Around town

One day walking to the Mission Home, Alan saw all of these interesting African things.

These men are fixing the courtyard pavers at our flat. The one in the red shirt had no shoes and working the cement with his feet all day long.

These cement benches, pots, etc, are for sale and are lined up along the street.

These are pictures of various items advertising that he is a plumber.  Some of the floats, etc. were probably for sale as well!  Not a very big store! he is sitting near by waiting to make a house call.

The women all carry their babies like this                

on their backs until they are about 3.

These guys are just heading to work! In the background is a packed Seventh Day Adventist church. 

If you want your lawn mowed you can find him waiting a busy intersection.

Another Alan went with Elder Bodily to inspect the missionary flats and ran into (almost literally) this market where the road just ended and there was not where else to go except through the people!

Women often carry very heavy items on their heads.  These are relatively small loads compared to some that we have seen (when we have had no camera)!

The goats belong to a the Elders neighbor who is  Muslim. He later sacrificed them in remembrance I

of Isaac being spare by a goat.

A beautiful African sunset.  These sunsets are so red because of the many fires set to burn the undergrowth.  They just light the fires and let them burn unattended.  And the flames never seem to spread beyond what they really want to burn!

Baby Elephant Orphanage

A hut we found on the way to the orphanage. There was a huge wheat field behind it and there was a modern pivot system and combine harvesting the wheat.  Pretty amazing!

The entrance to the orphanage.  It is a non-government organization which runs pretty much on donations.  It was pretty amazing what they have done!

The baby elephants are orphans because their mothers have been killed by poachers for their ivory tusks.  In 1979 there were three million elephants and last year alone, 40,000 were poached, leaving about a half million.  It's sort of sad. One baby was rescued from a swimming pool.  Baby elephants don't know how to use their trunks until about a year old.  This baby was trying to get a drink from the pool using its mouth and lost its balance and fell in.  Luckily he was rescued. 

We were standing in an observation tower when the elephants walked around us to go get their bottles of milk.  We were told to watch closely because the milk would be gone in less than 30 seconds....and that's the way it turned out.  They ran to their trainer who had the bottles, curled their trunks around the bottles and fed themselves.  It was pretty cute to watch. 

The elephants are kept at the orphanage until they are about 10 and then are returned to the national parks in Africa

After that they played in the mud, sucking mud up their trunks and then showering themselves with the lovely red mud.  It looked sort of fun.

Green bushes were provided hanging from the trees.  There wasn't much green left in the area where they feed, so some had to be brought it.  It's the dry season now and the bush is really brown. 

They were sharing for a little bit, and then one decided he wanted the leafy green stuff!

They tussled over it a bit....

And one ended up with most of the greens!

The observation person said they will play for awhile and then the leader gets tired of being challenged and gets serious about telling the youngsters to knock it off!

Elephant Trivia

The trunk of an elephant is about 7 feet long and can hold up to 3.5 gallons of water.

Gestation time is 22 months.

The trunk has 40,000 muscles.  Humans have 639 muscles.

Elephants can't run because they have to keep two feet on the ground at all times.

Elephants have 6 toes.

It was an interesting outing.

We drove back farther into the brush and found this beautiful resort.  The purple tree is a Jackaranda Tree.  It blooms during the driest part of the year, then drops its petals and seeds just before the rainy season so the water can nourish the seeds and start new plants.  The red is the next tree to come out and is called a Flamboyant Tree.  Then the white flowering trees blossom.  It is really beautiful and not what I expected to find in Africa. 

The resort was very nice.

The food was amazing....and quite cheap.  Alan had talapia and rice, I had my first hamburger (which was very good), Elder Bodily had seafood pasta and Sister Bodily had 2 small steaks.  He and I had drinks and the total bill was less than $50.  And the food was excellent!

There was even a very nice swimming pool, with a rhino and a hippo (not real, of course), at the side.

While we were eating, we could see see monkeys playing in the near distance and some antelope as well.  Before we left, the monkeys had come up on the paths of the hotel huts and we got a pretty good look.  Alan got this picture of the two monkeys playing in the trees.

As we were driving on the dirt road away from the resort, I turned to say something to Alan and saw this warthog standing in the bush pretty close to the truck. It took a second to get the cameras out, but we were able to get this picture of this not-so-handsome creature. Pumba, from the Lion King seemed much more friendly and much cuter than this guy!

Matero Ward

This is the building where we meet.  It's a large rented home, but there are plans to start a new building pretty close by soon. We have about 90-110 members at church each week--that's after the Sacrament!  Before the Sacrament, there are probably 50.  Bishop keeps encouraging people to come on time, but they just don't.  Transportation is hard here and many of them walk.  You never know what they encounter on their way, so we try to be patient. 

 This is two of the people baptized our 2nd Sunday there.  Annie Musunga and her daughter, Judith were baptized.  Her husband, Kennedy, has been less active but is now active and baptized his wife and daughter.  They have 3 other children who will be baptized when they are old enough.  The little girl here is Fitus.  She's in our Primary class and comes from a very active family. 

 These three provided the prelude music before one of the baptisms.  They don't have a piano or keyboard here so we always sing acapella.  They really know how to sing in the Matero Ward and they harmonize very well.  We have lots of RMs and they love the hymns of teh church. 

 Sister Annie and her darling baby girl.  It's amazing to me how they carry their babies on their backs. It's interesting to watch them get in position to tie the chetange around them to hold the baby.  I hope to get more pictures of this type of thing.  It really is beautiful!

 The baptisms are conducted in about knee-deep water which has to be carried into the church from the Elder's flat.  I just didn't believe they could be totally immersed in such shallow water, but it worked and the saving ordinance was completed!  I was so relieved!

This is Sister Zulu and her nephew on her right and Batiste--the best Primary Teacher in the Matero Ward--on her left. 

 The Musanga family, except Annie as she was not feeling well that Sunday.  Kennedy, Deborah, Samuel (a nephew), Blessings and Judith.  They are a great family and a great addition to the Ward. 

 Bishop Chifunda (pronounces Shifunda) and some of his family. We have been visiting members several Sundays with him and his son, Davis.  He is a great man and the family is very active.  Davis is preparing for a mission. 

Welfare Service Project

The only other couple in Lusaka besides us and the Ericksons are Elder and Sister Bodily.  They are from Tempe, Arizona and are serving as Welfare Missionaries.  They were kind enough to allow us to be involved several of their projects.  One was a day to teach people in the community how to make maturation kits for women.  Many did not know how to sew, and this gave them the chance to learn.

 However, because of poor communication (not by the Bodilys) most people who had signed up to come did not show up.  Modifications were made and the project continued  Missionaries in the Lusaka Zone were given permission to help that day.  This is Sister Natsala and Sister Falco.  They were cutting out shields to be sewed at a later day. 

 Elder Cahill was cutting out pads to be sewed later.  He said his hands were a little tired from holding the scissors and cutting the terry cloth, but he endured to the end!

 This was Elder Scatena's first day in the mission field, having arrived just the day before.  He was actually really sick when he first got here, but was feeling much better this day. 

 Sister G. sewing snaps on 25 shields!  I was supposed to be teaching how to do this and not doing it myself, but, when no one showed, it had to be done.  I actually got pretty fast at it by the end of the day. 

 Sister Quaye.  She was quite ill that day, but just kept working away.

Sister Quaye, and Elders Ford and Barrett.  They really like the hand cranked sewing machine and actually did a pretty job of putting pockets in the shields. 

Elder G. also had a hand at using the non-electric sewing machine.  He thinks maybe we should get one for our own emergency preparedness!

 During the lunch break, the Elders heard this ice cream man coming down the street ringing his bell. They hurried out and got some for us and it was actually very good.  Elder Scatena, Elder Cahill and Elder Owor.

 The lunch was catered by one of the members and consisted of beef and chicken and nshima and relish.  The nshima is a maize-based paste that is very thick.  They squeeze it in their hands until it is quite flat and wrap it around relish and eat it with their fingers.  It's great to not have to worry about buying forks and spoons!

 Sister G trying it for the first time. This relish (the green stringy stuff) is called rape and seemed to be a combination of spinach and onion greens. It was seasoned very well and was very tasty.  It's a little hard to eat it and is a bit messy, but that's how they do it, so that's how we'll do it too!

 There were supposed to be non-members who attended this class, but most of those who actually attended were members.

The Bodilys had it all so organized with stations and assignments for each station.  However, because of poor attendance, adjustments had to be made.  There was still quite a bit of work that was done in this one day. 

 We also went with the Bodilys to a care center for abandoned women. There were women in there from 14 to 88, with one small boy child as well.  We were so happy that there was this type of facility to take care of them.  We met the ladies who were there including Maureen, Agnes, Esther, Grace, Catherine, Veronica and the child, Edward. We talked to them and then prayed and sang songs with them. 

 We asked them to sing one of their African spirituals.  And it was a special treat to hear them harmonize together.  The song was about their one desire was to know the Lord.  They have a deep love for Jesus and we could feel it through their singing.  Most of them could not speak English very well and understood less, but the language of love and compassion are the same no matter where we are and we all can speak that language. 

Sister Bodily and Maureen.