Hauling Grass

Our insaka needs a new grass roof.  A lady in Zambe collected grass for us.  Our Land Cruiser hauled it home.

Hauling Chickens

Sometimes we haul interesting things on top of our Land Cruisers!  Here our team leader is taking I think 60 or 80 chickens home.

Thankful for the Jacaranda Trees

We are smack in the middle of our dry season.  Brown is the color of this season.  Some of the trees and bushes have green leaves, but they are coated in brown dust.  It looks like everything could use a good rain storm to wash it off.

This is the very back of our lot.  During the rainy season it does grow a little bit of grass and weeds.  It has too many trees and is too shady to grow much.  But this is what it looks like this time of year – brown. 

April showers bring May Flowers!!  In the spring, the rain starts falling in the states and the flowers start blooming.  Here in July without no hint of rain the Jacaranda Trees start to bloom.  We have two of these trees.  One blooms in July and the other at the end of August.

This week I have been thanking God for creating the Jacaranda Tree and for the color purple.  I really don’t like the colors of the dry season.  I love the greens of the rainy season.  God created this beautiful tree to bloom in the middle of the dry season.  The picture doesn’t do it justice, but the purple blooms in the brown dirt are lovely to look at.  I am glad He created purple to add to the brown dirt and make it beautiful.

Missionary Plumber

Sometimes you have to take off your missionary hat and put on your plumbers hat or at least your head lamp so you can see what you are doing.

Vehicles in Africa

Sometimes we use our vehicles for interesting things that we normally wouldn’t do in the states.  Steve and I are not into naming our vehicle, but it is known around Mbala as the Mbala hearse.  Poor Steve has transported quite a few bodies to a village for burial over the past six years.

On Monday he pulled into our yard looking like this!!! 

    We have been having water problems.  This is not a new problem, just an on going one.  On the fridge I keep a calendar where I keep track of the water.  I write  a blue YES on the left side of the square if water came in the AM and on the right for PM.  I write a red NO and circle it if is didn’t come.  I then keep all these calendars.  Lately they have been sending water over the weekends (a lot of it) and not sending any through the week.  They send for three or four days and then take three for four days off.  They are suppose to send water for two hours in the AM and again for two more hours in the PM.

This may sound tedious or annoying, but when we don’t keep track we run out of water.  By keeping track we can scale back on our usage.  If it doesn’t come we don’t do as much laundry or we don’t do laundry at all.  If we do laundry we catch all the water in an ice chest and water the garden with it.  Otherwise, we don’t water the garden. We don’t mop the floors.  We don’t flush the toilet as much.  We do take bucket baths.  We do turn off the pump, so water comes out of the faucets more slowly.  This way you use less water to wash your hands.

We have a homemade storage well (I call it) made with mud bricks and plastered with cement.  We cannot clean it very well.  Stuff just crumbles off the wall when you try to scrub it.  The termites are also eating at it.

We also have a tank up on top of a building that holds 1000 liters of water.  This is for when the electric goes off.  Then we at least have water thanks to gravity. 

Then we have six drums that hold between 220 and 240 liters of water.  When they don’t send water and the storage well in the ground it getting low, then Steve siphons water out of the drums into the well.  We put about two a day into the well. 

For the past month Steve has been putting two drums a day in the well on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  On Thursdays he has been going to the water companies office to make sure they know we haven’t been getting water and what it the problems, because on Friday he is going to have to load up the drums and go fill them up.  I won’t tell you all that goes on there.  That is another story in itself.

So far, he has not had to load the drums and go fetch water.  Some how they figure out the problem and send water on Thursday nights.

This on going problem is wearing Steve down and something has got to change.  He asked permission to buy a 5,000 liter tank.  That is what you see on top of the vehicle.  A semi did bring it from Kasama, but he was going to Mpulungu.  So at the junction they rolled it off the semi and onto the top of our vehicle.  Steve had about 3K to our house, which was a very slow drive.

One and a half weeks ago, Steve asked the water company if they realized that in the last 14 days we only got water for three days?!?!  Since then water has come everyday morning and night for more than two hours!!!!

We are thankful for the abundant water and for the new tank. 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Schwarzs here in Zambia!  The teenagers slept in and so we had a late start to our morning.  Steve and Seth don’t sleep in very well.  I forgot to shut the curtain and so the sun was shining in my face at 6 AM.

We did our devotions and then worked together to make breakfast.  It consisted of fresh squeezed OJ, oatmeal bread toast, eggs, and fried potatoes (those are Steve’s specialty).  We also had Krispie Kreme donuts that we had pulled out of the freezer.  I made the dough a few weeks ago and Steve fried them up.  Thanks to Mary Margaret for telling us how good they are out of the freezer.

Steve making donuts!

Lane let these girls in the house the other day.  They love attention from their humans!  Sara and Kenzie, six months old and weighing 50 pounds already.

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends!

Cactus

If you were going to drive to our house and we gave you directions, we would tell you about the tall cactus just outside of our gate.  It is the only cactus like it on our road.  Actually, I haven’t seen any thing like it here in Mbala.  When you have arrived at our gate, you will know you are at the right place because of this tall cactus.

One Sunday, last spring (that is spring in the northern hemisphere) after church we pulled up to our gate.  While waiting for Tobias and Lane to unlock the gate we notice that several of the tall limbs of the cactus had been cut.  Steve thought maybe the wind blew them down.  I’m thinking no way.  It isn’t even the windy season and it has never happened before.  Clement finally remembered that Zesco (electric company) had come by and told him they needed to be trimmed.  They were getting to close the electric wires.  He informed the guy that is was Zesco’s job to trim stuff away from their electric wires.

So we go in and have lunch.  In the middle of lunch, Steve gets up, gets gloves, and goes outside.  He wants to see how heavy they are.  He proceeds to hauling them all into the yard.  We even had to get the ladder out as some were still stuck up in the cactus.

I didn’t think they should go to waste and so asked Clement to plant some along another wall in our yard.  I like the color green in God’s world and this one I wouldn’t have to water!  Best kind of plant to have when you get 6 to 7 months of NO rain.

My long line of cactus soldiers!

These two pictures were taken soon after they were planted.  I was thinking that here at least we would never have to trim them because of electric wires.  But look closely in the picture.  There are electric wires running right down the outside of our wall.  Next hope – maybe they will not grow too fast.

This picture was taken today!  All but three of them have new growth on them.  It starts out as little as the tip of your pinky finger.  The first picture shows the cactus with no new growth and then this is the same cactus.  It grew this much with no rain and we didn’t water them!