What does a typical World Race day look like? Here I am in Lusaka, Zambia the capital seeking out Kingdom builders doing the Unsung Hero mission.
Thankfully two of my team members had a contact or knew someone who knew someone in Zambia that works at local schools or ministry sites. We have been blessed over the past two days to check out to of the ministry sites and have a couple more to check out. There will be more specific blogs on each ministry site in the near future but here is an overview.
One we checked out was a school that took in kids off of the street in broken homes. The school had two rooms (one for boys and one for girls) for kids that didn’t have a place to sleep at night or didn’t have a good home situation. Also provides three meals a day for the kids that stay at the school, and lunch for all the kids that walk. Typically they are feeding about 300 lunches per day. An interesting part of the school is widows that help make it all happen. There is about 30-40 passionate widows that come to school and make plastic bags, totes, bracelets, and necklaces. The bags are all recycled and are very durable. At first touch and site I would of guessed it was a made from burlap or another heavy material. 70% of the profits goes back to the woman who made it and the other 30% goes back to the school.
A ministry we checked out today is a new start up by a lady that is trying to improve and organize the schools within a compound. A compound is like a slum, and there is approximately 100,000 people that live in this one compound. It is an outdoor area with a market, tin structures and some brick mud houses. The goal is to help further train the teachers and share resources among the different schools in the compound.
Typically we have been starting days at sunrise (6am) with breakfast at 7:30am. For the most part we have been going to the grocery store and making our own meals. Still on that $5 a day per person budget but it goes slightly farther here but not much. Lusaka is a pricey city to live in compared to rest of Zambia. Breakfast we will make scrambled eggs, potatoes, and toast or oatmeal with toast. Lunch has been mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Dinner has been a variety from pasta to stir fry. Whatever is cheap and easy to make for a group of 8. (yes there is 7 people on Zealous Love but we have been blessed the first week in having a Squad Leader – someone who has completed the race before – hanging out with us the first week). We do buy a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables at road side stands which taste amazing. It is mango season here so most of our meals factor in a mango or two.
Transportation is backwards. Literally. The drive on the other side of the road…and makes crossing the street a tad more challenging. In America you are taught look Left-Right-Left before crossing and now it is Right-Left-Right but i still find myself mid crossing to be looking the wrong way at the wrong time. No one has been hit by a car yet! woohoo! If our destination is within a couple miles we typically just walk because taxi cabs are pricey for our travel budget. A typical taxi fair to go 5-7 kilometers is 40-60K – kwacah. Exchange rate is roughly 5.5K = $1.
Yesterday we tried out the local bus transportation which was an experience in and of itself. A crowded busy area flooded with 18 passenger vans, stands selling fresh fruit/vegetables, and people moving about everywhere. It appeared like the bus driver is responsible for picking their route and getting passengers to fill them van. Once we got there and found the van going to our destination the driver offered if we pay for the empty seats on the van then he would leave right away. Not a bad deal for the driver but not so much for us since our group only took up half the van. Needless to say we waited for about 45 minutes until the van was full and we were whisked away.
Other driving thing I recognized is their lack of road signs. Really there is only 3 I have seen which is one for a speed bump, one for a round-a-bout, and one for street names. To control the speed limit on roads is a mix of driver discretion and frequency of speed bumps or dips. Cars here don?t have the best suspension and with a loaded down taxi cab (personal car for a local) we tend to bottom out often. The bumps and dips are highly effective at controlling the speed.
The evenings are spent making dinner at 5:30pm with the goal of eating at 6:30pm. Follow that up with team time to discuss the day, play a game, and be intentional with each other. Around 9pm I am searching for my shower stuff and finding a horizontal position. Some nights are spent hanging out with other people at the hostel because people are consistently coming and going. We have met some other Zambians, Europeans, Koreans, Chinese, and Americans at our hostel alone.
Everyday has been vastly different in terms of where we go and how we get there but there is stability in our tent lifestyle and general routine! So far so good and the plan at the moment is to stay at this hostel until Monday morning then heading north.
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Eric Cash
