Well. Sunday evening brought our first batch of goodbyes. We had our last youth activity with the Kasompe congregation. While this hasn't been my favorite activity it was sad to say goodbye. We had a short bible study (we got there the same time we usually do, but of course this was the day they actually started on time..so we were late..) and then we taught them a couple songs, and they had one last question and answer session for us which mostly revolved around dating in our culture..which was awkward at times..At the end they presented us with wrappers-just fabric they wear as skirts and then we took a LOT of pictures. We got a good group picture and then they went nuts wanting us to take every pose possible, of them by themselves, in groups, with us etc. It went on until 6 when we were supposed to be done, but our driver, surprise surprise was late. So we awkwardly waited inside with the two leader until the driver arrived, said our goodbyes and headed home.
When we got home we were barely in the gate before Priscilla was there and somehow knew we had been taking pictures and wanted to take more. So we spent 20 of the best mintues of the trip outside taking pictures and laughing more than any other day so far. It got cold so we went inside and started making dinner.
Monday was a strange day. We made it to see the monkeys! We were supposed to leave at 9 but of course that didn't happen. Catherine had to go with the driver to get fuel and a permit because I guess we were going out of his registered range. Who knows, and she didn't leave until 9 and didn't come back until 11. So. But we left with Priscilla and drove for maybe an hour, had to ask for directions a few times, and finally made it there. It was this beautiful wooded area-we drove to the office, paid our entrance fee and then drove to the chimp section. A guy met us and started taking us around the different buildings that housed chimps, and then took us up to the roof to look down on them in the trees and watch them feed. He introduced all of them, I have no idea how he told them apart-but one of them was named BooBoo (family joke, sorry to those who don't understand) I started laughing pretty hard when he said the name and they all looked at me like I was crazy, but oh well. I got a picture-the similarities are uncanny...
He took us to this hut and we sat and watched as he put out food for another group of chimps, when we were done there we left. We headed back to Chingola but made a stop at the Congo/Zambia border to buy some fabric and then headed home. We made dinner, watched Scandal and a movie and went to bed.
Tuesday Ashley did laundry and when she was done we decided to go into town. We stopped by the bureau to exchange more money and then decided to make a trip to Nono's. We saw Priscilla sitting across the street so we went to say hello and she said she was waiting for her classmates so we invited her to come get ice cream with us. It was strawberry, a nice change. After ice cream we said goodbye to Priscilla went to Pie City, then the bakery for bread and finally ShopRite. Then we went home. We unpacked and watched a movie.
Wednesday morning I did my laundry and watched the end of a movie they watched the night before. I prepared for bible study in the afternoon-it was my turn...we ate lunch, watched a movie, I did some Sudoku and took my laundry down and then we left (way to early, but Catherine was ready...) for the church. No one else was there of course, so we just sat inside and I wrote out the words to the song I was going to teach on slips of paper while we waited. I was hoping to make it to 20 minutes but my whole thing ended up being about 40..I got lucky and people talked a lot. Not too bad though. It was after six when we got home and we made dinner and watched Scandal (tonight is our last episode!) and did the dishes.
Today we went to Kasompe to take some pictures of the school they have started for Jac and Sherri. They have three classrooms, and Catherine (who used to be a teacher) has been going everyday to help train the teachers. On the way there Catherine needed to stop to scan some documents and we got a flat tire. Luckily we were in town and it didn't take long to fix. Then on the way back from Kasompe the driver got stopped by some traffic guy, and didn't have his id to give to him..uh oh..the guy told him to drop us and then come back...when Catherine got home later they were shouting outside and then he drove the car into the gate, and they talked for a long time outside. Then he handed her the keys and left..not a good sign for him since it was only 2 o'clock and he doesn't usually bring the car back until 8ish.
We're waiting now to go to the our last women's group where it's Ashley's turn to lead it. Packing tomorrow, and our last trip in town. Kid's activity on Saturday and sadly our last choir practice. Bright and early Sunday we're on our way home! Only a matter of hours now...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Well...let's see. I left off with Tuesday...we didn't do anything of great interest the rest of Tuesday..
Wednesday I woke up fairly sick so I slept and watched movies for most of the day. Ashley ventured to Bible Study in the afternoon, and that was pretty much the whole day.
Thursday we hung out in the morning, did laundry, and had women's group in the afternoon.
Friday we walked into town, got ice cream, bought groceries, got some lunch, and walked home. I journaled and read for most of the afternoon and hung out with Chilando a bit.
Saturday was kids activity day, we prepared BINGO cards to play with them, but our translator did not arrive right away, which was going to make it a bit difficult. We did what we could, and she came about half an hour into it so we could actually communicate the lesson with them. We played games and sang and then they preformed a traditional dance for us. And then we went home. We had lunch and watched Kung Fu Panda with Chilando and Maureen and then at about 4 we walked back to the church with the youth for choir practice. They were having a meeting in the church when we got there, so we hung out outside until they were done. For some reason Priscilla was pretending that she didn't speak English and would only speak to us in Bemba, which I'm sure is much more entertaining for her than it is for us...
They took us through the Chiwempala market on the way home which was cool to see, lots of staring though. We got back from practice and had dinner, and watched the Kids Movie of the night-Click. It's been an Adam Sandler film festival all month...Catherine said something about us preaching in church today, which no one had notified us of. And they joke with us so much we never really know if they're telling the truth or not, but this was something we really need to know if it was true, and by the end of the conversation we weren't preaching but we were leading the Wednesday bible study and the Thursday women's meeting..
Today was our last church service which was bittersweet. We sang with the youth as usual, and they made me lead one of the songs we taught them...which was confusing when Priscilla wouldn't speak English to tell us what was going on. The pastor got up and talked about us a little bit since it was our last service, I have no idea what she said because we were standing up with her and no one translated for us, and then she had us say a few words.
We came home and Catherine started making ALL this food, and all these people came out of no where when it was ready. I have no idea who half of them were.
This afternoon we're going to Kasompe for our last Youth Activity there. This week is made up of lots of random things. Tomorrow we're going to the Congo/Zambia border to buy stuff and we're also going to this animal orphanage about 40 minutes away. We're not really sure what it is, but it's been something we've been wanting to do all summer.
We have our typical Wednesday/Thursday activites, and then Friday will be a lot of packing. We'll go into town once or twice more and do a bit more laundry. And then a week from today we'll be coming home!
I am very ready to be home, but it really is amazing how fast the time went here!
Wednesday I woke up fairly sick so I slept and watched movies for most of the day. Ashley ventured to Bible Study in the afternoon, and that was pretty much the whole day.
Thursday we hung out in the morning, did laundry, and had women's group in the afternoon.
Friday we walked into town, got ice cream, bought groceries, got some lunch, and walked home. I journaled and read for most of the afternoon and hung out with Chilando a bit.
Saturday was kids activity day, we prepared BINGO cards to play with them, but our translator did not arrive right away, which was going to make it a bit difficult. We did what we could, and she came about half an hour into it so we could actually communicate the lesson with them. We played games and sang and then they preformed a traditional dance for us. And then we went home. We had lunch and watched Kung Fu Panda with Chilando and Maureen and then at about 4 we walked back to the church with the youth for choir practice. They were having a meeting in the church when we got there, so we hung out outside until they were done. For some reason Priscilla was pretending that she didn't speak English and would only speak to us in Bemba, which I'm sure is much more entertaining for her than it is for us...
They took us through the Chiwempala market on the way home which was cool to see, lots of staring though. We got back from practice and had dinner, and watched the Kids Movie of the night-Click. It's been an Adam Sandler film festival all month...Catherine said something about us preaching in church today, which no one had notified us of. And they joke with us so much we never really know if they're telling the truth or not, but this was something we really need to know if it was true, and by the end of the conversation we weren't preaching but we were leading the Wednesday bible study and the Thursday women's meeting..
Today was our last church service which was bittersweet. We sang with the youth as usual, and they made me lead one of the songs we taught them...which was confusing when Priscilla wouldn't speak English to tell us what was going on. The pastor got up and talked about us a little bit since it was our last service, I have no idea what she said because we were standing up with her and no one translated for us, and then she had us say a few words.
We came home and Catherine started making ALL this food, and all these people came out of no where when it was ready. I have no idea who half of them were.
This afternoon we're going to Kasompe for our last Youth Activity there. This week is made up of lots of random things. Tomorrow we're going to the Congo/Zambia border to buy stuff and we're also going to this animal orphanage about 40 minutes away. We're not really sure what it is, but it's been something we've been wanting to do all summer.
We have our typical Wednesday/Thursday activites, and then Friday will be a lot of packing. We'll go into town once or twice more and do a bit more laundry. And then a week from today we'll be coming home!
I am very ready to be home, but it really is amazing how fast the time went here!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Always Keeping Us On our Toes
We had another busy weekend! After our kids activity on Saturday we hung out around the house (still no water..) and eventually went to choir practice. Dinner was quick and then we watched Mr. Deeds on tv.
Sunday was church again, only one more church service left! We waited a long time after church while Catherine was talking so by the time we got home Priscilla already had the nshima done. We made a few other things and then sat down for lunch. The afternoon was just filled with relaxation and journaling. Then at 4 we headed off to our youth activity at the Kasompe congregation. We had our bit prepared as usual, and when we got there one of the leaders came and started talking with us. He had this pamphlet entitled "Christian?" and he started reading it. We thought he was just practicing his English because he would pause at certain words and ask us if he was saying them right. Then he handed it to us to finish reading. And THEN he said, so you'll teach this today. I hope our faces didn't show the shock. We hoped he was just translating wrong, and he was saying, he was going to teach this today. Nope. WE were supposed to teach this..so much for our preplanned activities...So we quickly tried to scribble out some notes on this pamphlet, discussion points, questions to ask etc. and then when everyone got there we started. I don't know how we pulled it off..but we did, and the "lesson" even lasted about 30 minutes which I was pretty impressed with. We went into announcements and then did the offering and then they asked us if we had anything else to say. We decided to teach them a song, and then they requested a second one when we were done. That pretty much wrapped up the event and we went outside to wait for the taxi (our original driver is back to work..) to take us home. When we got back Catherine was in bed, she hadn't been feeling well, so we started dinner, and still had no water...so no doing the dishes again. The Sunday night movie was Time Cop, which neither of us had ever seen, but it kept us enthralled trying to figure out who was where when.
Monday we still had no water-but somewhere in the morning it came back on! So Ashley did some laundry (much to her excitement..you'd be surprised at the things we get excited about here..) and I watched Meet the Fockers again for something to do. We again weren't sure how lunch was going to work, Catherine was still in bed not feeling well, so we decided to avoid the issue altogether and go into town for lunch. I had my first Vegetable Sharwama, which consisted of some cream sauce, fries, lettuce, green peppers and pickles wrapped in a tortilla. If you've ever tasted a fried pickle, the taste was similar, and it was another pretty exciting thing for the day. Ashley's meal didn't turn out to be so good, so we stopped by Pie City next so she could get a meat pie. Then we went to the bureau to exchange some more money, for the last time hopefully. And then we went to Nono's Ice Cream Parlor again-they had chocolate which pretty much made my day (up until that point). We sat and ate our cones and these two guys were outside the store with movies they were selling. We really wanted to look at what they had-but wouldn't you know, the one time we actually want to be bothered they ignored us and eventually walked away.
From Nono's we went to the post office, my mom had informed me she had sent a package and I had been anxiously awaiting it's arrival for about a week. And it was there! News magazines, pictures, cards (Thank you Stacie! I love it!!!), Twizzlers, and the glorious second book in the Twilight Saga. It was perfection in an envelope :) I had to force myself not to open it right there and wait until we got home-we still had a couple stops to make. We had to wait a while at the post office and they wanted ID-which luckily I had my school ID with me, and know my passport number by heart or I don't think they would have given it to me. We stopped at the bakery for bread and then moved onto ShopRite. Another mystery unfolded before us ( I think I could write a book about all the unsolved mysteries of this place..)-it was PACKED. More packed than we had ever seen it, and at first we thought it was just a busy time to be there. We went down our list getting our groceries, it was a bit difficult with all the people there, but we finally had everything we needed and went to find a place in the very very long lines. We realized that most people were paying with these vouchers-dozens of them. Worth up to 50,000 Kwacha (about ten US dollars). There was definitley some promotion going on that we didn't know about-but we could not figure out where people had gotten all these vouchers. We tried to ask about it later, but we had no luck, our host family had no idea..or we weren't explaining it so that they could understand..either way..we still have no idea. Add it to the list of unsolved mysteries...
We got home about 4:45 and unpacked all our groceries and then I allowed myself to open my package. I spent the evening lost in my book until dinner time, garlic bread and pasta again and we watched the new episode of Scandal! I don't know what we're going to do when we leave..we'll have to have someone email us updates... :)
Today is another pretty free day, we have to go in to town at some point to get Ashley's passport renewed for the last time, but nothing else too consuming!
Sunday was church again, only one more church service left! We waited a long time after church while Catherine was talking so by the time we got home Priscilla already had the nshima done. We made a few other things and then sat down for lunch. The afternoon was just filled with relaxation and journaling. Then at 4 we headed off to our youth activity at the Kasompe congregation. We had our bit prepared as usual, and when we got there one of the leaders came and started talking with us. He had this pamphlet entitled "Christian?" and he started reading it. We thought he was just practicing his English because he would pause at certain words and ask us if he was saying them right. Then he handed it to us to finish reading. And THEN he said, so you'll teach this today. I hope our faces didn't show the shock. We hoped he was just translating wrong, and he was saying, he was going to teach this today. Nope. WE were supposed to teach this..so much for our preplanned activities...So we quickly tried to scribble out some notes on this pamphlet, discussion points, questions to ask etc. and then when everyone got there we started. I don't know how we pulled it off..but we did, and the "lesson" even lasted about 30 minutes which I was pretty impressed with. We went into announcements and then did the offering and then they asked us if we had anything else to say. We decided to teach them a song, and then they requested a second one when we were done. That pretty much wrapped up the event and we went outside to wait for the taxi (our original driver is back to work..) to take us home. When we got back Catherine was in bed, she hadn't been feeling well, so we started dinner, and still had no water...so no doing the dishes again. The Sunday night movie was Time Cop, which neither of us had ever seen, but it kept us enthralled trying to figure out who was where when.
Monday we still had no water-but somewhere in the morning it came back on! So Ashley did some laundry (much to her excitement..you'd be surprised at the things we get excited about here..) and I watched Meet the Fockers again for something to do. We again weren't sure how lunch was going to work, Catherine was still in bed not feeling well, so we decided to avoid the issue altogether and go into town for lunch. I had my first Vegetable Sharwama, which consisted of some cream sauce, fries, lettuce, green peppers and pickles wrapped in a tortilla. If you've ever tasted a fried pickle, the taste was similar, and it was another pretty exciting thing for the day. Ashley's meal didn't turn out to be so good, so we stopped by Pie City next so she could get a meat pie. Then we went to the bureau to exchange some more money, for the last time hopefully. And then we went to Nono's Ice Cream Parlor again-they had chocolate which pretty much made my day (up until that point). We sat and ate our cones and these two guys were outside the store with movies they were selling. We really wanted to look at what they had-but wouldn't you know, the one time we actually want to be bothered they ignored us and eventually walked away.
From Nono's we went to the post office, my mom had informed me she had sent a package and I had been anxiously awaiting it's arrival for about a week. And it was there! News magazines, pictures, cards (Thank you Stacie! I love it!!!), Twizzlers, and the glorious second book in the Twilight Saga. It was perfection in an envelope :) I had to force myself not to open it right there and wait until we got home-we still had a couple stops to make. We had to wait a while at the post office and they wanted ID-which luckily I had my school ID with me, and know my passport number by heart or I don't think they would have given it to me. We stopped at the bakery for bread and then moved onto ShopRite. Another mystery unfolded before us ( I think I could write a book about all the unsolved mysteries of this place..)-it was PACKED. More packed than we had ever seen it, and at first we thought it was just a busy time to be there. We went down our list getting our groceries, it was a bit difficult with all the people there, but we finally had everything we needed and went to find a place in the very very long lines. We realized that most people were paying with these vouchers-dozens of them. Worth up to 50,000 Kwacha (about ten US dollars). There was definitley some promotion going on that we didn't know about-but we could not figure out where people had gotten all these vouchers. We tried to ask about it later, but we had no luck, our host family had no idea..or we weren't explaining it so that they could understand..either way..we still have no idea. Add it to the list of unsolved mysteries...
We got home about 4:45 and unpacked all our groceries and then I allowed myself to open my package. I spent the evening lost in my book until dinner time, garlic bread and pasta again and we watched the new episode of Scandal! I don't know what we're going to do when we leave..we'll have to have someone email us updates... :)
Today is another pretty free day, we have to go in to town at some point to get Ashley's passport renewed for the last time, but nothing else too consuming!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Two More Weeks!
We're down to the two week countdown! Ashley and I have been having such a wonderful time, but we'll be ready to be home in two weeks.
This week we had the bible study on Wednesday which we planned quite quickly because as I said we weren't sure if we were supposed to plan it or not..so we just wanted it there in case they asked us. Turns out we weren't supposed to plan it..which is lucky because it was my turn to lead the bible study part and I planned it so fast it was really quite lame. So, I was happy to be given longer..if they ask us to do it again..we're not sure..as usual.
Thursday we hung out in the morning, then women's group in the afternoon. Sleepless in Seattle was on TV for the "chick flick" movie (which is every thursday) at 8 pm and that was a nice treat :)
Friday we had another survey day. We walked to the church at 9 am and people showed up when they felt like it...we stayed until about 3 when the last one came back with the completed surveys and then walked home. I made the mistake of going out to the outhouse while we were waiting at the church and the neighborhood kids saw that we were there and proceded to be as obnoxious as possible. They were banging on the door, slaming it open and running away yelling at us through the windows. We were trying to plan our weekend activities so it was really quite distracting but talking to them at all just made the game more fun. So we tried..kind of unsuccesfully to ignore them. Luckily the pastor came back soon and her very presence scared them away.
We came home and watched Shrek 3 then had dinner and went to bed.
Now today was another strange day. Yesterday we mentioned to the pastor that we wanted to hang some drawings up that the kids did last week-we wanted permission to do this in the church. It turned into a conversation about the kids activity and she was surprised to hear we wanted to do it again today, she thought it was just a one time thing. So she said they would have to announce it in church again on Sunday, and we'd do it next week-she said today we wouldn't have any kids because it wasn't announced last week. So that was a bummer, but then Ashley was worried some of the kids would show up since we told them to come back last week and Catherine assumed we would be going and told Chilando (her nephew) to get ready to go with us this morning. So we decided to walk down there and sure enough we had about 8 or 9 kids waiting for us. But no translator...and the REALLY weird thing was that the Pastor's children were there. We can't figure that one out-she told us no one would come because they didn't know about it so we cancelled it, and then somehow her children were there...they like to keep us on our toes..
Without a translator it was hard to do the full lesson Ashley planned, so we taught them some songs and played games, and talked a bit about the lesson, as much as we thought they would understand and then we went through some English words etc. Then games outside and then we went home.
We've been hanging out around the house most of the day-we have no water right now, so we went and bought some bottled water in the hopes it will come back on soon. Everyone in the area seems to have no water though-when we were walking to church we saw lots of people walking carrying water jugs etc. It's been two days now..so hopefully soon it will come back..
This week we had the bible study on Wednesday which we planned quite quickly because as I said we weren't sure if we were supposed to plan it or not..so we just wanted it there in case they asked us. Turns out we weren't supposed to plan it..which is lucky because it was my turn to lead the bible study part and I planned it so fast it was really quite lame. So, I was happy to be given longer..if they ask us to do it again..we're not sure..as usual.
Thursday we hung out in the morning, then women's group in the afternoon. Sleepless in Seattle was on TV for the "chick flick" movie (which is every thursday) at 8 pm and that was a nice treat :)
Friday we had another survey day. We walked to the church at 9 am and people showed up when they felt like it...we stayed until about 3 when the last one came back with the completed surveys and then walked home. I made the mistake of going out to the outhouse while we were waiting at the church and the neighborhood kids saw that we were there and proceded to be as obnoxious as possible. They were banging on the door, slaming it open and running away yelling at us through the windows. We were trying to plan our weekend activities so it was really quite distracting but talking to them at all just made the game more fun. So we tried..kind of unsuccesfully to ignore them. Luckily the pastor came back soon and her very presence scared them away.
We came home and watched Shrek 3 then had dinner and went to bed.
Now today was another strange day. Yesterday we mentioned to the pastor that we wanted to hang some drawings up that the kids did last week-we wanted permission to do this in the church. It turned into a conversation about the kids activity and she was surprised to hear we wanted to do it again today, she thought it was just a one time thing. So she said they would have to announce it in church again on Sunday, and we'd do it next week-she said today we wouldn't have any kids because it wasn't announced last week. So that was a bummer, but then Ashley was worried some of the kids would show up since we told them to come back last week and Catherine assumed we would be going and told Chilando (her nephew) to get ready to go with us this morning. So we decided to walk down there and sure enough we had about 8 or 9 kids waiting for us. But no translator...and the REALLY weird thing was that the Pastor's children were there. We can't figure that one out-she told us no one would come because they didn't know about it so we cancelled it, and then somehow her children were there...they like to keep us on our toes..
Without a translator it was hard to do the full lesson Ashley planned, so we taught them some songs and played games, and talked a bit about the lesson, as much as we thought they would understand and then we went through some English words etc. Then games outside and then we went home.
We've been hanging out around the house most of the day-we have no water right now, so we went and bought some bottled water in the hopes it will come back on soon. Everyone in the area seems to have no water though-when we were walking to church we saw lots of people walking carrying water jugs etc. It's been two days now..so hopefully soon it will come back..
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
We've had a busy last few days! It seems to be that our weekends are always the busiest here. Sunday was church in the morning...about 3 hours this week. We taught the kids Red Light Green Light last Saturday and when we broke for Sunday School that's the first game they wanted to play. They've all really warmed up to us in the last couple weeks and love to stroke our hair and skin..
Sunday afternoon we went to the other congregation for our youth activity. We got there about on time, but no one else showed up for about 20 mintues...When we first got here we used the taxi that Catherine's family owns. They employ the driver, so we've had a taxi to call whenever we've needed it. But a couple weeks ago he got arrested..for a reason we never fully understood...something to do with the car and running from the cops after breaking a traffic law-we think...so we've had to scramble to find drivers a few times. Our driver is supposedly working again, but I don't think he'll be having a job with this family much longer...
The youth activity went ok. We had a presentation about cultural differences ready but during the exercises we had planned they tried to answer the way they thought we would answer..so the differences didn't show up as dramatically as we had planned..but it still went ok. When we were done they played soccer for the remaining 30 minutes. Ashley played goalie..but in my skirt and flip flops I just watched and journaled until the taxi came to pick us up.
Monday is usually our emptiest day, a lot of movie watching happens on Mondays, but this past Monday we went to Kitwe with Catherine and Bunda Chibwe to get the car fixed. Someone had tried to steal it at the border I guess and the cab was all messed up. We did a lot of sitting at first, and then ended up going to Ndola to check on Bunda's passport, we had a less than divine lunch at a place called Divine Foods, and then headed back to Kitwe where the unexpectedly dropped us off at a market. We knew we were going to the market, but not by ourselves. We spent the next hour and a half our so bargaining with many people to get some really cool stuff. After the trade fair we were very practiced on how to get these guys down in prices..and we also knew what stuff should be, so we knew when they were majorly taking advantage. They were really quite friendly to us, they helped us find a dvd stand after we were done in their area and talked with us briefly while we waited for Catherine and Bunda to come back. (they had gone to pick up the fixed part of the car) We drove home from there, but on the way I had requested we stop and get a watermelon. So. At this market we always pass where there are dozens of fruit and vegetable stands we stopped. We were instantly swarmed with people, pressing their noses against the window, holding up every fruit and vegetable you can think of. And once you roll down the window even a little bit they are shoving it in the car trying to get you to buy it.
Bunda's mother was in the hospital so before we went all the way home we stopped to visit with her. It was interesting to see their hospital, not quite what we would see in the States, but it was really quite nice.
We finally made it home around 7:30 and ate dinner and went to bed exhausted.
Tuesday was decently busy too. We had survey training in the morning for the Chewimpala congregation. We got there around 10 am..the starting time we had given, and one woman showed up around 10:20...another around 10:45 and then a few more a little after 11. So we went through our training and they decided to go out into the community on Friday, so that went pretty well.
We came back and watched a movie, then made lunch..sort of. We're never quite sure if we're supposed to fix our own lunch or eat what the maid prepares. And they don't fix lunch until about 2, so we get quite hungry waiting around to see what we're supposed to do. I waited until about 1:30 and decided I was going to eat- Ashley had already eaten. Sure enough about 2 she put a bowl of nshima and beans out on the table with two plates and two glasses of water...So we had our second lunch. It's become a bit of a joke -we get hungry now when we don't have our second lunch..
We walked into town to do some shopping. We decided to try ice cream at this place, Nono's Ice Cream parlor and supermarket. Ice cream parlor here means an ice cream machine with two flavors of soft serve. We both got banana, and it was pretty good..tasted like a banana laffy taffy.
We finished our shopping and then walked home.
We have been eating dinner later and later it seems, sometime past 8 o'clock, and last night we thought we would actually eat before 7:30-Catherine was in the middle of making dinner when we lost power. But it ended up being really fun, we made a charcoal fire and cooked everything outside over the fire. Catherine kept saying, "Now you're experiencing the REAL Africa..no electicity to cook...this is the real Africa."
Today I did laundry-probably the last big load of the trip and then watched a movie. Catherine is gone for the day so we're mostly just hanging out and then we have our Bible Study this afternoon that we're not sure if we're supposed to plan or not...so we'll see how that goes..
More soon :)
Sunday afternoon we went to the other congregation for our youth activity. We got there about on time, but no one else showed up for about 20 mintues...When we first got here we used the taxi that Catherine's family owns. They employ the driver, so we've had a taxi to call whenever we've needed it. But a couple weeks ago he got arrested..for a reason we never fully understood...something to do with the car and running from the cops after breaking a traffic law-we think...so we've had to scramble to find drivers a few times. Our driver is supposedly working again, but I don't think he'll be having a job with this family much longer...
The youth activity went ok. We had a presentation about cultural differences ready but during the exercises we had planned they tried to answer the way they thought we would answer..so the differences didn't show up as dramatically as we had planned..but it still went ok. When we were done they played soccer for the remaining 30 minutes. Ashley played goalie..but in my skirt and flip flops I just watched and journaled until the taxi came to pick us up.
Monday is usually our emptiest day, a lot of movie watching happens on Mondays, but this past Monday we went to Kitwe with Catherine and Bunda Chibwe to get the car fixed. Someone had tried to steal it at the border I guess and the cab was all messed up. We did a lot of sitting at first, and then ended up going to Ndola to check on Bunda's passport, we had a less than divine lunch at a place called Divine Foods, and then headed back to Kitwe where the unexpectedly dropped us off at a market. We knew we were going to the market, but not by ourselves. We spent the next hour and a half our so bargaining with many people to get some really cool stuff. After the trade fair we were very practiced on how to get these guys down in prices..and we also knew what stuff should be, so we knew when they were majorly taking advantage. They were really quite friendly to us, they helped us find a dvd stand after we were done in their area and talked with us briefly while we waited for Catherine and Bunda to come back. (they had gone to pick up the fixed part of the car) We drove home from there, but on the way I had requested we stop and get a watermelon. So. At this market we always pass where there are dozens of fruit and vegetable stands we stopped. We were instantly swarmed with people, pressing their noses against the window, holding up every fruit and vegetable you can think of. And once you roll down the window even a little bit they are shoving it in the car trying to get you to buy it.
Bunda's mother was in the hospital so before we went all the way home we stopped to visit with her. It was interesting to see their hospital, not quite what we would see in the States, but it was really quite nice.
We finally made it home around 7:30 and ate dinner and went to bed exhausted.
Tuesday was decently busy too. We had survey training in the morning for the Chewimpala congregation. We got there around 10 am..the starting time we had given, and one woman showed up around 10:20...another around 10:45 and then a few more a little after 11. So we went through our training and they decided to go out into the community on Friday, so that went pretty well.
We came back and watched a movie, then made lunch..sort of. We're never quite sure if we're supposed to fix our own lunch or eat what the maid prepares. And they don't fix lunch until about 2, so we get quite hungry waiting around to see what we're supposed to do. I waited until about 1:30 and decided I was going to eat- Ashley had already eaten. Sure enough about 2 she put a bowl of nshima and beans out on the table with two plates and two glasses of water...So we had our second lunch. It's become a bit of a joke -we get hungry now when we don't have our second lunch..
We walked into town to do some shopping. We decided to try ice cream at this place, Nono's Ice Cream parlor and supermarket. Ice cream parlor here means an ice cream machine with two flavors of soft serve. We both got banana, and it was pretty good..tasted like a banana laffy taffy.
We finished our shopping and then walked home.
We have been eating dinner later and later it seems, sometime past 8 o'clock, and last night we thought we would actually eat before 7:30-Catherine was in the middle of making dinner when we lost power. But it ended up being really fun, we made a charcoal fire and cooked everything outside over the fire. Catherine kept saying, "Now you're experiencing the REAL Africa..no electicity to cook...this is the real Africa."
Today I did laundry-probably the last big load of the trip and then watched a movie. Catherine is gone for the day so we're mostly just hanging out and then we have our Bible Study this afternoon that we're not sure if we're supposed to plan or not...so we'll see how that goes..
More soon :)
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Our Internet has Returned!
Catherine arrived back late late late Friday night and we finally have our internet back! I'm not sure where to even really start on an update, lots has happened in the past two and half weeks!
We started doing our survey work at with one of the congregations, and so far they have gone to about 100 houses, they had their third day in the community this week, so we'll see how many more survey's later today that they got done! We planned and executed our first bible study, as well as our first Children's activity. Both went well, we started out with 10 kids and by the end we had 27 (neighborhood kids came and joined) We taught them red light green light and they didn't want to stop playing! We colored and sang and had a blast with them!
We also ventured out to Ndola for the Trade Fair. We got up REALLY early to catch a bus to Kitwe and then another bus to Ndola. We got lucky because here, you get on a bus and just wait until it's full before you leave. So you could be sitting there a mighty long time but every bus we got on left pretty quickly! We got to Ndola at about 9:30 and had to find are way a bit and ended up at Muso's (Catherine's son, who went with us) aunt's house. We visited with them for a bit and had tea and watched part of the Devil Wear's Prada..and then at about 11:15 we took a taxi to the trade fair. At first it didn't seem like much, there were lots of people but no booths or anything and we were confused on what it even was. But the longer we walked around the more stuff we found-we bought a LOT of stuff by the end of the day. They had cotton candy and horse rides and a train driving around for the kids and ice cream-it had a lot of the components of a fair-even a couple little kid rides, but it would not be recognized as a fair to anyone from the States. We had a really really good day though! We had to wait a bit for our bus on the way back but we arrived home about 6:45 and started making dinner. It was the 4th of July and Ashley and I decided to try and make some celebration foods. We managed hot dogs, creamed corn, fruit salad, baked beans, and brownies for dessert. Everyone here seemed to like the food..but we'll never know for sure. We made garlic bread for them one night and they loved it!
We also had an adventure going to Ndola this past Friday to train another congregation to do surveys...but that story must be told in person..
Really we never know what's going on. When you don't speak the language it leaves you in the dark a lot, and there are times when we'll show up for some event and it will just not happen. No one else will show up and you'll never know what happened. They keep us on our toes though!
We've had two youth group acitivities now, our third one will be today. We had planned a "lesson" last week and then we offered the opportunity for them to ask questions about our culture and it ended up taking up the entire time!
We're having such a great time, and it's hard to believe that we're only three weeks away from coming home! There is more to write, but it's time for breakfast!!
We started doing our survey work at with one of the congregations, and so far they have gone to about 100 houses, they had their third day in the community this week, so we'll see how many more survey's later today that they got done! We planned and executed our first bible study, as well as our first Children's activity. Both went well, we started out with 10 kids and by the end we had 27 (neighborhood kids came and joined) We taught them red light green light and they didn't want to stop playing! We colored and sang and had a blast with them!
We also ventured out to Ndola for the Trade Fair. We got up REALLY early to catch a bus to Kitwe and then another bus to Ndola. We got lucky because here, you get on a bus and just wait until it's full before you leave. So you could be sitting there a mighty long time but every bus we got on left pretty quickly! We got to Ndola at about 9:30 and had to find are way a bit and ended up at Muso's (Catherine's son, who went with us) aunt's house. We visited with them for a bit and had tea and watched part of the Devil Wear's Prada..and then at about 11:15 we took a taxi to the trade fair. At first it didn't seem like much, there were lots of people but no booths or anything and we were confused on what it even was. But the longer we walked around the more stuff we found-we bought a LOT of stuff by the end of the day. They had cotton candy and horse rides and a train driving around for the kids and ice cream-it had a lot of the components of a fair-even a couple little kid rides, but it would not be recognized as a fair to anyone from the States. We had a really really good day though! We had to wait a bit for our bus on the way back but we arrived home about 6:45 and started making dinner. It was the 4th of July and Ashley and I decided to try and make some celebration foods. We managed hot dogs, creamed corn, fruit salad, baked beans, and brownies for dessert. Everyone here seemed to like the food..but we'll never know for sure. We made garlic bread for them one night and they loved it!
We also had an adventure going to Ndola this past Friday to train another congregation to do surveys...but that story must be told in person..
Really we never know what's going on. When you don't speak the language it leaves you in the dark a lot, and there are times when we'll show up for some event and it will just not happen. No one else will show up and you'll never know what happened. They keep us on our toes though!
We've had two youth group acitivities now, our third one will be today. We had planned a "lesson" last week and then we offered the opportunity for them to ask questions about our culture and it ended up taking up the entire time!
We're having such a great time, and it's hard to believe that we're only three weeks away from coming home! There is more to write, but it's time for breakfast!!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Update
Well, I really have way more to write than I have the time for, and tomorrow Catherine leaves for Malawi and takes her computer with her :( So I'll try to hit an internet cafe for an update while she is gone.
Tuesday we made our first trek into town by ourselves. It's about a thrity minute walk, and we made it with little problem. We got our groceries and loaded up but the taxi driver was not answering his phone...so we walked back with all our food... Tuesday afternoon we were supposed to go to choir practice at church for a special service on Wednesday. It started at 3. Well we're in Africa so naturally we didn't go on time, we got there maybe 15 mintues late. No one was there, so we waited...for about 30 minutes and then gave up. We met one of the choir members on the way back and she said oh yeah, it started at three. We said, there is no one there, and she just looked at us like, well it's only almost four now..We gave up and went home.
Wednesday we had a very lonnnnng day. Some church members from the states and England were here and they gave a seminar for surrounding congregations. We got to the church around 8 a.m. and left after 8 p.m The seminar ended around 5:30 and then we had a closing service at 6. It was really nice, just veryyyy long. We got back to a house with no power and lit some candles to get something to eat quickly and then fell into bed.
Yesterday we woke up to a house still with no power, so we made our breakfast over a charcoal fire. I sat outside and journaled for a bit and we both did some laundry. Then in the afternoon we were supposed to go to the women's group bible study. Again, we left a little late and again we arrived at the church with no one there...we sat and waited...and gave up. Africa is frustrating....
Today we went into town again to make some copies for our survey attempt tomorrow and got some more groceries. Our phone stopped working again...oh joy..so we tried to find the store to fix it but had no luck. Muzo (Catherine's son) took us to these rocks nearby, big huge boulders that we climbed and hung out at for a while. We had a really great view of the city and it was nice to do something different.
We'll have our first youth activity on Sunday..we'll see how that goes...and then we found out today about this trade fair going on in Ndola next week. All of Zambia has four days off school while this fair is going on. The way they described it to us, it sounds like a renaissance fair, so we're going to try and go to that! Otherwise it's the same schedule, we should be having our first bible study session on Wednesday, but I'm not holding my breath that people will be there when we get there...
Tuesday we made our first trek into town by ourselves. It's about a thrity minute walk, and we made it with little problem. We got our groceries and loaded up but the taxi driver was not answering his phone...so we walked back with all our food... Tuesday afternoon we were supposed to go to choir practice at church for a special service on Wednesday. It started at 3. Well we're in Africa so naturally we didn't go on time, we got there maybe 15 mintues late. No one was there, so we waited...for about 30 minutes and then gave up. We met one of the choir members on the way back and she said oh yeah, it started at three. We said, there is no one there, and she just looked at us like, well it's only almost four now..We gave up and went home.
Wednesday we had a very lonnnnng day. Some church members from the states and England were here and they gave a seminar for surrounding congregations. We got to the church around 8 a.m. and left after 8 p.m The seminar ended around 5:30 and then we had a closing service at 6. It was really nice, just veryyyy long. We got back to a house with no power and lit some candles to get something to eat quickly and then fell into bed.
Yesterday we woke up to a house still with no power, so we made our breakfast over a charcoal fire. I sat outside and journaled for a bit and we both did some laundry. Then in the afternoon we were supposed to go to the women's group bible study. Again, we left a little late and again we arrived at the church with no one there...we sat and waited...and gave up. Africa is frustrating....
Today we went into town again to make some copies for our survey attempt tomorrow and got some more groceries. Our phone stopped working again...oh joy..so we tried to find the store to fix it but had no luck. Muzo (Catherine's son) took us to these rocks nearby, big huge boulders that we climbed and hung out at for a while. We had a really great view of the city and it was nice to do something different.
We'll have our first youth activity on Sunday..we'll see how that goes...and then we found out today about this trade fair going on in Ndola next week. All of Zambia has four days off school while this fair is going on. The way they described it to us, it sounds like a renaissance fair, so we're going to try and go to that! Otherwise it's the same schedule, we should be having our first bible study session on Wednesday, but I'm not holding my breath that people will be there when we get there...
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