Running with the Sun

Each morning, Carrie, Kacie and I woke up with the sun at 6:30 am to run 2.5 loops around the mission's grounds (2 miles). The mornings were brisk there with temperatures in the 50s. We were allowed to wear scrub pants instead of our long skirts when we ran. We ran pass gardens of cabbage, a basketball court, the girls' dorms, and beautiful homes along the way. Most days, a small terrior pup named Max ran with us.

                         
 
                         

                         

(*I realized later that they do have another court that is better kept-up. Some guys were playing one day at 6:30am). 

Every day except Sunday, we passed a woman who is out sweeping the dirt ground with a straw broom. Before the heat of the sun appears, she dusts away every leaf that falls from her trees, keeping her yard so tidy and neat. The brooms here aren't like the ones we are accustomed to. They stand about 2 feet tall and have no handle; it's basically straw bundled together and tied around the top. The lady has to bend at a 90 degree angle for the 30 minutes it take to push away the leaves. We ran through a small dust cloud each time we pass her house, but she is so sweet and always stopped to wave and greet us saying, "mwabukabuti".

The house right after hers is home for two little girls. It was the second week of us being here that we first crossed paths with them. They were headed our way when we waved to greet them from a distance. They stopped for a minute and then took off running toward us in their matching pink winter coats and backpacks (they think its freezing here right now - apparently June is the coldest month of the year). I had never met them before, I don't think Carrie or Kacie had at that point, either, but they ran right up to us and gave us each a big hug. It has become a morning ritual since then and I looked forward to it each day.

We also crossed paths with the secondary school girls walking in their uniforms from the dorms to their class. At first I don't think they knew what to make of us, but they did start waving, greeting, and giggling when they passed us as the days went on. Some of would even run little spurts when passing us...they might have been making fun of us but we didn't mind. We would try to always greet them using Tonga, so it would catch us off guard when they would look at us and say "hi" with blunt English. We try to fit in, but for the teenage girls I think they thought we were just trying to be cool. I felt like I failed at being a grown-up trying to fit-in with the young kids, HAH! It's fine.

Then there was sweet Pinky. She is the very first kid we met at Namwianga mission. She has such a spunk about her that she wiggled her way into our hearts from the start. At only 8 years old, she was striking up conversations with everyone in our group and coming around just to hang out. The first Saturday we were there, she randomly appeared on our run. I don't know how long she had been trying to catch up with us before she actually did. We asked her how she knew we were running and she replied saying, "I saw your footprints". It was easy to see our tennis shoe prints in the sand. She kept up for a while, asking "how many times" to which we responded "2 miles", to which she then responded, "what's that?"... it's about time the US jumps aboard the metric train like the rest of the world.

In addition to the runs, I tried to do a mini workout routine on the yoga mat I brought. I  would only do the 30 min routine on my shower days to avoid becoming too smelly, but was much more successfully at sticking to the runs than the routine. Brett sent me daily workout motivation memes to which I also shared with Carrie and Kacie. To all of our surprise, we kept up with the runs every day we were at the mission until our very last day there on June 18th! Go team!

Home Visits

Yesterday, June 10th,  was an exciting day for Ashley and me. It all started bright and early at 7am when we met at Janna's to tag along as she completed a home visit.

Every day, Janna travels to meet the families of the babies at The Haven for one of two reasons: 1) she is bringing the baby to visit with his/her family so that there is a smooth transition when he/she is able to go back home or 2) she is going to visit the baby after he/she has returned home to ensure that everything is still going well.

She drove us in her truck to The Haven where we collected a sweet baby girl who is just 3 months old. Let's call her "Muyanda", it means "sweetheart" in Tonga. Ba Michael, our driver, drove us 2 hours until we came to a market where a man came up to the window. Janna talked to him for a few minutes before saying, "did you see your daughter?" and gestured to her in my arms in the back seat. It caught me off guard for a moment. I almost felt guilty for holding her while he looked in from outside. Her dad stood so patiently, smiling at his little girl, until I passed her forward.

As soon as she was in his arms, people, who I assume were related, flocked around him. They just stared and smiled at their precious baby. I believe it was the first time they had seen her since she went to live at The Haven. Gah, my heart. Just like the majority of babies at The Haven, her mom passed away shortly after childbirth. To literally save Muyanda's life, a baby who did not have any way of getting the milk she needed, her family agreed to let the aunties take care of her until she grows big and strong and can eat what her family eats at home.

Everyone who was around piled into the bed of the truck and we drove another 5 minutes down the road until we came to someone's house. More family members were waiting there when we pulled up to the door. Ashley and I were immediately invited into their living room where colorful drapes hung from the ceiling, separating one room from another. We sat on the couches as everyone filed in behind us, passing Muyanda from one person to the next.

Multiple people looked us straight in the eyes and started asking questions in Tonga. We smiled politely with blank stares as they laughed and asked Jenna and Ba Michael if we spoke Tonga. This is the first time I have ever been in a country where I do not speak the language and I had to quickly become comfortable with smiling and making eye contact in silence without any words to communicate. Thankfully, the grandmother took special interest in the way my head bobbed to the music playing in the background. Her smile grew two sizes as she sat in the chair across from me and began to move her hands from one side to the other. I copied her movements and soon she stood up and danced her way to the center of the living room. Still smiling and waving back and forth, Ashley and I stood up to join her. The rest of the family got a kick out of the whole ordeal and said, "she could dance forever". I have no doubt in my mind that she could. We sat down three different times, just to have her invite us back to our feet.

As the visit continued, a young woman entered the room with a basin and pitcher of water. She knelt down in from of Jenna, Ashley, Ba Michael, and me before pouring water over our hands. I followed Janna's lead as she rubbed her hands together under the steady stream. Before she brought us on this trip, Janna told us that we would be expected to eat/drink what they provided for us. I was happy and honestly relieved to find that she brought out a bowl of ground nuts (peanuts). After we finished the entire bowl, the same young woman came around to rinse our hands again from the pitcher.

Roughly two hours passed and it was time for us to go. I didn't like how it felt telling them it was time to take Muyanda back to The Haven. After all, this is her family and it's so easy to tell how much they lover her. We all went outside where they took a beautiful group picture together, then they watched us load into the truck and drive away.

I've said it before, but The Haven is such a special and important place here in Zambia. Without it and all of the wonderful people who work there, I don't know that Muyanda would have made it. Actually, there is a good chance that she wouldn't have. Thankfully, she is healthy, happy, and surrounded by so many people who love her. I snuggled her the whole way home.

Open Market in Choma

As a follow-up to my last post, I wanted to share a little about the market in Choma. We rode the bus about an hour into town where Mr. Chance pretty much let us off the bus and pointed in a general direction where the open market was. "Meet over there at the lawn of the museum", he said. We filed off of the bus just to look at each other and wonder where to go. The paved street was lined with stores and filled with families shopping. I heard one little girl say to her mom, "look at all of the white people".  Our huge group excused our way through the crowds of people and ended up splitting into smaller groups after a quick stop at the grocery store.

My small group wondered in the direction Mr. Chance suggested to again, look lost. One gentleman came up to us and said, "are you looking for something?", to which we asked where we would find the open market. He said it was right behind the row of stores behind us, and offered to escort us through the bar instead of walking the whole way around. We all looked at each other, knowing it wasn't the best idea for a few reasons. Tori stepped up and stated that wouldn't be necessary and we continued on our way around. "Are you afraid?", he asked. We weren't necessarily afraid, but it's good we followed Tori's lead.

Behind the stores we found dirt roads decorated with the same tarp tents we saw in Kaloma. The road followed railroad tracks for miles. I'm assuming they are no longer in use based on how close the tents were to the tracks. Some tents had music blasting, numerous tents/stands had little speakers that shouted some type of announcement, everyone starred, many asked us to come to their tent, and some tried to walk with us. It was an unusual feeling being watched so closely from every direction. I'd be lying if I said it was not intimidating.

This market had more to offer than the previous. Here we saw everything from barber shops to stands selling car parts, live chickens to piles of minnows on the table in the sun. We even saw a guy drive by with a small goat in the front basket of his bike. I wanted to take so many pictures, but it made me nervous because we already had so much attention. We were friendly, though. I tend to greet people more than normal (I guess), so I would say "muabukabuti" which loosely translates to "good morning" in Tonga. They LOVED to hear us attempt to speak Tonga. Most of them laughed...I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong, but they seemed surprised by our efforts, replying "kabuti" (fine) and waved back with great big smiles.

We walked in one direction for a loooong time. Eventually we figured we should probably turn around. Instead of figuring out which little roads we took to get where we were, we found the railroad tracks and followed them to the lawn of the museum.

Although I didn't get many pictures myself, Dr. Meeker was brave and took pictures to share with us and now I'll share with you!

At the museum, we had a fresh chicken and fries picnic on a few bed sheets. When I Say fresh, I mean Mr. Chance said, "don't look out back behind the restaurant".

We did not go through the museum, but we did stop at the gift shop inside. They had beautiful woven baskets, hand-carved items, African masks, and countless other things. Our group spent hundreds of dollars in the gift shop. I think it was a little overwhelming for the lonely employee who calculated and wrote down each item by hand.

On our way home, the bus was packed with people and a plethora of souvenirs. As people made room on the seat to sit down, the souvenirs were PILED on top of laps and in the aisle way. Just when we were all comfortable with our seating, our bus was stopped by officials along the highway. They insisted that we all get off of the bus. For a few seconds, we were all confused about what was going on. We stood up, left our things behind, and followed the person in front of us to a basin of water with a small stream of water flowing out of it. They stopped our bus to make us "wash our hands" to prevent the spread of hand, foot and mouth disease that we could get from the animals...I don't know. We are still confused. We got on the bus and whipped out the hand sanitizer as cows crossed the path on our left. Good thing we washed our hands.