LIFE

hip, hip, hurray! A new blog post! Text only, but still... a post!
so this is for those of you who have asked about my journey so far, and have not received a reply. (it's also for anyone who visits this blog, but it makes me look better if i address it to those who's questions I have neglected). With the shallow and somewhat insincere dedication out of the way, I'll start from somewhere near the beginning of my adventure and hopefully bring you up to speed with current events here on the dark, -but sunny- continent of Africa.
The flight from Detroit to London was fairly uneventful, and since the plane was comparatively empty, some degree of comfort was obtained by stretching out across a row of seats. Arrival in London was invigorating, as the prospect of touring this great wealth of history seated in the mother of our great country aroused the mental senses dulled by a long night in the air; and we promptly set about to do that very thing. Fast forward to the scene of a country boy walking through the halls of time, his jaw stretching as he tries to take in the immense grandeur of this city, the stunning scenery of Hyde and green parks, and the hilarious accent of grown men who sound like the children from the little kidnappers,k complimented by cops in their traditional helmets. Buckington Palace was amazing... I briefly considered sneaking my way inside to the resolute desk and peering underneath to see if the little code numbers were there, but thought better of it when the guard came clacking by, after which my mind was quickly diverted to the humor i found in watching the way the march. Instead of writing about London all day (which would not be so hard to do), I'm going to fast forward yet again to Johannesburg, South Africa, where I finally began to feel warm for the first time in many months. Next comes Ndola, with Jennifer, Frazer, and Evans at the airport to welcome us and help load our luggage into the back of a bus they rented to transport us to Kalalushi. Arriving at Jennifer's place, there was pretty much one thought on my mind; a noble goal that most strive to obtain; a goal which, like all others, the busy and hard workers find, and the lazy seek until the end of Time; which high pursuit is known my many names... Hitting the sack, examining the back of the eyelids, getting some shut-eye, turning in, retiring, and, the most common of all, sleep.
After that, its kind of been one long blur, punctuated by brief moments of sleeping and eating; eating being our next topic. I've tried alot of the traditional foods; some of you saw the pictures of me trying caterpillars and termites, but i'm telling you, in spite of things like that, some of the cuisine here almost reaches the level of excellence. I quickly discovered that Nshima with sweet potato leaves is fantastic, and was delighted to discover that okra is readily available at the market. After frying up a bunch of that for dinner one night, Clara cooked some the traditional way to eat with Nshima, and I was once again pleased by the finished product.
Work on the Plot has progressed quickly; we hauled gravel to fill the foundation, after which the entire surface had to be tamped, and then more gravel and sand hauled and dumped in piles to be later mixed with the cement to cast the slab. That was the next major project, with all the water having to be drawn by hand from three of the neighbor's wells. I know now why the biblical woman at the well was so excited by what she at first thought was an offer to relieve her of the effort of ever having to draw water again... to top it off, that day it rained the whole time we were working, and although zambia is pretty much warm all year round, it was COLD that day, and we were soaked to the skint to boot. Anyway, the slab is now complete, and yesterday we finished haluing the last of the blocks in Jennifer's yard to the plot, and building is to commence very soon. Today we went with Pastor Townsend and Bethany to the airport, to bid them farewell on their return journey to the arctic wasteland of MI, after which I took a bus back to Jennifer's place, and discovered that I had locked myself out. I want to take a minute to educate you on public transport here... These people don't know what sardines are, but they have hte concept down to a science. TodayI was packed in with my immediate surroundings being a whole crowd of sweaty (they seem to think that deodorant is overrated) middle aged men, accented here and there with a woman or child, a man nodding off so much that for the most part, he was sleeping on my shoulder on the right side, a squirming nervous older guy with his elbow in my ribs on the left, a pleasantly plump woman who's seat was so close in front of me that the hair from her wig was in my face, and a young boy behind me who's fingers kept accidentally sliding towards the pockets of my backpack. You won't understand unless you try it sometime, but I wanted to complain on here about it anyway, because that's probably the thing that bothers me most of everything i've tried here so far.
No hunting yet; there's too many hippos at the river right now, and they tend to make the crocodiles harder to find from what the bush people tell me so I'm waiting for a good chance, and then maybe i'll do a special post on that if anything exciting happens.
That's all for now... i'm going to get some sleep.