First, some sad news: Two previous blog entries - one from the plane, and one from the first day in Lusaka - have been irretrievably lost. I'll eventually be uploading all the pictures to an online gallery but sadly the written stories behind them are gone.
I'll try my best to tell you about our old home in Lusaka. It is a lovely, well taken care of compound called Cheshire House. It has several buildings and in the centre was a courtyard where the children play. Along with being a guesthouse, it is primarily a rehabilitation centre for children with physical disabilities. Cheshire House is run by a group of nuns and was really a beautiful place. They were kind to us and kept the place tidy while we stayed there.
While there, fourteen girls stayed in long dormatory, two in a separate building, and then I had my own room with two girls in the room next door. At first, I was worried that I would have too much time to think about being away from home if I was staying on my own. It turned out that it was nice to have some privacy and a place to lock up as my own. After all, I hung out in the long dorm most of the time being employed as a mosquito net tucker-inner.
Our time in Lusaka was really fun. We fell into routines of going to this little mall that had a number of stores including a Pick-and-Pay, an internet cafe (mostly offline, sometimes online), an Irish pub, and a few ATMs. The P-and-P was fantastic and felt like a Super Store. It had lots of great things to buy with fun brands that look really (really) similar to our brands back home.
On our last day, we met a fleet of taxis at 6:30am and went to the bus station. You can't even imagine what it is like with four people, four 50 lb suitcases, four 60L hiking backpacks, and four carry-on luggages in a compact car. But we made it. The station was actually really scary to me. There were many buses all parked haphazardly with people everywhere. As we hopped out of the taxi, it pulled away and the driver said he would drive around. So there we were, in the middle of this huge bustling crowd, luggage driving away, and people trying to pull us toward our bus (everyone knew which bus was ours). It was sensory overload and I nearly got run over by a backing up bus.
When we finally reached our bus, we saw just how full the underside of the bus was. It was practically packed full prior to us even bringing our bags over. We were eventually sent into the bus with our luggage sitting in the mud (there is mud everywhere). From where we were, we could see Jess negotiating how everything would fit. She looked a little... exasperated (?)... and we knew that it was't going to fit. Fortunately, for no charge, the bus line (Shalom) sent all of our luggage in a mini bus.
The bus ride was okay. It was about eight hours long. We saw several deer-looking things: some with no horns, some with long slender straight horns, and a few with neat curvy horns. We also saw a few monkeys and a couple of zebras! On our way, we passed by the safari area that we'll be going to next weekend (yay!)
Hours and hours later, we arrived at the hospital. It's lovely! All of the staff that walked by our bus were friendly and welcomed us to Zambia.
Next, we drove to Cheshire House (yep, another one) and when we pulled up, we were floored! WOW, this place is amazing! There's the 'big house' with six-ish rooms of two to three people and then several little houses surrounding it. Esther, Jackie, Sylvia, Natalie, and I lucked out and got a fantastic little house. Big living room and dining room, three rooms (queen bed to myself!), and two bathrooms. Seriously, it's great.
Now, for how fantastic it is, there are a few caveats. Bugs. There are many many many bugs. Gigantic fist-sized spiders, mayflies, moths, crickets, more spiders, giant spiders, ants, toilet-spiders, AWFUL FLAT SPIDERS THAT LOOK SQUASHED BUT ARE ALIVE, mosquitos, jumping spiders, earwigs on Natalie's forehead, moths in Sylvia's bra, dragonflies, and some spiders.
Moving on, we're awake and it's day two. We discovered some 'Medium Fat Spread'. It's this fascinating butter-margerine-fat substance that never melts. Jackie seems to think that it melts but she's delusional from the heat and spiders.
Plans: Today we explore Mongu, tomorrow we tour the hospital, Saturday and Sunday are ours, and finally on Monday we start work!
No comments:
Post a Comment