Christmas on another continent.

This Christmas is an extra special one especially for me. Instead of moping about sad because my family is on the other side of the planet gorging themselves on crab, chocolate fondue, and lemon meringue pie (this may not be the usual Christmas foods it's just what i'm craving right now) I got the best present I could ever receive. My beloved SISTER came to visit me over Christmas and new years!!! It was definitely one of the happiest moments I have ever had picking her up at the airport I was that person you see who makes a giant madly hopping, squealing scene and yet has no shame! My wonderful parents sent her over to me as a present to the both of us. If I have never said this before I will say it again... I have the best parents a girl could ask for. No lies! 

This is us just off the long sweaty bus ride and for some reason taking a picture of ourselves in this condition seemed like a good idea...

The one in the stripes belongs to me for the holidays! She is the one sitting beneath the cunningly devised Christmas tree that has been cut out of Zambian material and sticky tacked to the wall.  Awesome? Oh yes. 

It has been so much fun having my sister here I feel like I haven't laughed this hard in years my abs elusive stomach muscles are actually hurting! 

"Move OVER!" "Haha where shall I go??" 

I thought it would be a great idea to have a pool in the back yard so Georgia and I could lay in it and get our tan on.. unfortunately I thought we were smaller than we actually are in real life. 

Liz is currently thinking, "What the deuce were they thinking?" WELL don't for a minute think that a small detail like a microscopic pool is going to phase two sweaty determined ladies!

So of course with a bit of shimmying we managed to fit quite snugly. Noooo problem. 

Yesterday we went to a Christmas party at the Village with all the house mothers and that was really fun lot's of African dancing (they were showing us how to "shake it") and singing and eating oh Lord I wasn't even hungry the next day. Georgia got to try the local dish of nshima a corn based porridge-like food, the staple diet of Zambia. She said it tasted like skin and so we subtly exchange coal slaw for nshima. And a good time was had by all! 

It is very late here right now and  we have to be up at four-thirty to jump on the bus headed to Livingstone to see the famous Victoria falls. I know what a rough life! We also have a date with the Chobi national park on Christmas day we are doing a river cruise and a game drive! Yes you are definitely supposed to be very green in the face with envy right now. 

But I am hoping your Christmas is very white filled with families in good humor and tables full of food to get your holiday girth on! 

Merry Christmas and have a very happy New Years! 

Clothing Distribution day

Thursday and Friday was clothing distribution day at the Village of Hope so alas I did not have classes. One reason being they needed my large sewing tables aaaand I don't think I would have any student show up anyways as they would all be attending the clothing craziness...

The throng.

There were over 900 students present over the course of the two days and each were allowed to take four pieces of clothing... that is over 3600 pieces I just figured out using a calculator in my head holy grail that is a lot! 

Believe it or not this place was actually organized at one point but then the girls came and all playing and pillaging broke loose. I tried to create some semblance of an order with the girls stuff sorting bottoms from tops but that lasted all of twenty minutes sooooo I just gave up and had fun suggesting stuff for the girls and rooting through it myself.

The guys were slightly more chilled than the girls it seemed. But our gender is always a little crazy when it comes to rad deals and of course free clothing.

It all felt vaguely familiar for some reason... and then it came to me, this reminded me of 50% off day at Value Village and of course of myself and my fantastic scrounging skills! Oooh VV Boutique how I miss thee and thy glorious pillaging playground!

And in other news:

It is stinkin HOT here today so I am going to have a cold shower Hooraah!

On the rooooad again

I have a brand new pretty picture for my blog! I love it and best of all it's in Zambia and in the Village of Hope van so it's kinda going with the whole 'living in Africa' theme I got goin on. Faaaantastic.
Picture compliments of Rachel Chapman beautiful lady, avid photographer, and rad roomie!

I know what your thinking - This girl has been in Africa for seven months and she still looks like angel food cake! I AM WORKING ON IT !! It has taken me this long to look like that! Just have some patience I will try to look like black forest cake by the time I come home.
Recently in the beautiful country of Zambia it has been a wee bit chilly. Chilly being sometimes twenty-five degrees yeah I know get the parkas and ear muffs!! But that's almost what happens here so I wasn't actually lying about that. I put on a light sweater and I see people putting their coats and tuques on, I know I have acclimatized somewhat but definitely not there yet I still appreciate the cold days and do welcome them heartily! I just checked the weather forecast and it is rainy and stormy down the board and you do not know how happy that makes me :) I think that my body is thinking "Uhm where's the snow?? This is weird." So the cold is welcome. I will definitely miss snowboarding this year but I will of course live... and get my sun tan on instead HAH! Black forest cake here I come, I am jealous of your snow but thinking of you wanting my sun makes me feel better. :)

Jerry

There was a very unfortunate incident one night when I accidentally smoked Jerry in the face with my foot! He fell over and broke one horns off and his other ear, he was already missing an ear and so then he looked like he was flipping the bird to everyone with his head. Talented giraffe. 

I finally bought some glue the other day and fixed up his noggin he's bandaged up in the picture. But I thought the poor veteran should have a family portrait, it was the least I could do after dismembering the guy. 

Raaawrrr.. clop clop.. grunt... snap... crackle.. run

Well HELLOOOooo there!! I have not seen this blog in quite awhile! Just what would be the reason you might ask? Well friends, family and friendly fresh water fishes I have been having adventures and frankly have been having way too much fun without the interwebs so my apology is only directed at you who are missing my little updatios. First time viewers my updatios are circular in physicality and taste something like cheerios only better.
Yes, admittedly I am rambling but this is what blogs are for it's the compelling factor right? Right? Actually probably not I think in reality you might want to hear something solid and chew-able so just don't let your cheerios sit in your milk for very long or they'll taste like sugary sponges. Eat quickly!

My week has been filled with unexpected stuff well like always really, no surprise there. You never really know what your week or even your day might bring here in Zambia so it is best to not plan to far in advance and if you are planning on doing missions in the future please do grow a sense of humor it will save your bacon. I HAVE NOT HAD BACON IN SO LONG. Bacon, bacon, bacon. OK let's focus. Still loving it in this beautiful country and man am I wondering again how I am ever going to leave. I just realized this today.. today marks almost exactly four months until I pick up my life again and move back to the mother land! So weird. You do not know how fast time goes until you take a look back. My life may or may not be very weird without this place, definitely at first.

I have been working now with the grade elevens from the community school in the Village of Hope and am liking it, I have noticed more of a desire and earnestness to learn in these students. I think they are very appreciative that they also get the opportunity to get some more skills and I am very glad that I get to teach them.

Their first task is to draw squiggles and lines on paper then take it to the sewing machine to practice their machine control before starting using thread.

This girl on her first day in the class was already designing away. 

This was my very first group, I have three groups from Wednesday to Friday broken up but roughly I have about thirty eight new students. Soon these three groups will be starting to make tote bags and then on to aprons.

Last Tuesday I got back from a nice little jaunt in the South Luangwa National Park in northern Zambia. Some rad friends of mine had an extra seat in their truck so they invited me along it was so much fun! I finally got to see some African wild life Hallelujerr! We slept in safari tents which are basically large tents you can stand up in and have an open washroom at the back. Yes the washroom area has walls but that really didn't help me with my neighbors, they got some sneak previews through a gaping hole in between the tent and the washroom walls yep, the opposite of fun right there. It was in the middle of a 'Swiss Family Robinson moment' feeling like I was in that movie having a shower under a water fall, where in actuality I was right where I was, with a gaping hole in my bathroom and a large gap in my partition... Right at that moment I heard a small voice... ''Uhm Laura? I'm just gonna close your tent flaps here, you are giving a show to the hippos.'' Wonderful. Swiss Family Robinson moment gone.

Since it's been way too long since I last blogged I have a present for you!.......

Zebra bums!! Oh, you are welcome. Alright ill give you a good one. 

What did the the female lion say to her husband when he came home late?
Quit lion around! haaaha ok that was a bad one..
Why can no one trust a lion?
Cause they're always lion duhh.

(Lion jokes dedicated to Savvs the punnyest of them all:)


Talk to ya later folks!

I ain't seen better days.

So I am just gonna break this down for ya right here. This is a call to praise the God who cares so much about us that even the little things he blesses us with when we are abiding in him and totally relying on HIM who is completely, hook-line-and-sinker, able to anything and everything so tell me... why would you not want to know that chap??? Please do tell me.

Also I have been sweating for a week solid. yup. You guys and your almost-snowing-season crap, CRAP I TELL YOU!! ( I am a jealous Judy) But as a bonus I am showering a lot more! Welcome to an African summer!!

I had the best day today ever actually. Well except for one time on a road trip my sister and I attacked a deep and delicious chocolate cake using only our faces. That was pretty awesome and a serious runner up to this day.

Lets start off this little narrative with a not so good morning... well actually it was a good morning before I left for the Village of Hope, my hair was doing what I wanted it to, the shower water was only slightly beige, all seemed most tranquil..
I get to the Village and dang it if I forgot to charge my lap-top battery so I went a-hunting for a plug that will fit our weird looking ones. Discovery was made and I proceeded to plug it in and start the charge. Only problem was that this plug was broken and decided that it would completely fry my lap-top cable hoooraaayyy NOT a happy camper actually that is an understatement I felt like a camper that just got his tent mauled by a bear stepped in the bear poo and then it started raining and then he was attacked by fifteen malaria carrying mosquitoes that is a bad day.
My first thoughts were well I can no longer talk on skype to my family can't talk to any of my friends, updating everyone including my church on what is going on is out the window. Also facebook like seriously. I can't do my work on my laptop and I cannot access any of my files as my computer is dead aaaand no cord to charge with. It would also be impossible to get another cable here as I am stuck in Africa! These were my first few thoughts and they all seriously sucked!
My next thought (which I wish was my first) was that God is totally above all things and is completely able, he knows I need my lap-top for work and for general life activities and he also know I still have another five months left that I need my lap top for!!! So I got Liz and was slightly maybe tearing up at the thought of not being able to skype with my family or be able to love my lappy anymore and we layed hands on that cable and started praying our hearts out. Right after that I felt like God was totally there, it was so great I felt like it was so stupid of me to ever even worry and that it was going to be all ok I just had this awesome peace.

I went to teach my class and just focused on them for the next two hours we had a great class I have just started teaching the grade elevens from the community school and they were so excited that they had the opportunity to be there. We had a rad time.

I got home later and man I dunno it was great I was feeling so good and confident that God had healed my laptop cord so I plugged it in right away and waited anxiously for it to start up. And YES you guessed it folks God had TOTALLY healed my computer cable it started charging right away so right now I am typing a super amazing praise report on my lappy to tell you that my God is great and he cares about us so much that even the little things he wants to help us with. Thank you God for increasing my faith you are so good and oh so faithful. I love you.

Ephesians 3:20
GO, GO READ IT. RIGHT NOW.

PS Just finished my day with coffee and a lemon meringue square Hallelujerr!!