Homemade Safari

(From July 11, 2006) Sorry it has taken so long to write, this is the first opportunity we've had to use a computer in almost 3 months! Work has started to pick up for us lately. It is not at the pace of America yet, but I'm sure it probably never will be:) We have had opportunities to ride out and visit numerous community schools to introduce ourselves and our work. The basic issues we've been encountering have been similar. Since the schools basically run themselves with very little government help they have problems with teacher payment and support, teaching and learning resource material availability, and school struturly problems. So we hope that in our time here we will be able to work with some of these issues and better link the communities with resources and help them learn how to make the most of their existing resources. But seriously now, mostly what we do here is play. A few weeks back there was a group of missionaries here from Philedelphia. They built a church building and then had a pastors conference in the new building before heading home. We had the opportunity to work a bit with them and get to know them. They were wonderful. And we also went to the pastors conference and it was great to hear some sermons in English! One day, while we were th4ere, we saw our first black mamba. A local chopped off it shead before it was able to eat us though. Then, just last week we decided since we are in Africa we should go try to find some animals. So, we had our own Pee Wee's Big Adventure (a movie in case you don't know). A huge national park is about 60 miles from us so we left one morning at about 7 with a tent and some food and started out on our bikes. The riding wasn't too bad until the road pretty much turned into a beach. The sand was so bad we had to walk for over an hour. Finally though, we reached a random market that sold rolls when it was starting to get dark. We asked a village person if there was anywhere we could pitch our tent and since people are wonderful here he brought us to his house, we pitched our tent, he fed us buffalo, made us a bath, and even gave us tea before bed. And then, it just so happened that staying in that same village that night was a national park ranger. So the next morning he took us to his work, strapped on his AK-47 and became our personal safari guide. We went right to the Lunga River Lodge workers camp. We were going to pitch our tent there but one of the workers thought we should meet the lodge managers (This is a $ 400 a night place) We weren't looking so classy after our day and a half of writing but met them anyway. The owners then insisted that we stay in a spare sweet for their pilots (beautiful room) and have the workers make us the same meals the guests were having. And then they had us go to the bar and grab a coke on them. We were singing many praises at thie point to our wonderful lord:) The next morning we went out with our guide and saw some impala, hippo, wart hogs, monkeys, and a few other things. After our biking safari our guide took us to a nearby copper mine to see if maybe we could hitch a ride back with one of the trucks back to our town. There were no more trucks going that evening so we thought we'd pitch our tent but lo and behold the owner put us in a guest house with satelite tv, a basketball court, and pool table. We humbly accepted. Next morning after some wonderful omlettes prepared by the chef we road back to Kasempa. Our lege were very happy not to have to bike back and our hearts and minds were weirded out at how this bushy bike advernture turned into a luxury outing. God is Good!!!