Hello from Zambia, Africa!! I’m so excited to be in Africa. Africa was one of those places that I’ve always heard about, but it just didn’t ever seem real because I’d never been here before and never really thought I’d go. I felt the same about France before I went to France. It was interesting to have been around Asians for five months and then to get on a plane and then be surrounded by Africans. The Africans I’ve met here are really friendly. I’ve titled this blog “If there’s one thing we like to do, it’s dance.” because it was said by my Zambian ministry contact here, and I think that statement does a great job of representing the Zambian culture. They don’t just live, they dance. The Zambians seem to have a humility, calmness, and quietness, and they seem really relaxed and take things at a comfortably slow pace, but along with that, they also have such a confident and unashamed passion, joy, and loudness.
So after spending two nights at the great hotel in Delhi, India, we got on a flight to go to Ethiopia, and then we took a flight from Ethiopia to Zambia. I noticed that there was quite the eclectic group of people in the Ethiopian airport. There seemed to be Africans, Asians, middle-easterns, Europeans, Americans. And one group that I really noticed that were on our plane were orthodox Jews. I had never seen orthodox Jews before I realized- at first I thought they were Amish, but someone told me that they were orthodox Jews. The men had shaved heads except the very edges on both sides of their heads were long and curled or dreaded, and they had long beards. They also had like top hats on and full-on suits that looked the trench coats. The boys had their heads shaved too except the edges on both sides were long and curled/dreaded and they had the caps that I’ve seen Jewish people wear before…I forget what they’re called. I noticed a woman was reading the Bible on the plane, and she told me she was reading Isaiah and that she was from Zambia. Zambia was pronounced a Christian nation in 1991. It is refreshing because we’ve spent the last 4 months in nations that are predominately Buddhist or Hindi. It was also refreshing because on our overnight bus ride to the city we’re staying at in Zambia, a Zambian pastor came on the bus and started preaching to everyone on the bus and blessed us and prayed for our bus ride and our time in Zambia. I was actually able to sleep a lot on the bus, and my back didn’t hurt! Praise God! I had some diarrhea though. I felt I had a cold for like three weeks in Nepal, and then the last week I felt like my digestive system was a little off, and for two full days my stomach felt so funny and I had some bad diarrhea. I took some diarrhea medicine and some probiotics, and it seems to be getting better.
We were greeted at the bus station by our Zambian contact named Uldrich. He’s 30 and great! He loves the Lord and is really nice. We were brought to a compound for Catholic women to live for the month. The place is used as a meeting place for the Catholic women and for special events, so actually we have the whole place to ourselves usually which is really nice! It’s gated and guarded. We have beds, electricity, and hot water. Not a lot of extras though- no wifi and the water has been turning off in the day all day, but then turning back on at night. Lots of bugs like cockroaches and these huge jumping crickets and unidentified flying objects. I have a mosquito net over my bed to keep mosquitos out, but I feel like it also serves as a good landing spot for big bugs that otherwise would land somewhere else. We were told that it’s advisable to take malaria medicine in Zambia because malaria is quite common here, but I asked our contact, and he said that malaria isn’t very common in this particular area, so I decided to not take my medicine. Also because I’ve heard that it’s not uncommon for people to still get malaria even though they took medicine to prevent it. I’m not a fan of all the new bugs that I’m seeing. I really liked seeing a praying mantis though in the wild. It was green and seemed to walk in a beat. We have a fridge/freezer which is great! We’re actually able to go to the grocery store and make our own meals. There is a really cheap market really close to us, and there’s also a nicer, more touristy area a little farther away (we usually take a taxi to get to it). They have these sky blue taxis here that you use.
The first thing that I noticed about Africa (Zambia) was the great weather. It’s really hot and sunny here. It’s really hot and sunny though, and I have to get used to it. It makes me really tired fast, and I have to drink a lot of water. I got really tan so fast and almost a little sunburned. We don’t have air-conditioning, but it feels ok at night even though it’s still hot. The second thing I noticed is how much more developed it is than I thought it would be. I’m sure that there is and that I will see areas of poverty, but the city of Livingstone has great roads, cars, modern grocery stores, modern coffee shops, a fast food, nice stores, etc. Those things are in the touristy area, but even the neighborhood area seems like they have what they need even though it’s not a lot. I was talking to our contact here, and he said that it seems like most of the world doesn’t realize how developed Africa actually is. I’m wondering which African countries or what places are like how I pictured Africa in my head. Some of the houses are made have mud/clay here though which is interesting- I haven’t seen houses like that yet. When you walk in the neighborhood, there’s mud/clay paths, and usually there’s African music playing which I like and kids playing outside that all wave and smile and call us “Mozungoo” which means like “White person” or something. You usually see women holding babies on their backs with a blanket and women holding things on their heads. Another thing that I noticed quickly in Zambia was that people call all women and girls “momma”. Women and men have called me “momma”, and I noticed a preschool girl get called “momma” too. I think it’s so cool! Haha.
There’s about 60 or 70 tribes and languages in Zambia. English is the official language here as it was ruled by the British until sometime in the 1960’s. Everyone here speaks English because the schools are taught in English. There’s two common tribal languages in this area, and the one they are teaching us a little is called Tonga. The currency here is called the Kwacha. 5 or 6 kwacha is about a dollar. It’s weird because some things seem extremely cheap here and other things seem extremely high. Many of the women and girls have such great hair- so many different types of styles and braids and make-up, and there’s a lot of hair salons and barber shops. Two of my teammates bought some hair extensions and had a woman braid their hair African style, I got my hair done too! I got some cornrows and long braids. It took about 4 and a half hours. I think it's really cool! Two of the women on my team are African-American, and they said that for them to get their hair done at a salon in America, it’s $150, but the lady from the church here was only asking for like $10. Many of the women wear longer skirts and blouses and the men always wear pants and not shorts it seems. The dress is conservative here compared to America, but not as conservative as India and Nepal it seems. Another thing I noticed is that it doesn’t seem like a lot of people in Africa wear deodorant.
We were told that our ministry this month is going to be “Conservation, education and sports ministry”. We were told that some of what that means is working at a preschool, planting trees, and meeting with women that go to an HIV/AIDS support group. This upcoming week, we’re going the preschool. We met all of the preschool kids the other day on a walk in the town, and they were so cute. We also met some of our contact’s family. He has 4 sisters and 1 brother. We found out that one of his sisters has HIV. They said that she found out that she had it in 2005. She looked really skinny, but joyful. That was actually my first time meeting someone with HIV before. Or at least no one has ever told me that they had it if they did. It was one of those things where I’ve always heard about a lot of people having HIV in Africa, but it felt different when I actually met one. My contact said that if you take medicine, eat right, and are careful that you can live for some time with HIV. His sister is married and has children, but I’m not sure if they have HIV or not. We prayed with her before we left, and she said that she thought she was healed.
Today, we went to church, and it was really great to see people dancing and praising the Lord. I really like the kids especially. Everyone sang a lot of songs a copella and sang call out chants, and everyone has such beautiful voices. They praised with trumpets and tambourines too. The church we’re going to is the Salvation Army, and it’s interesting because they emphasize that they’re part of an army (God’s Army), and they call their pastors “Majors” and there’s lieutenants and soldiers. And they wear uniforms to church that seem like army ones. After church, we found out that our contacts sister went to the clinic because she was feeling very weak, so we went to visit, encourage, and pray with her. They said that she doesn’t normally go to the clinic because she feels weak. After that, one of the women from the church did one of our teammate’s hair. It was nice to talk to her and hear more about Zambia. She told us that if Zambians get married, the man has to pay a dowry to the woman’s family. She also told us a Zambian folk story.
Prayer Requests
For our contacts sister with HIV- pray for full healing, for comfort, and for hope
