Kickball and Braai Day

This morning it felt great to sleep in! I can’t remember the last time I got to sleep in ‘til 8:15! I woke up had a lazy morning until I headed over to watch some kickball at 9:30. We also walked to the shops to get some top up cards. Kickball lasted a good hour or two, and I just watched and “babysat” the younger kids.

After kickball we came back for lunch and tried to figure out our internet. It took a while, and I was really scared that it wouldn’t work, but somehow I figured it out. Phew! I also did a couple things for lesson planning—working on some worksheets for English.

A little after 2pm we headed over to Birners for the braai. It was such a fun afternoon. We had a bocce ball tournament, in which Erika and I placed 3^rd or was it 4^th , and then a volleyball tournament. My team was Pastor Holtz, Heather, Dee, Karri and Noah Martin. We were the Happy Hotdogs. We won our first game, and then won the second game, making us the champions for the day!! Woohoo. Never thought I’d win a volleyball game, although it wasn’t too serious or anything. Then we had a friendly match of Zambia vs. Malawi and I got to choose which side I wanted to play on. I chose Malawi, and we lost.

After volleyball we had supper—delicious cheeseburger, beans, potatoes and salad with cake and ice cream for dessert. It was great food and we had a great time chatting with Mrs. Hartmann and Pastor Holtz and then later Mrs. Martin. She wanted to hear about our teaching experiences, because she’s considering starting some tutoring for the kids at the LBI in Malawi. That would be so amazing…any little bit of tutoring they get will help a lot! It’s nice being back here and being older and really getting to have adult conversations with the missionaries.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing at the Birners, in the wonderful, cool evening air and chatting. There was also a devotion led by Pastor Birner. Shortly before 10pm we headed back home so we could get to bed at a decent hour for church tomorrow.

Friday of Frustration and Fellowship

Morning tutoring went a lot better yesterday! I split my 4 boys into groups of two, and the management was so much easier! We probably got more accomplished in that shorter 40 minute period each than the full hour and 15 minutes we’ve done together in the past.

In English we had a quiz on the verb tenses. I gave them the present tense of a verb and they had to give me the past and future tenses. They did really well on this. It’s nice when you can follow some sort of equation: past add –ed, future at ‘will’ plus the verb. After the quiz we went through a verb tense PowerPoint that I found online. Sometimes I can find great things already prepared for me online! I just change some of the example sentences so that it’s more relatable to them and has words they understand. For the rest of the class time I wanted to get them speaking again so I put together a “Get To Know Me” PowerPoint with a bunch of questions like: where were you born, do you have siblings, what are their names, where did you go to school, where did you meet your husband etc. I also included my answers…when applicable. J I really enjoyed this! Part of the reason for doing this was just so I could get to know the all better. Now that we’re really comfortable with each other, these ladies have become my friends and I want to know more about them. The other reason for doing this was because these are the kinds of questions they might need to use English for in their future, and it’s an easy way to get them to practice English. It was very interesting hearing all their answers! My favorite question was “what is your favorite passage, story, or book of the Bible?” The ladies chose some great ones!

After English Anne had cheese fritters waiting for us. So, so delicious!! We needed to run into town to do some errands and we were able to catch a ride with Dave and Dee around lunch time. We went to Manda Hill and printed off the pictures of each family we had taken a couple weeks ago. We weren’t sure how expensive they’d be or how easy it would be to do this, but it was almost easier than in America. We uploaded them onto the store’s computer from our flash drive, they printed them out, and they were reading in a couple minutes. They also had a great deal. Since we were printing around 30 pictures, the price went down quite a bit, so I’d say it was pretty comparable to the States. So glad we did this!

Since that stop was so quick and painless we thought we were on a roll. Little did we know the frustrations that were to come. I should have known that this is Africa, and that there’s no way everything can always go 100% smoothly. We went to fill up our internet modems and stood in line for a while. When it was our turn she said their system was down and they couldn’t top them up. Bummer! Then we walked to the Arcades mall because they have another Airtel store there and they told us the same thing. She said the system might be up and running in a couple hours. We considered going to see a movie to make the time pass but decided, who are we kidding?? The system will most likely not be up in a couple hours so we decided to head home. Before doing that we stopped in at a travel agent at the Arcades to start getting some options for a Luangwa trip. We were not in a very good mood after this, so a minibus ride back was not the most fun, but we made it. We had picked up a few groceries and gotten some anti-itch cream for the bug bites but another thing we forgot to buy was ink for a printer. So that was annoying as well.

At home I decided to blow of some steam by playing with the kids. They always cheer me up. I also brought the family pictures along in case I ran into any of my ladies. I was able to deliver most of them. They were so happy to see the pictures! I played with the kids for a while and then came back to fold laundry and I watched part of a movie before supper.

Supper today was over at the guest house on Dave and Dee’s property. Instead of a full blown Easter Retreat this year, a few missionary families from Malawi drove up to Lusaka and we’ll spend a couple fun days together here. The Martins and Holtzs game, along with 2 nurses from the medical mission and their friend from America, and a WELS couple who is doing Bible translation work in the Eastern Province of Zambia. Add those people to the Wendlands, Birners, Hartmanns and us it was quite a big group. It was great seeing the Martins and Holtzs again. Last time I saw Heather and Rachel Holtz they were very little! I’m not sure if they even remembered me. And the Martin children I barely knew—I think I remembered the oldest, Jeremiah. Since they were in Zambia while we were in Malawi I don’t think we saw them very often. We also had a nice chat with Melissa Schuetze, one of the nurses. Turns out she’s the sister of my Prep classmate, Christopher. Small WELS world. We had pizza from Debonairs, carrot sticks and soda. It was such a wonderful end to the day—we had such nice conversations with everybody. We have a lot more fun things planned the rest of the weekend.

The other awesome thing we found out is that we can top up our internet by buying airtime for the phones. For your phones here, you buy these little cards with a scratch off pin number, and when you insert that into your phone you top up your call time. Kind of like tracphones in America. You can buy these top up cards anywhere and everywhere! Well, everyone had told us we can’t buy internet time that way, so that’s why we were always going into town every time we needed internet. Not anymore!!! We can top up our internet using those same scratch-off cards. It’s a somewhat complicated procedure that would be too confusing to explain, but it’s going to make our life so much easier. When we run out, we can literally walk 100 ft. down the road to a little Airtel booth and buy those scratch-off cards.

So that explains why I couldn’t post this yesterday. We had no internet time left. J

Back to Business

I can’t tell you how amazing it felt to be back in my own bed last night! I wasn’t waking up every few hours wondering what little bed bugs were gnawing away at my legs! It was a glorious night’s sleep. I got up and got ready for the day…I was pretty excited to see everyone again.

Morning tutoring was Raph and Sam. We had a wonderful laid back morning. We did some more flashcards and practice with small words. They did a lovely job today and it was fun seeing their smiling faces again.

English also went very well. We reviewed past, present and future tenses of verbs. I had them pick a verb and write one sentence in each tense. That was challenging but they managed it! Then we played a little game where I had tons of little slips of paper with the 3 tenses of different verbs and they had to sort the pile into tenses. They enjoyed that. I also showed them some pictures of my trip and showed them all the bites on my legs. They were quite horrified, like I am. J It was a good class. They didn’t want to leave either. After class was over everyone kept sitting there talking for a good 5 minutes.

For a lunch snack we had the last maize of the season and we shared a sweet potato. It was good! Anne also brought us over a mini little paw-paw from the trees outside her house. She said it’s rare that they get ripe this early. It was delicious—I can’t remember the last time I had one. It was so little that it didn’t even have the black seeds inside it yet.

I got some things prepped for preschool and read some of my new book “Swiss Family Robinson”. I was so tired though that I ended up taking a little cat nap before preschool.

Preschool was challenging today. Not sure if it was because the kids were excited to see us after a long break or just because we were out of routine. There were several children that caused some management issues today. We did our best to keep them on track and stop the issues but we were mostly unsuccessful. When we split, I had the little kids again and we mainly just colored and sang songs. Even though today wasn’t the greatest preschool day we’ve had, I still enjoy being with the children. Not every day in teaching is going to be wonderful and peachy, no matter where you are.

After preschool I had ½ an hour until my next group came. It was nice to have a few minutes to breathe. We have 3 pastors from Cameroon staying in the guest house across the way from us. They’re here a few weeks early for the CELC conference in April. They were having some kind of meeting out under tent by the tables, so I took Chipo and Mwandida out on the mat outside the gate of our houses. It was very nice in the shade! We did more practice with sight words and spelling and using Bananagram tiles for letter recognition. I was quite impressed with the girls’ work today.

This afternoon I ventured out to play with some more kids again before supper. Aubrey is the best little hugger. I cannot get enough of his hugs. He has taken quite an attachment to me and I love it. J

Supper was delicious chicken, rice, cabbage and chips. It’s good to be back to Anne’s cooking!

The rest of the evening was spent putting together some PowerPoints for English class and thinking about what I want to teach for next week, while being serenaded by Fernando.

Home Sweet Home!!

Pastor Hartmann was going to pick us up at 8am this morning so I got up a little before 7 to shower and pack and have a breakfast sundae, which is yoghurt layered with granola and honey. By the time we actually left it was after 9am. Pastor Hartmann had to do a little business in Livingstone first, and then he went to the wrong Jollyboys location but finally we connected! After a quick stop and walkthrough at a market where he dropped someone off, we were on our way. In the truck the AC was broken so it was a hot ride but I’d much rather be hot with space and driving with someone I know, than hot and driving in a cramped bus. About an hour into our drive we stopped at Pastor Hartmann’s house. They rent a house on a large farm that raises cows and tobacco. From the outside you wouldn’t expect anything grand, but inside their house it’s absolutely breathtaking! Pastor and his wife designed the layout themselves and Mrs. Hartmann is very artistic, so the house is decorated beautifully. There are pictures on the walls drawn by Caitlin and Reese and Mrs. Hartmann. The house would be my dream house to live in—beautiful, decorated with African things but not overdone, and the location is to die for. Everywhere you look is African landscape. Pastor Hartmann said a couple years back they even had 4 elephants walk through the trees right in their front yard. Incredible!

Back on the road we had a couple more stops because Pastor had some things to drop off for people along the way. I didn’t mind though…it was still better than the bus! We had some good conversation on the way and I also finished reading Grandpa’s book. I've decided that my dad should write a book about his ministry in Africa too. I would love for my kids (Lord-willing) to love and be as proud of their grandpa as I am of mine.

We finally neared Lusaka a little before 5pm. Unfortunately that was rush hour, so it took a good 40 minutes to get through town to campus. I was feeling a little bit rushed because I desperately wanted to take a cold shower, and church started at 6, and we were singing again.

The timing worked out perfectly though. I had time to dump my bags, take a quick shower and get dressed for church. Thankfully we had practiced our song for today last week already, so we knew it. We sang one verse and the chorus of “Lord We Lift Your Name on High”. To spice things up this week we also included some dance moves, so that was fun!

It was so good to be home!!! I really enjoyed our trip but I’m ready to be back. I missed the kids and the ladies. A lot. As soon as we drove on to campus I was looking for all the kids. I wanted to hug them all. Unfortunately, with our time crunch I wasn’t able to do that, but I did get to see a few after church. The smiles and excitement on their faces when they saw us said it all. I love them!

While in church I was once again overcome with such a feeling of contentment and happiness. I am so happy to be back it makes me so scared for what a basket case I will be when we have to leave in May. I don’t even want to think about that. As a welcome back, the power went out right at the end of the sermon. Right after the sermon it was our turn to sing, so we started out singing by candlelight. I was so excited that the power went out…I thought it was cool singing in the dark. Sadly, the power came back on right near the beginning of our song. Oh well.

The highlight of my day was going through the line after church and saying hello to everyone. I truly missed them all…you’d have thought we’d been gone for months or something. J

After unpacking, blogging and chatting on FB for a bit I looked over my teaching for tomorrow. Tomorrow is a busy day…great way to get back into the swing of things. I’m actually very much looking forward to tomorrow so I can get my fill of kids’ hugs again. Also on my to-do list for tomorrow is to post a zillion pictures of our trip, since I know a lot of you are asking to see them. So one more day of patience please. J

The Smoke really does Thunder!

Last night was not awkward at all with Asher. We all went for a night swim in the pool and had fun chatting and getting to know each other. He is from a big family! We also found out he is from a very religious family, so that’s so cool to know he’s Christian as well. We all slept really well; there was no snoring. I tried sleeping in a bit today but the roosters wake me up at like 3 in the morning and then I doze in and out of sleep until I wake up. I think I finally got up a little after 7.

The morning was spent having breakfast, watching the news and I read some of my book. Asher headed into town because he was going to meet someone there but then we all planned on going to the falls at 11. It was such a gorgeous morning reading by the pool that I almost didn’t want to get up to go to the falls. I did of course and I’m glad I did. Our hostel provided a free shuttle ride out there. It was a gorgeous day. Even better views than yesterday. When we went yesterday the sky was mainly overcast and it was later afternoon. Well today the skies were a pristine blue and we were there late morning til the afternoon. Since we got the guided tour from Kelvin on Sunday, we gave Asher the 2^nd hand tour. We took him to most of the same places Kelvin took us. It was so cool going with him and seeing him have the same feeling of awe and amazement at seeing the falls.

The super nice thing is that Asher brought a waterproof camera so when we went across the bridge he could take pictures and videos right up close. It was incredible. Today was even more breathtaking than Sunday. When we were on the bridge we saw a gorgeously brilliant double rainbow that went in a circle all around the bridge. So amazing!

My ankle has been giving me some issues lately…it hurts and makes a clicking noise every time I move my foot. I didn’t want to walk down to the boiling pot again today so I stayed up at the top. I treated myself with a cold coke and found a spot in the sun to try to dry off from getting soaked on the bridge. There was something just so wonderful about being all by myself enjoying God’s creation. There was no one around, and I snuck down to this little outlet that gets right up to the edge…it’s kind of hidden away. I perched myself against a tree and took pictures and just soaked in the sights. When I’m at the falls everything else falls away and all I can think about is how awesome God is and how content and happy I am. Africa is truly where my heart is.

We were planning on going to the curio market right outside the falls entrance since we promised the vendors we’d come back, but by the time we got done exploring the falls again we just weren’t in the mood to argue and barter with the vendors. We snuck out of there without getting hounded, which was nice. We caught a taxi back to town. That was also quite an interesting experience. We got a cab that was in way worse condition than the one we rode in the other night. We could tell it was iffy because right as we got to it, they were just finishing pumping up the tires with air. They also had to push the car to jump start it. 2 sparkplugs that should have been in the engine were sitting on the dash board and none of the doors had functioning handles. We were trapped on the inside. Also, we realized at the end that our driver, let's just say, wasn't in full control of his senses. We were happy to make it back without any issues and we were so happy that Asher was with us!

We were dropped off in town, Asher did a little grocery shopping and then we walked back to Jollyboys. Erika and I were both hungry so we got a sandwich and looked at the pictures we took today. Then all three of us played a few games of Jenga. I was the winner, since I never lost a game. J I pride myself in the little victories.

We were going to be picked up by Pastor Hartmann this evening but the plans fell through. So we have our final night here and we’ll get picked up at 8am tomorrow. The rest of the evening was spent chatting with some friends on FB, and reading my Grandpa’s book “Diary of a Missionary”. I’ve read it before but it just seems so much more relevant now that I’m here and know some of the areas he talks about. I also just read about the time when Grandpa and their whole family including my dad went on a trip to Victoria Falls. What awesome timing. Even Grandpa said how it’s just so hard to describe the beauty of the falls in words.

Elephant Walk and Sunset Cruise

I’ve been waking up in the morning with terrible bites on my legs. I think there must be some kind of bugs in my blanket. Yesterday my right leg was full of tiny red bites all over the place and today my left leg was covered. It looks so gross! It’s also gross realizing a bug of some sort has been crawling on my leg and was able to get that many bites without me even realizing it. Yuck!!

Anyway, after our amazing day yesterday it was hard to fall asleep last night. We did a lot of talking about our day and were also excited for today! I got a decent night’s sleep but not the greatest. I got up a little before six to shower and get ready. Our pick up for today’s adventure was at 6:45am. We had a quick breakfast of cornflakes with banana slices and then it was time to go. A nice little bus picked us up. We were the last ones on the pickup route, the bus was already full. We were on our way to an elephant ride! The lodge we went to was a little ways out of town in Mosi-O-Tunya Game Park. It was a beautiful lodge right on the Zambezi River, about 10 Km up river from the falls. We didn’t see much of the lodge part, we drove straight to where the elephants were. About half the group went for the lion encounter, and six of us stayed for the elephant ride. It was so beautiful when we got there. There was a huge thatched roof building where the bathrooms and outdoor dining room was but they had also set up some chairs and a table for tea and coffee on the lawn right next to the river. After drinks and settling in, we were given some brief instructions and then the elephants came out. They were just incredible!! I have seen elephants many many times before and have even ridden one before in Zimbabwe, but it’s something that will never get old, just like Vic Falls. Seeing the incredible size of these animals and their huge tusks was just amazing! We got to go right up to Bob, the first huge one to come out and we stroked his tusk. Each elephant had a nice big saddle type thing on its back and a guide was already sitting on top of each one. We climbed up the loading dock, steps leading up to a platform, the elephants walked up to the edge and then we climbed aboard. I was on a big 25 year old elephant named Matenga. He had huge tusks! The guide in charge of Matenga was Roy. There were 6 large elephants, a couple juvenile ones and a couple babies. Since there were so few of us, we all got to have our own elephant with a guide. Even though some of the elephants weren’t being ridden, they all went along on the walk. The babies walked too and the little 2 year old one even had a guide riding it. They do this so at a young age it’s already getting used to being ridden and going on these walks. The ride was just so enjoyable. We walked through the park, but since we were relatively close to the camp and river we didn’t see very many animals. I wasn’t really expecting to. We saw some birds including a grey lorry (mom…spelling?), a plover and a vulture. No amazingly colorful ones though. I also saw impalas and monkeys, but nothing too exciting. They said sometimes the wild elephants will be around that area frequently, but usually in the dry season when they come to the river for water. I was just enjoying the ride for the gorgeous morning and scenery. We also got to see the lion encounter people near the river. We saw one lion but it was too far in the distance to get a really good picture. My favorite part was when the elephants walked into the Zambezi River.  The current is swirling just below you but you feel safe because you are sitting atop a huge giant. There was a part that got rather scary. One of the younger elephants got too close to Matenga so he got mad and there was some trumpeting and a little skirmish and the guides yelling at their respective elephants—all this happening while we’re standing in the river. For a second I had a vision of me falling off the elephant into the river and being swept away by the current or eaten by a croc. Well none of those things happened. J We posed for some good pictures and then kept going. The ride lasted about an hour and then when we got back we dismounted and got to feed our elephant. They elephants got down on their bellies and we sat right on its leg. The guide gave us a pouch full of cereal type treats to feed our elephant. It was so cool sitting on the leg of this gentle giant. Although gentle, I also realized the power of him. I was inches away from gazing into his huge eye and his tusks were right next to me. It was cool and scary at the same time. After the feeding and petting, the elephants said goodbye to us by raising one leg and raising their trumpets to salute us. It was so cute! We thanked our guides and then the elephants left. We had some more refreshments of tea and biscuits and then watched the DVD of our walk…of course we had someone filming us on this ride too. The DVD was such good quality—the film guy was amazing and had the coolest angles. However, we decided against purchasing this one since we bought the DVD of our gorge adventure yesterday.

Our elephant walk group consisted of a couple from England, an older lady from Illinois, a lady from Switzerland and then us. Such a nice multicultural group and everyone was so nice. On the ride back we had a great time chatting with the lady from Illinois. We got dropped off in town because we wanted to stop in the office for the gorge swing place and pay, since the credit card machine wasn’t working yesterday. Unfortunately it still wasn’t working so we went across the street to get cash instead. Then we walked back to Jollyboys. We took the nice short cut path that was an easy five minute walk. We got our swimming suits on right away and went to spend the day at the pool. While we were on our elephant walk the guys came to drop off our DVD from yesterday so we had fun watching that and re-living the terror of the jump.

By 4pm our bus was here to pick us up for the cruise. We picked up one other family from another lodge and then headed to the river side. The boat launched from a beautiful lodge right on the edge of the Zambezi! It was gorgeous. We found wonderful seats on the top deck right at the front. There was a good crew of people on board…all nationalities. We were expecting this cruise to just be drinks and snacks but then they surprised us by announcing we’d have supper too. We enjoyed a leisurely cruise up river and saw some birds, hippos and warthog. Other than that there wasn’t much wildlife on the banks. Right after supper the sun set and we got tons of gorgeous pictures. Nothing beats an African sunset. It was such an enjoyable evening. We made good friends with a British couple that was also on the elephant walk with us.

After the 2 hour cruise we came back to the hostel and enjoyed a quiet evening. We have a roommate now. Asher from New Zealand is staying with us. It’s been fun getting to know him. He’s 21 and a medical student who is doing medical work for five weeks in Zambia…he’s travelling alone. That would take lots of courage to do that! Tomorrow is our last full day here. Pastor Hartmann is picking us up here in the evening and I think we’ll spend the night as his house.

Today definitely had less adrenaline than yesterday but it was still a gorgeous day full of countless blessings!

Our God is an awesome God!!

Words and pictures cannot describe how amazing today was. It was probably one of the best days I can ever remember having. Our God is an awesome God!!

Last night I slept fairly well in our dorm room. We have the whole room to ourselves so it’s very nice. I kept getting awoken by an annoying mosquito buzzing around my ear, but other than that I slept well. I got up shortly after 7 and showered and got ready. I had a little breakfast of an apple and a Clementine and watched some news. Shortly after 8:30 the guy from the gorge swing company came to pick us up. Yep, that’s the first thing we did today: go to the gorge. We knew it was going to be a great day when the guy came to pick us up in an open back vehicle, just like the ones at Luangwa and ones you take on a safari. So we zipped through downtown Livingstone in an open vehicle—it was awesome. WE stopped at one other backpacking place to pick up some other people. They turned out to be sweet Canadian girls who were our age 21 and 23. They are spending five months travelling throughout Africa.  They were going to do the gorge swing as well, although they were going to do the tandem jump once and we had signed up for a half day of activities. We enjoyed a nice drive out to the gorge, getting nervous the whole time. Erika was definitely more excited about doing this than I was. When we got there just the sight of the gorge took my breath away. I couldn’t believe that I’d be jumping from that thing!! The gorge is several kilometers away from the Falls, so we couldn’t see them from where we were and the river wasn’t below us, it was just vegetation. We had to take a few minutes just to get pictures and soak in the view. Then we were taken aside and given instructions about what our day was going to be like. The other girls were getting strapped up already and given instructions because they were going first. We got to watch them do the gorge swing, hearing them scream the whole way down. I’m not sure if that helped my nerves or not.

What we did first was called Abseiling which is pretty much like scaling down the side of a cliff face. We were instructed on what to do and had a little practice round, signed the contract that said they weren’t responsible for our deaths and off we went. Erika went first and did a great job. I stayed up at the top and got some video and pictures. Then it was my turn. I was harnessed in tight, one hand holding the rope in front of me and one holding the one behind me that would let out the slack. The guide talked me down about 3 meters and then I could start the jumping. I’d let the rope out and fall a few feet and then kick off the rock face so you’d go down faster. The guy at the top was controlling the speed and talking me through it. Occasionally the rope would get slightly twisted which just meant you’d spin around instead of going straight down. This was actually nice because then I could soak in the amazing view of the gorge. It was a relatively short way down the cliff although it seemed quite far while you were watching it. While I was doing it, I think I was just caught up in what I was doing and the adrenaline that I didn’t have time to think about how long it was taking to get down. It was so much fun!! Once we were both safely on the bottom of the gorge we had the fun time of walking back up. It was a gorgeous walk until we got to the steep steps that we had to climb up. That was pretty tough and by then it was already hot.

The next thing we did was the zip lines. The zip line went across the width of the gorge and the nice thing about this one was that you didn’t have to climb back up the gorge when you were finished. We were allowed to do this one twice. The first time I went I was in the sitting position. I took a running start and then just leapt off the side of the gorge. Once I was in mid air I could let go of the ropes and just fly through the air. It was amazing. I can’t even describe how awesome yet scary it was to be suspended above a huge gorge with just a rope and harness keeping you up. I soaked in every minute of the view. The second time I did it, I did the flying fox way. This is where they harness you by the back so when you run and jump you’re going straight out like superman. This was equally if not more fun. I felt like a bird. It was incredible. Once you get as far as your running momentum will take you then the guys just reel you back in.

I can’t say enough about the people that were there running everything. There was a crew of maybe 10 men or so that we super friendly and funny and nice. They made us feel safe but also cracked some good jokes. I definitely trusted them with my life. We also had our personal paparazzi who was filming all the things we did. We bought the DVD of all our jumps and zips etc. J Apart from the two Canadian girls who were there for just their one jump, we were the only paying tourists there the entire morning. We  had the gorge to ourselves!

The final thing we did was the biggie. This was the gorge swing, the one that the girls did before us. Sort of like bungee jumping but not as scary. We did tandem both times because we heard it went faster. For this one we were harnessed together obviously and we had to jump of the cliff backwards. This was so scary!! We practice the jump several times before doing it. At the instructors count we had to crunch up, put our heads down and then lift our toes so that we just fell of the cliff. If I had to go on my own accord I don’t think I ever would have worked up the courage. But when he’s counting down, you HAVE to go. You have no choice. So we did. I can’t even remember much of that first jump, the falling part at least. It was sheer terror and panic. I was so scared I couldn’t even get a breath the scream. The fall is 3 ½ seconds but it feels like an eternity. When we finally reach the end of the rope and zipped back up, I could scream. I screamed bloody murder. After the initial terror was over it was actually super fun. Now we were in the swing part where we just swung back and forth across the gorge. It was so much fun! And it was so fun going with Erika because we could laugh and chat as we were swinging. At the bottom there was somebody there to meet us and unharness us and then we began the long walk up the gorge for the 2^nd time. Each walk up the gorge got harder and the sun was beating down on us. I can’t remember the last time I was that sweaty. J We had so much fun on that jump that we decided to go tandem again instead of jumping by ourselves. I’d say the 2^nd time was almost scarier because we knew what was coming. It was harder creeping up to the edge and getting into position. But we did it, and we actually enjoyed it more because we knew what to expect. So that was a pro and a con. I’ve never considered myself an adventurous person, but after the things I did today that opinion of myself is changing. I can’t believe I had the courage to jump off a gorge. When we got to the bottom and started walking back, my legs were shaky with either fear or adrenaline or both. The rush from that jump was incredible!

We did a little curio shopping at the hut at the top of the gorge, I drank a coke and then we watched the recording the guy took of us jumping. It was so cool! I’m so glad we bought it. Actually, we didn’t buy it yet but he’s coming to Jollyboys tomorrow to drop it off. On our way back into town we had to stop at the main office to pay, since that’s where their credit card machine was. Unfortunately it wasn’t working so we’re going to have to go back tomorrow to actually pay for our amazing day.

Our day didn’t end here. Our driver took us back out to the falls and dropped us off at this really fancy hotel. There was a courtyard with some shops and a café, since we hadn’t eaten any lunch. I got the fish and chips which were amazing, and a chocolate milkshake. We were told that we could access the falls right through the hotel grounds. Well it wasn’t as simple as that. I guess the hotel entrance was for hotel guests only. Thankfully, the guards were nice to us and allowed us to get through anyway. We paid our fee to get in the falls. The anticipation of seeing the falls was intense. We could hear the roar and see the mist but couldn’t see the falls yet. We walked along the “picture taking path” until we saw them. I have been here twice before as a child, but every time I see it it is amazing. The Zambian name for the falls is Mosi-O-Tunya which means The Smoke that Thunders. It truly does. And since it’s the rainy season here, the falls are in all their glory. The only downside to this is that there is so much mist, that it’s hard to see a clear picture of the falls. We did get some good pictures though. I won’t be able to add them to Facebook til we get back to Lusaka though. God blessed us with a wonderful man named Kelvin. We were just at a lookout point taking pictures and I asked him to take a picture of us together. Turns out Kelvin works on the Zimbabwe side of the falls giving tours etc. So he was a wealth of information about the falls. We didn’t even ask him to, but he sort of took us under his wing and gave us a private tour of the falls. He told us where to go and showed us things we wouldn’t have seen if we were by ourselves. He took us to all the cool nooks to get pictures, and he took tons of pictures of us together. He also walked down to the boiling pot with us. The boiling pot is where you walk all the way down to the base of the falls. It’s a long steep walk down. At first I wasn’t all that interested in going because the gorge walking was tiring enough. But I was convinced to go down and I’m so glad I did. We got right up to the base of the Zambezi river where all the water comes from the base of the falls. It’s called the boiling pot because literally it looks like a cauldron—the current is so strong and moving in a circle. We got right up to the edge and got some incredible pictures. We also had a great view of the bridge that connects the Zim and Zam side and where the bungee jumpers jump from. We got to see a couple people actually jump. Today was also the day of getting tons of pictures with random strangers. Lots of Zambians wanted to get pictures with us and even group of Indian men wanted pictures with us. It was rather strange. (Today was also the day were we got asked at least 5 times who we’d be voting for in the November elections. Who would’ve thought Zambians would be so interested in American politics?) So we took some pictures at the boiling pot and then headed up. The walk is so amazing, it truly is like a rainforest with all the trees and birds and greenery. The walk back up wasn’t as bad as I expected. We took it nice and slowly and the sun was behind the clouds so it wasn’t blazing hot. The mist from the falls also helped keep things cool. We were still pretty sweaty when we got to the top though so we saved the last part of the falls exploring for this time. This is the part of the falls where you put away your camera and rent a raincoat. Although we didn’t rent one. This path takes you super close to the mighty thundering falls and you get completely drenched in mist—it’s like it’s raining. I can’t even describe how awesome this was. We were completely soaked through and my shoes were making a ridiculous sludging noise but every second of that was worth it. How can people deny the existence of a God when you see the majesty of His creation?? There are no words to describe how amazing the walk was. Our trooper Kelvin even braved the downpour with us. On this walk, we also went across this little bridge which connected us to another chunk of land. The views were just incredible.

We thought this was the last thing we’d do at the falls but we were wrong. Kelvin then took us a little ways up river, to the part right before it falls. We actually got in the river! We were a couple hundred meters away from the edge. Sounds stupid right? Well it was actually pretty safe. We were at a little beach type area where the current wasn’t that strong and we only waded up to our knees. Kelvin got some good pictures of us in the mighty Zambezi though. After this we basked on the rocks nearby and admired the sun setting across the falls. I was just in awe of God and feeling so small and humbled watching this. Once again, pictures and words just cannot describe my feelings.

After a brief little look at the curio market, Kelvin escorted us to a cab outside the park. I definitely gave him a nice tip for being such a good tour guide and friend to us today. It was a super nice cab, with a friendly cab driver. The music choice was a bit bizarre though—it was some kind of Japanese children’s music playing at full blast. Very strange ride. But we made it back safely a little before seven. We were starving and also cold from being it wet clothes most of the evening. So I took a hot shower and then we ordered supper. I had a delicious veggie penne pasta dish with garlic toast. So delicious!! As a little pre supper snack I started munch on a couple biscuits we had brought with us from Lusaka before I realized the ants had found them and were swarming with them. So I definitely ate a few ants without realizing it. Gross!! Sadly we had to throw all those biscuits away. L

The evening was spent reading, relaxing and blogging. There are more people at Jollyboys now. They’re actually a group of 16 students and a few teachers from California. They’re here for a couple weeks to help out at an orphanage near Livingstone. Small world, and kind of nice to hear American accents again. It was interesting to talk to them for a bit as well.

We are both exhausted, as we had such a full day today. I am exhausted from being in the sun all day, and walking up steep gorges 4 times. I am also just in awe of what God allowed us to do today. He kept us safe, gave us great people to help us and just blessed us with His creation. Our God is an awesome God!!

7 hour bus ride

This morning was an early morning! I didn’t sleep the greatest last night—I was up every few hours checking the time. I think I was excited! When my alarm finally did go off at 5am I was not ready to get up. I was mostly packed and ready; the only thing I had to do this morning was pack food for the bus. Erika was going to get up a few minutes after I did, but I noticed she wasn’t getting up. So I woke her up. Guess she didn’t hear her alarm. That could have been bad!

Dave and Dee brought us to the bus station and we found our bus no problem. We got there at about 6:30, so half an hour before our scheduled departure. The bus was a nice coach although lacking in overhead bin space and there were no toilets. It’s definitely not a bus we could ever take on choir tour. Instead of 4 seats across there were 5, so it was also slightly squished. We were holding our breath, hoping a 3^rd person wouldn’t come into our row and we thought our prayers were going to be answered, but literally in the last 15 seconds a girl came on and took the 3^rd seat. L We were so bummed, but it was ok. The bus ride was fine. We left shortly after 7am. The bus did make quite a few stops along the way to drop people off and pick up some more passengers. This was actually a blessing because then we could get off and use the bathroom and stretch our legs for a few minutes. The total bus time was about 7 hours. It was a long ride but fairly pleasant—we had delicious sandwiches and fruit packed and I entertained myself by reading and sleeping and listening to Fernando Ortega.

I wasn’t sure how long the ride would actually take so I tried not to get impatient and anxious. Before I knew it a sign said only 10Km to Livingstone!! We were so happy. The bus dropped everyone off and of course there were dozens of men hovering at the door to ask us if we needed a taxi ride. We weren’t quite sure where the Jollyboys place was in relation to where we were dropped off but we refused a ride and decided we’d just walk ‘til we found it. There were some nice people to direct us in the right direction and it was actually very close to where we were dropped off. A very short walk. When we got in, everything looked like the pictures. Very, very nice. However I noticed right away that the pool had no water in it and a guy was cleaning it. We asked about that right away and they said yeah they were cleaning it for a few days and it wouldn’t be up and running the whole time we were there. They said they have 3 Jollyboys locations in Livingstone and they could drive us to one of the other ones that had a functioning pool if we wanted to. We agreed! We were definitely planning on spending a ton of time at the pool. So it was a short drive down to the camp location which is more family oriented. We checked in no problem and she gave us a 4 person dorm room instead of an 8 person dorm room for the same price! It’s really quiet around here with not many people so this location actually turned out to be better. And the pool is wonderful!

This backpacking place is very impressive. There’s a community area with a lounge full of pillows to sit on, another living room area, a self serve kitchen and a decently priced restaurant. We have a nice toilet block right across from our rooms and of course the pool is lovely and for most of the afternoon we were the only ones in it. The first thing we did was jump in the pool. We were very hot from our bus ride. After cooling off we decided to look at the activities folder and book the things we want to do the next few days. The nice thing is that you can book everything right from here.  We booked two days worth of things. I won’t say what they are until we do them. The first one is tomorrow and we’re being picked up at 8:30am. All I’ll tell you is that Erika is quite a bit more excited about it than I am, although I am pretty excited about it too. J

After booking our fun things we spent several hours just relaxing by the pool, sunbathing and reading our books. I also watched some Premiere League football. What a life! For supper I ordered a curried chicken sandwich and Irish potato soup. At 6 they light a bonfire here, so we sat by the bonfire and enjoyed the rest of the evening before our real adventure begins tomorrow.

Ant Entertainment

Today was such a lovely Friday. Morning tutoring went OK. It was challenging again with my four boys. By the end of our session I decided that I’m going to split them up because I think it will help with management and how much we’re able to get done. I’ll have the two younger ones come first and then the two older ones. We’ll see how well that works next Friday.

English also went very well. I had all six of my ladies there again, and Erika only had two of hers. More of her ladies have prior work commitments. I’m very thankful that I usually always have all six of them there because then I don’t have to worry about something they may have missed. Today I taught them the past, present, and future tenses of verbs. We practiced with all the household chore verbs we’ve learned this week. I think they caught on pretty well. Since I won’t be seeing them again for almost a week (which they seemed kind of happy to have some time off) we’ll probably review verb tenses again next week for the two days we have English class. We finished the day with some more Bananagrams as a large group and then we let them leave a little bit early because we had to meet Christine shortly after 11 to go into town for our visas.

When we got back home after class we were just going to munch on toast and fruit for a light lunch, but then Anne surprised us with making the most delicious little chicken pot pies ever. She made the dough all from scratch of course and it was light and flaky and buttery and on the inside was a delicious chicken, garlic, cheese and onion mixture. Every single time Anne makes something for us she outdoes herself. Erika mentioned she should start her own restaurant. She really could—I know I’d be a frequent visitor there. J So we ate a quick lunch and then headed over to find Christine. Christine is such a nice lady! We don’t know what we ever would have done without her. There is no way we could ever have navigated the visa thing on our own. First we went to one office and they told us to go to a different one. This first building is where I had a very embarrassing slip down a flight of stairs. The stairs must have been slightly sandy and my flip flops had no grip so I just completely wiped out. And of course there were people around watching. It was quite embarrassing but it provided Erika a good laugh. When we went to the second building we got in and out pretty quickly. Unfortunately we didn’t get our full 90 day visa today. We are waiting for the lower fees to come out, which they supposedly said would go into effect this week but didn’t. So all we got today was a 2 week extension on our temporary visas and we’ll have to get our other ones when we get back. After the visa thing we went to the central bus station downtown to reserve our bus tickets for tomorrow. We’re taking a nice coach bus down there for a really good rate. We’re all paid up and have our seats picked out, so we’ll see how smoothly it all goes tomorrow morning. Our bus leaves at 7am so we’re leaving the house around 6. We’re so excited!!

After the business was taken care of we stopped at a different mall downtown that we haven’t been to yet. That one was so nice! I’d say even nicer than Manda Hill mall. We did some grocery shopping so we can have some snacks and sandwiches on the bus tomorrow and hopefully have some food for when we get back next week.

Today was such a gorgeous day—the sun was out again which it hasn’t really been for the past couple of days. We set the mat out in the courtyard and I did some lesson planning for next week and read a bit of my book. In the afternoons after classes the sem students usually do work around campus. I love hearing the sound of activity outside our walls. I always have the urge to just walk around campus and hang out with people—by people I usually mean the kids. So after sunning for a while we headed out to find the kids. We found our usual crew and played with them for a good hour or so. I will never get tired of that. Sometimes it’s hard to make a clean escape though, because they are always hanging onto our arms and surrounding us.

We were invited to go to a play at AIS tonight with the Birners. It is such a tempting offer, but the timing was just not right. We need to do laundry and pack tonight and since we’re getting up very early tomorrow we thought it’d be best to just stay here. So we’re going to enjoy our last night of Anne’s cooking for a few days and watch some Friends and pack. Perfect evening!

Also, for some evening entertainment we watched an impressive ant show. There was a dead grasshopper that was lying on our table for a few days and today we finally decided to throw it away. It had been sitting in our garbage can for a few hours. Well right after supper Erika noticed something gross! The ants had somehow smelled and sought out this grasshopper, retrieved it from the garbage can and were slowly making their way down the side of the bin to the floor. We watched them drag it across the floor to a little hole in the carpet. Then they got the thing wedged under the carpet. Their home must be under that little hole, between the carpet and the floor and they were trying to bring this thing down there with them. It was insane!! It was also kind of cool seeing the whole thing happen. I wonder how they communicate with each other and move in such coordination. We even saw them problem solve—they realized the grasshopper was kind of large so they plucked off the wings to try to make it easier to wedge under the carpet. Anne came over later so we showed her what they were trying to do and as easy as 123 she plucked the grasshopper out from the hole and threw it outside. Such cruel punishment for those ants! J

I just love kids!

This morning started out as usual. It’s nice to be really into a routine now. Up, shower, breakfast and read a little bit before tutoring. Sam was the only one at first, so we worked on some worksheets together. He is a very smart boy! He told me Raphel wasn’t coming today so I thought the one on one tutoring would be a nice treat for him. But about 20 minutes later Raphel did come. He is so cute! He is a shy but smart little boy and very eager to learn. So he did a little bit of catching up on the worksheets but then we just ended up merging together ‘til the end. We did flashcards for a while and sang a new alphabet song that I found on YouTube which they love and then did a bit of math. They seemed a lot more talkative today and there were more giggles than usual, which was fun.

In English we had our final spelling quiz for the week and then continued with the household chores worksheets. There was a page with pictures of different chores and part of a daily routine like: take a shower, make the bed, eat breakfast, send my children to school, set the table etc. They looked at the pictures and we came up with the short descriptive sentence about it. I also found a PowerPoint online that we did the same thing for. Then we took a little diversion because I brought my computer with me and wanted to show them pictures of their children I had taken and also the video I took of their kids dancing at preschool. Oh my goodness did they love this! They were laughing just as hard if not harder watching their children dance. After this little intermission for fun stuff I showed them a PowerPoint I made about my daily routine. I had one slide per thing, with a picture. So the first slide said “I wake up at 7:00am” and had a picture of someone waking up. I had about 10 slides with different things I do all day. They read them to me in English. Then I wanted them to write down their routine. At first I thought they’d just write sentences like I did, but then I decided this could be a good way to get them speaking, so we ditched the writing and I just went down the row having a little conversation with each of them, asking them about what time they do things, what they make for lunch and supper, what they do when their kids are at school etc. It was repetitive because most of the ladies have similar schedules but it was good for them to hear things repeated over and over again. It was also good practice for English speaking, which they said they wanted to do more of. Overall, today’s lesson seemed pretty laid back and fun. I also gave them no homework for tomorrow which they were very happy about. J

For lunch, Anne came over with grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and onions in them. So, so good and such perfect timing because we are out of peanut butter. It is just ridiculous the amount of peanut butter we eat. I always thought I was a peanut butter fan, and had never really met someone (other than Dave) who eats it way more than I do until Erika. She is a crazy peanut butter fan!! We have been here almost 4 weeks and have gone through at least 1 if not 2 big jars of peanut butter a week. We eat it in our oatmeal (which is a new thing Erika’s got me hooked on). For breakfast I cook up a bowl of oatmeal and put a couple spoonful’s of peanut butter and a drizzle of honey in it. It’s so good! Then for lunch we usually always have a PB&J because it’s easier than always buying meat and cheese and other sandwich fixings. PB is also sometimes an afternoon snack spread on a cracker or two. So now you see why the avocado sandwiches and now the cheese and onion sandwiches are such a refreshing change. J Tomorrow when we head into town for visas we’ll ask to get dropped off at the mall so we can stock up on some groceries so we have food when we get back from our holiday.

Preschool went really well today. It’s the best I think it’s gone for us. We were by ourselves today, Charity and Bridgette didn’t come. The kids were mellow and cute and the time went by quickly. It was just a good day. We were all together in the beginning and then we split into groups and I took the young little munchkins. We did the letter “b” today, but it was mainly just free coloring and drawing and singing songs J. It's so easy entertaining the little kids. All I have to do is sing the alphabet in a weird voice and they giggle like crazy. They make me laugh too. Corn, who always only speaks to me in Chichewa, would randomly burst out "yelling" at the other kids "SPEAK IN ENGLISH!" Ironic? Yes. We finished together with some more songs and then went outside for more songs and games. It’s amazing how well they know all the songs I’ve taught them. It’s only been a couple weeks and they already know them. Their favorite is Ram Sam Sam. It’s so cute hearing them sing this song because it’s all gibberish words, so we finally are speaking the same language.

Usually we’re supposed to have a half hour break between preschool and tutoring but my girls have a habit of showing up early. Today they came right at 3:00, and preschool doesn’t get done ‘til 3:00. So no rest for me. I worked on more sight words and letters with Chipo and Mwandida. I actually didn’t mind too much that they came early because then I can let them go early and I’m done with my day.

Today was such a good day overall with everything I taught. I love days like this, where I feel like my kids, ladies and I are actually making some progress. It’s been chilly and cloudy again most of the day but right when my last tutoring group left the sun came out. So it’s a good way to end the day.

From 5-6pm I didn’t feel like doing any work so I went wandered the seminary grounds looking for children to play with. I didn’t have to travel far before I found Paul, Brian and Steward playing hide and seek/tag. So I joined in and we played for a while. Before too long I had a whole bunch of kids following me. We walked into the woods to go “monkey hunting”. We didn’t find any, but we did find a lost shoe and a broken mug. We also played fish and crocodile in the empty ditch that runs through the woods and then when Erika joined us we played hide and seek. I love seeing how comfortable the kids are with me now. They are always so eager to play with us. They chatter away to me in Chichewa thinking I fully understand what they're saying--it's so cute. When Brian fell down and got hurt I picked him up and cuddled him and his tears stopped. Kids are kids no matter where you are. Play with them and love them and they will love you! Such a fun way to spend the afternoon!! These kids have won a huge place in my heart, I love them all so much!

Supper was delicious pasta with chicken and cooked cabbage and eggplant. We ate and watched our usual episode outside since it was such a lovely evening. After supper I chatted a bit with my mom online and I should have done planning for tomorrow but I wasn’t feeling very motivated. Instead we started looking up stuff for our stop in London on the way back. Not sure what my lessons will have in store for me tomorrow. I hope it ends on a good note for the week. J I’m thinking we’ll touch on past tense verbs and do some more reviewing with the ladies and with my tutoring group we’ll do some more worksheets and maybe have a fun little game of Banangrams or something.

Cloudy and slightly chilly Wednesday

Morning tutoring was Dalitso and Gertrude. We continued reading James and the Giant Peach. They enjoy reading and drawing pictures on what we read. I still help a lot with comprehension after a few paragraphs or so. Then we look up pictures online too. Today we were looking up real life pictures of the insects James finds when he crawls into the peach. They loved looking at pictures of huge spiders! To finish off, we did Banangrams for spelling words. I did a few random words and then I picked a few more challenging ones from the book. Gertrude and Dalitso are pretty competitive with each other, especially when it comes to reading. If one of them is stuck on a word, the other will jump right in and say it. They want to be the one to figure it out. So doing a game with the spelling words was fun. They were pretty evenly matched.

Today in English we did another spelling test and then moved on to our “household chores” worksheets. Some of the ladies love taking these daily spelling tests because it’s something they can have instant gratification for. They study, take the test and feel as if they are learning English words. For some ladies it’s a real challenge but they all try so hard, and even if they can’t spell everything correctly they are learning what the word means and they’re hearing it said over and over again. We went through the new words for tomorrow, figured out their meanings in Chichewa and then used the words in fill in the blank sentences. To finish up the lesson we played Banangrams spelling again. I like using this as a closing for my lessons. By the time we get to the end of our lessons I feel as if the ladies have worked so hard on paying attention and trying to understand the English I’m saying, that giving them this fun thing at the end is a way we can all leave English class in a happy mood. The ladies are very respectful and call me Madam when they talk to me or have a question. Today I told them not to call me Madam, but to call me Rachel. I call them by their first names so they should call me by mine. Rhoda loved this! They started laughing sheepishly but since I’ve said that when she talks to me she calls me Rachel. When I greeted her in church tonight she also called me by my name. I like it a lot better too. I am not some great teacher who has authority over them. If anything, I respect them more. I am their friend trying to teach them English so I want them to be on a first name basis with me. J

As our little treat today Anne brought over some boiled sweet potatoes and told us to eat them with peanut butter. It sounded pretty strange but we tried it. It was actually good. Not something we’d ever thought of doing on our own, but still good.

We watched some Friends and read a little before our afternoon groups showed up. My group was Shadreck and Sovereign. We got so much done today! They were in a “ready-to-learn” mood, so we finished all our flash cards in record time. I was so impressed with how Shadreck was today. Complete 180 degree turn from Monday. Sadly, now that we’re on a roll, I won’t be seeing this group for a week and a half. We’ll be gone next Monday and Wednesday at Vic Falls and that’s when they normally come.

All day it’s been cloudy with only the occasional burst of sunshine. It’s been a lot more chilly as well, which I think is kind of nice. No more sweating under the tent when we tutor. It also started raining in the afternoon, but I thought it would have started sooner. Dark clouds have been looming most of the day.

We had to be at church an hour early to practice our choir songs so at 5 we headed over there. We were the first ones to get there and then the rest slowly trickled in. Charity was sick today so she said she wasn’t going to sing with us. We protested because we really need her; she has a gorgeous voice, she keeps everything in pitch, and she’s the one to start the songs. She gave in and sang with us, which we were very thankful about. It sounded pretty good I think. We didn’t mess up as much as I thought we would; let me put it that way. J After church we had supper waiting for us. It tasted even better than usual—maybe because we waited longer than usual to eat.

It feels like tomorrow should be Friday. I think it’s because this is the first full week we’ve had so far. Tomorrow is another busy day because we have preschool thrown in there. I'm excited to play with the kids again though! 

Volleyball Day

This morning in English we started off by playing Bananagrams as a whole group. It was fun watching them all get competitive and try so hard to get the words right. In our smaller groups we did the 2^nd half of the review worksheet and did some more worksheets where they filled in the blanks with the correct word. We then took our spelling test and they did so well! I was very happy. Then we finished up with playing Bananagrams to help with our spelling test tomorrow.

Morning tutoring was Raphel and Samuel. We different worksheets for each of them, based on what I thought they needed help with. Raphel had an alphabet worksheet to help him with letter formation and Sam had a math worksheet. They both did that for a while and then we came together as a group to work on our letter flashcards again. They seem to really enjoy doing these because they get to draw pictures and they catch on more quickly to letter sounds this way. These boys are both very quiet and shy and hardly talk at all during tutoring. I love them though! I just love getting to know all the kids’ different personalities.

For lunch we had a delicious avocado and chicken sandwich with some leftover beans Anne had from yesterday’s supper. It was super delicious! We headed over for preschool around 1, thinking we’d be doing it on our own today but then Charity and Bridgette where there to help out and translate so that helped, especially with the devotion we did at the beginning. Otherwise the kids would have gotten nothing out of it. We finished the preschool day with more dancing and What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf. It’s so funny watching these children dance! They have such good moves for being 3,4, and 5 year olds! I’ve taken a video of one of the dances and really wish I could upload it to Facebook so you could all see what I’m talking about.

My afternoon tutoring group was Chipo and Mwandida. Today we worked on letter sounds again and also trying to decipher small words like cat, bat, hand, band etc. They did fairly well on this but they still need a lot of work and repetition.

Shortly after 4 I headed over to the volleyball court for our Tuesday afternoon volleyball game. The last time we played it was our first week here. The past two weeks we didn’t play because Dave and Dee were gone and they have all the volleyball equipment. My team lost all three games but we had a super fun team. Now that we know everyone so much more it just makes it such an enjoyable hour and a half. Lots of laughing!

Volleyball lasted until supper, so when we got home we had a nice hot meal of beef and rice and cabbage waiting for us. We just relaxed, ate and watched an episode of Friends, then did dishes and watched another episode while I looked over my things for tomorrow. The power went out during this 2^nd episode and shortly after I lit some candles so I could do some planning, the power came back on because someone turned on the generator. So that was nice. Even with the generator on, the outlets don't get power, so our laptops don't charge. It's almost time for bed anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. I'm just thankful we have light to see and read. I finished Jane Eyre tonight (such a good book!) and now started the newest book by one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult.

Copies, copies, copies

Today was a normal Monday. Tutoring started at 8 and I had my four boys. This time I was prepared for their goofiness. Last night I prepared little packets of things for them to do now that I know more what they’re capable of. Justice needed help with basic letter formation, and I thought Junior did too so they worked on that, and Ndamiwe and Elias did more small word writing, letter searches, drawing, shapes etc. They worked so hard today and worked without too much competition or goofing around. So I might keep it this way for a while. Otherwise my other option was to split them up and have 2 come first and 2 come at the end.

They arrived early again today, which was actually good because then I didn’t feel bad for letting them leave early too. I had to go make some copies of the worksheets I had printed last night for English. Got those taken care of without any problems and then we headed over for English.

Usually we wait a few minutes for Pastor Phiri to finish Bible study and he always apologizes for taking up some of our time. We always tell him God’s Word is more important than English. J We taught our ladies the common table prayer today. Our first week here they heard us say it and said they wanted to learn it. So that’ll be our prayer for the rest of the week. Then we got into groups right away and my group finished an adverb worksheet I had made last week and never got to, and then did a review WS on nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. This all took quite a bit of time because we really have to go through things slowly. I still think this material is slightly too hard for the level they are at, but they still do impress me with how they catch on. I think now that we have the hard stuff out of the way, we’ll be able to use what we know about nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs and apply it in other themes we do. We took a little easier break after these worksheets and focused on some nouns and verbs that involve house work. Some words were review like dishes, wash, clean from our kitchen theme and some were new like laundry, shuck, shell, and fold. I told them to write the Chichewa word for each new vocab word next to it, so when they study it tonight they’re not just memorizing letters for spelling, but they’ll remember what the word means as well. Then tomorrow that will be our spelling test. We finished up with some practicing for that spelling test by using the Bananagram tiles.

When we got home after English Anne had left a bowl of fruit on our table. On campus there are avocado, guava and orange trees but the fruit they produce are not very good for eating. Yesterday we went hunting for some fruit but Anne said we shouldn’t eat the stuff that grows on campus. So she must have gone to the trees in the area where she knows good fruit grows and picked us some. There were quite a few guavas and an avocado. This is the first time I remember eating an actual guava. The sweetest part is the pit inside, although it has lots of obnoxious seeds, which I just swallowed instead of trying to chew them. Then the fleshy part that surrounds the pit reminds me of the texture of a pear. This part wasn’t as sweet. It was still decently good though. For lunch then, we spread some avocado seasoned with garlic salt and pepper on toast. It was quite delicious and something different than PB&J. The last time I had an avocado sandwich was this past summer when I was in Wales. J

We also used our lunch break to go over to the press and make a ton of copies. So hopefully I have enough worksheets and things to do with my tutoring kids to last me a while. It’s so nice now to be able to print things here and then just do the copying over at the press. I always try to print and copy things double sided to save on paper. Before we knew it lunch was over and our afternoon tutoring kids were here. There was a pastor’s meeting here on campus again today, so they were eating over in the kitchen and Anne thought maybe they’d go outside to eat on the tables. So we moved the mat out by the driveway under a shade tree and did tutoring out there. It was so nice out there! The weather was absolutely perfect today—very sunny but not too hot at all. Just a perfect day! I had Sovereign and Shadreck this afternoon. Sovereign is just impressing me more and more each time and I absolutely love her. She is such a pretty girl and very smart and sweet—such a joy to tutor. Shadreck had some catching up to do on his flashcards but he zipped through them. He is also a smart cookie. His attention span is shorter, but that is to be expected with a little boy. I cannot help but love him.

After tutoring we went over to preschool for a bit because we wanted to get some activity books to make copies for tomorrow. The little kids were outside playing already so I had so much fun jumping right in to play with them. They love kicking or throwing the ball to me. Then we played a game where I was sitting on the floor and every time they brought the ball to me I would throw it away as far as I could, while grunting and pretending I was slightly angry. They loved this game. They would trot over to pick up the ball and bring it right back, laughing the whole time. Little Corn (I love that nickname by the way; I love shouting “Corn!”, it’s just funny to me. Corn is short for Cornelius) wasn’t even playing, he just sat there in the grass watching this little game happen and every time I threw the ball and grunted he would erupt in the most contagious giggling ever. I love his laugh!! This game lasted for a while then I just resorted to tickling them while they rolled around on the floor laughing. I just love these kids so much. This is when I am the most happy—seeing these kids’ smiling, adorable Zambian and Malawian faces.

We did our usual walk this afternoon. We had 5 in our group today since Sophie is back. We must’ve looked quite the sight—5 white women walking in one group. It was fun though. And the weather today was just perfect for a late afternoon walk. We got back and supper was ready. Anne of course cooked us something delicious. When we were doing dishes we had a lovely chat with Anne too—finding out more about her husband and family. She is such a sweet lady and we are so blessed to have her as our “mom” while here.

The evening consisted of putzing around on my computer and I even got to Skype with Mom and Dave! I was sure it wouldn’t work. We heard the signal is really bad and the best you can do most of the time is just do the audio chat. Well, my audio and visual were working and it was a really clear and fast signal! It was such an unexpected treat to chat to them! Can’t wait to do it when Dad and Ruth and even Joe are home! I should have done more in the way of planning ahead for my lessons for next week since we’ll be at Vic Falls this weekend but I just couldn’t find the motivation. It’s so nice that I’m so far ahead in my planning for this week. Usually I’d be planning every night for the next day, but since this weekend was so productive and we made a bunch of copies today, we’re set for a while. So I figured I could enjoy one free night and then I’ll do more tomorrow. J

Choir

This morning we went to Bethel church again. We headed out with our chairs and met some of the kids on their way to church as well. Our sweet little boys we tutor came to offer to carry our chairs. They are so sweet. Other kids offered to hold our water bottles and cameras. Shanille grabbed my hand and walked the whole way to church with me. Such little cuties! We got to church right when it was starting. We put our chairs in the back again. This time there were no extra hymnals so we sang along to the hymns the best we could. Thankfully they sing the familiar Lenten hymns repeatedly so we knew most of the words. The format was the same as last week, with the same beautiful choirs. We managed to take some video of the choirs today too. The service was about 2 hours long, and after greeting everyone we headed home with our nice chair-holders and little buddies holding our hands.

Lunch was sandwiches and relaxing inside since it started to rain a little bit. The rain is weird today because it’s so sunny out.

In a week from today we are planning on being at Victoria Falls, Lord-willing. So this afternoon we decided to research some cheap hostels to stay at, and this is the one we found. We made our reservations for 4 nights here: http://backpackzambia.com/backpackers.php March 24th-27th. We are so excited!!! Since it’s the rainy season, the Falls are going to be so large. We’re planning on taking a bus down to Livingstone which we heard takes about 5 hours. Then we’ll catch a ride back to Lusaka with Pastor Hartmann on Wednesday the 28^th.

This afternoon Pastor Sargent came over to install the printer and it works! It’s going to be such a blessing to have that now! Then we headed over to choir practice. It was about an hour and forty minute practice, only practicing 3 songs, but it was a lot of fun. We have our songs pretty much down for Wednesday and even have a few dance moves thrown in. J

We walked up to the store to get some chocolate for ourselves and chap stick for Erika then made supper of veggies and fried eggs while watching some Friends and doing some planning and laundry.

This weekend was so nice and relaxing. We didn’t do a whole lot, but we were productive with our lesson planning and it was nice to relax!

Quiet Saturday

Last night was the first time I’ve heard it rain during the night. It was loud enough to wake me up. I love listening to the rain and thunder while snug in my bed! At 8 when I got up it was still raining out, although not as heavily. I got up that early because I made arrangements to take 3 families pictures today since yesterday didn’t work out for them. So after successfully taking those I came back and did a little bit of planning. At 10 I went around with Erika while she was taking pictures of her ladies’ families and we also passed out the song lyrics for the song we’re singing on Wednesday.

We had no plans for anything today so the majority of our day was spent lesson planning. We made little booklets that we are going to use in preschool now, and I planned out most of my week for English. Usually I just do it a day at a time but I really wanted to have a better idea of my week this week. Pastor Sargent said they’ve got an extra printer that they’re going to let us use for the rest of our time here, which will make our lives so much simpler!! We’ll be able to print our worksheets right here in the guest house instead of trying to find a time to make it over to the press during business hours. That’ll take one step out of the equation so all we’ll have to do is make photocopies. We’re so excited for him to install the printer to our laptops tomorrow! I made things for English class a lot simpler this week. I’ll plan on doing lots of review and working on spelling the same vocab word we’ve been learning for a while.

We felt pretty productive after working hard for a few hours on planning. Unfortunately our power did go out at 11 so most of it was handwritten. We’re happy we got those extra few hours in the morning with power. We were going to take a break and walk up to the store for some groceries and on our way we met Dave leaving his driveway. He said Dee was headed into town at 3 so we could catch a ride for her. So we did more planning for another hour or so and then caught a ride into town. We stocked up on our groceries for a week so hopefully won’t have to take any more trips into town until Friday, when we’re going to get our business visas.

When we got back from shopping the power was back on and the kids were out playing kickball with Dave so we headed over to watch the rest of their game. Sophie Birner is back on spring break from Prep so we got to see her and talked about her long, brutal flight.

For supper we cooked some veggies and eggs. It was very yummy! I called A. Margie and asked her if we could take her up on her offer to come over and watch TV and she said come on over! So Erika and I headed over there after supper and got to watch some March Madness and some tennis. It’s so nice going over there and watching some American TV J. We stayed for a few hours and then came back to go to bed since there’s church tomorrow.