Day 24 – An Outing and a Zambian Fix

Lynne, the children and I went to visit their friends the Stemmetts on Thursday in Mpulungu (about 25 minutes drive away from Mbala. They wanted to see their newly built arty little house just 5 minutes walk away from Lake Tanganyika. It gets so hot there the family don’t even have glass in their windows only shade cloth to keep out the mosquitoes. 

Mpulungu is on another part of the Lake to Isanga Bay Lodge and is a large fishing community. Unlike the lodge, Fish Eagles are quite common.

We could see two islands from where we stood on the jetty. It’s such a huge lake, I kept thinking it was the sea!

A nice seed pod in the Stemmetts’ garden.

 

 

Over the past week, Joel and I have been bringing the old Jialing motorbike back to life. It’s been standing motionless on their farm for the past 5 years or so, gathering wasps nests.

We bought some new parts we needed in town from the local shops, but you can’t always get what you need in remote Africa. For instance, the air filter (that had had a rat crawl through and make it’s nest deep inside it) was rusted to bits. Because none of the local shops had the specific filter part we needed, we improvised with what we had and used medical gores to wrap around it.

We finally got it running (what a sense of achievement!) but the back cog was so loose the chain fell off ALL the time. Silicon had been used to hold the cogs’ pins in place but it just wasn't strong enough anymore. We very nearly went into town to buy a large amount of contact adhesive glue but Grant suggested we improvise again and melt plastic bags into the holes as a strong, cheap alternative (plastic shopping bags are free here). We could then drill holes into the hard plastic for the pins. It sounded like the best idea ever, but I had my doubts.

Joseph one of the farm workers helped us and knows about working with plastic.

Life up here involves using your initiative and using the resources you’ve got cleverly – especially when problem solving!

About 30 minutes and half a plastic maize bag later (we found these worked best), our problem was solved! Who would have thought – melted plastic bags can fix a wheel!

Day 21 – Bikes, Books, Baking, Bugs

Grant’s been doing some maintenance on his 850cc BMW motorbike since Sunday. Salty sea air is no problem here – instead It gets extremely dusty over this part of the year before the rains. His bike’s a great tool for low cost, convenient travel.

Joel and I have been cleaning up an old bike on the farm too (above – 120cc Jialing). In the next few days we want to replace the spark plug, get a new chain and do an oil change to get it running again. He’s never driven a motorbike with gears and I’ve never driven a bike at all before, so it’s a great bike to learn on.  

 

As far as home school, I’m doing Science with the three eldest (Charley, Hope and Joel) plus Charley’s History reading with her. It’s a huge job for Lynne to teach school for all five children, none being at the same level either!

School goes from right after breakfast (about 09:00) to lunch time (12:00). The children play and read in the afternoon. Science had usually been neglected because it happens right before lunch when Lynne has to cook, so my being there has been a huge help.

We’ve been doing The Body in Science, working through the American ‘Considering God’s Creation’ Book.

We did a Skeletal and Digestive system poster yesterday. It’s great fun but difficult to make the lessons applicable for all three children.

Charley, of course, stuck her poster in my Bathroom straight away for me to see.

The children also all have chores – cleaning, washing, cooking and helping on the farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lynne makes all the dairy products on the farm from the milk they get from their three beef/dairy cross cows. It’s Joel’s job to process the fresh milk, first putting it through the Separator into milk and cream. Then the milk goes into the Pasteuriser.

Here’s Lynne's butter in it’s final stages.

Six year old Olivia made Banana Bread, practically all by herself. It was really delicious! The girls do a lot of baking and Grant makes breakfast every morning and sometimes makes breakfast scones. 

Fresh Farm Rusks!

All natural food waste goes to the pigs so rubbish levels so quite low.

Unfortunately, the sick calf from two weeks ago died one night. It had in fact died of liver fluke. We were going to slaughter it anyway the next day but because it was so sick, it was buried and none of it’s meat could be used for dog feed.

 

This time of the year (maize harvest time) is an especially active time for witchcraft in the villages. The Schaefer’s two dogs are very sensitive to it and bark and howl through the night sometimes. The family’s old farm a few Kilometres away is further away from the rural villages than this farm. Numerous times while I've been here, the dogs have in fact run back to the old farm – away from the witchcraft. On Sunday night they ran away and were actually gone all Monday until we realised and Lynne drove to fetch them.

It was quite scary at first to think about the devil’s power over the villages here, but a scripture Grant spoke on at the Mwenda Conference two Sundays ago is so encouraging to me:

…He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:4

It’s a simple and powerful truth. There is no reason to be afraid.

 

Sleeping under a mosquito net every night still feels quite strange but the family is used to it after 13 years in Zambia. Evening twilight is time to come indoors and shut the windows. 

There are loads of spiders too. They’re of the harmless fly-eating kind but are still freaky, especially when they are literally everywhere you look on the walls!

OK – admittedly this was an especially crowded corner.

Another Zambian Sunset – they just never get old.