February 20 "How To Ride a Minibus"

As the women’s Bible retreat was continuing at Pioneer Camp, T and I stayed on campus to attend church and to get some planning done. We went to Bethel, the congregation right on campus, and I absolutely LOVED It! This is where the wives we teach and their children we teach attend, so it felt welcoming and homey to know so many of the members. The church was packed, too! I was sitting next to a little boy I didn’t know and he kept putting his hand on my leg; it was cute. J We were privileged to hear two choirs—the adult and children’s choirs—today, too. They sang in Nyanja (the local dialect) and danced beautifully to the accompaniment of the drums. It was quite a sight to see! The most remarkable part to me is how they welcome visitors. Before the final hymn, a church member reads the announcements for the day and asks any visitors to stand. We had this at church last week too, where they cheered/clapped for us. At Bethel, however, they sing a welcoming song for us! It was so neat! Then the congregation was ushered out to sounds of the choir singing and the whole church creates a reception line, kind of like a wedding, and you shake the hands of everyone in church that day. Our students loved seeing us there at their church; they had huge smiles on their faces and kept staring at us throughout the service. After church, we made a quick lunch and met a few of the men who are staying at the other sem guest house this week for some examinations to enter the LBI (Lutheran Bible Institute) in Malawi, which is the feeder school to the seminary here. We had to hurry because we wanted to be adventurous and attempt to take a minibus into town to the mall. Sounds simple enough, right? So we walked about ten minutes to a bus stop where we didn’t have to search long for a bus; we were called over by MANY minibus workers, insisting that their minibus was the best. (They’re all the same.) So, after we were herded into the bus, we headed towards town. Thankfully, everything is on The Great East Road in Zambia, so as long as we were on that, we knew where we were. So it was a nice, safe ride, right? Well, imagine fitting 16 grown adults into a van which is comparable to a 7 passenger van in the States. Luckily, we didn’t have any goats on our minibus, as D&D had warned us happens sometimes since you can bring anything on the bus. Oh, and did I mention it was 90 degrees outside, too? Yeah, it was a sweaty ride. However, it was a wonderful ride for K3500 at the most, which is about 75 cents, which takes you almost anywhere in town. Unfortunately, we missed our stop on the way there, but eventually made it there and enjoyed an afternoon of shopping and hanging out at Manda Hill Mall. On the way back we stopped at Arcades, the other mall, to look for something in particular, as the store we wanted to go to at Manda Hill was closed. On Sundays they have an open market at Arcades, so T and I walked through the area, scoping some things out and seeing what the prices sounded like. I love looking interested in things and then walking away. J But I did get a vendor to chase me down a row, trying to sell me a painting. That was fun. And T and I both got hit on to our faces instead of from afar like normal on our adventure….Add that fun to a few awkward student phone calls, a dinner with one of the D&D duo, talks of game parks, and a caterpillar that came to lesson planning while we were talking about caterpillars for our preschool lesson tomorrow, and it was an eventful day!