Dee, Sue wanted to go on a different loop where she had once seen five cheetahs and a leopard.  We headed out towards it but couldn’t quite find the entrance for it.  A tractor that was grating the roads passed us and directed us on a main road, but then right after that a man in a truck came by and showed us a very narrow, somewhat rough road that we hadn’t noticed.  He happily waved good-bye and told us to have lots of fun.  After driving this road for a while, Rachel and I crawled up to the top of the roof so we could see better.  We saw little crocodile run out from the water and a kudu by the stream, but other than that we didn’t see anything.  The grass was really high and the road was getting rougher and rougher.  We came up to this huge divot in the road.  The rainy season creates these streams that run through the ground and when they dry up, they leave behind these huge divots in the road.  Sue asked us if we should try it, and we encouraged her too – we wanted to get the point where she had seen the cheetahs under the tree.  We lay flat on the roof and hung tight on the railings while Sue managed to just barely get our truck through the small canyon.  I thought we were going to get stuck, but we managed to get through.  A short time after that, we came up to another divot, but this one had a small stream running through it.  This looked much smaller and much less steep compared to the last one, and we all assured Sue to just try it.  She sat and thought about it for a while, but then decided that she didn’t want to turn around because the first divot was terrible and she didn’t think she’d make it through it again.  We all confidently encouraged her to do it – how bad could it be? 

The small stream turned out to be much muddier than we anticipated and the sides were also much sharper than they looked.  We got stuck.  Our two front tires were on the sand and our back two had water halfway up them.  The thing that really got us stuck was the fact that our bumper was pretty much buried in mud.  We couldn’t see anything because we were so low in the ground and there was such tall grass around us.  Sue was really worried about lions and told Rachel and I to get back in the car right away.  We crawled through the front window and were met with Sue grimly saying, “We’re stuck till they find us.” 

This was at 4:30 PM on Thursday afternoon.  Sue was extremely worried about lions hiding in the tall grass, but finally agreed that we had to try to get ourselves out of this situation, so she let us get out one at a time to put things under the tires to try to get traction while the others were on lion watch.  That idea didn’t work – we tried the cooler lid and sticks that were nearby, but we were just way too stuck.  Soon, it got dark and we couldn’t try much else.

We were hoping that someone would take a game drive and find us, but we knew that was a slim chance since this loop was certainly not driveable and it was very far away from our camp.  Our second hope was that Gibson would notice we were gone since we told him we’d back around 7:30.  We thanked God we brought water and food!  Ethel and I played a game of cards, Sue told us about her time in the Peace Corps, and we joked and laughed about all the terrible things that could happen to us, but soon we settled into a quiet, kind of helpless feeling and just laid on the seats and watched the sun set.  Every once in a while, Sue laid on the horn, hoping a game driver would hear us.  We made bets on when we would be discovered (I bet 7:10 that night…such an optimist, Sue bet 11 that night, and Ethel and Rachel said in the morning) and then drifted off to sleep for a few minutes at a time.  Sue pointed out stars to us and we made random conversation here and there before falling asleep again.  I woke up freezing around 11.  I was wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt, Ethel had jeans and a light sweatshirt, Rachel just had short pants with a T-shirt and a fleece, and Sue was wearing jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, and a fleece.  Rachel was on the floor with the sleeping bag wrapped around and Ethel had both Sue and Rachel’s fleeces.  I was on the bench seat, huddled in a ball, and Sue was in the front seat.  Sue suddenly got really excited and said, “You guys, I see a spotlight!  They found us!”  She honked the horn and flashed the lights and we all started getting really happy until we realized that it was just the moon.  It was unusually bright and it was rising at such a late hour that when you looked at it through the trees, it really did look like a spotlight.  Ethel, Rachel and I drifted back off to sleep while Sue stayed awake.  She refused to sleep or eat pretty much the entire time because she was saving everything for us. 

At 1, I woke up even colder than before.  I can’t remember the last time I was so cold.  We should have thought of this before, but finally we all crawled up into the front seat and huddled together.   Sue and I were next to the doors, which was very cold, but I warmed up enough to drift off to sleep a little more.  Sue couldn’t stand being by the door for very long, so she got up some time after that and moved to the back of the car.  This is where she started to panic – she kept muttering about all the bad things that could happen.  This is the time of year where they burn off the grass and we had driven past some of those areas nearby.  It was possible that elephants would come by and tip us over, or lions could attack us while one of us was going to the bathroom.  She was also getting irritated that the people at the campsite hadn’t found us yet.  There really aren’t that many loops that we could have been on and there aren’t that many spots where we could have gotten stuck.  I was concerned for her – I didn’t want to hear her panic.  We all moved back so she could be under the blanket and tried to get her to fall asleep.  I drifted off again, waking up periodically when I was too cold or in a really uncomfortable position.  We all woke up at 5, knowing that in an hour the sun would be out and it would soon be getting warm.  I was still holding out hope that God would make this worthwhile and show us some really cool animals.  Maybe a cheetah or a leopard would wander right past our car and we could see it up close.  Funny enough, we saw absolutely nothing except a couple birds. 

The sun came up and soon it got really hot.  We decided we had to try something more.  We got out of the car (Sue had relaxed her rule a little bit about only one person being out at a time) and tried to find things we could shove under the tires.  I used a table knife to start sawing off the tall grass and then tried digging out our bumper with a stick.  Rachel and Sue got the spare tires off the top of the truck and put them on our bumper to see if the change of the weight made a difference.  I even pulled off my shirt to give one of the front wheels some added traction and Sue took off a shoe.  Rachel took the table knife and hacked away at some of the dirt that could have been a problem for one of the front wheels.  We tried all this plus pushing and nothing worked.  The tires just could not get enough traction with all the water and mud.   

Tired, hot, sweaty, and resigned to spending more hours in the car, we reluctantly got back in the steaming vehicle and talked about our other options.  I pointed out that we could make a fire from the cigarette lighter, and Sue had learned in a survival class that Q-tips with Vaseline are good fire starters, so she worked on building a small fire that would send up smoke signals.  I tore out pages of the book I had with me and tried to light them, but it didn’t work.  Sue tried it over and over again with the Q-tips, but it just wouldn’t light.  This would have worked in the movies.

Rachel and Ethel fell asleep in the back and I somewhat guiltily started reading my book.  Sue, who still hadn’t slept at all and had eaten hardly anything, sat in the front seat praying.  I was surprisingly calm and not panicky at all.  I was preparing myself to spend the next night in the car but knew that by Saturday at the latest someone would for sure find us.  The only thing I was worried about was the cold – the night before had been just brutal.  I just kept saying to myself that at some point it would all be over – we just had to take it a minute at a time. 

At 11:30, Rachel and Ethel were convinced they heard a car.  I didn’t believe them – I thought it was the wind and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  But the sound didn’t go away, and it started getting a little louder.  I let myself hope that we could be saved and crawled out the window onto the roof of the car to see what it was.  I heard the car clearly then and started shouting, “It’s a car!  It’s a car!”  Then I saw it, and I gleefully waved my arms and kept shouting.  Rachel and Sue started crying from joy, and we all hopped out of the car to greet our saviors.  It was four workers from our campsite in a pick-up truck and they were not thrilled to see us.  One man even said, “We are so annoyed to see you!”  The scolding continued: “What were you thinking coming here?”  “Why would you try this loop!”  “You should have told us you were coming here!”  I had the feeling we were children who got lost wandering in the woods and were discovered by frantic parents.  Ethel, Rachel, and I were pretty obnoxious – we were so happy we were rescued that after apologizing and thanking the men, we chattered and giggled away while watching the men continue to yell at Sue.  They hooked up the truck to the back of their pick-up truck and managed to pull it out pretty quickly.  We followed them back up the loop, elated to be moving again.  (Later, the men told us that there were lion prints headed towards our vehicle.  We were definitely in lion country and it was good idea that Sue was as vigiliant as she was.)

Suddenly, the men in the truck stopped and pointed frantically over to a tree.  Under the tree were probably ten wild dogs!   If you’re like me before I came to Africa, you won’t know what wild dogs are.  They are similar to hyenas but have rounder ears.  They are extremely rare to see – much rarer than lions.  Seeing a wild dog is like winning the lottery.  And we saw so many of them!  That almost made our nineteen hours of being trapped in the car worth it.

We got back to the camp, showered, ate lunch, and thanked God over and over again that we were out of that terrible place.  We thought that going on a game drive with the actual guide from the campsite was a good idea for the evening, so at 5, we went out on one.  We saw pretty much nothing except for a porcupine and some antelopes, so that was a little disappointing.  But we were so thrilled to get back and crawl into our very warm beds for the evening!

The next morning, we got up at 5:30 to go out on one last self drive.  We went on the nice safe, close loops.  Within a few minutes, we saw two hyenas very close to our car, but they got scared and ran away before we could take a picture.  On our way to the river loop, Rachel yelled at Sue to stop the car.  We were on the main tarmac road and weren’t expecting to see anything, but Rachel told her to back up because she saw a male lion.  Sure enough – way in the distance there was a beautiful male lion.  She saw him because there were impala staring at it.  We were using binoculars and getting a look at it when Sue calmly says, “Oh my, there is a lion right behind us!”  I couldn’t believe it, but there was another male lion walking casually down the tarmac away from our car.  I opened up the back door to get a better picture of it and Sue backed up so we could be a little closer to it.  Then it crossed through the tall grass and joined the other male lion.  It was so incredible!

After that, we saw two female and one male kudu right by our car.  That’s rare – they’re very skiddish.  After that, we came up by a couple doing a game drive and they said that we had just missed seeing a cheetah.  The puku were sending up alarm calls and we knew the cheetah was close by hiding in the grass.  We waited it out, but we couldn’t see it.

We returned to the camp, ate lunch, and packed up.  On the way out of the park, we saw hartebeests – very rare antelope.  We got back to our house a little after 6.  I’m exhausted and definitely ready for bed!  Despite the unwelcome excitement of being stuck in the mud for nearly a day, the weekend was a great time.  I’m so happy I had one last chance to explore the African wilderness!   

Saying Good-Bye to Anne

            This morning for tutoring I had young Barnabas and Given.  One of the sheets I did with them was labeling the different colors, which then turned into a game of “I Spy.”  We did some math and reading and then ended up playing an adapted game of Pictionary.  I started doing math facts and of course the two boys got really competitive and tried to race each other.  Daliso (Rachel’s student) started playing too.  It was a fun morning. 

            We split up English class for today so I could finish up “Beauty and the Beast” with my ladies.  They really seem to have picked up on some of the trickier vocabulary words used in the story.  At the end, I pulled out my laptop and showed them the last couple minutes of the Disney version.  There were lots of “oohs” and “awwws” when the beast changed into a man and kissed Beauty.  On the side of the YouTube page I saw links to a few other Disney movies, so I showed them a couple minutes of “The Little Mermaid” and “The Lion King.”  They had no idea what the context for those movies were and I think they thought they were really weird.

            My afternoon tutoring brought Shain, Jeremiah, Obey, and Mirriam.  We did some worksheets, read some stories, and did some spelling.  I told them we’d only have two more days for tutoring, and they all said they would come both of those days.       

            This afternoon brought some tears – we had to say good-bye to Anne.  She is worn out from her recent weeks of cooking for 60+ people and therefore was encouraged to go spend some quiet weeks at her home a couple hours away.  As sad as we are to say good-bye earlier than necessary, I’m so happy that she gets to get away and relax. 

             Tomorrow we’re going camping!!  Mrs. Birner is taking us and Ethel (one of the girls who goes to Good Shepherd – we met her when we went to the crocodile farm) to Kafue to camp until Saturday.  There won’t be any Internet interaction until then, so try not to miss my blogs too much! 

Last Time Teaching Preschool

            Our session of English class was missing several ladies due to illness and work, so we only had six ladies today.   Since Regina wasn’t there to help translate for some of the lower ladies, it was a trickier lesson, but we were able to adapt and make it work.

            Because today was the first day of school for the kids after their April holiday, no one showed up for our 10:30 tutoring session.  I have a feeling that from here until the end, we’re going to have a lot of confusing schedule issues because many of the kids switched from morning to afternoon school or vise versa.  We enjoyed a longer lunch break before preschool.  This was the first time we taught it in a couple weeks.  It went pretty well – we had them make Mother’s Day cards, sang songs, and did the usual ABC and counting chants.  Then, my usual afternoon tutoring students didn’t show because their schedules were changed, but some other boys – Given, Obey, Shain, and Sam – showed up to see if I would teach them.  Their levels are all pretty different, so we did what we could with Bananagrams and another worksheet I quick made up.  Then we decided to have Rachel’s student Mwandida come with us and play some games.  We played the Slap game that I learned from a teacher at DSA, which they thought was pretty hilarious, and then we read some stories.  We finished up with a competitive game of Simon Says (the version I learned from doing NBC camps).  They begged to play more rounds of it and were so disappointed when I said we had to stop.  The boys, especially Given and Shain, have dramatically transformed from the meek, quiet, calm characters they usually appear to be and are now quite boisterous at times.  They’re obviously really comfortable with me now.  Also, I think they’re just being typical boys – the more there are, the crazier they get.  We had a lot of fun today and I’m realizing just how on my toes I’m going to have to be in the next few days.  I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of random groups of kids because of all these schedule changes. 

Mundane Monday

            Today was kind of a strange day because the kids were getting ready to go back to school tomorrow.  I think they had meetings today at their schools or something, because none of my kids showed up until right at the end of my morning tutoring session.  Given and Barnabas came – Barnabas explained that he wouldn’t be around tomorrow so he thought he’d come now – and then Daliso with his little brother wandered in for the last five minutes.  It was an unusual group of kids for my Monday mornings, but we made it work.  We read some stories and did some spelling with Bananagrams.

            For English class, we did a lot of work with a map we created.  We worked on buildings and directions.  It was a challenging lesson, but I think the ladies got a lot out of it. 

            My afternoon tutoring session was with just Mirriam – no sight of Shain anywhere.  Mirriam and I read for a while and then did worksheets I created on colors and numbers.  In the afternoon, I read some of my book and then got busy finalizing some things for the rest of the week.  We walked with Dee up to the fruit stand for mangoes, but the man wasn’t selling any today.  We made a delicious dinner of rice, chicken, and vegetables and then continued working on random things for the rest of our time here. 

Keyboard Malfunctions and Arcades

I played for church today.  It was a little challenging – the keyboard didn’t sit on the stack of bricks straight so it wobbled whenever I changed chords, the wind was blowing my pages shut and my hair in my face, and the keyboard kept turning on and off.  Jack, the guy who usually plays the keyboard, tried to help and did what he could to make it run smoothly, but it wasn’t the best service I’ve ever played.  He was really nice, though.  He kept saying how he wished Rachel and I would be in Africa longer so we could help him learn how to play the keyboard better. 

            We ventured into town to barter with the vendors at Arcades.  We wanted to trade some of clothes and shoes we didn’t want anymore and expected the vendors to give us a good deal, but we were surprised by their reactions.  In Livingstone, I had vendors begging me to bring them T-shirts, but here they weren’t really interested.  We finally had some luck, though, and went home fairly happy.   The bus rides there and back were of course adventures all by themselves.  I think I’ve mentioned before that Zambians rarely get impatient and generally don’t mind waiting, but today I finally saw some Zambians get irritated.  The callboy on the first bus ride took at least ten minutes at the first stop running up and down the road trying to get people to get on our bus and the other passengers on the bus started grumbling at him and told him to hurry it up.  He made our trip into town much, much longer than it normally does.  On the way back, we were concerned because our bus started taking the same route through Kaunda Square as a couple days ago, but it turned out it was just avoiding traffic.  This did make our trip really long, though, as it had to go less than 10 mph through pothole ridden streets.   

            We planned for the week and tried to stay on top of our ever-growing list of things to do.  It’s unbelievable how close we are to leaving. 

A Lovely Saturday

            Today was a very full, relaxing day.  I went for a nice long run this morning and then Rachel and I hung out at the guest house and watched TV while working on tedious stuff on our computers.  We watched a couple of excellent shows on TLC and E! and were very productive.  Later in the afternoon, we walked with Dee to meet her friend Vincent.  He’s a very nice, intelligent man.  Then we went over to campus to watch some kickball and follow Dave around as he hunted monkeys.  He shot one out of the tree and the boys went crazy.  They all sprinted at it.  Given got there first and the sight of him snatching it up and running around cheering in delight made me laugh so hard.  I kept my distance, though – bloody animal carcasses aren’t my thing.  Then we made a delicious dinner of pasta, vegetables, and chicken and watched Sense and Sensibility. 

A Little Trip to Kaunda Square

            This morning was a little sad – no power, which meant no shower and no coffee.  The shower thing was fine, but not having coffee is a bit of a problem for me, so I ran over to Dave and Dee’s house and microwaved some water quick. 

Tutoring went well.  I had Given, Obey, Daliso, and Gertrude.  Daliso and Gertrude liked all the worksheets I had for them – there were some synonyms/antonyms sheets, a five senses worksheet, and then for fun, a word search at the end. 

            Regina again was the only one to show up for English today.  I’m not sure why, but I think some of the ladies were at work or doing other chores.  We had fun playing Bananagrams for about a half an hour and then I grabbed a reading comprehension worksheet on Venus.  Regina loved reading about the planet and asked us to get her more information on the solar system, clouds, and anything else we could find. 

             We ventured into town to run some errands.  The minibus ride there was amazing – we were on a huge, spacious bus (well, compared to what we’re used to) and the driver made hardly any stops.  We even paid a little less than we normally do.  We ran our errands, got an ice cream cone, and then hopped back on a minibus, thinking that it was going way too smoothly and something was bound to go wrong.  It did, of course.  We got on the wrong bus.  The callboy was advertising for Kaunda Square, which is on the way to Chelston.  I thought Rachel asked him if the bus was going all the way to Chelston, and she thought he had yelled it, and in the rush of getting a good seat we just hopped on without checking.  When the bus turned left at a round-about instead of going straight through it like it normally does, Rachel said we should get off and get a bus going back. I was kind of curious about where the bus was going to end up and I didn’t really want to get off on this little dirt road with not much minibus traffic on it, so I convinced her to stay on a little longer.  We got further and further into Kaunda Square, which definitely shows more of typical African life – lots of small houses, rundown buildings, and very poor roads.  The relaxed, wait-and-see-what-happens attitude is definitely becoming the norm for me, and I just smiled and enjoyed the ride while Rachel was trying to figure out where we were going and ending up. I kept thinking that maybe the bus would end up by Chelston, but soon it turned into a tiny little lot full of taxis and other minibuses and we realized this was the farthest the buses go.  We asked the bus driver how we could get to Chelston, but then a man came up offering a taxi ride.  We negotiated a very reasonable price from the nice-looking driver and hopped in his car for a safe, quick ride back home. 

            The power went off right after we ate dinner.  Twice in a day – that’s unusual, but it wasn’t too big of a deal.  It came on after about an hour.  We had a relaxing evening, mostly spent playing on our computers. 

             

Antelopes and Giraffes

            Tutoring went well again this morning.  English also went well; the lesson was challenging. but they seemed to learn a lot.  My afternoon tutoring with the Barnabases was more math-filled.  They are both really motivated to do math – the older Barnabas even chose to take home a division problem he had spent probably ten minutes on instead of letting me help him.

            We got an impromptu invitation from the Birners to go a game park nearby.  We of course accepted, and at 3:30 this afternoon met the Birners and Professor Cherney and drove maybe an hour to a park just outside the city.  This park doesn’t have anything big – just antelope and giraffes – but we were excited to see whatever we could.  We saw bushbuck, water buffalo, eland, dykers, wildebeests, impalas, warthogs, and giraffes nice and close to our vehicle.  Then, the lodge owners made a special exception for us and let us go see the elephants.  There are some veterinarians who have rescued baby orphaned elephants and are working to heal them and then eventually set them free.  They keep them in a stable near the lodge and we were able to see them up nice and close.  One of the tiny little guys was found after someone nearly killed it with an ax.  The fact that he was walking today was a miracle, because as of Monday he couldn’t.  The ax wounds paralyzed one of its legs, but he’s made an amazing recovery and is now limping around quite well.  He and another baby elephant were crying for their milk, which is a very unpleasant noise.  It’s quite a science to get the milk just right for each elephant.  The vets have to supplement each elephant’s milk based on its individual needs, so some elephants have iron supplements, others have whey powder, and almost all have some sort of probiotic.  The other elephants had heart-breaking stories.  There were a couple whose mothers had been poached, so they were forced to wander around, starving, until these veterinarians saved them.   The program is very interesting.  I’m amazed this is happening within a short drive from the noisy, urban Lusaka.  On our way back to the lodge, we heard the screeching of bushbabies.  The lodge owner has a bushbaby as a pet, which we would have loved to see, but he wasn’t around to show us.   

            We ate a phenomenal dinner at the lodge and then headed home.  The total trip was about five hours and it was a great evening.  

Balloons

            This morning when we got to tutoring, our boys were already there with everything set up for us.  How sweet is that?  I tutored Given, Stone, and Obey.  I told the boys we were leaving on May 17th, and Given said to me, “But you’re coming back, right?”  I started crying when I had to tell him that no, this time when we left, we weren’t coming back.  The fact that Given said this in perfect English when he couldn’t even write his own name three months ago made me cry even more.  I can’t say enough good things about these kids – they are so motivated, happy, and kind to each other. 

            After class was over, the boys didn’t want to leave.  They goofed around our room, begging to take pictures and play with the whiteboard.  After about twenty minutes and a hundred pictures later, we got them to leave and waited for our ladies to show up for English.  Regina was the only one!  All the other ladies were either working or at a funeral.  Regina is so eager to learn and very interesting to talk to, so we dug up some other worksheets to do with her for a while and then just talked.  We learned some things:

-          In Malawi, women don’t talk about their pregnancies.  A pregnant woman will discuss it if it’s just her and one other person together, but if there are people around, it’s taboo.  Again, this shows how much of an influence witchcraft has on the culture here.

-          Girls are more highly favored in Zambia because when they get married, their husbands have to pay a dowry.  Therefore, the more daughters you have, the richer you will be.  This isn’t true in Malawi (and I’m sure my dad would say it’s definitely not true in America either… J). 

Then Regina gave us some wonderful news -  she’s pregnant!  It’s very early, so she’s not telling people yet, but she knew how excited we would be for her so she wanted to let us know.

During English class when Rachel was working on a worksheet with Regina, I saw Paul, Obey, and Stone playing in a tree.  Paul and Obey’s super cute little sister Mirriam was on the ground, and Stone’s hilariously chubby little baby brother was too.  I took some pictures of the older boys playing in the tree and then noticed that Jefter was shoveling dirt in his mouth like it was candy.  Instead of stopping him, I took some pictures.  Mirriam started gnawing on a guava, and that made Jefter angry.  He’s only eight months old but dwarfs delicate, little 18 month Mirriam.  They made for some excellent entertainment. 

 Our afternoon tutoring groups showed up late, so while we were waiting, the same boys with their little siblings came over to learn more.  We looked at flash cards for a while.  I did some different things with Shain and Mirriam and it made for a more interesting class.  They’re both very shy, quiet kids, so finding activities that suit their personalities and levels have been a little challenging, but today went well. 

Afterwards, Rachel and I continued being super-productive and got a lot of things crossed off our to-do list before heading over to play kickball.  Pastor Sargent suggested we take the balloons used at Lisa’s party yesterday and give them to the kids.  This created mass chaos.  We took over the garbage bags full of balloons and passed them out to the little kids while the bigger kids were playing kickball.  Well, Rachel passed them out.  I played kickball.  During kickball, every few minutes I would hear a balloon pop and then the inevitable screaming and crying would follow.  Rachel went and hid the rest of the balloons in the guest house because the kids were begging her for more.  After kickball, the older kids knew they were getting balloons too, so when I was coming back from the guesthouse with the balloons, they started chanting, “Ba-ba-balloons!  Ba-ba-balloons!”  I looked up and saw probably forty kids sprinting at me.  In America, how many thirteen year old boys would be begging for a pink balloon?  My guess is zero.  Here, they are so excited to get anything.  The chaos surrounding me was hilarious and terrifying.  I had all the little kids who already got balloons yanking on my shorts, begging me for more (“Teacha!  Teacha!  Balloon! Please Teacha!”) while the older kids tried not to step on them as they pushed each other around, doing whatever they could to see into the bag.   It was insanity.  I strongly suggest next year’s group not to do this. 

After that, we went to the Birner’s house for tacos.  It was, of course, delicious.  We love not having to cook dinner! 

Today was such a perfect day.  Teaching went well, the kids were awesome (except for maybe during the balloon fiasco) and everything went so smoothly.    

May Day - A Thief Sighting and Lots of Yummy Fruit

It’s a national holiday here, so normally we wouldn’t have class, but we let the ladies decide if they wanted to come to class or not.  We’re possibly going to be camping at Kafue on Friday, and we didn’t want to give off two days of class this week, so we decided to give them their holiday on Friday and maximize our teaching time.

We had five ladies in English – Sarah and four of Rachel’s.  That was nice to have this group because they are a little lower so we could adjust our teaching to their level.  After English, Rachel and I went into super-organized mode.  With it being May, we’re suddenly faced with the sad fact that we are leaving in just over two weeks.  We have a ton of stuff we need to do between now and then, so we made a list and started working on crossing things off. 

We had to run a quick errand at a shop up the street and on our way back decided to visit this excellent fruit stand Dee just showed us.  It’s just a few minutes away from our house but we never noticed it because it’s in the lot of a gas station.  We bought a pineapple, paw-paw (papaya), pears, and apples.  Add that to the fresh oranges, tangerines, and avocados we pick from the trees in the yard as well as the tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage, and other various vegetables we buy from the lady who sits at a table across from our gate, and we have a pretty fantastic deal over here.  I’m definitely going to miss having fresh, organic fruits and vegetables within walking distance.

On the way back from the fruit stand, we heard some yelling up by the highway. Soon, a man, dressed in nice jeans and a flannel shirt sprinted in front of us.  He was followed by a man in a very fancy suit.  He was yelling after the man in flannel, and we guessed that he had stolen something.  A car that was driving past sped up ahead to stop the thief, and the man in the suit was able to catch up to him, handcuff him, and start beating him across the head.  While this was happening, we kind of froze on the street, somewhat shocked by what we were seeing and not wanting to get any closer.  I have no idea why the man in the fancy suit had handcuffs or why the man in the flannel thought it was a good idea to steal when there were tons of people around.  It was a pretty exciting couple minutes.

When we got back, we went around to the ladies’ houses to hand out notes that gave them the schedule for our last week here.  We’re going to have little parties for everyone we’ve taught and we wanted to make sure the ladies knew about it.  The ladies’ response to our departure date was so sweet and sad at the same time.  Sarah said, “My heart, it is breaking.  This is not fine,” and she started tearing up.  Regina said, “No, no, madam, don’t say this!  Just stay longer.”  Ella said “Why not just two more weeks?  Just stay longer, it’ll be fine.”

Tonight we had a little surprise birthday party for Lisa Sargent.  We had pizza, cake, and ice cream and played Telestrations.  Overall, it was a very productive day.