We go back into Ndola to get the little booklets. Francis stayed up late last night to get the translation finished. The printing ends up taking most of the morning! Katie and I leave the men to it and we have decided to go and look at the shops. We find a western type shops and it was fun to go and look and all the clothes shops. They certainly have different styles to what we have. Now it is lunch time so we grab a roll and some cheese and off we go to Kitwe.
The road here is amazing at the other end! We have two lanes each way and no potholes! The copper belt certainly has more money, because of the mines. You can certainly see it but it still isn’t like home. There are people everywhere and lots of little road side stalls selling everything you can imagine – cane baskets, food, oil, wood, coal, clothes, furniture – sofas and one place even had beds! I can’t imagine buying a bed or a sofa that is already dusty and dirty! They are also very uncomfortable with no springs or anything like that just boards covered with fabric!
Kitwe is quite a sleazy place. Katie and I didn’t like it much. We just passed through here initially but came back later. We are on our way to pick up the Bemba Bibles. Chingola is only about ¾ hours away from Kitwe. We got 22 boxes of 24 bibles. We met Covina and Gertrude. Covina is a board member for Samfya Bible School.
On our way there Donald got pulled over by the traffic police! Donald was overtaking a truck when the speed limit changed to 80kms. The police said that he was doing 93! Well after lots of talking he got off a ticket. It would have been $60.00 NZ. We are thankful that we didn’t have to pay for that.
Ok now we are on our way back to Kitwe. We stop at shoprite to get a few supplies to take home. What a yucky place. Oh well now we are on our way to Katalushi. Oh my goodness back to the bumpy roads again. This time they are worse than ever and everyone (even Donald has to go slow).
We arrive at Oliver and Emily’s home. The inside of the house is just bedrooms and a lounge. When we were shown our rooms I was thinking that I hadn’t seen a toilet. Yes we are on that subject again and I was right there is no toilet in the house! It is a pit loo outside! I thought oh no Donald where have you bought us but actually this one isn’t too bad. It is still a squat loo but it is all concrete and I haven’t seen any lizards and it doesn’t smell! Thank goodness for small mercies! Ummm we have power on but no water - what is the deal here. Everytime we go somewhere we either don’t have power or water or both!
Well in looking around our rooms we start to think that are beds don’t have sheets on them. Now we are heading back to Kitwe to try and find sheets. No such luck, however we did find blankets, so we bought a few of them. Since we are in Kitwe Oliver decided we should go and see one of the ex Samfya Bible School students. He was in Kitwe hospital. We went up there and oh it was not a nice place to be. I was sure we would catch something just by being there. Anyway it turns out that the man has diabetes! His leg is badly swollen. He was sent to hospital and that was when he found out that he was a diabetic! Katie happened to look out of the ward and saw a man being dragged down the hallway. She was rather scared. As we were going out we saw the man. They had just left him by the stairs and he didn’t look well at all and smelled even worse! Later we asked Francis what was wrong with the man. He told us that the man was drunk! All our emotions (Katie and I that is) was all on a drunk man! It really wasn’t a nice thing to see. Some more good teaching moments on being thankful we live where we do with GREAT medical service and the effects that alcohol can have on people and why the Bible says not to be a drunkard! Katie saw these things first hand!
Well here in Zambia they quite often don’t pronounce their letter ‘h’. For example herbs are erbs, humps are umps (as in road humps/ judder bars) etc. Well the gates at the hospital were open and obviously when the gates are closed the gate reads Kitwe Hospital! Well Katie reading the open gate wanted to know why hospital didn’t have an h on it. Well I got the giggles so bad everyone was wanting to know what was so funny. Initially I was laughing so much I couldn’t tell them! When I finally could talk I told them that they don’t pronounce their h’s like ump and ospital! Well they were all laughing by then!
We are now back at Oliver and Emily’s home and having a very nice dinner prepared by Emily. All of a sudden Oliver’s wife tells him that has just remembered that in our room in a suitcase are some sheets! Yay we now have a sheet to cover the mattress and blanket to cover us! Oh dear it is now dark and Katie needs the loo. Thank goodness for big brave daddy who can take her!
We all had a good nights sleep and now it is time for showers! Where are the showers? It is the little shed down the back of the yard! Oh dear! Oliver and Emily have been up very early to start boiling the water so there is no way out we have to have a bath! They have a plastic basin filled with hot water for our baths. It was actually really nice, although I did tell Donald that if I saw a lizard the people outside might see more of me than they bargained for! Thankfully they didn’t!
Ok off to the conference now. It is in a village in the back of beyond! Guess what, I did not drink anything all day as there was no way I was going to that toilet and it worked! I might try it again tomorrow for our trip back to Samfya! We are at the conference for lunch and they issue us in to the guest house for lunch. The lunch was yummy. It was goat! You will have to see the photo – it will explain everything! The kids are wonderful. Katie just seems to attract children of all ages. She had them all doing netball exercises today!
Well that is all for now and I am guessing that you are all saying it sure is!!!! Sorry about the marathon.
Gwen
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