Putsy Fly

Warning:  Do not read this or look at the pictures if you don’t like gross things.  Gross or not, this is what we have to deal with here.

 

About a week ago I noticed our one dog, Buddy, had a wet spot on him where he had been licking himself.  I noticed a hole in the spot and thought our other dog, Vern, finally bit him good.  The more I thought about it though, that didn’t make sense.  There would be more teeth marks.  I finally remembered to tell my husband this past Thursday morning.  He meets with two other guys for prayer.  The one guy has been here for 12 years and has lots of experience with this. 

So after prayer time they went to work.  You have to let the thing grow for 4 or 5 days so that it gets big enough to get it out.  So on a person this can be very annoying.  Then you put Vaseline over the opening.  At this stage the maggot breaths air and so it starts to go crazy wiggling to the hole to come out.  Then all you have to do is gently push it out.

This is a picture of the whole.

This is the maggot.  Steve enlarged it so that you can all see it.

This is why we don’t hang clothes on wash lines.  The fly lays its eggs in your wet clothing.  You put on the clothes and the egg hatches and crawls inside your skin.  It is itchy.  You have to try and endure this for 4 to 5 days without scratching it!

You can hang clothes on the wash line.  You then need to use a hot iron on everything.  Or you can put them into the dryer on hot heat for 10 minutes.  Or you can not wear them for 4 to 5 days.  If it doesn’t have a body to crawl into it will die.  Our family doesn’t have enough clothes to let them sit around waiting for bugs to die.  I also don’t trust the dryer for 10 minutes and I refuse to iron all of our clothes.  So nothing goes on the wash line at our house.

Language Study Officially is Over

And now the witnessing for Christ begins.  You can pray that Steve will be able to meet with area leaders of the Maround Compound here in Mbala.  He has met with the police so that they know what he will be doing.  Now he needs to meet with the leaders so that they also know.  He has tried twice already to meet with leaders and didn’t find them home.  These things take time especially when the person doesn’t have a phone.  On Monday morning another appointment has been set up.  This time an adult (wife) agreed that her husband would be there.  The other times they found no one home or they told the children when they would come back.

You can also be praying that as he witnesses he would find people who are open to hearing and accepting of what they hear.  Pray that many would come to know Christ as their personal Savior.

OK, our year of language study is officially over but we will still be studying language.  Steve will still be meeting with his language helper and I will be too.  I, Rita, had a lot going against me for learning a language in one year.  The number one thing is I was 40 years old.  On the front of one of our lesson books is a nice little list of how long it will take you to learn ciBemba.

20 years old        7 months     at least     1050 hours

25 years old        9 months     at least     1350 hours

30 years old     12 months     at least     1800 hours

35 years old     16 months     at least     2400 hours

40 years old     21 months     at least     3200 hours

The next thing going against me for learning a language is I have four beautiful children and I home school them.  Here where we live there is no other choice but to home school them and I want to home school them.

Then there is cooking.  Here in Mbala, Zambia if you want to eat anything for the most part you have to cook it.   So, I will be continuing my study of the ciBemba language for some time to come yet.

Crocs

Our family didn’t own Crocs until we came to Africa.  I, Rita, didn’t really like how they looked.  My children wore socks and shoes to go outside.  I did invest in a pair of sandals for each child every spring.  Then comes Africa and the dirt and then the mud. 

When I was in South Africa last fall, I bought Steve and I our first pair of Crocs.  They are comfortable and now we live in them.  My mother-in-law mailed us some knock off brand for the kids.

When we come in the house we park our Crocs on a rug at the back door.  Take a close look and see all the dirt!

Here is a picture of my indoor ones freshly scrubbed.  I love the feeling of clean Crocs!  The thing is in one day they are dirty!! Yes, I have two pair – one for inside and one for outside.  My feet don’t tolerate going barefoot any more.

We have a new MacGyver

OK, this story starts way back in the States before we even went to orientation.  We went to Sears to buy a refrigerator to put into the crates that we were shipping to Africa.  Our sales lady told us to wait and come back on a certain Sunday night as they were having a special sale and it would save us money.  My concern was would we get it on time.  She checked and didn’t see any reason why we wouldn’t.  So that Sunday night came and we drove down to the Sears in Greenville, SC and ordered our fridge.  One problem, all the refrigerators sitting in the warehouse had ice makers in them.  We wouldn’t be needing  an ice maker in Africa.  Yes, one would be nice but how do you hook an ice maker up in Africa with filtered water.  A fridge without an ice maker could have  be shipped to us but it would have been after we had packed up the crates.  So we paid the extra money for a fridge with an ice maker and shipped it to Africa.

About two weeks ago my friends husband – now he IS a MacGyver- tells us you really should have that thing working.  Just put a bucket of filtered water on top of the fridge and run a hose down.  So at the beginning of last week while this friend and Steve were in Lusaka, Steve got a plastic siphon hose.  It was a great fit, but no water was getting into the ice maker.  So after Steve put this all together and it is not working, he decides to consult the owners manual.  It needs 30 psi.  So as Steve does when something doesn’t work he thinks on it for awhile.  That night while trying to go to sleep he came up with the idea of using a garden sprayer.  So he got a new one and hooked it up.  Now our ice maker makes ice.  Steve fills it up with filtered water and once or twice a day he pumps the pump to add the pressure.

Princess Zanzibar

Back in July I introduced you to our new cat Panther.  Well, another cat has been added to our family.  This one came to us at 6 weeks old.  So it missed its warm mother.  It would just meow pitifully at us.  And so we would pick it up and put it in our laps and that is where it spend most of its first days with us.
It spent the first few days without a name.  My friend had spent a short vacation on the Island of Zanzibar.  Lane suggested that name.  Since she is a girl Princess has been added and now just shortened to Princess.

She takes a lot of her naps on Heather.

When Heather has to get up and move around, this is how she rides around the house.

Tobias and Heather take turns keeping her and in this picture it was Tobias’ turn.  His DVD player is a warm place to nap.

Here she is getting into trouble.  She smelled lunch on the table and before she was caught actually ate part of Steve’s sandwich.

Our Lane turned 11!

On October 1st Lane turned 11.  The party started at home with presents from us at lunch time.

One of his presents was a pocket knife that he got last week when he went with his Dad and Uncle Grant to Lusaka.

He has already cut himself on the drive home!  Then the festivities moved to the Schaefer Farm.  His birthday fell on a Friday this year and we often go over to have tea time on Friday afternoons.

A treasure hunt was planned by Auntie Lynn.  And they are off.  They had 12 different clues to fine.

  Here they are digging up 1/2 of the map and clue  to find the other half.  Can you tell by the picture that we are in the dry season?

OK, they are off to pester a worker named Sam for the rest of the map.  He kept them busy for about 1/2 an hour.  He was told not to give it up too easily.  He took that job seriously!

We have the map and the digging is on.

A treasure chest if found with candy and popcorn for to nights movie!!

Of course we had birthday cake.  Then Daddy and Mommy went home all by themselves.  Thank you Lynn!!

Panther

Back in March our friends the Schaeffer's came back home from South Africa.  When they passed through Lusaka they picked up a kitten.  Seth has been wanting a cat and so he found out how much one cost and started saving his money.

For the past month he has had a dilemma.  He really wants a cat, but he also liked seeing his money add up.  In the end the cat didn’t cost as much as we thought it would.  We got it at a vet who saves them.  It had its shot and has been fixed.  So the cost of the cat is for that and food.

So this past Wednesday while in Lusaka we picked up a three month old kitten.  Seth thought on it for awhile and finally announced that his name was Panther.

A cat carrier cost way too much and so a collar and leash were bought.  It spent the first hour of our trip home all over the vehicle and meowing loudly.  Then it curled up to sleep with Seth and then later on with Lane.

When we got home on Saturday we found a mess in the pantry.  A week before we left Steve saw a mouse in the kitchen.  Well, for the last two weeks while we were gone, it has made a big mess.  Mouse dirt and popcorn seeds are everywhere on the shelves.  It has been chewing on a plastic container with cornmeal in it.  So there is bits of white plastic all over. On the back of the pantry door at the top is nailed a board with nails in it to hang things – broom, mop, dust mop.  Also us there is a plastic grocery sack full of more grocery sacks.  This mouse managed to jump off of a shelf on to this.  The broom and several sacks were on the floor!  So we are washing every thing before we use it.  What fun, washing dishes before and after you eat. 

So this cat has work to do.  It had better be a good mouser.  I guess you could say it is spoiled too.  What cat has permission to walk all over your pantry shelves.  Tonight I am even opening the cupboard doors.  This mouse lives under them.  We cannot see where they are hooked to the walls.  So if he doesn’t catch something soon, we are going to put some muscle to them and see if we can’t move them.