I haven't posted much lately and I wonder why. Yes, we are still very busy with full days,
but I haven't gotten tired of Zambia. I need to concentrate so I can remember Zambia.
I think things just look normal to me.
I take less photos.
I still have a soft spot for the newspaper sellers.
I love to peek into the family activities as I drive by.
But sometimes I wonder how I would react if someone always took my photo as they drove by.
Colors are a constant pleasure to analyze in different combinations.
I hardly notice when babies are transported.
Life on the streets is pretty open.
Here the economy is helped along as volume is broken down to smaller quantities to increase profit.
Kids continue to play their games.
I don't understand the rules of the challenge, but it is fun to watch.
Water and washing consumes much of the day.
There is plenty of tasty food around.
All the essential plastics are available.
Whatever is currently in season is pretty inexpensive.
Sometimes the rain can hold you up until the heaviest downpour has passed.
There is always plenty of chicken around.
So on the whole I do not have anything to complain about.
In fact, it has become so familiar, I don't want to bore you with just everyday life.
This is the hero's monument with the new Hero's Stadium in the background. In April of 1993 the Zambia National Soccer team was heading to a game and their plane crashed 500 meters off shore of the coast of Gabon. Thirty people lost their lives. They are buried here and remembered and honored. It was a major national tragedy for the nation.
I peeked out my office window and wondered what Peter, "the garden boy", was doing and where all those blossoms came from. They are actually mushrooms that popped up after a rain storm. Peter and the guards prepare a nice relish to go with their nshima every midday. They are often picking the fresh green new tips of plants that taste especially good to boil and eat. Jackson the guard also tends a vegetable garden behind the guardhouse. Life is a constant struggle of some sort, but most Zambians get by pretty well and they would NEVER let anyone starve.
The stone pounders are still at work, every day.
Roasted maize is available almost year round.
I don't blink anymore when I see such a common sight of women carrying loads on their heads.
But then I just turn in the the Manda Hill mall and enter the world of the privileged.
There is such a huge gap in the life styles of the "haves" and "have nots".
The Area President visited the mission and this was the photo of the missionaries in the Lusaka Zone.
I took this photo below of the senior couples in Lusaka after a lunch with Elder and Sister Carl Cook on the upstairs mission home patio. From the left that are the Humpherys, Binghams, Skidmores, Cooks, and Ericksons.
Beer is cheap here and mostly made from corn or maize. I worry that someone in the dark will stumble into the road in front of our truck and get hit. This fellow made it to morning to sleep it off. Most sleep it off in private.
This little girl was a charmer selling bananas as I headed for work.
So my life has become sort of routine and these are the sights of a pretty typical week. As I drive down the street I have to remind myself how different this is from Clayton, California.
I am certain I will miss these sights that now seem so common place.
We have our plane tickets and will be departing Lusaka the 6th of May. We will have been away from home three weeks short of two years. I am trying to collect these mental pictures to take some of Zambia with me.
