7 days of Mourning

Zambia's president Patrick Levy Mwanawasa's death was confirmed and a 7 day national mourning was announced by the Vice President. Google it if you are more interested in the story (I don't want to post facts that are already all over the internet.)

Yesterday morning as I was walking to class, I heard from a friend that The president's health had taken a turn for the worse. Then in the evening I heard that he had died, but I heard nothing about the period of mourning. So, this morning I showed up to school to see how my students would react to this news. The first student to arrive mentioned to me about the 7 days of mourning, so as the other students arrived we looked on the internet and read different news articles about the death of president Mwanawasa. This then started discussions as to whether the president had already been dead or not and if the vice president will be able to fulfill the role of President of Zambia (Jokes and laughter accompanied these discussions.)

Not knowing exactly how to respond (the students didn't seem to be effected very much) I asked, "How should we proceed?" One of my students said "Let's just go on with class and see what happens tomorrow." I knew that I had to make a decision concerning the method in which LITA honors the passing of our president. So, I decided to pray with the class for the Nation of Zambia and then I canceled classes.

I never would've thought that the President's death would've effected me much. Yet, here I am feeling a bit sad and realizing that this is a very serious situation. I pray that the transition goes well keeping the peace, stability, and growth that has existed here in Zambia for quite some time.

The last thing that Leah and I did before she jumped on her flight back to kenya, we went to this Crocodile Farm in Lake Kariba. This is a short video of the croc feeding.

Becoming a Desert

I am currently living in Macha, in the Choma District of the Southern Province of Zambia, Africa. In the southern Province of Zambia it rains during 3 months of the year cleverly called "The rainy season." The rest of the year I think there is a 0.01% chance of rain. Growing up in Florida and then living in Virginia for the past 10 years, I still find myself not believing that it wont rain when on the rare occasion some clouds blow through. Alas, it does not rain, when it is not rainy season.

I have been told that many, many years ago, the Tongas took this land from who ever was living here before because it was a very nice place to settle. I do not know what is causing this land to become more dessert like every year, but I can only guess that it has to do with the burning of everything and deforestation combined with the Kalahari desert in Botswana creeping up north. I don't know why desserts slowly take over the areas around them, I just know that it does happen. While in Mongolia I found that the great Gobi desert is creeping into China and will eventually take over Beijing. Already the Chinese have been planting trees in between them and Mongolia in an effort to stop or slow the process that even the Great Wall can't keep out (seems that Mongolia may again get over the wall and conquer China again.)

So, here in Macha there is a dam that keeps a good amount of water from the rainy season and is currently pumped to the ark where I live. It is what my co-habitants and I use for drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning etc. Of course the water isn't good to drink, so it needs to be boiled or filtered. Also, the people who herd cattle and donkeys will bring there animals to this dam to drink. If one were to visit the dam (which is a nice place to chill) he/she will find people who are fishing for the thumb sized fish that live in the dam. And if that same person came and visited the dam a week later, he/she would hopefully notice too that the dam recedes an alarming rate (at least to one who depends on this water.)

So, with all of this said, I get a little bit annoyed when the tap at the ark is left running. When water is just pouring out onto the ground and going nowhere. When one will fill a bucket with water and then another wants to move it out from under the tap but doesn't want to lift it so he just pours it out and fills his own bucket and replaces the empty bucket to be filled again. Yesterday morning, I woke up a little early (6hrs) and came outside to stand like a man noticed how nice, how quiet it was. After a moment I heard something that sounded like water running and I looked over and the tap was just running full stream with nothing under it. I quickly ran over and shut off the spicket to find that a nice sized puddle had already formed. I wasn't really too annoyed because I know that when we don't have power (which we didn't the day before)the pump at the dam doesn't work. I knew that someone had turned on the spicket and left it on when nothing came out, but still a litte bit annoyed.

Well, I praised god that Zesco decided to let us have power this particular morning and went to take my normal freezing shower (and loved it.) Then I heated some water in my electric kettle and made my wonderful Ciro instant coffee. Still wanting to enjoy the morning I walked outside and noticed all of the different types of birds hanging out in the one dying tree behind the ark. A wood pecker eating insects and other birds doing what they do. Then I noticed a group of birds playing and drinking in the new bird bath that had been created by the spicket that was left on over night. I then realized that I just need to stop worrying, I know that God is going to provide for me just as these birds before me had been provided for. Does this mean that we should leave the water running with no regard to the consequence of such actions? No, certainly not. The sight of the birds just helped me to relax a bit.