40/40 Village Stay

On November 13th, we packed up our stuff and went to stay with a family in a village.

 We stayed with the Blackwell family. 

Lots of children and adults came to see these white people.

This is the little two room house we lived in for the weekend.

On the left was the outhouse, the right is where you can wash up. 

The door in the middle can be moved to cover either opening. 

Little baby goats like to stick there heads in and drink from your wash water.

This is Lane and Seth in front of their pole barn.

They keep the baby calves in here at night.

Lane and the oxen and ox cart.

They just came back from the well.

They go to the well everyday, but they only fill up this drum three times a week.

This is their kitchen.  It has one door and three very small windows that are only about a foot square.  They cook over a fire on the floor in the very middle of the kitchen.  Dishes are stored on one side and two plows are on the other side of the kitchen.  The kitchen doubles as a chicken coop.  The chickens come inside at night and sleep in the kitchen!  The chickens, I quess, come in and go off to the left side every night.  I also quess that they cannot see very well like us when we come inside into a dark room.  I was sitting on a very low stool just inside the door on the left.  Something bumped into my leg.  The second time it happened I looked down and saw that a chicken was running into me.  The third time the chicken ultered her course and walked right across my feet to get to where she wanted to sleep for the night.

The kids and I helped to shell ground nuts (peanuts) everyday we were there.  On Sunday the wife built the fire up very high in the kitchen and roasted them.  Here we are getting the red skins off of the nut.  We did this by rolling them between our two hands.

Sunday evening we helped to make peanut butter. 

This takes lots of arm muscles.  Zambian women are very strong.  They make nshema everyday and I didn't last very long trying to help.

They wash the dishes outside.  Did you know rubbing dirt on the bottom of the pots gets the black off of it from the fire?  The animals (dogs and chickens) are waiting for left over rice and nshema.  That is all they get to eat.  They have to find their own food.  The chickens do get maze when the lady of the house wants to catch one to eat it.

40 / 40 in Lusaka

Washing Dishes

Air drying Dishes



Public Transportation

I thought I would tell you a little bit about 40/40. I won’t try to catch you up or tell you all. I mostly want to post some pictures that we took.

The first part of 40/40 orientation was in Lusaka at the Seminary. Our family had the privilege of staying at the guest house with two bathrooms in our flat. Everyone at the seminary had two showers and three toilets to share for the women and I think the men had the same. They also shared two wash machines and two dryers while we had our own. So the first 14 days or so we were spoiled.

Most every morning we got on a blue bus and with our helpers went out into an area of the city to do our DFA’s (Daily Field Assignments). We started with just observing, then just sitting with them visiting and getting to know Zambians, to telling them the story of Creation to Christ. These DFA’s were training us to know how to get to know Africans when we get to our area of service.

Three of the pictures are of Heather washing and drying her dishes. We all washed and air dried our dishes. They went through a cold wash and rinse and then a hot wash and rinse. The rinse water had the purple stuff we wash all our fruits and veggies in. Then air drying. This is so we don’t pass on germs and make each other sick. All this and a bug was still passed around. We even had to air dry our hands. They use to have towels to dry hands but not anymore. Every 40/40 they try to figure out what they can do to stop passing the runs and a throw up bug around, so the shared hand towels went.

The picture of the blue bus is what public transportation looks like here in Zambia. The first morning we walked a little way to the main road to catch one and ride it to down town where we transferred to another one in the bus terminal. We were in teams of two with a Zambian helper, but three teams were going to the same area. So we had 6 white women getting on the same bus. The bus drivers started fighting over us. After that our Zambian helpers got the drivers phone number and called them and they came to the Seminary and picked us up and took us all the way to where we were going. The last Saturday we did this no buses showed up. So we walked to the bus stop again. This time the helpers had us wait outside the terminal while two of them went in and got a bus and brought it out. They did a wonderful job of watching out for us and keeping us safe. One other time we were in the terminal on a bus and a guy wanted to steal my purse. He saw how I had a hold of it and so since he couldn’t steal it he got mad and tried to steal my hat. One of the helpers saw this going down and grabbed my hat first. I think white women on public buses cause too much trouble. I don’t think I will be ridding those buses by myself.