Soggy Zambia

We prayed for rain last week after the sponsored students had planted next year's maize crop. And God has answered this week with much rain! Richard drove by the field today and it's growing! Cynthia (one of our sponsored students) and I weeded our smaller maize patch today and some of it is already past my knees. (and so are the weeds!!)

It's interesting how the whole landscape has changed—both flora and fauna! (How do you like that vocabulary!!) The frogs have multiplied by the zillions and Winnie showed me a tortoise in the garden this morning—they like wet places! The grasses, bushes and trees are growing so fast! Some roads are even more difficult to drive because of the trees that hang over onto the road. Everywhere we go there is new growth and so much green! I regularly think of home—so much white—I think I like the green!

The downside is that the power goes off regularly! Over the past week it was off half the time! So, we cook outside, don't do laundry, take cold baths, conserve water—because it was also shut down, and get a wee bit concerned about the meat and other things going bad in the freezer. Telephone and e-mail were also down because we couldn't charge up batteries! But we survived! Many here live without power and running water every day of their lives. And they don't use e-mail—but many have cell phones!

Construction of additional classroom blocks at Katungu and Siabalumbi is still happening, but at a slower pace, due to rain. Siabalumbi has caught up and even passed Katungu in its stage of construction, but the quality is much better at Katungu. Siabalumbi could have used a better general contractor; he's not much into detail!