Marvelous Monday!

For a Monday, today was not half bad. It started out with my tutoring boys, who were right on time today! Ndamiwe, Elias and Paul were with me for the first half of the morning and then Justice came for the end. I’m not sure where Junior was today.

English also went wonderfully. My wonderful surprise today was that Parksen and Bertha were there! I have not had them in class for 2 weeks since they’ve been helping Anne in the kitchen. It made my day to see them again. I missed them a lot! We actually had a pretty good turnout for English today. 4 of my ladies came and 3 of Erika’s. Kalwua, Doris and Thokozani are now helping in the kitchen so we won’t see them ‘til next week. We did a review paragraph on church stuff and played a few games, which are always fun. Then we moved into the new unit on buildings, such as bank, market, shop, petrol station, hospital etc.

Tomorrow is May Day and a national holiday but we asked them still to come to class because we think we’ll be gone on Friday. So they’ll postpone their holiday until Friday, instead of getting 2 days off this week

For lunch we had scrambled eggs on toast with ketchup and a fresh, juicy mango. Wonderful lunch!

Then we headed over for the afternoon group. Our kids were a little late today so we ended up sitting on the Moyo’s porch making a list of what we still want to get done before we leave and watching Vicar Moyo give Paul and Obey a haircut. I love how buzzed and short they keep the boys’ hair here. We were being cruel to ourselves and started talking about what it’s going to be like to leave here. We got so sad we actually both started tearing up and had to change the subject. Thankfully, Miriam and Shine showed up so Erika went inside for tutoring.

I had to hunt Shad and Pimbi down. Shad decided to go home and take a bath first, and Pimbi was finishing up helping her mom do dishes. So about 40 minutes late, they were both there. While waiting for them I ran over to the press to make a few copies for tomorrow’s English class.

On our way back we stopped for a brief entertainment show by Shaneel, Corn, Steward, Brian, Pimbi, Sam, and Innocent. They were so giggly and happy and just acting goofy. Erika got some great video of it. I already know it’s going to one of those videos I go back and watch very often!

This afternoon we had absolutely nothing we had to do. So we relaxed and did laundry and then I decided to start working on putting together a PowerPoint presentation on our time here, for presenting when we get back to the States. It ended up being a huge long presentation with tons of pictures. It was so hard to choose just a few from the hundreds we have taken. Erika helped me out after a bit, and that pretty much took up the rest of our day, breaking for a bit to make supper.

Supper was rice with leftover sweet and sour sauce. It was a little too tangy for us last time so we tried mellowing it out a bit tonight by adding some water and milk. It was definitely a bit better. We also had our usual stir fry and I made my specialty garlic cheesy bread again.

After a few episodes of Friends and adding a few more things to the PowerPoint the day was over. It was quite a lovely Monday!

St. Matthew's Lutheran Church

Today we had arranged to visit Pastor Chijoka’s church. He had texted us this week, wanting us to visit his congregation, which is St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in another part of Lusaka called Kumwata. In his texts he had mentioned something about the “youths being excited to meet us” and that he would be “sure to tell the youths we were coming”. We weren’t quite sure what that meant or what to expect. Thankfully, Pastor Sargent was heading that way this morning with the Moyos, Bismark and the four pastors from Nigeria, so we could catch a lift with him. We left here around 8:30am.

We passed through a new part of Lusaka we haven’t seen yet. We also passed the state house where the president lives and all the barracks and compounds where government and army officials live. It was very interesting to see all that! Outside the state house are some guards which very much reminded me of the guards that guard Buckingham Palace. Bismark told us that they don’t talk to anyone, they just stare straight ahead. Pastor Sargent also told us that the president has a giraffe, some impala and zebras within his garden or estate. Crazy! We tried looking for them as we passed but couldn’t see them.

Pastor Sargent dropped us off at St. Matthews with Bismark and the Nigerian pastors and then carried on to a nearby church with Vicar Moyo and his wife and Miriam. St. Matthew’s is where Bismark helps out and is getting some pre-pastor experience. Most of the seminary students have congregations in or near Lusaka that they help out in every Sunday. We got to church quite early since Pastor Sargent had to get to the other church in time for Bible Study which started at 9. St. Matthew’s didn’t start ‘til 10am however, so we had a good hour to wait. We met some members as they slowly started arriving and also got to see the church grounds a bit. Pastor Chijoka’s house is right next to the church and there was also a preschool building, which used to be the old church, and they rent out that building as a preschool. They also use it for Sunday School. We had a nice conversation with Bismark about teaching. We found out that he actually was a teacher for 7 years in the Northwest Province before deciding to become a Pastor. It was very interesting talking about education and teaching and some of the challenges that come along with that.

Church started at around 10:15 and it was such a wonderful service. They have quite a large choir, probably between 25-30 people in it. They have quite “fancy” uniforms, of suits for the guys and skirts and suit tops for the girls. They were absolutely wonderful. The combination of many voices, plus the acoustics of the church, plus just the wonderful harmonies and typically African songs just made me smile and gave me goose bumps the whole time. This was the choir that won the choir competition last week. We could see why—they were so excellent!

They followed a more traditional liturgy, in fact it was our very same Service of the Word and even had a keyboard. The sermon was preached by one of the guest Nigerian pastors today. It turned out that Pastor Chijoka wasn’t even there today because he had to be somewhere else for a meeting or something. The Nigerian pastor did a great job. He is such an enthusiastic preacher and the people loved the sermon. There was participation and laughing and clapping at the things he said. It was wonderful to see! The theme for today was “Jesus is our way to salvation”.

At the end of the service we stood up and introduced ourselves, which is always fun. J

Then after doing the traditional greetings at the end of church the youth director came up to us and introduced us to Bridgette, Jane and Esther who would be our “guides”. At this point we had no idea what was going on. We just played along and smiled and hoped we’d figure this out eventually. J, B, and E were there to tell us a bit about the youth programs or answer any questions we had. We weren’t really expecting this to happen, but we thought of some things to ask them. Then we were lead back into church where the choir was practicing. We listened to their songs for a while and chatted with J, B, and E. Then the youth director said we’d have a little interview session where we could just talk to the youths about what church and life is like in America and they could also answer any questions we had. Remember, youths in Zambia is anyone between the ages of 12-35 so many of the people were our age or in their teens. We had some great questions about what church life is like in America, what activities do our youth groups do, how big are our churches, what are the choirs like, how schools work in the US and some questions about our ministry here in Zambia. It was very interesting. I think they were quite shocked to hear that “youths” in America only go up ‘til maybe 19 or 20, not 35 and how youth choirs aren’t really a popular thing, it’s mainly children’s or adult choir. We also talked about the sad fact that many youths in the States don’t attend church and many churches are realizing the need to start developing more youth outreach programs. It’s just so different than here in Zambia where the youth make up the majority of the congregation and they are so active in the church; almost all of them are in choir, attend choir competitions and have regular sports days on Sunday afternoons where they get together with the youths of neighboring congregations for an afternoon of fellowship and sports. It’s just so wonderful to see; they are wonderful Christian examples of how young people act in the church.

After this unexpected but enjoyable interview session we were informed that we would be having lunch at church as well. So we hung around for a bit longer before lunch was ready. We were expecting to be picked up by Pastor Sargent right at 12, so these unexpected things that came up were quite the adventure. We were also told that Pastor S. wasn’t going to pick us up now and that we’d somehow get another way home. This is the true definition of “go with the flow”. While we were waiting for lunch we got to eat some fruit from the baobob tree. You break open the large pod and there are little white bulbs in there. You pick one out and suck on it ‘til you reach the see. Erika described it as sucking on a little piece of sour cotton. It was actually quite delicious.

We had lunch with Bismark, the 4 Nigerian pastors and the officials of St. Matthew’s congregation. We had a traditional Zambian meal and we were so glad to finally experience true African food in a true African setting. We were surrounded by Zambian and Nigerian men in one of the back rooms of St. Matthew’s. We all washed our hands in a bucket of water that was passed around, then Pastor said a prayer and we began to eat. We had nsima, mincemeat and onion relish, bream (fish—cooked as is by the way, not de-boned, de-scaled or even de-eyeballed J) kale, and cabbage. It was actually all quite delicious. I am not the biggest fan of nsima but dipped in the relish made it quite yummy. We also enjoyed a Fanta at the end. Oh, and Zambians don’t eat with silverware so everything was eaten with our fingers. The whole lunch experience was one of those things that made me take a step back and just think about the situation I was in. To experience a true fellowship meal with people from the States, Nigeria and Zambia was such a wonderful blessing!

We were getting all ready to leave (they were going to get us some taxis to take us back) when we saw Pastor Sargent! He did come back to pick us up. He wasn’t going to originally, but his program ended right about when we were finished with lunch so he thought he’d swing by and see if we were still there. So we got a ride back, no problem. We were at church for about 6 hours total but it didn’t feel like it at all. It just makes me think about how sometimes in the USA if a church service goes even slightly longer than an hour people get antsy. I was guilty of this myself. Being here has been a wake-up call. People dedicate their whole Sunday to church and church activities, and they do it joyfully. I can definitely learn from their example.

When we got home we spent an hour just relaxing. It seemed crazy that it was already almost 3pm. At 4 we headed over to Birners for a taco supper. We played bocce ball at first and then after 6 when everyone arrived we ate. It was Birners, Sargents, Dave and Dee, Prof. Cherney, U. Ernie and A. Margie, Jason Paulzer and the 2 coworkers he brought from WI to have medical meetings and us. Jason used to live here in Zambia and was the one who helped set up the health program that Mr. Banda does now. He was here on this trip more in connection with a health program through the States. I won’t even try to explain what they’re doing because I would never explain it right…it was very interesting though.

Supper was haystacks, which was rice with taco fixings on it. Ground beef, cheese, tomatoes, salsa, lettuce, cashews, raisins, pineapple, and guacamole. Sound like some pretty bizarre toppings for tacos, huh? Trust me they were absolutely delicious!

We spent some time chatting after supper and enjoying dessert of banana pudding bars and peanut butter butterscotch bars. Yummy!

We walked home around 8:45 and figured out some final details for lessons tomorrow, then went to bed.

Dutch Reform

This morning was a lazy Saturday morning. I slept in until 8 and then read and went on the computer for a while. At 9:30 we went with Dave, Dee and Prof. Cherney to the Dutch Reform market. The other time we were at the Dutch Reform, it was our first day here in Zambia! All the curio shoppers set up shop at the Dutch Reform church. It’s a big expat attraction. So we shopped for an hour and half or so and then got some lunch. I focused mainly on getting gifts for people and I also got something for myself. For lunch we got chicken burritos and they were delicious—served with salsa and guacamole.

On the way back Dave dropped us off at a gas station near our house where there's a stand selling fruits and veggies. We picked up some cabbage, bananas and fresh mangos. The mangos we’ve been getting are just huge and deliciously juicy! We love that we can get so many fresh veggies and fruits for so cheap here, and literally walk down the street to get some.

This afternoon was pretty uneventful. I watched a movie and read my book. I was tempted to take a nap but by the time the movie was over and Erika woke up from her nap, it was kickball time so we headed over to campus. My buddies today were Aubrey and Corn, and Isabbel and Peace for a bit at the end. Aubrey discovered a new trick of climbing up on my back to play piggy back. He was perfectly content sitting there and starting singing songs…mainly about the Chipolopolo football team. J As I was watching kickball and playing with Aubrey I saw some kids and ladies over at Bertha’s yard throwing sticks at a tree. Things fell out of the tree and then everyone rushed over to pick them up and eat them. I was so puzzled as to what was in the tree so I went over there to see what they were doing. It turns out it was a mulberry tree and they were trying to knock the berries down. Pretty cool.

Before heading home we went to go say hello to Anne. It feels like we never see her anymore since we’ve moved over to the other guest house and she’s been so busy cooking.

For supper we grilled some chicken with slightly over-caramelized onions J, veggie stir fry and fried potatoes with onions and garlic. It was very yummy. Sadly, when it was dishes time I broke a big glass bowl. I had just washed it and put it in the drying rack and it must not have been balanced in there very well and all of a sudden it fell out. I was so close to catching it but sadly I couldn’t grasp it and it fell to the floor shattering into a zillion pieces. I felt so terrible and there was glass everywhere. Erika helped me clean up the glass and then we settled in for a night of more Friends. We’re on the final season!

I’ve been thinking of my family today, or Mom, Dad, and Dave at least, since they’re moving today! Hope everything went smoothly and can’t wait to see pictures of the new place!

Oh How I Love Fridays!

This morning’s tutoring group was my 4 boys that I’ve split into 2 mini groups. Ndamiwe and Elias didn’t come right on time though. Since this group has seemed to have missed the most tutoring time due to vacations and holidays etc. I really didn’t want them to miss another day. So Paul, Barnabas and I went to go find them. Paul has now decided that he’s going to come to tutoring every morning now. Today I wasn’t going to let him come since he’s come twice this week already, but then I just couldn’t resist a little boy who’s so eager to learn. So after Ndamiwe and Elias were done and I had Junior and Justice, I let Paul join in. It’s actually pretty nice to have Paul because he helps out the other boys.

After tutoring we had a little down time before English started so we hung outside on the porch with the boys. After tutoring they never want to leave. It’s so cute! Given, Obey, Stone, Paul, Barnabas, Erika and I sat out in the sun and just chatted until our ladies showed up for class. Sarah was the first to arrive around 9:30 and then we only had Ella come after that. I’m not sure where all the other ladies were today; they must have been working. It was a nice class though with such a small group. We did some worksheets that we hadn’t planned on doing but decided would be kind of nice to try out since there were only 2 ladies. They were worksheets on synonyms and antonyms and differentiating between there, their, and they’re. We also spent some time on trying to get the ladies to talk more, so we set out the letter flashcards that we use for the kids and we took turns describing a picture on a card. The rest of us had to guess which picture they were describing—sort of like an "I spy" kind of game. It worked out pretty well.

After English we came home for a quick lunch of PB&J sandwiches and fruit. Then we caught another minibus into town for some groceries and internet. It was actually a pretty quick trip since the internet line was especially short today. We also didn’t need a whole ton of groceries, just a couple things we were getting low on. The minibus ride back was an adventure though. We wanted to take one of the larger buses but there were none there when we were heading back. So we crammed on one of the small ones with all our bags. It was so ridiculously squished, we just pretty much laughed the whole way home. It’s amazing how used to it we are now. Things that we thought were strange or so typically “African” have started to just seem normal now.

When we got home and unpacked groceries we decided to go play kickball with the kids. I played for a little bit, but usually when we go over there I like to play with the little kids. They weren’t really around though, so I actually had to go hunt them down. Once they see us, then they’ll hang around. I found Brian, Corn, Goshen and then later Aubrey. All my little boys. They like to be aggressive with me sometimes. Goshen likes to jump on my lap and when I’m sitting down he likes to come up and jump on me from behind. Brian and Corn like to hang on my arms like I’m their jungle gym, and Aubrey just likes to cling to me like a koala clings to a tree. Corn has also started this thing where he likes to gently bite me. I definitely am trying to nip that in the bud. I love these little guys though. Nothing makes you feel more loved than having kids almost fighting over who gets to sit on your lap.

After a fun afternoon with the kids we came back for supper. We had some leftover rice which we put some salsa on—a new cuisine trick Erika taught me, which was delicious. We also had some leftover spaghetti sauce with pasta and then for the fresh stuff we stir fried some veggies again and I made some homemade garlic cheesy bread. We bought some garlic salt at the store today which flavored the veggies wonderfully. For the garlic bread I just cut pieces of brown bread in half and then rubbed some fresh garlic on them, spread on a little bit of butter, and sprinkled some garlic salt and cheese on top. Popped them in the oven to broil for about 4 minutes and they came out perfectly. They were so delicious!

The rest of the night was spent watching Friends…about a whole disc worth. What a wonderful way to spend a lazy Friday night—curled up on the chair under a blanket watching Friends and eating some chocolate. Mmm.

"Date Night"

This morning I tutored Raph and Sam. We did some new worksheets, colored, and did some flash cards. The time really seemed to go by quickly this morning.

English also went by quickly and it went very well today. We had some church worksheets prepared and also did some more work with writing sentences using church vocabulary. Sometimes it’s nice to have a worksheet, and something tangible the ladies can see and complete. For the last part of class we had conversation about church type things. The thing to remember when trying to get the ladies to talk is to give them a lot of time to think of their answers. If you give them a good few minutes of just silence, then they can usually come up with a pretty good answer. There were also some good laughs today. At one point we were waiting for one of the ladies to answer the question of why Job was her favorite person from the Bible. The ladies each picked their favorite Bible character and had to explain why they were her favorite. It was very difficult for her to think of what she wanted to say and she didn’t want to do it. I heard her say “mawa” which means “tomorrow”. She wanted to get out of it by doing it tomorrow instead. So I said, “we’re not doing it ‘mawa’, we want you to answer it now.” And they all burst out laughing. She didn’t realize that I understood what she said. J It was so funny!

We got invited to join Dave and Dee, as well as Prof. Cherney to date night tonight. Thursday nights are usually when Dave and Dee go out for a movie and dinner. So in order to leave in time to catch the 5pm movie, I wanted to bump my afternoon tutoring girls, Chipo and Mwandida, earlier. So after lunch we headed over to campus. I had told the mom of one of my girls to send them at 1pm this afternoon since we don’t have preschool, which usually would have been at 1. My girls didn’t come, but from where I was standing I could see them outside of their houses. So I waited a while and then walked over there. I told them to come to “school” now. I gestured and repeated myself a lot. I started walking away and was expecting them to follow shortly after. But no, I don’t think they had a clue what I was saying. So I decided not to fight it and came home to print up some worksheets to make copies of. Then I headed back to campus and made a bunch of photocopies. Right as Erika and I were heading back, I saw my girls show up for tutoring. Since Erika had already tutored her kids she headed back home. I decided to give the girls a short tutoring session because of the miscommunication issues. We had a short but productive session learning some new words. Then I sent them home with instructions to come at 13:00hrs on Tuesday. So we’ll see if we can figure it out next time. I figure as long as we’re not doing preschool, I’ll move my tutoring a little earlier so I can be done for the day a little earlier than usual as well.

For date night we went to see the movie “The Grey”—the one where there’s a plane crash, and the few survivors all die, mostly by being eaten alive by wolves. Not the most pleasant movie on earth. It was definitely not my kind of movie. Even though it was quite gruesome, it was still kind of nice to be out and about at night. Usually as soon as it gets dark we’re locked in our house for the night. For dinner we headed right across from the movie theater to a restaurant called Mike’s Kitchen. It was very nice! I got the chicken stir fry. It’s a restaurant that you could easily transplant in the United States and it would fit right in. Again, sometimes the modern-ness of Lusaka shocks me. J

For some reason I am really tired tonight so I plan on getting to bed a little early. Tomorrow is Friday though—woohoo!

Back in the swing of things

This morning I tutored Paul. Paul? He’s not one of my tutoring kids! Well, we were hanging around the Moyo’s house waiting for our kids to show up, and my two didn’t. I was supposed to have Dalitso and Gertrude. But Obey and Given were there, and Paul was hanging out with them, so I said “Hey Paul, do you want to come and learn today?” and of course he did. It worked out well. Instead of sitting there for an hour while Erika tutored, I had something to do. And Paul is my little buddy and he’s so smart that it was a joy to teach him. When I saw him later on today he told me he was going to come to “school” all the time now. J So we’ll see what happens; if he’ll just show up on random days and want to be tutored. I honestly wouldn’t mind though, because he’s right on the level of some of the other kids I tutor. Paul is 6 and still goes to the preschool on campus here. I think he’ll be starting school next year, which is why I don’t think he was signed up for tutoring.

After tutoring Paul the ladies arrived for English. We had six of them today and again, worked together as a whole group. We learned church vocabulary words. I know I taught this to my ladies 2 weeks ago, but it’s been a while since we’ve had class and we wanted to find something we could do with all the ladies. Erika’s wanted to do this theme with her ladies as well. So I figured this could be a good review week for my ladies and also give them a chance to feel like the “teachers” and show what they learned or remembered from when I taught this same theme to them. I won’t rehash the details of what we did, since we did the same things I wrote about last time we did this theme.

For lunch we made our specialty sandwiches: toast with avocado, fried onions, a fried egg and cheese. It is just so delicious! There are also ripe oranges on the tree at Dave and Dee’s so we’ve been able to pick some and have fresh oranges as well. We also have a naartjie (or mandarin orange) tree in our own yard so I love just walking outside to get a snack.

Afternoon tutoring started a little late because our kids showed up late. I eventually saw Shad, and then we rounded up Pimbi and headed over to Moyo’s. It was so good to have my kids again in tutoring! I missed them! They were being especially rambunctious today too, which was fine. It was quite entertaining for me. Shad is quite the character but I love him. He is very good at English for such a young guy and he likes to teach me the Nyanja words for things, which I appreciate. He’s also my go-to guy when a kid rattles off in Nyanja to me. I can always ask Shad, “what’s she saying” and he can give me the basic gist of it.

We made a few photocopies after tutoring and then headed home and watched some Friends. Then around 4 we went back to campus for kickball. Erika always plays kickball and I always end up playing with the little kids. I played football with Brian and Steward for a while and then Corn came over and seemed really quiet and tired, which is so unlike him. He’s usually the one who is giggling non-stop for no reason at all. He was also especially cuddly and came right up to me so I could pick him up. He never does that! So we sat on the grass together, he on my lap and we just talked. He talked in Nyanja and I talked in English. We had no clue what each other was saying but it was so cute. It was just a sweet moment with Cornelius. I enjoyed snuggling with him and then after a good half an hour or so he seemed to become more himself and got up to play ball with Brian. He stayed pretty close to me though. I just love that kid!

We got invited over for supper with Dave and Dee and Prof. Cherney. Dee made delicious pork chops with noodles, veggies, and bread with brownies for dessert. We also all made a plan to go out tomorrow night together to see a movie and have dinner, so that’ll be something nice to look forward to as well.

We’ve been living in darkness for the past couple of weeks because so many lights in our house are burned out, the living room and the dining room ones. We ate by candlelight last night just to have some light. Finally we decided to try to change them tonight and we only got the dining room one fixed. The one in the living room semi-exploded and the bulb part detached itself from the part that screws into the light. So Erika tried figuring out how to take out that part, but we were unsuccessful.

The highlight of my evening was getting to Skype with Dave, although the internet was cutting out every now and again. He showed me what a mess our house is since we’re moving in three days. I kind of feel guilty for not being there to help.

Hunger Games!

I woke up once again thinking I was going on a game drive. I wonder how long it’ll take before I stop thinking about Luangwa.

We taught English this morning at 8. It seems like it’s been ages since we last taught. There were some issues to figure out as far as where we would actually hold class. Because of the continuing education classes still going on these next two weeks, we can’t use Bethel. We thought maybe having class under the tent, but we didn’t want to be disruptive if the pastors came back for a break between class. So we went over to Vicar Moyo’s house. They aren’t occupying some of the rooms so we set up a table and desks in there. Because it was a fairly small room to try to “battle teach” with each other, we taught the ladies as a whole group today. Some of my ladies are still helping out Anne in the kitchen as well, so we only had about 5 ladies today total. We’ll see if we get more tomorrow.

Today was spent working on dictation exercises and showing them pictures of our trip. We showed 3 different sequences of 3 pictures, describing our trip or what we learned about different animals and then asked some comprehension questions after that. I think they enjoyed that. We like sharing what we’ve been doing and it’s nice to teach them other things sometimes as well.

No tutoring today because we figured we’d give the kids a little break since they have off from school as well. We also weren’t sure what day we’d be back from Luangwa exactly either, so we gave them off through Tuesday just in case. Tomorrow we’ll start up our regular routine again, except no preschool until May because they get a holiday.

So after English finished at 10 we were done for the day. We originally thought about going to Dream Valley to swim for the day, but we both didn’t have a strong desire to swim since we just swam at Luangwa; we’d mainly be going so we could enjoy the sunshine, which we could do in our backyard. It was also a pretty windy day today. So instead we decided to head into town and eat lunch, buy some ink for our printer and catch a movie.

We ate at Curry in a Hurry and I ordered chicken curry and garlic naan. It was kind of bizarre because it didn’t come with rice. Maybe I was supposed to order that separately…? Oh well, it was still good when dipping the naan into the chicken curry sauce.

We’ve tried buying ink twice before and each time we’ve gone in we haven’t been sure what ink cartridge to get. The first time we just went in thinking we could buy ink, but didn’t realize there were two different types according to what printer we had. So the next time we went in we brought in the instruction manual from the printer thinking it would say it on there, but it didn’t. So this time we took the cartridge out of the printer to check for ourselves and were finally successful. The lady in the store must think we are the dumbest Americans around. J

After lunch we went up for the movie. We finally were going to see the Hunger Games! We were so excited.

The movie was so fantastic! The sound quality of the theater at Manda Hill is a lot better than Arcades. The movie was just so great; we couldn’t stop talking about how much we enjoyed it. Once again, being in such a modern theater watching one of the newest released movies was kind of surreal. The only slightly annoying thing was that we couldn’t pick our seats, so they usher you to your seat and of course the other 10 people who were at the movie were all put in our same row as well. You’d think with the whole theater empty they could have spread us out a little bit. It didn’t detract from the awesomeness of the movie though.

After the usual harrowing minibus ride home, we made supper. We were quite impressed with our cooking skills today. We made rice, and grilled chicken with onions and garlic and we made a homemade sweet and sour sauce to go with it, along with some fried green peppers, tomatoes and onions. So delicious! It was just such a wonderful day.

Monday

It felt wonderful to sleep past 5am this morning! The sad thing was, I still thought I was at the Wildlife Camp though, so when I woke up really early (it must have been around 5) I thought it was almost time to get up for a game drive. When I realized I was not at Luangwa anymore, it made me sad. I dreamt about being on a game drive and seeing lions too.

Anyway, I got out of bed around 8:30 and checked all 52 notifications on my Luangwa pictures. It still frustrates me that my pictures are not in the correct order…especially the airplane pictures. Oh well, I do not have the patience or time to move them all. I can’t seem to find an easy way to do in on Facebook either. There’s got to be an easy way you can move all your pictures around.

We were expecting to go into town with Dee around 9:30 but there was some delay and so we didn’t get to leave ‘til around 11. I should have been productive and did some planning but we thought we were leaving “any second” for about an hour. J It was nice to have a ride to get groceries again and not have to mess with the minibuses.

When we got home we unloaded groceries for Anne since she’s still cooking for a couple more weeks while there are continuing education courses here on campus. That poor lady looked so exhausted when I popped in to say hello to her. I’m sure she’ll be ready to crash when these next two weeks are over.

We also got to say hello to some of our kids! That’s always my favorite part. To get to hug and tickle the little munchkins again.

Then this afternoon we watched a lot of Friends and got addicted to editing our Luangwa photos. I made the picture so much clearer on a lot of them. I am so excited to get an apartment and get to decorate the walls with cool collages of all my pictures!

For supper we made spaghetti and stir fry and then I worked on some essay writing. I want to submit some photos for the Thalassa prize at MLC. No harm in trying. J

For English tomorrow I decided to do a little review since it’s been quite a while since we’ve had class. I know about 3 of my ladies are still helping Anne in the kitchen, so I’ll probably have a small group. We don’t tutor tomorrow either, so we’ll have to see what fun thing we can do.

It’s so strange writing about “normal” things again instead of what animals we saw on game drives. The whole day Erika and I would say to each other “right now we’d be having lunch” or “right now we’d be getting ready for our night drive” or “right now we’d just be finishing our sundowner and the spotlight would be going”. It made us sad to think about. We both had a serious case of post-vacation blues.

End of Vacation Blues

This morning we left at our usual time for our final game drive. Last game drives are always sad because you know it’s the last time you’re going to be able to see these animals for a long time. Right off the bat Billy discovered fresh lion prints in the sand. We followed them to around the same area that we discovered the leopard with the impala in the tree. Billy said there were signs of lion everywhere: they were seen in this area last night, the footprints showed they were there, and there were lots of hooded vultures in the trees nearby. Billy said that hooded vultures indicate that there are most likely lions nearby because the vultures like to eat the lion dung. Sadly, we did not see the lion anywhere. They were probably in the taller grass and we just couldn’t see them unless they got up and walked around.

The rest of the drive was extremely quiet today. We didn’t see a whole lot. We saw some elephants, zebra, giraffe, all the same antelope, a few eagles and hippo. Billy suspected all the animals were at church and that was why it was so quiet. J No cats this morning. And we left the park a little earlier so we could get to the airport by 10:30am.

It’s such a sad feeling when you’re driving away from the park. I remember having that feeling as a kid too. When you’re in Luangua you lose sense of what day it is or what time it is. Everything is so relaxed—the only thing you have to worry about is getting ready for the game drives and deciding what drink you want for your sundowner. It is such a wonderful place to be; I love it so much. I think what makes it so sad to leave again is that I have no idea if or when I’ll ever be able to get back there. I am so thankful for the wonderful days we had at the Wildlife Camp though; the people we met and the animals we saw were such a blessing, and our whole trip went so smoothly.

When we got to the airport, the man said there was only 1 person booked on the flight so we’d get on standby no problem. How wonderful! We can’t imagine what a headache it would have been to wait for several more hours to get on the later flight, or even trying to catch a minibus to Chipata. We were so thankful to get on with no problems. Since we got our tickets right away, we had about 2 hours to wait. That wasn’t so fun. The airport was completely deserted; we were the only two customers there. Thankfully we could go on the internet on Erika’s computer and she even brought some discs of Friends so we watched quite a few of those. It was a nice way to pass the time. The incoming flight from Lusaka was slightly delayed so we didn’t leave exactly on time, but when it did arrive we had about 5 minutes in between to get our bags on and then we could board. It was funny because before we boarded they had this “official announcement” come over the speaker system in the airport telling us we could proceed to the check-in area and there was also the announcement not to leave your baggage unattended; if you see any unattended baggage please report it to the airport security immediately. We laughed. We were very obviously the only 2 people in the airport at the time and you’d think they could have just come up and told us these things themselves. The airport is literally 3 hallways big, so we could even see the guy making the announcement. J

The airplane today was even smaller than last time. It was a twelve passenger airplane and you had to crouch over the whole time while getting to your seat. It was so tiny! But since there were only 3 of us, we each got our own seat by a window. The other guy with us had an interesting life story. He is a British/America or something; he was raised in West Africa, has lived in the States and Africa and currently alternates living in Mfuwe and Chipata. In Mfuwe he does some kind of research and teaches children in schools about nature and animals etc. I probably completely butchered what it is he actually does, but it sounded so interesting.

I really enjoyed watching the pilots fly the plane, since I only sat a few rows behind them and there was nothing separating us from them. The scenery was also gorgeous. You could see the Luangwa River snaking along, and there were some mountains. I thought it would be so cool to see some elephants or something from the plane, but no such luck.

I ended up taking a nap for most of the way home, so the flight seemed super short.

When we arrived shortly after 3pm, Dave and Dee were there waiting to pick us up.

At home, I moved out of my temporary room back to my regular room since the Hartmann’s left yesterday, unpacked, threw in a load of laundry, and copied all of Erika’s Luangwa pictures onto my computer.

It’s crazy to think that a few hours ago I was at South Luangwa watching elephants and giraffes and now I’m in the capital city back to the routine. Ending vacations are so sad…I’m experiencing a bit of the “end of vacation blues”. I’m sure once I get back into the teaching routine and get to hug my little munchkins I’ll be happy to be back.

Tomorrow we decided to give off English again since we didn’t actually tell the ladies when we’d be back. Because of the standby issue we told them we could be back on Monday or Tuesday. We don’t tutor tomorrow either and I haven’t planned anything for English anyway, so I think it’ll be best to give them a day off so we can plan and prepare. We are also pretty tired, so having a day to regroup and take care of some errands in town will be nice.

Lion at Last

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVIE! I hope you had a wonderful 24^th birthday…wow you are getting old.

This morning we were up at 5 again to get ready for our morning drive. We had a group of 3 Australians with us, a different group than the other day. These guys and girl were really funny and very nice. We had a great time driving with them. For starters, we went to see if our leopard was still by its tree but it wasn’t. Then we went to a new area that we haven’t been to yet since we’ve been here. Supposedly lions were heard roaring in this area earlier, so they were around somewhere. Thankfully the Australians also wanted to see cats, so we were on a mission today. The closest we came to seeing a lion was seeing super fresh tracks in the dirt. Billy said there were at least 3 lions in the group and they passed by very recently. So we knew they were around but we just didn’t find them! That was OK though, Billy was trying so hard and we know it’s never a guarantee. Tonight he offered to leave earlier so we can travel a bit farther to see if we can see some lions; closer to Presidential Lodge I heard him say. How nice! So we’re going to be leaving around 3:30pm instead and it’ll just be the two of us I think.

We did see some of the usual: elephant, zebra, antelope, hippo, crocs, the 3 hyena and we did see a couple new birds, a different kind of kingfisher, the one with the grey head and a couple of ground hornbills. No giraffes though today. It’s crazy how different the days can be. Yesterday we saw so many giraffe it seemed like they were around every corner, and today we didn’t see any. It just shows that you have to be at the right place at the right time to see things.

Before lunch I took a quick cat nap. These early mornings and late nights are catching up with me. It’s very worth it though. Lunch was so delicious! We had salad and rolls again, and delicious chicken kabobs with onions and green peppers, along with yellow rice. After lunch we headed over to the pool to relax for the afternoon. Our Australian friends were there, along with some other people from their party including 2 people from New York. We had a nice chat with Alex from Australia about all the cool places he’s visited like in Europe and how he ran with the bulls in Spain.

We left the pool a little earlier to get ready for our earlier drive. We had Billy and Isaac again. We were in lion hunting mode. We got straight to business with no stopping for other animals. A little ways into our drive we came across a big herd of elephants, around 15-20 of them. Some of them were trumpeting and making commotion. All of a sudden Billy stopped the car. We thought it was so we could get some pictures of the elephants. But then he pulled out his binoculars and he and Isaac start looking into the bushes. He explained that around this area was where the lions were rumored to be and he said he had a suspicion about why the elephants were acting weird. He was going to drive the car a little ways into the bushes but then we saw a big grater machine that was driving through on its way from clearing bramble from some of the smaller side roads. We wanted to wait for it to pass, so Billy waved it through but it took a while for the guy to see us. As all this was happening with the grater, everyone was still looking off into the bushes in the distance and for some reason I decided to look behind me on the road. And there on the road just feet behind us stood a female lion. I was so shocked and instantly the adrenaline starting rushing through me. I wish I could have seen everyone’s reactions when I whispered, “it’s a LION!” , but I was just so excited that I barely remember what happened. We all got so excited and whipped around to start taking pictures. The lion had literally been feet from us in the bush and we didn’t see it. Then as it started walking across the road behind our car, another lion popped out from the grass on the other side of the road. It was so amazing. We had literally parked the car between 2 lions, and for about 5-10 minutes we didn’t even know it. Talk about timing and a blessing! It was incredible how Billy and Isaac could just take the few little signs like the elephants skittishness, seeing car tracks going off the road a little bit, and just patience and we saw the “illusive” lion! We were both so excited after that. We had seen this lion only about ½ an hour into our drive. If we had started out at our usual time we would have missed them. Billy was so happy because now he felt less pressure to find us a lion, so as Dad would say, everything else we saw from then on out was just gravy.

He still did decide to go up to the Presidential Lodge area so we zipped along the main dirt road pretty quickly. He stopped in some flat grassland areas where the views were just incredible. On the grassy plains you could see 6 warthogs running with their tails straight in the air, impala, elephants wallowing in the mud, giraffe, and zebra. In the background was a mountain. It was just incredible. In another flatter area we also saw 2 male kudu. Kudu are pretty shy antelope so to see them out in the open, especially 2 males was pretty rare. They were just beautiful! The Presidential Lodge area was gorgeous as well. I remember really liking this area when we came here as kids. It’s a more hilly area, so where we had our sundowner we were overlooking the park up on a hill. Again, the views were amazing and the sun setting behind the mountain was beautiful. During the sundowner, it’s usually our opportunity to answer the call of nature. It’s pretty nerve wracking to just wander off into the bushes hoping nothing jumps out at you. This time I chose a nice bush that was about 20 feet away from a herd of zebra. Nothing like using the “facilities” with a crew of zebra watching you. J Billy said that one time they were taking a sundowner at that very spot and right as they were finishing up, they heard a leopard calling. It had been feet from them in the tall grass the whole time and they didn’t know it! Can you imagine that?? He also told us some funny stories about when the previous president actually came to the lodge. He said when the president goes on game drives or game walks, he always has his crew of soldiers with him, as well as more safari guides than usual. A normal game walk has a guide in front, a guy with a gun, the people doing the walk, and a guy with a gun in the back. He said the president’s game walk has about 7 guys with guns in the front, his crew of soldiers, the president himself, another crew of soldiers and then about 7 guys with guns in the back.

On the way back toward the main gate area we saw a civet cat and a couple genet cats. Actually, that’s misleading to call them cats. Originally they had been classified in the cat species but recently they have been put in a species all of their own. They do not have cat-like tendencies although they do look quite similar. True cats are carnivores like the leopard and lion, but a civet and genet will eat bugs, fruit, frogs or whatever it comes across. So now they’re just civets and genets not civet and genet cats.

We also saw some giraffe, elephant and another hyena. Then we saw another lion. Billy says it was from the same group we saw earlier. Even though we only saw 2 lionesses before, Billy thinks there might have been up to about 6 in the pride, including a male and some cubs. This one we saw at the end was quite a ways in the distance so we didn’t get any good pictures but it was nice to say that we had 2 sightings of lions tonight.

Even though we didn’t see more exciting things after that we did have an exciting moment. We got stuck in a mud puddle. It looked like your average mud puddle ditch and we’ve definitely been through larger, more treacherous looking ones before but for some reason we got stuck in this one. The front wheels just kept spinning and spinning, shooting mud in all directions. Billy and Isaac got quite covered in mud since their seats are lower to the ground. Billy tried everything to get us out, but finally Isaac had to climb out of the car and collect some branches off a nearby bush. He put them under the treads of both front tires to try to provide some grip for the tires to catch on. Well something must’ve worked because we finally got out of there. It was quite exciting though. Nothing like being stuck in a puddle in the middle of a game park in pitch black darkness.

After this final excitement we headed back to camp. After dropping off Isaac in town, I became the spotter for our final trip back. That just means I sat up front next to Billy and shone the spotlight looking for animals. Even though the Wildlife Camp is not in the game park itself, it’s still in what they call the GMA (Game Management Area), so there is still wildlife around including cats sometimes. The things I spotted were a genet, some impala and a few elephants. J

For my family: One of the fun things on the drive for me today was driving across the Mushilashi Bridge. I just remember that we kids loved that name. Didn’t we make up some kind of song about the Mushilashi Bridge? I definitely had Billy stop so I could take a picture of the bridge and signpost. I also thought of some questions to ask you. Was there ever a time we came to Luangwa and didn’t see a lion? I know there were times we didn’t see leopard but what about lion? I just want to know if we kept our streak alive. Also, do you know if we ever saw a bush baby? I guess they’re some marsupial-type-looking-thing that live in trees. It’s just so cool how familiar the park is still. I know where the loops go and I remember things by sight like “oh we definitely saw lions here one time” or remember where we saw that giraffe carcass on the way to the Wildlife Camp? That place still looks the same too

Supper was butternut squash soup, pork with veggies and mashed potatoes, and an apple crumble thing with custard. Even though we did see lion tonight, we still are planning on going on 1 final game drive tomorrow morning. We’ll bring all our bags along with us and head straight to the airport from the game drive, hoping to catch the 1:30pm flight on standby. Hope everything goes smoothly!

Leopard, Leopard

Last night’s sleep was wonderful! The bed was very comfortable. Unfortunately our neighbor snored pretty loudly, loud enough to rival Dad. At first I thought it was a hippo grunting, but then realized it was the guy in the chalet next to us.

We had a wakeup call at 5am and then headed over for a breakfast of cereal and toast with our guide for the day, Billy, who was also the one who picked us up from the airport yesterday. He’s such a nice and funny guy. He is so knowledgeable about the animals and also very funny in some of the comments he makes. He is also Malawian, so that scores him points in my book. J

This morning we had Joel along too, who is a guide in training. His exams are a week away so he was our driver and gave us information on the animals with supplemental information and help given by Billy. It’s amazing how smart these guys are. They have to know every insect, plant, animal and bird; their species names, how to identify them at night, and all kinds of facts about them. It is just incredible!

So this morning our drive was from 6-10 with a break for coffee and tea. These are the things we saw: lots of giraffe, a ton of elephants, the 3 hyena from yesterday, 5 warthog, zebra, bushbuck, waterbuck, and the usual impala and puku. I also am interested in the birds, being influenced by mom and wanting to write down the names of them because I know she loves them. Birds: African harrier hawk (or gymnogene), open billed stork, hamerkop, lesser grey shrike, red billed oxpeckers, Egyptian geese, martial eagle, pied kingfisher and woodland kingfisher, crowned cranes, white fronted bee eater, woolly-necked stork and a fish eagle. Oh, and at the end of our drive we saw the leopard again. It was back in its tree eating more of the impala. It was wonderful seeing it in the daylight, and once again we got to see it jump out of the tree and settle in a tree a little further back. We enjoyed today’s drive because it was just the two of us in the car with the guides, so we could stop at whatever we wanted. Last night we kind of zipped along because the people we were with had seen everything before and wanted to get to the big stuff. Today we spent tons of time watching the giraffes and elephants and learning all the fun facts about them.

After lunch, which was a delicious roll, salad and pasta carbonara, I headed over to the pool with my book. To get to the pool you have to walk along the river bank to get to the camp site. It’s pretty neat because you can see the hippos and crocs in the river and sometimes there are antelope eating the grass near the path. I read a little bit and then ended up taking a nap near the pool since I was tired from our early morning. After the couple hours of napping/swimming/reading/tanning, we got ready for our night drive. Tonight on our drive we had Billy again as our guide/driver and Isaac was our spotter. We were in a full car tonight, with a German couple and 5 people from Holland I think. The goal for tonight was to find cats. We stopped occasionally for the elephants, giraffes etc. but we established before the drive that all of us were willing to spend a short amount of time on those things so we would have more time for the cats. The only new thing we saw tonight was buffalo. Billy just drive down into a lagoon area because he saw a lot of birds there and as we rounded the corner there was a huge herd of buffalo! After our sundown drink we headed up the road for a bit and then decided to turn around. On the way back we met a car that was hauling some sugar cane to a lodge far away. He said that on their way out of the park earlier, they saw some lions. So we turned back around and continued up the road some more to see if we could find them. It was pretty treacherous roads and really overgrown, so I could see why Billy wanted to turn around at first. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the lions. But just knowing that they were close to the area, and having a lead, was exciting. On the way back we were driving through some flatter areas which were full of the reflections of impala and zebra eyes. All of a sudden Isaac found a pair of eyes slouched down low in the grass. They had an orangey reflection. LEOPARD! It was very far away to see too clearly at first, but after a few seconds of sitting in total darkness in the car, it moved toward us. The impalas had seen it and sounded their alarm cry, so the chances of the leopard getting a kill were slim, although at one point it slouched down in the grass like it was thinking about it. We followed it for a little way up the road, and it was so close to us. After moving toward us, the grass was shorter so we really had a great look at it.

After this leopard sighting we headed back toward the main gain. On the way was our other leopard tree with the impala in it. When we passed it at the beginning of the drive there was no leopard or even hyena around. But this time, the leopard was back! It was a bit higher up in the tree though so you could mainly just see the tail hanging down. And the hyenas were there again as well. So we saw 2 leopards in one night, 3 leopard sightings total today. We’ve seen at least 1 leopard on every drive so far, but no lions! Tomorrow we’ll be on the lion hunt!

Supper was delicious veggie samosas, steak and chips, and a fruit crumble for dessert. It was so delicious but made me even more tired than I am now after our long day. Tonight’s sleep is not going to seem long enough. But I’m excited for tomorrow!

I Can't Believe I'm Here!

Thursday

This morning we left the house at around 5:40am. We got to the airport and were the first people to arrive at the Pro-flight office. We were there even before the employees! So we were the first ones to get to the counter when they actually got there. And guess what?? We got on the flight!! There were standby tickets available! We were so happy. J The whole way we were driving to the airport I was praying that God would let us get a flight if that was his will, and I guess it was. Once we got our tickets, we waited for about 45 minutes before heading to the domestic flights area. While we were waiting we met Raymond, Anne’s son, who works at the airport. It was so nice to see him, and he definitely helped us out with where we should go etc.

At around 8 we boarded our small 18 passenger charter plane and off we went! I was expecting a bumpier ride since it was a smaller plane but it was actually quite smooth! We even got a mint, drinks, and snacks on the short 1 hour flight. There were even a couple seats not occupied. So we’re really hoping we can get a standby flight on the way back now.

It was such a clear day that you could look down and see land the whole way. We were literally flying over open spaces with no habitation at all. And before we knew it, we were ready to land in Mfuwe. Our guide Billy was there waiting for us. I had called him from the Lusaka airport to let him know we were coming. We loaded our bags into the game drive vehicle and off we went on the 50 min drive to the Wildlife Camp.

The Wildlife Camp is just like I remember it! It’s hard to believe it’s been about 9 years since I’ve been here last. There are only a couple changes. The place has a few different decorations, the reception area is in a different spot, and some of the game vehicles have covers on them now. But other than that, it’s exactly the same. It is so good to be back. After a welcome from Conrad, the nice manager, we wandered around the camp taking pictures. We went to the chalets where we usually stayed at and walked to the campsite to check out the pool. Oh, I forgot to say that Conrad upgraded our rooms to a chalet instead of a safari tent chalet, at no extra cost! How nice! And our chalet is the one right next to the restaurant area, so we’re close to everything. After taking pictures we had lunch: a meat pie, salad and a roll. Then we went to the pool for the afternoon. We took a dip in the pool, read our books and napped. The pool is so awesome because it overlooks the Luangwa river, so we saw and heard the hippos and also saw a big croc sunbathing with its mouth open on the bank.

At 3 we came back to our chalet to get ready for the night game drive. We had a piece of coffee cake, tea and coffee over at the restaurant and then headed out on our drive. Our guide’s name was Su and our spotlighter was Margo. We were with a group of five people from Australia. They were on their last game drive, but the other days they were here they so pretty much everything! We got here about a day late, because last night right in the Wildlife Camp there was a lion kill and a leopard. The lions were hunting and ended up getting an impala right in the area in front of the restaurant; they said you could hear the bones crunching. And the leopard walked through the camp I guess.

Anyway, our evening game drive was wonderful! It went from 4-8ish with a break around 6 for a sundowner drink. We probably would have asked our guide to stop more during the drive to take pictures, but the other people we were with had seen all the animals before so they were more on the lookout for the big stuff. I know how that goes. So we didn’t complain too much, we knew we’ll be going on more game drives another day.  Driving through the park was so cool…I remembered all the roads we took and where we’d seen certain animals on previous trips. Made me wish my family was here to share this with me. Here’s what we saw tonight: elephant, zebra including a pregnant one, giraffe, bushbuck, impala, puku, an elephant shrew, large spotted genet cat, scrub hare, a hippos including a week old baby, crocs, a civet cat, white tailed mongoose, saddlebilled stork, sacred ibis, other birds, 3 hyenas and A LEOPARD!!! Our Australian friends saw a leopard right after it killed an impala last night. So tonight on our drive we saw the impala it killed up in the tree. We heard a nearby impala give an alert cry so we knew the leopard was nearby still, but we couldn’t see it. So we carried on for a while and had our sunset drink where we parked near the river, got out of the vehicle and enjoyed a soda while watching the sun set. Then we headed back to the tree where we saw the impala. The leopard was there! Right on a branch munching away at the impala. 3 hyena were bumming around under the tree waiting for the scraps. Unfortunately there were other cars there, so after a brief look we kept going. Su promised we’d come back at the end though. We didn’t see a whole lot after the leopard. Although we did follow a porcupine down the road for a good 10 minutes. He refused to get off the road. Su said that’s the longest he’s ever followed a porcupine.

When we went back to the leopard it was still there. Looking at it through the binoculars Dee lent us was amazing. Its belly was so full of meat it looked pregnant. We waited long enough and even saw it climb out of the tree and slink away. We were decently close to it where we could get some great pictures on our cameras!

What an amazing night. Seeing leopard is rare enough, let alone seeing it in a tree eating an impala on the first night you are here. What a blessing! So many times today I had the thought “I can’t believe I am here”. There’s nowhere else on earth I’d rather be right now though. I love South Luangwa! The stars were amazing too. Being in the middle of nowhere, makes the stars shine so much brighter.

When we got back we had a supper of leek soup, chicken, rice, green beans and carrots and for dessert, crepes with an orange sauce. So delicious after a long, wonderful day!

And we get to do this all over again bright and early tomorrow morning at 5am when we get up for our morning drive. J

"Teecha Laycho!"

This morning was spent doing a small load of laundry, running over to run an errand on campus, and packing my bags for Luangwa. When everything was ready to go I read my book for a while. Then around noon we headed over to Dee’s with our bags.

When we got to the airport we found the Pro-flight office and asked if we could fly standby. We were so hopeful that we’d be able to get on. However, there was only 1 standby ticket available. Now there was some confusion after this because then she made it sound like we could buy the one standby ticket and we could buy one full priced ticket. So we asked, if there was a full priced ticket left, then that means there’s an open seat on the flight; if we waited and nobody bought that ticket, could we buy it on the standby rate? No, the standby rate closes an hour before the flight departs. It was all very complicating but in the end, we didn’t get on. So we drove back home to try again tomorrow.

After this, our day was a lot like the last 2 days. We spent some time helping Anne and then watched Friends for a good portion of the afternoon. Then around 3:30 we went over to play volleyball. It seemed a lot more competitive tonight and the games were a lot closer. It was fun! Dave parks his pickup truck right next to the court and all the kids pile in the back and sit there the entire time. It’s like a jungle gym to them and they love it. Of course there’s hitting and crying going on too, but they love to sit in the truck and then Dave usually lets them sit there as he drives away at the end…they love it! So the back of the truck is like the bleacher seats for the volleyball games. The kids play and watch us and they all like to shout out “Teecha Laycho!” meaning “Teacher Rachel!” They switch their ‘l’s’ and ‘r’s’ around here so my name ends up sounding like Laycho. It’s so cute. All they want me to do is look over at them and smile and then they burst out giggling. By “they” I usually mean Corn. He likes to yell my name. The other day when I was at the gate of campus and Corn was all the way at the end of the driveway by Sarah’s house he saw me, knew it was me, and I could hear him yelling “Teecha Laycho!” Then he walks over to me and just laughs. I don’t ever know what’s so funny, but I’m glad I can amuse him like that.

After volleyball we had a light supper and then headed over for round 3 of fellowship night. We’ve got our duties down pat now. We set out the snacks and I passed out tickets. We finished up all the leftover snacks from the other 2 nights and we thought we had a ton of leftovers but we actually ended up finishing everything. We didn’t stay as long tonight. We headed back before 9 to relax and get to bed since we’ll be getting up around 5am tomorrow to head back into the airport again. Please pray that we are able to get 2 standby tickets!!

CELC Day 2

Today was very similar to yesterday. We woke up and went to the opening service for the conference. We sat in the back and enjoyed being part of the service. Mrs. Hartmann did a wonderful job on the “organ”. The sermon was really, really good as well. A Zambian pastor did it and it was about using our different gifts in the church whether that be preaching, teaching, serving or whatever; realizing that they are a gift from God, and using them to build each other up. It was just a very well organized sermon with some wonderful points!

After the service I spent the afternoon reading and enjoying some peace and quiet. Then we headed over to help Anne again. We did some more dishes and helped peel potatoes and carrots. That took a few hours, but I love helping! Then we went to choir and this time decided to do more watching and videoing than singing. There were only 8 people there total so the videos would have sounded better if everyone was there. Maybe I’ll get some more another day. Before too long, Pastor Sargent called and said everyone was playing volleyball again. So we left choir to go play. I had a wonderful team today and we ended up winning a lot of the games!

I also had a nice chat with Pastors Matina and Mbonga (spelling?) both from the Mwembeshi area. They are both just extremely nice. Pastor Mbonga knows Dad so he likes to call me “daughter Wendland”.

After volleyball we had a quick supper of leftover spaghetti before going over to help Dee with fellowship night round 2. We helped set out tonight's snacks of trail mix, a party mix with pretzel/cracker type things, and caramel popcorn that Dee made. It was so good. And the bad thing about being snack servers means that we hung around the snack table all night munching.

I got to see my cousin Rob today who is here from Malawi for conference. I saw him this morning at the service but didn’t get a chance to say hi. So I got to chat with him for a while tonight. It was good seeing him. If our standby flights to Luangwa don’t work tomorrow or Thursday then we’ll end up catching a ride with Rob up to Chipata on his way back to Malawi.

Tomorrow is an up in the air kind of day. We’ll either be flying to South Luangwa, or doing more of what we’ve done the past few days if we don’t get on a flight standby. So it’ll be an adventure!

The Excitement of CELC Begins

This morning we went over to campus around 8 for English class. Since CELC things are starting to happen we decided we’d do it earlier today. I wasn’t expecting any of my ladies to come since they’re helping Anne in the kitchen. Well it turns out that none of Erika’s ladies came either. It was probably a good thing because we don’t know where we would have gone for class since the table area under the tents was being used for breakfast. We also saw lots of ladies out in their gardens getting work done. So as an alternative to English class we played with the kids instead. They were just being super cute this morning and we had fun getting some photos of them.

We saw Anne and asked how breakfast was going and she requested our help to wash dishes after lunch. So after playing with the kids we came home and just enjoyed a lazy few hours. We also stopped in and said a quick hello to the pastors from America. We met Pastor Werner, Pastor Hein, Pastor Koelpin, President Schroeder; those were the four new ones that had arrived since Pastor Weiser and Pastor Cherney got here.

At home we exchanged some pictures on our computers because if we’d wait ‘til the end of our trip to get each other’s pictures it would take way too long. Mrs. Hartmann had the keyboard over here to practice for tomorrow’s opening service so when they went into town after lunch I took out my piano books and played for a while. That was nice! I also spent some time lying outside in the sun reading my book. Quite a wonderful afternoon.

A little before 1, we went to help Anne. We did dishes for a while, helped serve a few pastors and did some odd jobs like wiping down the tables, re-hanging some curtains in the press building, and picking up a bread delivery. We just kind of hung around the guest house area trying to help out in whatever ways we could. We also got to meet some of the pastors that arrived today and yesterday.

Around 3 we went to play with the preschool kids. Charity was going to start a little game of kickball with them. Aubrey was in such a good mood this afternoon, not that he is ever really crabby though. He was just sillier and goofier than he usually is. Usually he’s pretty mellow but this afternoon he was giggling and talking way more than he usually does. It was so fun to just hang out with the kids and watch them play. I also got the job of being the “orange peeler”. The kids pick these tiny, unripe, green oranges off the trees on campus. Since they’re so unripe they are nearly impossible to peel but the kids love eating them. So they all brought me the oranges to peel. Some of the kids call them lemons and that’s probably more accurate because they are extremely sour! I really hurt my thumb nails peeling all those oranges because they were nearly impossible to get off. Oh well, the kids thought it was a little treat and I was in such a good mood that I did it anyway. J

Later in the afternoon a volleyball game started up among the pastors. Some of the pastors were playing football, but quite a few joined us for volleyball. I think in the end each team ended up with 3 games. I wasn’t having the greatest day volleyball-wise. It was fun playing with Dan Koelpin, President Schroeder, Pastor Weiser and the pastors from Zambia and Malawi.

For supper Erika and I made a stir fry with eggplant, cabbage, onions and tomatoes and spaghetti. The spaghetti sauce we bought was very tomato-y and strong but overall it was pretty good! Then we went over to the other guest house because we were asked to help serve at the fellowship hour they had. We literally walked right next door and when we got there they did not have power, so we came back to get candles and lanterns from our house that they could use. We got the snacks all set up and ready to go. Then as all the pastors started arriving, I passed out 2 drink tickets to each of them. Then Erika and I were in charge of serving snacks. Overall, including missionaries and us, there were about 50 people there tonight. I think they’ll be having a fellowship hour like this every night after supper so we’ll get to help out tomorrow too. It’s so cool seeing pastors from all over Africa enjoying an evening of fellowship. It’s also cool for us to meet these pastors. I got to meet the pastors from Nigeria that knew dad. It’s nice being able to throw dad’s name out there as my connection to these people, since a lot of them either know him or know of him.

Tomorrow we look forward to the opening service for CELC and more helping out! I’m really going to enjoy these next few days.

Make a Joyful Noise to the Lord

Today was full of singing, singing, and more singing. We went to church earlier than usual because we were supposed to practice our choir songs. We were the first to get there, and a few others showed up after we did, but definitely not the whole choir. So we ended up not practicing at all. That made us really nervous for how singing would go. I was also approached by the keyboard player who had heard from Pastor Mutentami that we play piano. He wanted help with the hymns today. So I ended up playing 3 of the 4 hymns. Nothing like last minute playing for church. Good thing I can sight read hymns. I definitely made quite a few mistakes, but it went well. We didn’t end up singing during the service, since they didn’t sing any of the songs we actually knew. We sang at the end though as everybody was leaving, which was actually perfect because then they couldn’t see our embarrassing dance moves.

After church I spent a quiet afternoon reading and then ended up taking a nap. It’s been a while since I’ve had a nap in the middle of the day and it was lovely!

We headed back to Bethel at 2 for choir. We were told to come early today. However, when we got there we were the first ones there. We should have realized it probably wouldn’t start til 3 so we decided to go back home again and clean the house for the Hartmanns who would be arriving later. I moved out of my room into the 3^rd bedroom, so I worked on changing sheets and moving my clothes etc. and Erika worked on cleaning the rest of the house. We also brought Jennifer, a friend we’ve met from choir, along with us. We met her on the path as we were leaving and she wanted to come along. What a sweetheart—she did such a great job of helping us clean. She was way more thorough than we would have been. After a good 45 minutes of cleaning, the house looked so much better than before and we headed back to Bethel for the 3^rd time today. This time when we got there, there were lots of people there.

We worked a lot on songs that they’ll be singing for the competition. Steward also did some work with tone quality and breathing and posture. He asked for my opinion and advice on how to produce good tone and wanted me to teach everyone. Nothing like being put on the spot! I gave a few pointers from things I remember from College Choir but definitely not a lot of advice. I don’t quite feel qualified enough to give voice lessons. Plus, the singing here is a lot different than what you would hear in choirs in America. I love the way they sing here, so I didn’t necessarily want to teach them the way I’ve been taught.

Anyway, after some of these drills we broke up into voice part sectionals and worked on the English hymn again. I worked with the tenors. J They’re a good group of guys and we definitely made some progress. Since none of them can read music, they have to pick it up by listening to what I’m singing and just memorizing it. Put some difficult English words into the mix that they have to learn, and it’s quite a challenging task to learn this song! They did very well though. We got back together as a whole group and put it all together. Definitely sounds better than it did yesterday.

We did a lot more songs after this, including dance moves and marching around the church. I really wish I knew the words to the songs! Since we stay for the whole choir practice and dance, I feel like we’re a part of the choir except for one of the major issues: we don’t know any words so we don’t sing. It’s still fun to be around people our age though. Nobody speaks English either, so it’s fun trying to guess what they’re all saying. Sometimes I leaned over and asked Jennifer what was going on.

Choir ended with lots of discussion about the competition: uniform, transportation etc. There’ll be another practice on Tuesday that I’ll try to get to, mainly so I can film some of their songs. We don’t think we’ll be here for the actual competition on Saturday because we might be in Luangwa. At around 5:45pm, Pastor Hartmann called because they were at the gate wanting to get in. So we left choir to let them in. Choir ended up being about 3 hours long. Nothing like spending Sunday in church, and then the afternoon continuing to praise God through song!

We helped the Hartmanns unload their car and then Erika and I headed over to campus to fill up our big water cooler from the bore hole tap. Right before we entered the guest house area Erika shouted because she almost stepped on a snake. We ran out of the way as it slithered past us. It was just about dark at this time so the thing was pretty well camouflaged. It was definitely black and medium sized. Bismark’s house was the nearest house and thankfully he was outside talking to Steward and Boniface so I ran over there and told him we saw a snake. Bismark is the one that likes to come show Erika and me when he’s killed a snake while working around campus. So I consider him the snake expert. I was glad that he was outside! He put down whatever he was holding, ran for his panga knife while Steward ran for a flashlight and then came over to where the snake was. Erika was keeping an eye on where it went. Sarah and her husband also ran out from their house when they heard the commotion. Unfortunately, the snake slithered into the ditch and we lost sight of it. They tried shining their flashlights to find it but it must have found a hole and disappeared. It was quite exciting though. Bismark thinks it could have been a mamba since he’s seen other ones around there and it was definitely black. He said he’ll be on the hunt for it in the next few days and try to find it. After this little excitement we carried on to our old house to get the water. There were lots of pastors eating on the tables under the tent. Quite a few pastors have arrived for the conference. Just in the short time that all the snake drama was happening, pastors were walking past us with all their luggage. We said a quick hello to Anne and some of the ladies who were helping serve food and then headed back.

Pastor and Mrs. Hartmann had started on supper. Pastor made the most delicious cheese and tomato omelet I have ever eaten! How nice for him to cook for us. We enjoyed a wonderful evening eating and talking! We’re going to enjoy having the Hartmanns as house-mates for the next few days.

Tomorrow I’m not sure what my day will be like. The only thing going on for us is English. We were going to cancel altogether during the conference, but some of the ladies still wanted class since they wouldn’t be involved in helping out for the conference. However, I think that is mostly for Erika’s ladies. I think every single one of my ladies except for Rhoda will be helping Anne in the kitchen. So I’m not really expecting any ladies to come tomorrow. We’ll see what happens. If Rhoda turns up I’ll either give her the choice to have some one on one review teaching of things we’ve already learned, or I’ll give her the morning off. J

I love the feeling of campus buzzing with activity and pastors arriving from all over Africa. Everyone that’s coming from the States is also here. They got to Lusaka around 8:30 this evening after being picked up from Chipata yesterday. I’m looking forward to saying hi to President Schroeder and meeting the other pastors as well. Tomorrow if I don’t end up teaching or anything I’ll probably just wander over to campus and hang out there just to feel like part of the action. I’ll find some kids to play with and maybe meet some of the pastors that have arrived. Conference doesn’t officially start until Tuesday.