Fwd: Zambikes and such

Our bikes are slowly arriving! Unfortunately, the shipping process treated them poorly and only seven arrived, four of which were rideable.

The other day, a Sister came to visit us and give us a talk on the Lozi and Zambia. She has lived in Western province for some twenty years and had a wealth of knowledge to share with us.

Later in the day, we went for a tour of Lewanika General Hospital. It is a series of buildings with covered walkways connecting them all. Each department and ward is housed in its own building and so I think it will take some time to find my way around. There is the OPD (out-patient department) which is akin to Emergency but also has perhaps a dozen out-patient clinics (eyes, gyne, and so forth), male ward, female ward, a ward for delivery (and six hour later) and then a ward for moms and babies, children's ward, theatre, TB ward, and quite a few more that I'm forgetting. It's larger than I expected and it looks like it's quite different from good ol' Kelowna General.

The next day was Saturday and we had all resolved to stay home for the weekend. We unloaded and organized our medical supplies and then made lists of our clinical preferences. After that, I promptly broke my resolve and took the bus to town with Steph and Cara and went to Lewanika to pick up our remaining three bicycles.

From there, we biked to the Black Market and I waited outside with the bikes. After some ten melting minutes, a local woman at a kiosk invited me to sit with her and her son. I was asked to sit on a stool (while they were on the ground) and offered lunch. I recognized the nshima (a sticky-pasty yellow maize substance that is the primary source of carbs here) but not the others. She told me that "this one is meat and this one is vegetable". With no reservation, I tried them both and found them to be incredibly tasty. She also offered me some water, which I expected, half-wondering if it was tap or bottled. Against the general consensus, I can't say that I am too worried about the water and so I drank it up. After some conversation, Steph and Cara returned and we all began biking home.

The bikes needed a few tune-ups and repairs along the way (Thanks Jess for giving us the tools!). At one point, we pulled over near a man by the road. He was very friendly and before we knew it there were some twenty kids around us. They all wanted to know our names and where we were from. We were all laughing and chatting while we fixed our bikes. Then they began asking us, "please take our picture!" and with the father's permission we did. They were shrieking with laughter as we showed them their pictures. "One more," we said. "Three more!" "No, ten more!" they responded. We laughed and took some more pictures and promised that we would return with some of our friends for them to meet.