First Post -- a full weekend in Lusaka

Hello!
How’s everyone doing?? I’m missing you and hoping you are all doing well.

We’re doing well. We stayed in Lusaka this week after my trip to the bush got postponed. We leave tomorrow for Chipata, Mfuwe, and ultimately Komoto Mission Hospital, a new AIDS Relief site on the outskirts of South Luangwa game park. Dave is going to join me for the week and we hope to get some game drives in while we’re there. We’re going to start a blog from Zambia so that instead of emails, you guys can check out the blog. We can link pictures there too. The internet company didn’t show up on Friday as expected, despite David walking into their store front rather than relying on telephone communication. As I’ve said before, everything here is SLOW to happen… but when we return from our trip next week we’ll continue working on it.

A few stories of interest from Lusaka…
We met a 13y/o girl on a run Wednesday morning. We were practicing our Nyanja, saying good morning to everyone, and she answered in perfect English, saying, “I want to be your friend.” We stopped to walk with her to her school. Her name is Sikumbuzu, which means memory. She told us she is an orphan from Zimbabwe, living with her Auntie, in 7th grade, and wants to be a lawyer. She offered to come over and teach us Nyanja. We decided that she is an amazing motivator to us and we hope to see her again on our morning runs. Dave joked (?) about adopting her…

Dave and I had a proper nshima based dinner on Friday. Nshima is the mealy-meal corn based staple here. Dave and Lyson (a 15y/o from Malawi) made the nshima and I helped (sort of) prepare the relishes – chicken, tomatoes and onions, and cabbage. YUM… j/k!!! It was the exact same dinner I had had prepared from me in the village a few weeks ago, but Dave hadn’t tried it yet. Dave had asked Lyson to teach us how to make it as a trade-off to Dave taking him to see the movie Transformers. The fun part with dinner is that you’re not supposed to use forks. You roll the nshima into balls with one hand, press a thumb into it and use it as a spoon to eat the relishes (defined as anything you eat with nshima). Ultimately, not too tasty, but an experience nonetheless. We’re going to think of ways to flavor the nshima, even though that’s frowned upon!

The same night, we decided to go to one of the local restaurants for a few drinks after dinner. On our way there, Dave accidentally missed a stop sign (which is SO common by the locals here, maybe he’s getting too comfortable and thinks he’s Zambian!). There was a police truck at the stop sign that pulled us over. Two guys got out of the truck, one was in military clothes, and the other was carrying an AK-47. The military guy was pretty angry and put on quite a show, yelling at Dave about his error and telling him he was going to be detained at the station overnight, actually until Tuesday, b/c Monday is a holiday (Farmer’s Day, what?). I was a bit concerned, to say the least, but Dave handled it very well and encouraged them to resolve it right then and there rather than going to the station. After being told that the cost of his offense would be 600,000 Kwacha ($150 US), Dave shelled out $100 US he had on him, and avoided some overnights at the station. Phew! It was pretty crazy. We had our first experience with the police corruption which was not fun, but now we know the drill.

Yesterday, we decided to take a long bikeride up into the trails we had discovered on our runs. Our bikes are really more designed for road biking, but do have slightly bigger tires for easy trails… if only we had stayed on easy trails!!!! We got a bit lost because there are paths everywhere going every direction. At one point, Dave and I thought we had accidentally entered a game park (perhaps Jurassic Park??!) b/c we came across piles of dung the size of our heads. Seriously. Fortunately, we did not have any run-ins with live animals, but we managed to attract a tribe of children about 30 strong who ran after us as we biked through their township shouting “Mzungu!” and reaching their little hands out to touch our white skin, we took on very rocky steep terrain which I managed to take a tumble, and we rode through fire (it’s common for locals to clear their land with fire). Eventually (3 hours later) we happened upon a ranch owner named Aaron who sent us in the right direction on actual dirt roads, rather than the footpaths. It was quite an experience – and one that we will avoid in the future. I’m much happier on tarmac… although the kids were awesome.

That’s it for now. We’re headed over to the trade show to find some home furnishings… we’re busy beautifying our home so you all can come visit!! J

And, check out some of our pics at http://dave-n-kim.smugmug.com/



Ti konda inu! (“we love you” in Nyanja lesson 4 and still lots to learn)
Kim & Dave