The Roads to the Water Falls near Isoka!

After leaving the village of Isoka, we headed to a waterfall on a blacktop road.

We turned onto a very nice dirt road, I mean Nice!

 

Then we turned onto this road.  It too was actually not too bad!

This is a road, believe it or not!

Not too sure this is a road anymore, but we are just following the vehicle in front of us.  He must know where he is going!

Stay tuned for pictures of the falls.

Station Visit to Isoka

On Thursday, April 8th we went to visit fellow missionaries on our team, the Kimbroughs.  Blake Kimbrough is now our immediate boss, so we did business on Friday.  Saturday we went to visit a waterfalls that they have near their place.  On Sunday we went to a new church that has only been meeting for about 6 months.  For me, I think that was the high light of the trip.  To worship God in such a simple setting.  It was wonderful.  You know how sometimes you go to church and on the way home you don’t feel like you had church, you really don’t feel like you worshiped God that morning.  Well, this was really a simple worship service, led by Zambians.  We sang a few songs, we prayed, we read the scripture and discussed it a little bit.  After about an hour it was over, but God was worshiped! 

I know I take a lot of pictures of roads.  It is mostly to show you back in the US the road conditions.  Last August Blake came to see us and got to hour house in 2 1/2 hours.  His words – If you can drive 80 kilometers an hour on a dirt road, it is a good dirt road.  Well it took us, I think, around 5 hours to drive it.  The following pictures will show you why.  I think it is as bad as riding a camel!

On the way home we were driving part of this road in the dark.  On a lonely stretch with no people anywhere around we heard this awful sound.  A grinding, screeching noise – like our brakes are grinding or something.  We pull over.  There also were no bars on the cell phone.  I’m wishing I thought to pack more flashlights, but handy Steve, his air pump that you plug into the power outlet also has a flashlight on it.  I drove the vehicle slowly while he figured out were it was coming from.  He jacked up that corner and took the tire off.  There is a cover on the back side of the disk brakes.  It looked like it was bent and rubbing the disk.  While trying bend it out some a very little stone fell out.  All was fine.  We only lost 1/2 and hour, but it was 13 more kilometers before we got any bars on the cell phone.  We are very thankful God was looking out for us.

We ended our trip by stopping at the Schaefer Take Away to pick up our supper.  We ended up just eating it at their house.  The Schaefer’s are good friends we have here in Mbala.  Twice now they have fixed us food for when we are coming back into town late in the evening.  What a blessing!

Kalambo Falls

Only 45 Kilometers from our house in the highest waterfalls in Zambia and the second highest in Africa.  Because the roads are a mess from the rainy season it took a good hour and 1/2 to get there.

This is what the main road out of Mbala looks like.  This road goes to Tanzania. 

  Sign telling you to turn off of the above road.

Pictures of the 35 Kilometer road to Kalambo Falls.

Mouth of the Falls

Top half of Falls

 

Bottom half of Falls.  Can you see a cave entrance?

Lane getting a closer look.

Seth getting a closer look.

Stone pathways and one little stone wall barrier.

Double click on this one for a closer look at the tree roots.

A picture of us! :)  with the gorge in the background.

This falls is 221 meters high.  Come visit us and we will take you to see it, if you want to.

 

God bless, Rita

School

Here in Mbala our week is taken up with school for everybody. Moses comes in the mornings at 8 AM and helps me by helping the children with their school work. He gives them the tests they have that day. They read their reading books to him. He also does flashcards with them. I still have to do lessons with them in the afternoon, but he helps make that time shorter.

At 9 AM Wigan and Doreen come to our house and help Steve and me to learn ciBemba. They are our Language Helpers.

Miriam who is 3 years old and her youngest child is asleep on her back.

These to are acting up here.  They are both talking, so I'm not sure how you learn language.

I thought you might like to see a little bit of what we do here in Mbala, Zambia. Our first year is spent in language study so that we can communicate to the Zambians in their own language.

Sausage and Biscuits

Thanks for the comments on the biscuits.  I will try the not twisting and going straight down with the cutter.  I have since made biscuits and they were a flop.

We have ground pork that we can buy in Lusaka - 12 hours away.  Then I add all the spices to make the sausage.  It is good.  We feel we spent too much money on the pork we got.  So we are buying a pig and the butcher here is going to do it up for us.  A pig and the cost of the butcher is much cheaper then then the pork we brought back from Lusaka.  Plus, we will have a whole pig and not just part of a pig.

A Hectare of Maize

Two Saturdays ago we went to see Steve’s language helper’s (Wigin) fields. We drove our vehicle and it was quite a ways to get there. If Wigin walks it takes him 45 minutes to get there. He says on the bike it only takes fifteen to twenty minutes. He has about a hectare of Maize. One hectare is the equivalent of 2.47 acres. This man does not have oxen. He works all of this land with a hoe.

The road to the field.

Wigan standing in his Maize field.

Pumpkins growing with the Maize.

Biscuits

It started two years before we even came to Zambia. We knew we would be going to Africa hopefully. We always bought biscuits at Wal-mart in the refrigerated section. You all know what I’m talking about. So if I’m going to Africa, maybe I better learn to make a few things – biscuits was on my list of things to learn.

I would make biscuits and they would not be good. They were either hard or flat or both. So I would give up. Then a few months later I would try a new recipe to see if it would be any better with no results. Homemade biscuits take a little work. I mean more work than opening a can of them and popping them into the oven. So when the results were unfavorable, I really didn’t want to try again. Steve said we just don’t need to eat them for three years. Three years is how long we will be in Zambia before we come back to the United States and can buy already made biscuits in a store.

Over the two years of trying to make them once in awhile, I started to think, a good thing to do. I wondered if I didn’t follow the recipe to the T (I always follow them to the T, at least the first time you make it) maybe it would work better.

I use the Mennonite Community Cookbook. Surely, Mennonite ladies know how to cook! I just looked in the book and on the first biscuit recipe on page 12 I hand wrote on it “OK, roll thicker.” The recipe says to roll 3/8 thick. That is thin!!! They don’t rise up to be big biscuits.

Another missionary lady on my team taught me how to make biscuits. She didn’t have her recipe, but the Buttermilk Biscuits on page 13 in the Mennonite Community Cookbook was close to hers. And the trick is don’t knead them much at all and roll them out thick.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour                       ½ teas. Soda

½ teas. Salt                       3 Tables. Fat

3 teas. Baking powder       1 cup sour milk or buttermilk

Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (like making pie dough. Also my friend used half butter and half Crisco, I don’t) Add sour milk all at once. Stir until dough follows spoon around the bowl. Turn out on floured board and knead for ½ a minute (I’m serious, too long they get tough). Roll 3/8 inch thick (ignore this roll much thicker) and cut out with biscuit cutter. Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes. My friend also adds 4 teas. of baking powder instead of three. I double the recipe and add 7 teas. of baking powder.


It all seems very simple, yet I never did figure it out until I got hungry for sausage gravy over biscuits.

God bless,

Rita