LAST DAY in Zambia. Crazy. Where have the past three months gone!?!?!!? Well, since we’re in Africa, and we’ve only seen 3 of the big 5, we decided we needed to remedy that today. So T and I rolled out of bed early to head with Mrs. D&D an hour outside of Lusaka. To see lions. J There is a safari lodge on the outskirts of Lusaka that has a game ranch—like Nsobe for Easter Retreat—to do game drives in, but they also have an enclosure with lions. So, knowing we hadn’t seen them, and Mrs. D&D being the wonderful person she is, took T and I on our last day and her three year anniversary of time in Africa on her longest car driving trip here, to see lions. J Thank you! Yes, they weren’t technically in the wild, but much closer to it than the zoo. They have a chain link fence around the lion area in the park with four lions inside and you can walk right up to the fence! The game drive guy took out a chicken and the lions came right up to the fence to see it. So I was within a foot of lions today. J I was so tempted to reach my fingers up to the fence and touch the fur on the back really quickly, but my two companions advised me not too…Well, at least I have all my fingers. Mrs. D&D has seen lions in the part several times, but you never get that close to them, so this was still a treat. We saw African lions in Africa. They’re better than the zoo, for sure. J After lions, we continued on our game drive, which I didn’t actually know they had there. This is horrible time for game viewing—the dead grass there is as tall as the vehicle. We weren’t expecting to see anything, but we did see a monitor lizard, two puku, two hardebeest (bigger ones than at Nsobe, a lot bigger), and a tssessube (I have no idea how to spell it, but it’s another type of antelope, but it’s smooth and shiny instead of furry looking). The safari lodge gets kudu and bushbuck to walk up right to the lodge and have people pet them daily, but unfortunately, they had gone off to the wild by then, so the three of us headed back.
Back home, T and I had our last Zambian meal from Mrs. A—a special request for nshima, chicken, and pumpkin leaves. Delicious. J The rest of the afternoon was spent attempting to pack all our belongings and souvenirs into the 2 suitcases we had each brought to Zambia. My room was starting to look bare! I have lots of things left on my to do list yet, though, so I don’t know how it’s all going to get done! I didn’t want to be cooped up inside on my last day here (although it was chilly—I don’t like the cold season in Africa—that’s one good reason we’re leaving!), so I decided to run random errands outside to the press or other places pretty often. I just couldn’t sit inside knowing that my kids were outside playing and that today was my last chance to watch them and play with them! So I joined them for awhile. The preschool boys continued to follow me around and fight to win my attention, and little P, the cutest baby boy ever, ran up to me again several times today and I got to hold him. J Mrs. D&D was showing a missionary family from Cameroon around campus today and she saw me holding the baby and she mentioned he should come with me and that we’re both attached. Well, what do you think all the bags I’ve gotten here are for! All the kids are coming with me! J I’m sure between T and I, we can figure out how to smuggle 40 kids into the US, hahahah J
I begrudgingly continued packing until about 17 hours when everyone decided to stop by! We had lots of people from on campus come and say goodbye to us. It was all very sad, but very reassuring as they all mentioned if we don’t meet up again in Africa, we will meet up in heaven. J M and C, the girls our age on campus, came by for some “snaps” before leaving, so we asked a pastor to take the photos for us. We all were amused as he couldn’t figure out how to use a camera for the life of him…One of our tutorees came in with a letter for me and a card for T and I and a goodbye hug. So sweet. Within the next five minutes, about 2/3 of our kids had traipsed into our living room and were kneeling on the ground wanting to say their goodbyes. There was a moment of silence for a minute and then R, Ronaldino as I call him, an 11 year old boy who I’ve gotten really close too, said “I am going to cry.” The fact that he said it in English and said it at all in front of all those friends, and I lost it. I was crying as the cue of kids went through and I could hug each of them goodbye. R asked when we were leaving in the morning and I said 6:30 and he said he’d be there to see us off. Oh I hope the kids are there. Just typing this is making me sad. I’m going to miss them so much!
Well, if one emotional goodbye wasn’t enough, then T and I went to give Mrs. A her gift and say our goodbyes. She is seeing us off at the airport tomorrow, but it was still a tough goodbye….After that I definitely wasn’t in the mood to pack, but that’s ok because it was time to leave for dinner! The missionary families all took us and the Cameroon missionary family out to a Chinese restaurant as our goodbye meal. DS, our coordinator here, had some really nice words for us and about us and presented us some LCCA chitenges. We’re definitely a part of the family now. J T and I handed out our cards and our gifts to the families, and we all enjoyed our Chinese food one last time together. We also had to say goodbye to half the missionary families. Such a sad day! A great end to a quick three months….I am definitely coming back here someday. I just know it.
Well, at dinner we found out D&D were taking the Cameroon people to Vic Falls first thing in the morning, so we had to say our goodbyes tonight. Out of all the people on the mission, we were definitely the closest to, and spent the most time with, them. It was another tough goodbye. I’m going to miss my pseudo-family! DS drove us back to our house for the final night here. On my way in, I saw a message written to me saying “I miss you” signed from five or six of the kids—in the dirt on one of the cars parked outside our place. J Unfortunately, I don’t know how much sleep will happen, because it’s currently 11 pm and not all the packing is done and some other to do list things must happen before we leave here at 6:30 am tomorrow….
Well, there you have it readers. Thank you for joining me on this three month journey as I learned, loved, laughed, cried, experienced, joked, played, slept, ate, and shopped my way through Zambia. I had such a wonderful time here and I am truly grateful to DK for setting all this up. As this was just a pilot project, I hope that the wonderful experiences I had here will be an indication to continue the program for the long run. And hey, who knows, maybe I’ll be a teacher back here again one day! T and I are spending a few days in Paris before returning home to good ole Wisconsin on Wednesday night, so here ends my blog. Thanks for reading. J It will definitely be different living back in America again. Good bye Southern Hemisphere. I am excited for skim milk, texting, driving, frozen pizza, and daylight past 6:15 pm. I will not miss getting up at 5 am to turn on the water heater, dinners of sausage, and people gawking everywhere I go. But I will most definitely miss all the friendly faces on the streets, a 10 second commute, holding small children, and all the wonderful people I have met here. I will remember them all dearly. J
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