More Zambia

After our stay in the Zamian village,  Fr. Gabriel and Br. Ruben made their way back to Malawi and we headed for Victoria Falls.  We were lucky enough to stay at Simonetta and Enrico's house and even get a ride from them to the bus staion at 3:30 am.   They came to Zambia as Comboni volunteers from Italy.  They met while volunteering, got married, had a few kids, and are now living in Chipata.  We met them through a mutual friend in Balaka.  An amazing thing about their three boys, other then an endless supply of energy, is that at the ages of 8 to 11, they are able speak Italian, English, or Chinyanja at any given moment.  They occasionally made a mistake and started speaking to me in Italian and then immediately switched gears to English.  When around Zambian kids they didn't have any trouble speaking Chinyanja.  Simonetta said that they have even corrected her English.

 

We took the bus from Chipata to Lusaka which was surprisingly nice.  It was as good as any Charter bus I had been on at home.  It had personal cushioned reclining seats, air condintioning, reading light, and tv sets.  The trip included the feature "Fun with Dick and Jane" starring Jim Carrey which I had never even heard of as it came out since I've been here.  The quality was terrible and it was obiously a bootleg copy, but there it was.  We even got to watch most of it right up until the fatal scratch on the disk just as movie started to get slightly entertaining.  The failed disk wasn't a problem as the next features were the best that Nigeria has to offer so I was able to sleep pretty well.  At the Lusaka bus depot, we waited a few hours for the bus to Livingstone to depart, giving us to grab something to eat at a restaurant and check out the loca market.

 

In Livingstone, we found a backpacker lodge with space available.  Not being much of a world travel, I was unfamiliar with backpacker accomodations.  Based on the lodge we chose, they seem to be designed to give travelers the opportunity to go Africa without the terrible discomforts of being in Africa at a price students and discount travelers can afford.  As long as you are okay with sleeping in a dorm full of strangers, it was very acccomodating and even assisted guests in having a "real" African experience complete with Bungee jumping, motorized river rafting, and vaccuum sealed trips to game parks.  Nothing against the backpackers, but the whole scene was just very surreal.

 

The lodge offered free rides out to Victoria falls so we jumped in the mini-bus with the rest of the "rugged adventurers" and were on our way.  After paying the ten dollar park fee at the gate, we walked down a nice concrete pathway and saw one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  It's big.  I realize that any attempt to discribe it will always be an understatement so I'm just going to stick with "big".

 

We had just about enough of the backpacker scene so the next day we took a bus to a small town on the way to Lusaka and stayed a night there.  Passing through Lusaka, we stayed at another backpacker lodge even though we were looking for something more local.  Everyone just sort of pushes young foreign looking people in the same direction so we didn't fight it.  We had time to get a cheeseburger and ice cream, catch a movie, eat Subway and consider bowling (not enough time) at the local mall.  By the way, has anyone seen "UltraViolet"?  It's not that good, but we hadn't heard of any of the movies playing.  Its poster had a pretty lady with a sword in hand so we gave it a shot.

Cornflakes

I ate cornflakes yesterday.  I suppose I could have been eating them this whole time since they are available in the local stores, but at regular cereal prices which are just absurd here.  I didn't actually break down and buy some, but we have a friend, Roddick from Poland, who is a seminarian for the White Fathers in Lilongwe (Yes, some of the White Fathers are black)  He hooked us up with cornflakes they received from the parishoners.  Normally for mass, people give things like corn, bread, sugar, and cases of Coke or Fanta for offertory.  You know, normal things.  Being in a more urban parish, I guess it is more common for people to give cornflakes.  Anyways, he said they had more cornflakes then any of them wanted to eat so he brought some for us.  Unfortunately, the store we used to buy milk from stopped selling it and I was forced to eat it using milk made from powder which doesn't really qualify as milk.

Zambia

The trip to Zambia was pretty awesome.  We were tagging along with Fr. Gabriel and Br. Ruben who were visiting the mission checking on seminaries doing pastoral work for a couple of months.  On the way to the mission, I began to wonder how the first missionaries decided they were far enough out in the middle of nowhere before building their church.  From the boarder town of Chipata, we drove for 60 miles down a dirt road that would have been impossible to take with a regular car.  There is one point near the mission where during the rainy season it is impossible for any of their trucks to pass.  There is a river with a walking bridge they leave a truck and they leave a truck on the other side.  If anyone needs to go to town they have to walk a few miles to get to the truck.  Living at the mission was Fr. George, from Mexico, Fr. Raul, from the Philipines, Br. Richard from Uganda, and Br. Oscar and Br. Paul from Portugal.

 

Fr. George and Raul regularly go out to the villages for a few days and visit christian communities that are further away. Natasha and I went with Fr. George and Gary went with Fr. Raul.  We started in the morning and drove further out into the middle of nowhere using roads that disappeared for awhile and went through dry river beds.  When we arrived Fr. George began confessions as I hung around the church made from a few trees and a grass roof.  The kids around were a little shy at first and wouldn't get too close so I made faces at them from a distance.  After the mass we socialized for a while until lunch was ready, the typical nsima and chicken meal eaten with the hands.  After mass, Natasha and I went with someone from the village to the community school.  It was a two room school made from bricks, a grass roof, and a sheet of scrap metal for a chalk board which accomodate grades one through six.  The head teacher brought us to the headmasters house and showed us his supply of overused books.  He wasn't shy about asking for financial support at the end of the tour.

 

Returning to the village, we found a few girls performing some crazy traditional dances that we watched until some came and said my bath water was ready.  He led me to a small enclosure made from grass and inside there was a pot of hot water and a bar of soap sitting on a few rocks.  After washing as best that I could balancing on a couple stones, we had dinner and listened to the choir perform with drums and a homemade guitar.  The first night sleeping in the hut I woke up to a few bug bites which didn't phase me that much until I could hear them crawling around when I put my head back down.  I turned on the flashlight to see that I was covered in little black ants.  The second night I shared a room with a chicken sitting on her eggs and a rooster that made his way up to the top of the was inside the roof.  It wasn't a problem until about 4:30 when the rooster decided it was time to wake up.  After my heart started again, I didn't wait long to find a stick chase him away.  I guess I can be glad he didn't decide to jump down on my face.