Snow White, Fritters, and Star Gazing

                I woke up early to try running for the first time in two weeks.  It didn’t go very well – I thought my foot was healed but it’s definitely not.  I’m trying not to complain about it too much and am praying it heals up quickly.

                I tutored the four boys – Given, Stone, Jeremiah, and Obey.  I have a good handle on what they can and can’t do, so I felt like we were productive today.  I’m happy I’m able to get to know the boys through soccer and kickball because it helps me understand how to teach them. 

                In English, we’re reading Snow White.  The ladies seem to be enjoying it, even though the vocabulary can be difficult.  Then I spent some time with Shain and Miriam.  I’m beginning to realize how different their reading levels are and will have to give them differentiated, if not completely separate, lessons from now on. 

                At lunch, Anne made us cheese fritters, a.k.a. deep fried bread with cheese in the middle.  Needless to say, that made our day.  In the afternoon, Dave and his friends decided to go monkey hunting.  They shot one out of the tree, to the great delight of the boys, who picked it up and posed with it like a stuffed animal.  The pictures are really funny – check Rachel’s facebook.  We asked what they were going to do with the monkeys, and there are some tribes out here who eat them, so one of the students will probably take it home for dinner. 

                We went to church at Bethel and while we were singing the last verse of our hymn, the power went out.  Everyone immediately stopped singing, laughed, and shrugged their shoulders.  The stars were incredible tonight, especially with all the lights being out, so when Rachel and I got home, we got the mat out and laid on it while planning for tomorrow.  I’ve never seen the sky look so beautiful and was actually kind of disappointed when the power came back on. 

                Overall, it was another good, busy day.  It was very hot, so we’re hoping a rain storm comes tomorrow to cool everything down.  We’re also hoping to somehow watch some March Madness games!!   

Lots and Lots of Teaching

Phew…full day.  We started off with two hours of English class, which went pretty well.  I’m pushing the ladies a lot more than last week; they are so smart and catch on to things so quickly.  After English, I tutored Obey and Stone, then had lunch break, and then two hours of preschool.  Preschool went fine.  There were some really great parts and some parts that weren’t as smooth.  The really great parts were when the kids were staring at me intently while I drew the letter B in the air, or they were laughing hysterically at songs that Rachel was doing with them, or when we were outside and the kids were dying for us to play games with them.  The other parts that we need to figure out are when certain little ones stop listening and purposefully do naughty things to get our attention.  Sigh…if only I could speak their language.  We’re working on it, though, and it really has gotten better.

                After that, I tutored my two Barnabas boys.  I can’t say enough good things about these guys.  The older one is crazy smart, super polite, and just such a good kid.  The younger one works really hard, is really good with the little kids, and is always so happy to see me, even when he knows tutoring won’t be as fun as kickball. 

                Tonight, some large creature flew in our house. It was like a cross between a dragon-fly, a praying mantis, and a locust, but way bigger than all three of those things.  I was preparing to enforce my usual defense method (trapping it under a bucket and leaving it for a few days) when from the wastebasket I had in my hand emerged another little animal.  I felt something scurry across my hand, so I naturally flipped out, dropped the basket on the ground, and shrieked for several seconds while the thing ran under the couch.  For all I know, it’s still there.  We’re thinking it’s a lizard from the glimpses we saw of it, which is fine.  Lizards are pretty cute and don’t bother me, except for when they startle me by running across my hand.   

                Nothing too crazy here other than that. Tonight was spent planning, relaxing, and gearing up for the rest of the week. 

Crocodiles

                Today was such a fun, exhausting day.  First, Rachel and I went over to Bethel’s new church location to help clean up the land.  Yesterday in church they announced they were having a work day and invited everyone to help, so we thought we’d stop by and see what we could do.  We got there pretty early and only one guy was there working.  We asked what we could do to help, and he looked us up and down kind of skeptically and said, “Have you ever slashed before?” (Slashers are long strips of metal they use to hack back the tall grass).  We have never used slashers, but we were willing to try.   We started hacking away at the massive overgrown field, which was not the easiest thing in the world.  Within five minutes, my shoulders, back, and abs already felt like they had gotten a good workout.  I kept wondering why I ever thought weed-whacking was hard.  At least then you had a machine doing the majority of the work.  I helped slash for about an hour while Rachel helped some girls dig up some grass.  We couldn’t stay too long, because our fun outing to the crocodile farm was scheduled to begin at ten.

Before we left, Anne came running over to tell us that there were monkeys in the trees.  Monkeys are not exciting for people who live in Africa – they’re like squirrels to us – but she knew how much I wanted to see them.  They were adorable (again, most Africans don’t think monkeys are adorable…they are nuisances).  There was a mother with her little babies and they hopped around from tree to tree, watching us.

                Our group going to the crocodile farm was Pastor and Mrs. Sargent and their son Nathan, Pastor and Mrs. Birner, and then some kids (ages 21 to 14) who go to Good Shepherd: Ethel and Aaron are brother and sister (I think ages 21 and 17) and are the children of Pastor Bangwe, and three siblings: Akeeyo (boy, around age 17), Mwiko (girl, around age 16), and Zoya (girl, around age 14).  The drive was primarily on a dirt road, which means massive potholes and extremely high speed bumps.  

                The crocodile farm (real name: Kalimba Reptile Park) was awesome.  There were pools, trampolines, playgrounds, a restaurant (that sells crocodile burgers, which are delicious), a pool table, and a mini-golf course.  First, we went to the snake pit.  We saw boa constrictors, black mambas, spitting cobras, and a ton of others, but I can’t remember their names.  All of them, with the exception of the boas and a couple garden snakes, are very poisonous and are unfortunately found all over Zambia (in fact, Anne found a spitting cobra in her garden while we were gone).  They were really cool to see up close – there were some strikingly beautiful green ones, an adder that blended in very well with the leaves on the bottom of its cage, and a tree snake that looks exactly like a stick with the exception of a green head.  We had an excellent guide who detailed the snakes’ killing methods and diet.  Then, he climbed down a ladder into the boa constrictor pit to get one out for us to hold.   He wanted to get the biggest one, but it started hissing at him in a rather frighteningly way, so he went for a smaller one.  Four of us were able to hold it.  I’m not afraid of snakes, but it was a little disconcerting to have the boa’s head right next to mine (the guide had it held shut, but still). 

                Then we toured around the crocodile pens.  There were four pens with different crocodiles in them. There was one that had some younger ones, like four years old, another pen with a breed called the African Slender Snouted crocodile, and a pen with some teeny tiny little babies in it. In the last pen, the guide jumped in and grabbed one for us.  It was so tiny and cute!  It started making this squealing noise and writhing around.  I videotaped it – the sound is really weird so I’m glad I have it. We were able to touch its tail before the guide dropped it back in the water.  The crocodiles were strangely still – I joked that they could have been plastic and we wouldn’t have been able to tell.  They just sat there with their mouths wide open, not moving one bit (until the guide jumped in the pen to grab the baby – then they all dove into the water to hide).  I found out later that since crocodiles don’t sweat, sitting with their mouths open is their way to cool off. 

                We saw some pits with turtles and snakes and then moved on to the main event: the really big crocodiles.  There was a large area set back in the land where the walk way is fenced in so the crocodiles can’t escape and eat us.  There was a bunch of ponds with huge, beautiful trees and, of course, a multitude of crocodiles.  We were within inches of several, and I could have stuck my hand through the fence and touched them if I wanted to (I didn’t).  These look much more vicious than the alligators I saw at the Everglades.  I couldn’t believe how wide they were.

                After viewing the park, we ate lunch (crocodile burgers for Rachel and I – they really do taste just like chicken), jumped on the trampolines, and went swimming. We played Marco Polo and keep away for a long time and were exhausted by the time we got out.  Rachel and I had so much fun being with all the kids from Good Shepherd.  It was nice to be with people close to our age.  They all speak perfect English, are very nice, and made for a very entertaining, fun afternoon.

                It was such a fun day!  I’m extremely worn out from being in the sun and swimming for hours, so my night consisted of sitting on the couch, eating a lot, and gearing up for the next four days of teaching. 

A Sports-Filled Day, Zambian Style

                Today was a really fun day.  We went to church at Bethel and experienced a church service like no other before.  The service was a mix of WELS and African traditions. We used the liturgy and sang familiar hymns, but there were some parts that were distinctly African.  First, there were three different choirs.  The first choir had about ten women in it, most of them the wives that we teach.  They were awesome – again, I was struck by how powerful their voices are.  They sound like there should be three times as many of them.  They sang all African songs while dancing around the church.  The second choir was the youth choir – only five people sang, and Rachel and I were way in the back, but we could hear them very clearly.  They sang a couple songs in English that were familiar to us and a third one in Chewa.  The last choir was made up of men and women.  The director had the most amazing voice I have ever heard.  They sang three or four songs, all in Chewa (I think…it could have been another dialect) and one of them was “I Love to Tell the Story.”  They also danced and moved around, and to show their appreciation, some of the women from the first choir let out this yelp, like, “Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!”  All the choirs did this throughout their songs – I think it’s like shouting “Amen!”  During the last song with the third choir, some of our ladies we teach jumped up and danced with them, adding their own vocalizations. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and such a fun display of their joy and faith.  The singing between the three choirs took about a half an hour, and then Pastor Mutentame preached.  He is one of the best speakers I have ever heard.  He’s funny, intelligent, and very easy to listen to.  The whole thing was longer than what I’m used to in America – two and a half hours – but it didn’t feel like it at all because it was really all so interesting. 

                On our walk back home, we had our little flock of kids follow us back.  They wanted to help us – they fought over who could carry my water bottle (Ndamiwe won) and some boys insisted on carrying our chairs for us.  When we got to our house, they congregated under the tents and hung out with us for a while.  These kids are so adorable and I just love them.

                We ate lunch and laid out on the sun for a while until Ndamiwe and Elias stopped by for a while.  This led to us walking around and seeing what the rest of the kids were up to.  Soon, a game of soccer started, and Paul asked us if we’d like to play.  This was my first barefoot football experience, complete with a ball made up of rolled up plastic bags.  My team lost – Given was too nice and passed to me too much.  These kids are pretty awesome at soccer – I’d love to see them at recess with all the DSA kids.  When the game was over, Paul asked if we would play kickball.  The rest of the boys started jumping around and chanting, “Kickball!  Kickball!” so of course we couldn’t resist.  I got all the kickball stuff out, appointed captains, and began.  After ten minutes, our sun disappeared and the rain started.  Within a minute, we were completely drenched.  The kids clearly had no intention of stopping the game, so we just kept playing.  It was like playing underneath a showerhead with the water turned on full blast.  I was up to my ankles in muddy water and we were all slipping and sliding all over the place.  It was really fun – by far the most fun game of kickball I’ve ever played.  We couldn’t last for too long though – the rain did not let up and we were all shivering, so we called the game after about an hour.

                Dr. and Mrs. Wendland had us over for dinner tonight.  We had a wonderful meal with interesting conversation – they are quite possibly the two most brilliant people I’ve ever met.  Afterwards, Margie invited us to stay and watch TV, which was very enjoyable for us.  We watched “What Not to Wear” (guilty pleasure) and some National Geographic.  On the way back home, I thought I kicked up some mud into my flip-flop, but I just ignored it for the last thirty seconds of our walk. I went to clean off my flip-flop when we got inside and was met with a disturbing surprise – it was a frog.  A small frog actually jumped onto my flip-flop right before I came down with my heel (again and again and again and again…). To my horror, it was very flat and had red liquid squishing from its mouth.  I acted like a girl for a few seconds and then took the shoe outside to take pictures and scrape the poor creature off of it.   And then, to my incredible surprise, the frog, who had been seriously flat just a few minutes before, jumped away into the grass!  That was my crazy experience for the night. 

                I think today was my favorite day so far.  It was just so out of the ordinary – the church service, playing soccer with a handmade ball, and running around in a rainstorm trying to play kickball.   Tomorrow should be another good, busy day – crocodile farm! 

A Trip to the Museum

                Nothing too exciting today.  I spent my Saturday morning doing my favorite things – drinking coffee and reading – and one of my not so favorite things – laundry.  We decided to go to the Lusaka National Museum downtown.  We hopped on a minibus and began our little adventure downtown.  Everything was going fine until we had to switch buses.  The bus stopped at Ima Towers (I think that’s what it was called) – the main bus stop in the downtown area.  The guy on the bus who handles the money told us to go find a bus going to the hospital and we’d be able to find the museum from there.  Then, we had an uncomfortable three or four minutes of having no idea what to do.  Whenever we’ve taken buses in the past, we’ve had handlers coming at us asking us where we wanted to go and then directing us to the correct bus.  This time, we were facing fifty buses with absolutely no clue which one was going where and no one was stepping up to help us.  We sucked it up and started asking around, and soon we found the right bus.  We jammed ourselves into the back of a very stuffy, teeny tiny mini bus and took the thankfully short ride up to the museum.  We crawled out of the bus, shouting, “Yes, I’m married!” to the interested men on the sidewalk and hurried off to the building. The museum wasn’t quite what I expected.  For one thing, I’m sure we got ripped off on the price.  The website says $2, but we paid 20,000 kwacha each, which is around $4.  The man gave us a speech I really didn’t understand…he asked us if we were residents, and then asked if we had proof that we were visitors, like a drivers’ license from another country, then said it would cost us $5, then 22,000 kwacha, then he just landed on the 20,000 kwacha amount.  Anyway, not a big deal, but it was a very confusing few minutes.   

                The museum had some art – some beautiful paintings and interesting sculptures.  I don’t understand art at all and was interested more in the historical aspect, so we kind of zipped through that and went upstairs.  Then we found the exhibit on witchcraft in Zambia.  The history of it was very interesting to read about.  There were a few displays of things that people use for divination and other things.   What was strange to me was that everything was just sitting out in the open and all the descriptions of everything were just typed up onto a piece of paper and stapled on a board next to the items.  Certainly a little different than what you’d see in an American museum. 

                One sobering exhibit was a bus with twelve or so people in it.  Some of the people were made out of all white material (we couldn’t figure out what it was…duct tape?  Plastic?) and a few were made out of red.  They were in a bus and taped onto the bus was the explanation for it.  Statistics show that one out of four people are infected with HIV/AIDS (that’s what the red people represented). 

                Our trip back was painless.  We figured out the bus stop quicker this time and stopped at Manda Hill to get groceries and eat some dinner.  On our way back home, the bus we were on was comically small.  All 6 feet of me was jammed into the smallest back seat ever.  My knee was stabbing the poor man in front of me through the seat.  At one point I started cracking up because I was trying to get money out of my purse to pay for the bus and it was nearly impossible because my arms were so loaded down with groceries, plus I was wedged between Rachel and the window.  Then, getting off the bus took some work, and just when I managed to unfold myself and stand up straight, my purse fell open and important items like my camera and phone fell onto the muddy asphalt.  Some nearby taxi drivers jumped to help, though. One exclaimed, “I love helping ladies!” which made me laugh quite a bit.   

                After that, it was movie time, Bananagrams outside (I finally won!) and admiring the extremely bright moon. 

2nd Friday in Lusaka

                I tutored Gertrude and Dalitso today.  They’re two older kids and know English fairly well.  This is the one group that Rachel and I have to split on – she has them Wednesday and I get them Friday.  We worked on reading James and the Giant Peach.  This book might be a little too high for them, but they want to keep reading it so I’m doing whatever I can to ensure comprehension.  We drew pictures and looked up stuff on the Internet, including the trailer for the movie.  They got really excited when I did stuff with the laptop, so I’m going to continue incorporating that into my lessons.

                Next up was English with the ladies.  Rachel and I started off the class by showing them PowerPoints of our family pictures.  They loved them.  I also think they were relieved not to have to start off class with a discussion activity J.

                Class again went well today.  They continue to open up and get more confident in their speaking skills.  We did some of our usual activities as well as an oral test: I described a kitchen to them and watched them draw it out to see how well they listened.  We worked on directions (right, left, etc.) as well as reviewed the nouns and verbs from our week.  To close class, I asked the ladies to tell me what they learned this week and what they wanted to learn in the weeks to come.  I asked them to honestly tell me how this week went – did they learn anything?  Was it too easy or too hard?  They really want to focus on being able to understand Americans when they speak English, so I’m going to work on more conversational/discussion activities next week as well as some more oral tests.  Also, they told me they understand a lot of the basic vocabulary, but they need help using it in conversations.  It was very insightful and helpful as I plan next week.

                Afterwards, we met Pastor Chijoka, the man who is in charge of the two Lutheran community schools, Kaunda Square and Matero.  We are planning on doing an in-service day for the teachers to help them incorporate different strategies into their classrooms, so we coordinated a day when we could meet the head teachers from each school to plan that out. 

                We discovered that while we were teaching this morning, Anne was busy making our lives very comfortable – my bed was made nicely and there were warm biscuits waiting for us when we got back.  Needless to say, Rachel and I adore her.   

                The rest of our afternoon was spent going on a walk, eating dinner, and sitting outside enjoying the cool night air.  We have a three day weekend (it’s Youth Day on Monday) so we made a list of some possible Lusaka sites we can visit.   Overall, a pleasant, low-key day. 

A Proposal, a Parade, and a Party

                Happy International Women’s Day!  Or, as one man greeted us, Happy Females Day!  Rachel and I slept in just a little and left for town around 9:30.  Our plan was to walk up to the bus stop just a few minutes away, but as we were leaving campus a really nice bus was coming by and we flagged them down to ask how much to get to Arcades (the mall).  It was the same price as usual and this one was bigger with nice comfy seats, plus we were practically picked up at our doorstop.  Great deal and a good start to our morning.

                The bus driver was quite friendly, but he turned around much too often for my taste.  Within a few minutes of our ride, he turned around decided he was going to marry one of us.  After a second (again, much too long) look, he thought he’d like “the tall one.”  I asked if that meant I would get my bus ride for free, and he said he’d buy me from my friend.  He asked Rachel how much, and she said 50,000 kwacha ($10….seriously, Rachel?).  He said I must be worth much more than that, more like 2 million (that’s a little better).  Then more people got on our bus and he was more focused on driving, thankfully.

The ten minute ride turned into almost an hour because there was a parade as we got closer to town that cut off the main highway.  We had to merge with all the other traffic and go down one of the frontage roads (they run parallel to the main roads and are usually filled with bikes and people). Merging with the other traffic was incredibly entertaining.  There were about fifteen buses within inches of each other and watching them maneuver around made me very, very thankful I wasn’t driving.  There was one small car stuck in the middle going the opposite way of most of the traffic, and I bet he didn’t get out for quite some time.  I tried to get a video of this to capture the madness.

We finally got to Arcades and were able to get a close up look at the parade.  It was made up mostly of women from local schools and businesses.  They all were color-coordinated and each group carried a big sign showing where they were from.  Many groups were singing and dancing.  It was a very beautiful parade, which sounds weird, but it’s true: the clothes were colorful and intricate.  Most of the men were dressed up in full suits, too, which classed up the event considerably.

We walked around the mall for a while, ate at Wimpy’s (kind of a diner…cheap food, but actually pretty nice) and then went to a movie (This Means War…not Reese Witherspoon’s best performance, that’s for sure.  At least it was only $3).  Sitting in the theater was weird…for an hour and a half it was like I was back in America, and when we left I had to almost remind myself I was in Africa.  We stopped at the market and bought some souvenirs (one vendor wants my blue Nike shoes and is willing to trade for them…I actually might consider it because I need some new ones anyway and would like that little extra room in the suitcase) before grocery shopping and heading home.

                We spent the rest of the afternoon planning for Friday and then went over to Dave and Dee’s house for a braai (barbecue).  Dave and Dee have friends from the States staying with them for a couple weeks, so they had us and all the other missionaries over for delicious food and good conversation.  We talked a lot about the missionaries’ lives and it made me realize what these families go through.  The Sargents are sending their son Nathan to Luther Prep in a year, and I can’t imagine what that must feel like.  I lived five hours away from home for high school and we thought that was bad.  I have to say that I feel ashamed – until I came here I never had more than a fleeting thought about missionaries living in Africa, or really any other part of the world.  The sacrifices that these families make to serve their Lord are inspiring and humbling.   I can’t really describe how I feel right now…guilty, self-centered.  I feel like I’ve taken so much for granted while we have families who have given up so much to be here.  I think we generally tend to forget about these families because we can’t understand the hardships they go through.  After having just a taste of the life here, I am only beginning to see what it’s like for them.  What a blessing we have people willing and able to do this kind of work. 

                I keep getting these rushes of happiness when I think that I am in Zambia.  Already, in just barely two weeks, this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  I’m so excited to think about what’s in store for us in the rest of our time here.