February 26 "Thinking of Others"

Well, in the few times I woke up overnight, I realized we would not be going to the market this morning because of the rain. The Dutch Reform market happens once a month, and at first I was bummed that I could not go because of the rain. Then I thought, this is stupid. The Zambians depend so heavily on rain during the rainy season here. Without it, they cannot grow their crops, and therefore, do not have a livelihood. So after reassessing the situation, I realized that the rain was a blessing from God, as it had not rained heavily since we had been here. Plus, we have two other opportunities to go to the Dutch Reform, as well as the other markets that run on all the weekends. Enough being selfish. T and I spent the morning lesson planning and prepping for Monday, instead. It was a very productive morning! Mrs A was making fritters for the men who were staying at the other guest house today, and gave us a few to try. For those of you who don’t know, fritters look like Twinky bars, but they taste like funnel cake. Yum. She also boiled some maize for us to eat—my favorite! After lunch, it was time for…..the magic show from South Africa, held at the American International School in Zambia, that we were invited to (yes, I sure felt international!).  It was kind of a shock to see so many white people there! Overload! I’m used to being one of the only ones! Anyway, the Magic Man had some good tricks and some funny (adult) comedy in between, so it was a fun time to spend with the B family and the S family. The funniest part was when he was calling a few kids up on stage to help him and this little girl, about 4, just ran up there and invited herself on stage to be a part of the show! Afterwards, we headed to a restaurant called Kilimanjaro for some 2 for 1 pizza and the Magic Man actually graced us with his presence (or he was also at the restaurant….). Anyway, it was a lovely afternoon. T and I took advantage of the rainy evening to spend the night relaxing. That seems to be the way things go around here. When the sun goes down around 7, people head into their homes for the night. The campus kind of shuts down then, and we are not brave enough to try a minibus into town then either. Don’t know what kind of crowd we would meet….Anyways, we watched Never Been Kissed, and I read and Skyped with the fam before turning in for the night and actually getting some sleep.