Today began our adventure! After spending the morning squaring things away before our trip, we were on the road to Chipata by noon. The road is a bumpy and windy one for the better part of 7 hours. Windy because we drove through many hills/mountains. Actually, the scenery and the landscape and the hills reminded me a lot of driving through West Virginia. Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. Bring back memories, sis? Anyway, and it was bumpy because of the potholes and the road quality. Now, all roads in Lusaka have potholes, so I’ve gotten used to them. But these “potholes” can cover the entire road, which is a dirt road. They can also be a few car lengths long and filled with water that comes up to the hubcaps. All very normal. Also, the road to Chipata is under construction (and has been for a few years, it seems), so the frontage road alongside the road being torn up is not very good quality either. My motion sickness did not like me on the trip, but I made it there in one piece.
One good thing about driving to the game park instead of flying was being able to see Zambia. Not even 20 minutes after we left Lusaka, I was seeing the houses and villages of the Zambians who don’t live in the city. They live in tiny thatched roof houses; so quaint, yet everyone you see looks so happy. There was a lot of waving going on during this trip, too. Life is so different from Milwaukee to Lusaka, but even more different from Lusaka to the bush. Seeing the houses made me think of all the blessings in my life….Also, another neat thing was to see the first wildlife of the trip! (Besides the snake on campus.) A baboon happened to cross the road. In fact, these were all the things we had to beep for in order to continue down the dirt road: herds of cows, LOTS of packs of goats, several chickens, a monkey, and some people taking a nap in the road!
Other notable happenings during the car ride: we saw the slashers working all over. Slashers are people who cut the grass, and they do just that—slash! They have long blades that look like swords and slash the grass away! Also, we met up with one of the pastors in Petaulke. It’s good to see the products of the seminary.
We stayed the night in Chipata, at D&L’s old house before continuing the journey. Here we had a delicious meal with D&D, enjoyed being out of the car, played with Marley the dog, and thanks to T, figured out how to work the TV so that we were able to watch Top Chef and Without a Trace! Wow! Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the VCR to work, so the Spongebob VHS tapes were out of the question before turning in for the night….
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