More fun on Orphan Street

Yesterday I spent the afternoon on orphan street. It was great - we played football for a while and then I handed out some balloons for the kids to play with (thanks Sherrie!!!) They had a blast(see photo). Part way through the afternoon our football went down a well (basically a deep hole in the ground) and one of the Zambians simply started climbing down - just not something you see everyday in Canada!!! (See photo for an idea of what this looked like...) Things today have been pretty quiet - friday afternoons are very slow at Isubilo so I was able to finally relax a bit at the farm. Tomorrow I'm off to Isubilo for my last Saturday program with the kids before I get home - I can't beleive how fast the time has gone. Next week is looking quite crazy too as I finish up. Thanks for all you kind messages - you have no idea how much they have meant - its so nice to hear from home. Mwende Bieno!

Hello all - well it's just me know - how lonely!!! It's been quite crazy since dropping Claudia at the Ndola airport. Saturday was the drop in at Isubilo (see pictures below) - my favourite day of the week. Spent the morning playing games with the kids and then had a lunch of nshima with them and then ended up packing about 15 kids in my truck to drive them home to orphan street (usually a 60 minute walk for them). Yesterday I did a leadership development program with Andy and Eira's church leadership team (see pictures below). It went really well although I missed having Shannon and Claudia there!!! The team just loved it - especially the activities. Tomorrow I'm back to orphan street - I bought the kids a football so they can play when they are home - up to now they've been playing with some plastic bags tied together with some string. I can't beleive how fast the time goes here...

New School in Koloco

Leadership Training with Andy and Eira's Church

Kids at the Saturday drop in at Isubilo

And then there was one...

It's Claudia's last evening before she leaves for Canada tomorrow but she can't say she didn't do it all. Kristi and Claudia's trip to Chobe was fantastic - as we told you and now there are pictures to prove it (see below!!) After leaving Livingstone (we're glad we survived the nighttime taxi ride...) we headed to Capetown - not sure what to expect. From start to finish it was an amazing city to visit. Table Mountain surrounds the city and is absolutely beautiful. We took a cable car to the top and then hiked around and saw great views of the Cape and the waterfront. Our visit included a ferry to Robben Island - where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of his 27 years (and he was visiting the next day for his 89th birthday), a visit to Groot Constantia (the winelands of South Africa) and a walking tour of the city highlighting various museums and giving us an overview of the impressive history of Capetown. Kristi saved Claudia from a beam that was falling over her bed one night -she'll give you the details later... let's just say the malaria medication has made for some interesting evenings! Kristi will continue the blog for her last 2 weeks as Claudia leaves for the long long trip home tomorrow. Talk to you soon! XOXO K&C

On Safari in Chobe and Capetown

Monkeys at Victoria Falls (pictures of the Falls still to come .....)

And then there were two...

Well, we lost a member of our trio Friday- Shannon is in transit back to Canada as we speak. You will be missed by everyone here in Africa!
Kristi and I are still in Livingstone and we spent the day over the border in a Game Park called Chobe, in Botswana. It's one of the few places where you can see 4 countries all at once from the border- Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. It was a pretty great day- we spent the morning on a boat, cruising the Chobe river, where we saw many hippos, some crocodiles (a little too closely for my liking at some points...we had some pretty stereo-typical americans on our boat, so we needed to get as close as possible to the crocs!), a couple of elephants and many, many birds (those same americans were REALLY into their birds). We then did a game drive in Chobe park after lunch. Amazing- we must have seen more than 100 elephants in their natural habitat. We also saw giraffes (giraffe? plural?), wart hogs, more hippos and yes, more birds. We just arrived back at our hotel, a little sun burnt, with memory cards full from the day! We promise to post more photos soon- I left my trusty laptop back in Ndola, so we need to figure out a way to get the snaps on the blog:)
We are off to Capetown tomorrow for the remainder of the week. Talk to you soon!
C&K

Looking back .....

Some memories of our time in Zambia that we'll take with us:

1. Being wakened at night by Kristi because "there's a monkey in our room"
2. Learning to live with perma-dirty feet and finger nails
3. Getting used to the red dust and grit in our mouths and eyes
4. Traversing the Mushili Road each day, avoiding pot holes and playing chicken with other vehicles doing the same thing
5. Never getting tired of the beautiful sunsets
6. Night skies with stars that are so amazing they defy description
7. Little ones climbing up for hugs and wanting to sit on your lap or hold hands, just wanting any sort of physical touch or comfort
8. Enjoying loads of laughter with the management team at Isubilo during our time together
9. The effortless singing and beautiful harmonies
10. Learning how to spot signs of malnutrition in a child
11. Handing out "sweeties" to the kids and feeling like the Pied Piper when we visited Orphan Street
12. NOT having to ride on a mini-bus ..... phew! got out of that one Kristi! Maybe next year!!!

Some new photos!

Chi Chi wearing his new Spiderman shirt donated by Gabriel

Graduation Day

Well, reluctantly our time at Isubilo has come to an end. Wed was graduation day for the class and after some rousing African singing in 4 part harmony which brought tears to our eyes, our class participants eagerly shared some of their more memorable moments from the program we had just completed. The sharing was a huge step, given the cultural differences of generally not participating in classroom discussion. Everyone was wanting to share what had impacted them most - from learning not to judge others and jump to conclusions to realizing that a weakness can be an overdone strength, to appreciating the learning taken from our bridge building activity or our swamp boards activity, it all brought tears to our eyes .... which is not something that usually happens at the end of a program! The team had truly bonded and we felt truly blessed.

Prior to our graduation ceremony we had lunch together with the class. Shannon and Claudia can now say that they have eaten nshima - a local staple made from mealie meal and eaten with your hands. No utensils for these Canadians! We quite enjoyed it.

We are now in Livingstone taking in the Victoria Falls and Zambezi River before Shannon leaves for home on Saturday and Claudia and Kristi leave for Capetown on Sunday and some further travels. Thanks to all for following along on our journey with us. Stay tuned as we will still be uploading some more pictures in the next few days.

CSI Ndola

I see orange? I smell smoke? I hear crackling? I see embers falling from the sky? That's right- we had some excitement at the farm on Friday evening when a "controlled burn" turned into an uncontrolled fire. We all ran towards it (like they teach you in school), but we were OK because Claudia ran back to the cabin to get a kettle full of water (don't ask?!). We are happy we can laugh about it now and the gravity of the situation only lasted a few minutes before we were assured that the staff had it under control again- with their very effective technique of swatting the fire with branches!! And we found the kettle the next day:)

We are excited to start a new week at Isubilo. Friday went really well- the group is understanding all of our curriculum and it seems to be having a positive impact. We had hoped to spend Saturday morning at Isubilo with the children, but due to a plumbing situation, the Saturday drop-in program was cancelled. We look forward to seeing them on Wednesday afternoon, where we'll be sure to get more photos!

We did enjoy Nsobe game park and the relaxing atmosphere there. The game park was awesome, and the staff there were so wonderful and accomodating. We spent Saturday afternoon on a Game Drive and then went out again Sunday morning for a 2-hour Bush Walk with a guide...who made a cell phone call in the middle of our walk to clear up some "business matters" with his cell provider. Talk about dichotomy.

We're thankful for the fact that we are all in good health- as some of the other volunteers at the farm are "not feeling like themselves"- that could be because some of them are housing some "unwanted internal guests!" Our hosts are getting used to making trips into town to the clinic.

Hope you all have a great week. Keep those messages coming.
Claudia, Kristi and Shannon
PS> Hi Darren!

Team-building activity Day 2

Helpers that got our classroom ready

Underweight Babies Clinic

"Big" sister playing mom...

Krisit with David and Robbie

A sweet photo of some sweet kiddies- Emmanual and his older sister at Isubilo.

Our New Friends

After spending a relaxing weekend at the Nsobe Game Park, we thought we would share some photos of our new friends-of many different kinds! We also included a nice snap of our hot water heater- very high tech!

Team-building 101

Our first afternoon of team-building with the management team of Isubilo was a huge success! We quickly overcame the language barrier- it's amazing what a short thumb wrestling match can do to break the ice. Much laughter was heard throughout the afternoon as we lead the group through some fun activities and great discussions. The team at Isubilo is genuinely excited to learn about their team and how they can improve, all in order to serve their community and people in it as best they can. Truly amazing work they are doing!

The farm, on the other hand, has forced our little team of 3 to practice what they preach! Kristi and Claudia (roomies) have bonded over the addition of their "new roommate Scratchy"- we are not sure what or who Scratchy is, but boy can he/she make some weird noises late at night...thank goodness for Gravol or we'd never get to sleep! Shannon, on the other hand, has grown accustomed to rinsing her hair in the kitchen sink after the shower goes from a low-pressure spray to a trickle. Kristi and Claudia don't have that problem as they have been forced to walk across the farm to shower due to a "bad plumbing situation" in their room. Let's just say, their shower makes gurgle noises when Shannon flushes her toilet, and it's not Scratchy.

Dinner is like an episode of Coronation Street, as we 3 Canadians try and keep up with the British accents of our hosts and fellow guests at the farm- we must say, tea every afternoon is 'jolly good' and just plain civilized. We quickly got used to that new tradition.

This weekend the 3 of us are heading to Nsobe Game Park, after making a quick visit to Isubilo to play with the children on Saturday morning. We hope to post some new photos of us and some new friends we will make at the park!

Thanks for your comments and emails- we love hearing from home!

School is in!

A few random thoughts ....

The past 2 days have been filled with new experiences for each of us. As we debrief in the car on the way home we all have some similar observations to make and questions to ask. Some things we have been struck by:
1. The dichotomy of the dire poverty and squalid living conditions and the bright-eyed smiles on the people and their cheery greetings for us.
2. Going to bed last night, mildly complaining about how very cold it was as we burrowed under mounds of blankets and then recalling the children we had visited with during the day whose "houses" had windows without glass in them and a curtain covering the front door. How were those little ones staying warm?
3. How do you reconcile with yourself the sight of a little boy, Emmanuel, who we thought was approx 2 yrs. old, and then find out he's 4 but very malnourished? Or 5 year old David with his huge smile and hugs and HIVAIDs; and he's only one of many with this afliction? Or little girls only 4 or 5 themselves, carrying their younger siblings on their back because they are the mother to that child now that the biological mother has died of HIVAIDs?
4. Being overcome by the great need here and feeling somehow that the team building program we begin tomorrow perhaps isn't something of priority and probably more "practical" training is what's really needed; only to meet with John and Prya to review our program and realize that it's exactly what the team at Isubilo is wanting and looking forward to - not only better communication among the team, but especially building up of the team, realizing each individual has an important part to play and is valued because of it. Our thinking changed in a hurry with the realization that we are exactly where we are meant to be at this time.

Day 1 Update

Mulashani! Hello!

We are finally here in Ndola after, what started out to be, an uneventful trip yesterday. Kristi warned us about "how things work" in Africa, and we were able to experience it first-hand at the Ndola airport. Missing luggage= an hour of discussion, a dot-matrix printer, and DOS operating system; this had us worried, but we are happy to report, we found the missing bag today! Rental car= one remaining car on the lot, steering wheel on the right, and driving on the left-hand side of the road with manual transmission! Again, happy to report that Kristi is a star and has us flying down the Mushili road, leaving a cloud of red dust behind us! Money= 3 different bank machines to get 600 000 Kwacha (Howie, better transfer some money to the Visa...don't worry, 4000 Kwacha= 1 USD).
Our first official adventure began with the Zambian Tradeshow, where we saw lots of local crafts as well as some authentic music and dancing. Then off to Koloko, where we found ourselves lost. Claudia saved the day when she spotted some "musungu" (white people) off in the distance (volunteers that are actually staying at the farm with us). We were able to see the new Lifespring school and enjoy time with some of the local children- our photos say it all. It's been an amazing day:)
Until our next entry, "mwende bueno" (go well)

Day 1 - Kids in Koloko

In Transit

The long flight is history

Due to technical difficulties we are unable to upload our pictures, however we are happy to be on solid ground in J-burg. Everything went smoothly, albeit a bit longer than expected with a stop over in Dakar, Senegal. We're off to dinner and then looking forward to sleeping in a real bed before leaving bright and early in the morning for our final flight to Ndola.