I Never Thought I Would Be in Botswana...

...but that is where I ended up on a Safari.  We are having two off days while we leave Zambia and head to a new Ministry in Zimbabwe.  And my friends invited me to go to Botswana for a Safari...so I couldn't help but agree.  Next thing you know I am seeing the most amazing animals.

We only had one hiccup when our guide tried to take us over the border to Zimbabwe by accident, but we sorted that and got a visa extension for Zambia since our single entry expired as we left.  (we were at the four corners so to speak...where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia meet at the Zambezi River.)

So without further ado...PHOTOS!

Feeling More Like a Family

One of the benefits of living with a family here in Zambia is the joy that comes with doing family-like things.  It was slow going at first which is to be expected when seven foreign 20-somethings suddenly start living in your home.  I have been able to help when possible with the baby or laundry; however I haven’t done much other than that.  But recently, I have been blessed by our hosts.

Two days ago we invited the family to a meal.  Kaycie our fearless culinary leader made chili, rice, and lentils.  They politely accepted the food but I could tell that it was far spicier than they were used to.  We had a little bit of awkward dinner conversation and then parted ways for cleaning dishes.

This I believe opened the door for more.  I have lingered more in the kitchen asking cooking questions (and I am so going to try that recipe for steamed pumpkin leaves when I get back to the States!) and I have made more small talk with the niece who lives here.  Our host’s wife, Miriam, and her niece sat with me and a teammate to play an interesting version of Crazy Eights…which I lost at quite often.  And Miriam gave us fresh baked scones.

This morning I was washing clothes in my bucket when Miriam came out in exercise gear (a blue velvet sweat suit) and asked me to walk with her for exercise.  We ended up going down to the market which was full of vendors and fresh veggies.  While buying she spoke in Bemba (the language of the copper belt…here they speak a different dialect) with a vendor who was very impressed that as a white person I had such nice hips.  Later Miriam told us about her conversation and said that it was good that I was larger.  Ha ha…I never considered that to be a good thing, but I will take it.

On our walk today, we discussed many things.  Later I will be showing Miriam how to thread her sowing machine and perhaps she will let me hem my Chitenge wrap.  I am just so happy to be with a family these days.  I don’t know what the next few weeks will hold but I am happy.

Below are some photos of my time here in Zambia:

Miriam Showing us How to Wrap the Chitenge

My Students and Me

Teaching my class.  Bishop Alec came in to take this Photo.

The Discomfort of Traveling to Zambia

I slept on the porch of our hostel since my mosquito net (which I am repeatedly reminded by rain is not a tent) flooded and held a nice amount of mud.  Lights on, people talking, I fell into an intermittent sleep at about 1:30am. Then awoke at 5:00am to pack.

No worries, I tell myself.  I can sleep on the bus to Zambia.  But that was before I realized that God wasn't done with growing me through discomfort yet.  After getting on the bus and going through multiple police check points that won't allow sleep since they must ALL see your passport, we got to the border.  This was a trial of its own since Malawians kept cutting us in the visa line with the excuse "you are so many".  Yes we were many but because of them cutting us it took 45 mins for our team  to get process after arriving at the window (that is not counting time spent in line...just time that we were being "helped").

After the border crossing I finally thought I would sleep on the bus.  I had a good aisle seat to spread out a little and I took a Dramamine to help with the sickness and lull me to sleep.  BANG!  Beside me a stood is slammed down beside me in the aisle and a man placed upon it. I now am squished between too people...and stool man of course is uncomfortably fidgeting the whole time.  His cheap, rough, suit rubbing my arm raw.  And his body forcing mine to lean away in a position that later cause such pain on the left side of my spine that I was brought to tears.  THIS WAS A LONG BUS RIDE!

We stopped at the side of the road so men could get off to pee.  As stool man was off, I slid his stool back just enough that he wouldn't have to touch me so much.  It was easy to do since everyone was tripping over it to get off the bus anyway.  When he got back on, he moved his stool back into alignment with my seat.  SO MAD.

Then our bus found itself debating whether to roll through a closed off road that was under construction or to take the detour through the mud.  For fear of being stuck they chose the closed road.  To make this happen they had to move the road block, which happened to be giant boulders on the street. This took many men and much time.  They would always try to avoid more work by just picking one large boulder to move and hoping we would fit through...when in reality it would have been better to move two smaller boulders a little to the left and right and slip in...but they do what they think is best.  We scratched by the rocks and proceeded.  This occurred 3 more times before our bus driver said "screw it" and drove down a bank to the little dirt detour road that we spent the last hour trying to avoid.

We also had a five minute stop at some shacks they called a rest stop.  There was a fee toilet and I figured it was getting time to go.  But I didn't have Zambian Kwatcha to pay the fee.  They lectured me about that, a lot, saying that it was dumb to travel without the money.  But I had no intention of paying for a toilet even if I had money, so I started around to the back of the building to pee there.  The lecturer yells to me that there is a fine for peeing outside.  To which I respond, "I cannot pee inside, I cannot pee outside.  Am I supposed to pee on myself?"  I left off the part I want to say, "Is there a fine or fee for that?"

Because this isn't my first time threatening to pee myself in public, and I am shameless about it, they let me in to the toilet without paying a fee.  But with all the lost time, the bus was done waiting and was honking to pull out of the lot.  Not feeling a good first impression of Zambia.

Night began to fall, and as impressed as I was by the mix of African Music Videos and Backstreet Boys, Brandy, and Usher, my gaze went outside to the sunset.  They full day of miserable travel weight heavy, especially on my left side where stool man was still leaning. (Seriously...there are 69 other people on this bus...couldn't he at least take turns sitting next to people.)  But with this sunset, I promised myself, that I wouldn't let this be a repeat of Malawi.  That I would let the end of this day be the begin of a new, better one.  And that I was going to be okay.

So, here's to a new country and a better season.

The Mobile Ministry of Unsung Heroes

Traveling Malawi has been tricky.  Our Ministry this month has been to seek out new ministries to partner with by sending future teams for the month long stints we have been doing.

We started for our training in the capital city of Lilongwe and then moved down to Zomba to finish our training and to start the search for potential ministry contacts.  (To see the interesting journey there see my mission blog at: http://carolineritchey.theworldrace.org/?filename=so-this-is-africa) Unfortunately, due to the unusually wet rainy season we were left in an area affected by flooding so we didn’t have power for most of our time there and no water on the last day there.  We decided to leave for the larger city of Blantyre in the south. 

I was in phone contact with a Pastor there named Bishop Malunga, so we met with him once to discuss his ministry.  We were invited to his church but had to drive out into an embassy declared “disaster zone”, a town called Phalombe to meet another potential contact.  Because of the condition of the roads the driver stayed the night with us in Phalombe and went to ministry with us.  Because she spoke Chichewa she was able to gauge things about the ministry that we couldn’t.  She told us that there was no orphanage in Phalombe, and that the man we met wasn’t a pastor at all.

Upon returning to Blantyre we were a little disappointed.  Our potential contact was starting to look a lot like a scam artist (which made more sense why he kept telling us the cost of everything), and things were not getting any more comfortable.  We tended to be out of power and water at most locations, and things were warming up weather-wise.

We did go to Bishop Malunga’s church back in Blantyre and ate a lunch at his house that his children prepared for us.  This allowed us to meet with a few members of the church council and to get a better idea of how a mission team could serve him in the future.  After one more meeting in Blantyre and the struggle to get transport sorted, we ended up leaving for the City of Salima which was Northward on the Lake of Malawi.

After meeting with a program called Kindle Orphan Care, we took a day off to boat out to an island in lake.  We got into a leaky wooden boat (we had a guy always bailing with an old oil quart), stepped over the catfish that would become our lunch, and headed out.  On island, a few of us explored by bouldering as high as we could go, then soaked in the sun while we had it (still rainy season).  After eating said catfish cooked over coals, I snorkeled a bit in the lake and was over-joyed to see so many beautiful colored fish in fresh water.  I got to even see Cichlids. 

Upon returning to shore we all found out that we now have a 50% chance of getting a parasite particular to Lake Malawi.  Bummer right?  We are all going to the Pharmacy to get the treatment upon returning to the capital.

After our day off, we were able to tour both the health clinic and some farm plots run by Kindle Orphan Care.  They are an amazing organization that gives me renewed hope for the programs here in Malawi.  I am currently staying just outside Salima with Teen Mission Ministry and touring some of their Orphan Care Units before heading to Lilongwe tomorrow.  And tonight’s Vespers left me super encouraged.  We played games with some of the bible students (Malawians about our age), and sang together, played drums, and listened to a message.  I think I like the way the Malawians worship.

We have a few more meetings in Lilongwe with different Pastors and Organizations, but in reality our time here in Malawi is coming to a close.  I don’t want to rush the time away, but I do look forward to a more stable placement with the church we will work with in Zambia next month.  I have already written my first sermon for that, and when things calm down I would like to write another just in case.

Thank you for your prayers and all your support, and I am so blessed and honored to be here even though I do miss the comforts of home.  God has placed me in a place of discomfort for a reason, and I intend to grow in it all.  So here we go!

Christmas in Latacunga

I ran away this Christmas.

...but instead of running away from home, I believe I ran to it this time...(or at least the closest thing to it.)

Turns out we have a little time off for Christmas, and that combined with our days off equals a good opportunity to go back to Latacunga to see my kiddos.  Myself and a friend braved public transit from Quito on Christmas Day this year and I found myself thinking a lot on the bus.  Thoughts like, "Is this good for the kids? Am I wasting money? Should I have stayed with the bigger group this holiday?"

But upon opening the door and walking in I was nearly tackled with hugs before I could finish saying "Feliz Navidad". Then I knew that we made the right choice.  So glad to be in the middle of nowhere loving on the kids that touched my heart so much these past couple weeks.  We played with the kiddos for a bit then called a taxi to take us to the nearest Christmas dinner, which turned out to be a chicken leg and rice. Then we opened gifts, chatted for hours, and slept.

This morning after feeding them I read them some books in Spanish (slowly with a bit of an accent...sometimes its just too morning for that sort of thing...haha) and I returned to the apartment to eat breakfast and work on my FAFSA for gradschool.  This is the time in which I discovered that goofy Caroline left half of her charger in Quito.  I am currently typing on a borrowed Ipad that I only kinda know how to use since I did the speech therapy language program on it for our non-vocal kiddos...but maybe I can use it tonight if I can sort that out.

Perhaps being in the countryside without technology this weekend is a blessing in disguise... But I sure would love to get some to-dos done too!  We will play it by ear.

We return to Quito on Sunday and continue our ministry there until heading to Africa on the 6th by way of Washington DC and my brother's homemade cookies. Yay!

Amazonian Advenures

So we took a little trip to the Amazon for our days off!

Eating something Random our Guide pulled off a tree.

We started out in Banos and did a day trip excursion into the Rainforest.  We first visited an animal refuge for injured animals to be rehabbed and returned to the forest.  Then after visiting a community of Kichwan people we ate a traditional Ecuadorian lunch and headed off on a hike through the Amazon Rainforest.

We ate, rubbed, chewed, and snorted many medicinal plants (I didn't snort though...not about that...haha but some people have better sinuses now).  And our goal was to make it to a waterfall!  However many dangers stood in the way.  At one point I wandered a couple feet away from our guide and ended up knee deep in quicksand.  Two teammates had to pull me out from behind.

Our paint after visiting the Kichwa. (we blew dart guns!!!!)

Then as we neared the waterfall the already thin path narrowed more on a ledge.  I was trying my best to keep up with the guide and I stepped a little to close to the edge.  Dirt crumbled beneath my feet as the ground gave way beneath me.  My right leg hung useless over the ledge as my left leg anchored to what was left of the path.  My arms held me up having the path at chest level now.  I let out a little scream and our guide doubled back to rescue me.  Once he pulled me back up we both stared at the gaping hole in the path and the subsequent fall.  Breathless I said, that's a long way to fall.  And he responded with, "It's only 3 meters." Um..that's 10 feet father than I would like to fall.

Fish Pedicures!

Once at the waterfall we swam under it, through it and around it until we could swim anymore...and we hiked back out to meet our net adventure.  The last thing we did, in the pouring rain of the Amazon was to hop into wooden canoes and head down a tributary of the Amazon river.  After every set of rapids we hit, our guide would have to scoop water out of the bottom of the boat with an old plastic bottle.

The following day I knew I needed to rest since we had work the next day.  So a friend and I had a girls' day!  We soaked in Banos' famous hot springs and then got a full body massage, facial, and fish pedicure (where the little fishies eat the dead skin off your feet).  We shopped for local made jewelry from the Tagua seed and then had lunch.  We ended our week-long quest for yarn at the best yarn store we have found in all of South America and then headed home on an early bus.  Such a restful day after such an adventure!

A Video to Say Thanks

Since we have decent internet this week, I decided to make a video to thank all the AWESOME people who I have been blessed to know these past couple months.  Thank you all!

“Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it.” 
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly