"auntie sarah"



I love these purple trees, they are all over the place!



Wow, I can’t believe we have finished our third week here!  We have traveled quite a bit this week, just as the last.  People have remained healthy this week, and our team is continuing to go strong. 

This week I experienced my favorite day in Zambia so far.  We went out to a village and were part of “a day in the life of a village member.”  It was a blast!  We visited a Pastor and his wife’s home, along with their 11 children!  They are considered very wealthy.  What makes them wealthy is the amount of animals they have, the number of buildings/huts, the amount of land they have, their material items, and their abundance of food.  They had it all!  Their home is split up by individual buildings- the living area is a separate building, the girls and boys each had separate huts, they had a separate place to prepare food with an attached dining room, and so on.  This particular home had two latrines which is very uncommon!  There were probably a total of 10 of these huts all clustered together.  They also had a satellite television! We were lucky to receive a tour of most of the buildings.  It was comfortable living (even by my standards!), and I would love to be able to spend a few nights there with the family.  One of our Professors said the family was brave to have such a home, because that allows poor families to go to them for assistance.  The family currently has three other families and two orphans living with them, just so the main family can help share the wealth. 



Lots of hard work here.



While there we helped shell corn (breaking dried kernels off the cob), polish the corn (softening it back up with water and mixing it), and then finally grinding it into a soft powder.  Corn, or maize, is the staple food, and they work on preparing corn in its different stages on a daily basis.  It takes a lot of muscle perform all three.  I was impressed with how quickly the women work and get it done.  Along with the corn, we helped to shell peanuts.  The peanuts are much softer than at home, and so delicious!  We have bought boiled, salted peanuts from street vendors a couple times now.  Then we went to the well, where they fill up several jugs (each about 50 gallons).  They have enough of these jugs that they only have to go to the well about every three days.  The walk was about a mile long, but they hooked two cows up to a wagon to transport all the water back.  The well is a social gathering.  Other families were coming to fill up as well, and I noticed many of them have much smaller jugs, and had to carry them home.  We were there for about 45 minutes filling up.  All of us that went took turns pumping the water, and again, it was a lot of work!  The Zambians kept showing us up with how quickly they worked.  It turned out to be a joke, and they had some good laughs at us! Once we arrived back to the village, we went to go see the garden.  This was an incredibly impressive operation!  It was about another mile walk to garden, down a slight hill.  The husband of the main family noticed that when the wet season begins, water collects in the bottom.  He and his 8 sons spent a month and built a pretty large dam at the base of the hill.  They now have a retention pond that is full of water (and fish!) all year long, lasting through the whole dry season.  The family has moved their garden close to the water, and purchased a manual pump, that they can then water their garden with all year long.  It was great to see this!  The garden is watered daily, and they have very green crops including rape, cabbage, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and potatoes.  We helped water the garden, and the stream of water was pretty powerful.  Everyone us were able to appreciate the work this took!  After arriving back from the garden, we finished up playing “duck-duck-goose.”  That is a favorite with the children!  We then thanked the husband and wife for our wonderful day, by presenting them with sugar, salt, cooking oil, and flour.   It was amazing to see an authentic village and what a normal day looks like for those people! 

This week I have gone to the same orphanage twice.  I have started to develop relationships with these children and they call me “Auntie Sarah.”  As soon as I enter the orphanage, the children come running at us.  They hold their arms up, saying “hold me,” or “babooni,” which means I want a piggy-back ride!  At times you have one on your hip, another one riding on your back, and one pulling on your arm.  The kids at this orphanage seem to yearn for more attention than the other two orphanages.  I don’t know if these children get less attention from the adult workers, or what, but it is sad!  We tried playing games with them, but it turns out to be difficult because all they want is for us to carry them or sit on our laps.  Next time I go, I plan on bringing along some of the nail polish I brought so we have an organized activity…hopefully!  They were most excited to show me “the big lettuce.”  They have a pretty large garden, and they have some lettuce that is about 2 ½ feet tall.  The boys were so proud of it and thought it was beautiful.  They continued to show me the second largest, the third, and so on.  Each time I have gone, they like to show me their crops, particularly their guava and mango trees.  It was good to spend time with these children but it is hard at the same time.  Some of their names are Deborah, Colo, Doro, Dixon, Derrick, Sarah, Mayoba, Sam, Yvonne, Grace, and Christopher.    

Our last adventure was to the Helvies (Mike and Cindy), a missionary couple from Marion, IN.  Both of their children graduated from IWU within the last 5 years, and some people from our group knew the family.  We were invited to their home in Zambia, just to spend the day away.  It was very nice!  Their home made us feel like we were back in the states, and they made us an Americanized meal of Spaghetti, homemade foccacia bread, green beans, spice muffins, and lemonade made from the lemons in their backyard.  It was amazing!!!  They have a puppy who was fun for us all to love on, and we spent the day relaxing at their home.  In the afternoon, our history Professor was asked to speak at the Bible College across the street from the Helvie’s home.  We went to go see him speak to the Bible students (who were all male), and were asked to sing impromptu.  We sang all verses of “Great is Thy Faithfulness” for them, and they really seemed to enjoy it.  One of the guys recorded us.  I found it funny, especially since we weren’t a formal choir and were asked to sing 5 minutes prior.  Our group sat intermingled with the students, and I shared a hymnal with a Zambian man who would have been about my age.  He could not stop smiling, but would hardly look at me.  It was hilarious.  We sang “I Surrender All,” again singing all verses.  Each song took probably 8-10 minutes to sing!  Towards the end of the lecture, we were all aware of the back row of men leaving.  More and more kept leaving, and eventually one walked up to the speaker.  We were quickly informed that there was a fire in the field, behind the Helvie’s.  They were asking all men to go to the field to help combat the fire.  It was crazy!

We went to the backyard of the Helvie’s and sure enough fire was approaching, and there was lots of smoke!  The men scattered.  Some took machetes into the field, trying to cut back the brush, while others lit a fire closer to the house.  This way, when the wild fire reaches the lit fire, there is nothing left for it to burn.  Fighting fire with fire!  We were all freaking out, but the locals were obviously used to these fires during the dry season.  They tamed the fire like it was nothing.  Last year, many families’ gardens were eaten up by the wildfires and many came to the Helvie’s for food.  So, it would be awful if their garden was burned by the fire.  We aren’t sure what started the fire.  It could have been a cigarette, or someone cooking.  Driving through the rural areas, it is not uncommon to see large parts of fields that have burned up.  Just a normal part of summer for these people! 

It has been another busy week.  We finished up our history class (a semester long class packed into 3 weeks), and hopefully that will free us up some.  With 4 hours of history class in the mornings, and then lots of reading at night, our time was quickly consumed!  This continues to be a wonderful experience, and I am loving our frequent trips out in to the community and surrounding villages.  My world has become much bigger in just the last three weeks!  Thank you for the continued prayers.  Much love, Sarah



Andrea, Mel, Emily, Britt, and I standing next to an ant hill.  This is not nearly as big as some of them!





The fire!




Some of the flames were pretty large!





Shelling the corn. I love this picture!



The Chicken Coop.  Notice the "ladder" the chickens use to get in and out of their houses!





The living room at the village we visited.  Very impressive to see this miles and miles away from town.