Recipes and Exams!

I know that sounds like an odd combination...and it is! Curtis and I were talking about what to Blog about today, and decided that since the kids have started their end of the term exams things have been a little quiet (that is a good thing) and we don't have any good new stories!
So, we are wondering if everyone who reads our blog could send us a recipe or two. That is something we didn't pack, and are getting bored not trying anything new! Or only request for the recipes is that they don't require unusual ingredients or take too much to make! We can buy almost everything here that we can get in the states.....we are excited to start trying some new food!
Thanks in advance!
P.S. To clarify our last blog - we have a cooker (small oven and stove) they kids meals are the ones co0ked over open fire - not ours!

A little adventure…

This morning (Wednesday) we got a phone call from the people at Protea (the Safari Lodge down the road from us) saying they had A LOT of firewood they would like to donate to us. This is a very good thing as firewood lately has been in short supply, and all the kids meals are cooked over an open fire. We loaded up the truck and some of the bigger boy and off we went.

Protea had firewood, but we had to look for it, collect it, and of course load it. This was no small job. I was out there in flip-flops, a skirt and leggings…and I came back filthy! It was fun though, and a nice change of pace. Plus, we got enough firewood to last us at least a month!

Protea is also a Safari Lodge so we got to see some of the animals there, including 4 lions! Here are three of the lions - the boys thought this was pretty cool...

Movie & popcorn

We have been having a movie night for each grade. The kids have been coming to our house on a weekend night to watch a movie and eat some popcorn. The kids absolutely love it. Last night was the last of the grades; we started with grade 7 and worked our way down to grade 1. It has been a lot of fun for Katie and me to be with the kids and just have fun like this. This whole thing started when one of the 7th graders asked if they could watch a movie, we thought it would be educational, so we said yes - but it would be the whole class....then the 6th graders wanted to know when they turn was, and so it started! Now that we finished the youngest kids, the 7th graders are asking again when they turn is!

Here is a picture of grade 4: starting from my left is Precious, Susan, Agness, Rachel, Namakau, and Ronald.

This picture is the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd grades. There are so few in each grade that we let them all come together. The one who is looking at the camera is Catherine (2^nd grade). If you can’t quite see, they are going to town on this bowl of popcorn.

Anniversary - take 2!

Curtis and I celebrated our first anniversary...we had a wonderful time! We started our anniversary (July 4) by going to the Independence Day Celebration at the US Marines House here in Zambia - what a wonderful evening. We had a chance to meet other Americans, and enjoy American food, and even some fireworks.

We spent that night in Lusaka, and then traveled on (by mini-bus - the Zambian version of a Kenya matatu) to Lake Kariba to a small town called Siavonga. We stayed at a nice lodge outside of town, very isolated - which when we normally have 60 some kids knocking at our door, was the perfect place to celebrate our anniversary. We stayed in a little bungalow right at the waters edge. The tide was very high from rainy season, so the trees closest to the water were currently in the water.

The first morning we were there we took a nice long walk around the whole area - there were many Baobab trees (Curtis' favorite)...these trees are huge, literally HUGE! These 2 pictures are each of us by a tree...and the picture can't do the tree justice, but you get the idea!

The next too are of the lake…first is another one taken on our walk. We decided that these boats were probably made from a branch from a Baobab tree. The big industry here, as with any lake, is fishing. The stuff in the boats are fishing nets. Later in the evening we saw someone on the lake in one of these boats - the boat is so small compared to a person that from the shore it looked like there was a man walking on the water! The second one was taken from our bungalow - that is how close we were to the water.

The picture of the two of us is special because we took one just like it on our honeymoon - that is the profile picture for the blog...I guess it has become a tradition! We had a wonderful time!

RATS!

Today is just a story - no pictures. But you can guess from the title what it is about - rats! At the center we have a few store rooms. One of the first projects for Curtis and I was to clean and combine two of the store rooms so we would have a clean place for our maize harvest to go. Well, since then each time we go in the rooms they get messier and messier - dumb rats! Well, I guess yesterday Debra had enough and decided to clean one of the rooms, during this she came and told me she had the box with the rat in it - so together we took the box outside and killed the rat (EW!). I went back inside to continue studying with the kids and a few minutes later a rat ran over my feet - literally! I watched it run into the room with our maize. I knew it was in there so Curtis and I both finished our studying time and rounded up some of the big boys - we moved all the bags of maize (each 50KG) between 50 and 70 bags, and then found the rat and killed it! By the end of all of us killing rats I think we killed 4...we know at least 1 got away (but it was just a baby). I guses that is one of the 'joys' of living so rural:)

On a much better and happier note: Nelson had surgery a few weeks ago...he is doing great. Last week had his stitches removed. He is back to being his happy little self! Thank you for all the prayers!