Super Sweet Saturday

Day 12

Today I woke up bright and early so I could take a much needed shower (Which was freezing!!!) before we headed off to Choma for a morning of shopping. After eating breakfast we piled into Kaki Jackie and started our bumpy, crammed, hour long trip to Choma.

Once we arrived at Choma we first stopped at the post office to the group could mail their post cards to friends and family. Then we headed towards the markets. We were allowed one hour in the market and then we were to meet at a nearby grocery store. My group consisted of Ian, Tessa and Ashley. Since Ian has been here before we followed our little 14 year old adventure guide around the busy markets. Most of our stops were at fabric shops looking for cool patterns and colors. I found some that I like and hope to make them into scrubs. I also found this really ugly crawdad fabric that was perfect for Tessa since she is from Louisiana. It was terribly ugly but she got it anyways as a joke. After shopping in the markets we meet up with our group at the grocery store. There we found interesting types of cookies and we found ICE CREAM. They were nice little individual serving size cups of ice cream that cost about .60 cents American, so we got them. They were pretty good. We decided that banana, which is the flavor I got, was the best.

Afterwards we met up in a park and had lunch. Our supervisors bought us all chicken and fries. It wasn’t very good, but I didn’t mind since I had just finished off some banana ice cream. In the park we found a large talon so some bird. We don’t know where it came from, but no worries, we took pictures of it….and with it.

After finishing lunch we headed into this museum where there was lots of art on display, and then it had a shop where you could buy crafts that had come from villages in Zambia. I bought a few things there for people back home, I would love to list them, but I want to keep it a surprise till I get back to the states. The museum was really fun. They had some very cool art work there and neat gifts you could buy as well.

Once we were finished at the museum, we raced back to Namwingia so we could attend the Zambian wedding that was taking place! All the girls were extremely excited compared to me, but I was interested to see what a Zambian wedding is like. It was a very exciting time.  Lots of music and lots of dancing. The wedding party dances down the aisle and then when they are finished the audience has the opportunity to dance as well. Some of our group got up to dance a little bit. I, did not. It was fun to watch and see all the excitement. Everyone parties, but here the groom is suppose to be very serious during the whole wedding, and the bride is suppose to look down and shy during the wedding. It was interesting and it was funny to see the audience dance around then to try to make them laugh or smile.

After the wedding we went back to our place and had dinner. After dinner we went and played more ultimate Frisbee, but this time some of the girls from the college came and joined us. They laughed as they tried to learn the new game. It was fun to teach them something new, I pretty sure they had a good time.

The sun set and it was getting dark so we ended the game and headed back to the house. Tessa and I played her new drum that she got today and then Kara and Kari came and joined us and we tried to freestyle rap. It was terrible, but very funny. Thanks to Kara for documenting. Since we were making all this noise eventually the night watchmen Justin and Webster came over. Webster played the drum for a while. He was pretty good, and he laughed at Tessa’s attempts to play the drum well. We talked to them both about their manes and what they mean, and Anna and Ashley came over. Shortly after we asked if he would teach us a song in Tonga (the native language here).  He was so happy to teach us. He taught us all the parts, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. He was so patient with us, but after he was finished he was so excited that we sang with him. He told us that we needed to sing to the church someday. We told him that we needed to practice more and get our whole group involved. Webster is planning on teaching and working with us more on Monday night. We are all very excited.

The people here are so nice and open. They love to interact with us and they love to share their lives with us. I have truly enjoyed getting to know them, and I can’t wait to continue to making relationships.

Thank you

Ben