Our Trip Home: included a cat

Our next leg of the trip was on to Lusaka.  But I need to back track a little bit.  The next picture I wanted to post has a cat carrier in it and so I need to explain.  We have a cat "Princess" that has been with us for the last 6 years.  We got her when she was 6 weeks old, although I think she was younger than that.  She has always been an inside cat, I wouldn't let her out of the house.  She became a wonderful part of the family.  So we made plans to bring her with us.  That is also why we went to Lusaka a week before leaving, to make sure everything was in order for her to fly.

 

Her carrier, complete with paper work, taped on address and cat food, funnels to give her water along the way.

 

 

Also, two layers of diapers taped together and two old towels.

 

 

Princess at Thorn Tree

 

Our second night on the road Princess had to stay in the car.  We set her up with her litter box and food / water dishes.  She made herself at home!  When I went out to take a shower in the dark, I stopped to check on her.  She rubbed up on the window where I was shining the flash light in wanting to loved on.

 

 

On our trips to and from Lusaka we always pass this place.  Others had told us how nice it is, but it is never lunch time when we pass and we don't want to wait for food to be made on our already 13 hour trips.  It was lunch time and so we stopped.  The food was wonderful and the bathrooms the best I have seen on our road trips in Zambia.

 

We ate under a nice shade tree.  Since we couldn't park under a shade tree,  Princess joined us on the bench.

 

 

Princess in Lusaka

 

 

Steve had Princess at the airport by 5 AM on Sunday, May 15th.  She was dropped off at a building where they ship cargo from.  She had to fly a day early in order to land in Philly at the same time we did.  Animals need to be at the airport five hours before their flight.  Our stop over in Qatar was only two hours and she needed to be there five hours.  So she went on a day ahead of us.

 

We left Lusaka Monday morning on a 7AM flight.  We flew to Johannesburg, South Africa. 

 

 

 

Here we enjoyed lunch at Mugg & Bean!

 

We then flew east to Qatar as we were flying Qatar Airways.  It was a nice plane and airport.  We landed at 11PM and flew out at 1AM, so we cannot tell you anything about what the landscape looks like.  We landed in Philly on Tuesday morning.

 

My poor Dad arrived an hour after our flight was suppose to land and spent the next two hours waiting for us.  We landed late.  Then the wait to go through immigration took forever.  That was the longest time we have ever spent waiting in immigration lines for all of our trips over and back.  There were only two immigration agents on duty!  So it was after 10AM before we called Dad to drive up and pick us up.

 

A side note: we do not ever have a phone that works in the US when we land.  We carry quarters to use a pay phone to call my dad who is sitting in a waiting parking lot with a big screen up front with the flights on it.  There is a bay of five phones near the doors leaving the airport. 

 

 I used all five phones to call him.  First phone: dial the number and they tell you how much money to pay only to find out the coin box is full and so you cannot use this phone.  Second phone same problem.  Third phone worked, I could hear him, he couldn't hear me.  So actually the mouth piece was broken.  Fourth phone: money box full again.  Fifth phone: finally success!  At that point I almost had my Dad's cell phone number memorized!

 

I will leave picking up the cat :(  for the next blog, it was not easy!!!



 











 



 



Our Trip Home - Second Stop - Missionary Friends House

The second day we took it slow and easy.  We had a nice breakfast with the dogs as you can see in the last post.  Then we took off.  Steve didn't want to arrive in Lusaka in the late afternoon with all the traffic.  So we stopped off at the Sprayberry's house.  The kids and I (Rita) had been there once before.  So it was wonderful to visit with them and see all the changes they have made.  The Sprayberry's are like grandparents to our kids and the boys just loved all of Jack's stories.  They were fascinated!!

 

Grandpa Jack and Grandma Judy

 

What follows is pictures of their home.  It is built with dirt mixed with cement and poured into maize bags (I think, I maybe all wrong on this).  They are stacked, then chicken wire is placed against them, then they plaster over that and paint.  There might be something else helping the bags stay upright, but I don't remember.  It is very cool inside!  Cool looking and cool as in temperature.

 

 

"Lodge" looking is the new house.  Off to the side is the original.

 

 

Living room in foreground, then dining, and then the kitchen.

 

 

This is their first house.  The big window is an addition to it.  The original was only half this size.  It has been changed to all bedrooms and bathrooms now.

 

This is the outdoor shower.  I actually love taking a shower under the stars at night!

 

 

Inside the outside shower.  The first time I used it we had to use the 40/40 bucket shower (bucket with shower head on the bottom), boil the hot water, haul it out, pour it into the bucket and hang it up.  Now you can see that the water is piped in.  Behind the shower is something he lights a fire in to heat the water.  Sorry, I didn't get a picture of that but the water is boiling hot, which is good in the cold night air. 

 

 

One of the inside bathroom sinks which is in the hallway.  Sky lights are providing the lighting in here.

 

 

Inside shower if you prefer.

 

You are just going to have to turn your head and body to see this.  It is right in the computer and loads up wrong. 

 

 

It was wonderful to stop and visit them.  We drank coffee and told stores.  We smiled and laughed.  It was very good medicine.  If you are in Zambia and are going north out of Lusaka, you should stop in and visit.  You will leave with your spirits lifted!!!  And a few new ideas on how to do something.



 



Our Trip Home - First Stop, Kasama

I thought I would post some pictures of our trip home - back to the states.  Then maybe I need to change the name of this blog or actually quit blogging since I don't do a very good job of it anyway.

We left Mbala on May 5th a day earlier than planned since the truck came a day early.  Instead of staying around Mbala at the Schaefer's house (another missionary family living in Mbala) with no Schaefers (they were on furlough) we drove about two hours to Kasama and stayed at The Thorn Tree.  It is a guest house.  It is also where we buy our coffee.  If they are grinding coffee the parking lot smells wonderful.

When you pull in and park this is the front door behind all the flower.

  They love flowers!

 

More flowers and bushes!

 

We stayed in the bungalow out back and down the hill.

 

The door to enter was a wooden sliding door.

 

The walk back up the hill.

 

 

Flowers

 

Flowerbed off of the back of the main house patio.

 

Wonderfull smelling flowers over the toilets.

 

 

Then we had a wonderful English breakfast with the dogs on an outdoor patio!

 

Dog two.

 

Dogs three and four.

 

 

More to come.

 

Friday Afternoon turns into an Adventure!

There are three missionary families here in Mbala.  On Friday afternoons we ladies get together for tea or coffee and let the kids play.   As I drove down the farm lane we came upon these purple flowers.

In one of my last posts I talked about thanking God for the color purple in the dry season.  We haven’t had rain that amounted to anything since April.  I don’t know if you can see the black ground in this picture.  All over Zamia they are burning the bush and fields.  I think this area was just burned two weeks ago.  And yet these purple flowers are blooming – giving the black ground some color.

We drove further down their lane and found this.  They don’t want their land burned!  They have 30 cows then need to eat what little grass they can find.  But it has been burnt thanks to an unknown somebody.

Here is a better picture of the lane with the burnt bush on either side.

And then we had an adventure!!!  The man who takes care of the cows came to say one is stuck in a mud whole.  My first thought it it is the dry season, where is their mud!!  But, I forgot they have several dambos (big swampy area) around them. 

The mud hole was to the right of this picture.  The rope they were using broke and so they climbed in and pushed the cow out.  The men were conveniently gone.  My friend was a city girl!  I the farm girl spent way too much time not wanting to get muddy to get there in time to be much help. 

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.