New Year Hair Cut

It really was about time for a trim...                       

So here goes..

Voila!

Christmas

Our Christmas in Choma is "the same but different" as our Christmas in Wales.

Starting with..

Morning service, celebrating with our church family.

 Including..

The children singing 'Long Time Ago in Bethlehem'

Followed by..

Christmas lunch with our friends

 Followed by..

Afternoon nap.  Yes, these children are sound asleep.  Amos is behind the house in his hammock and Bridget and Christine are sparked out on the comfy chairs in the front room.

Amos's Zambia With Some Pictures

This is my attempt at copying Bridget's blog. Saturday saw the local premier team playing the quarter finals of some cup competition in Lusaka. I decided to watch it in the local bar. It was a mistake, I was the only one there and had the place all to myself. Later I discovered that people were watching it in town. So you can see we are still living and learning and getting to know the local's culture. ps we lost on penalties.

Its church conference season and very time consuming and often tedious. Its the same everywhere. This was the church members meeting in preparation for the church conference. A low turn out and a little time consuming.

But we did get lunch. Served during the meeting.

We learn to live here by watching others. When Bridget was out and the pan was gripped by last nights meal. I just copied my friend and used a little sand to scour!

This is my newly repaired bicycle. A friend of mine (his son is in the picture) has a bicycle repair shop in the nearest compound. He is very skilled, has reasonable prices and is a friend. He has helped us a lot with various situations. One of which involved a fraudster, who was caught by the 'community', taken to the police and then said we were his financial backers. Before we realised, many people spoke up on our behave including this man. We didn't even have to go to court. The fraudster got 3 years but the money wasn't recovered. 

On a day off I used the said bike to travel down the road to a different town, Kalomo. I like to go away from the house on my day off. Here I am eating a pie, drinking coke and watching T.V.. Where ever you go, you take yourself with you and you still like to do what you liked to do!

This is the view into town from our place. Not nearly as good sunsets as in Borth. But its still pretty nice.

Life is not all fun and happiness. For some reason I am on the Local Church Board, this is because I wasn't aware enough to avoid it. So I have to do paper work for the conference. But at least it is only once a year.

The last useful thing I did. One of our friends asked if I would teach her children, and they bring their friends. This is at the end of a busy day, the sun is setting, it's a bit cold and outside our house. These children have working parents. They get themselves to class on time and although can be described as feral, they manage to sit, stand, roll about ...and even learn.

That was a little glimpse of my week. It hasn't involved close up pictures of people and stories of poverty and hardship because that's not what defines what what we do here.

Bridget's Week in Seven Pictures

It has been taking some time for us to gather pictures for the blog posts.  This is mainly because life goes on here just the same and we struggle to find something new for you.  So we have given ourselves the challenge of taking one picture a day for a week to give  an indication of normal day to day life.
Here is Bridget's offering:

Sunday

The greeting line outside church

Monday

Load-shedding has started again (no power for 4 hours a day) so the brazier is lit for tea

Tuesday

Reading with Diana in the market

Wednesday

Grade 5 grappling with the silent 'e'

Thursday
I forgot to take a picture, so I snapped Lumba taking his little nephew, Caleb, for a spin on the bicycle

Lumba and Caleb (Caleb is about 2 years old, perched on the cross-bar

 Friday

A morning walk

Saturday

Sunday lunch is delivered - goat

Unwelcome visitor

This wee beastie turned up last week.  About 6 inches long and feasting on our veg...

New class for Amos

Amos was recently asked by some of the women he reads with, if he could also teach their children.  Some of the children are not in school, others just come along for some extra help.
Here they are having a lesson outside the house. 
The reading of all of them has improved markedly in the weeks that they have been coming.

Rain, or the lack of it..

This is Choma Dam, one of two reservoirs serving Choma.  The water should be almost up to the tree line at this time of year, this picture looks as if we are just coming to the end of the dry season, not the end of the wet season. 
It is so dry that there are people in what should be the middle of the lake collecting sand for building!
This means that there will be a distinct lack of water here this year - for washing and cooking and drinking.  Already gardens have been abandoned for lack of water.

This week we have had a few days of useful rain.  However, for the harvest this is too little too late.  It will however, help to fill some of the wells used for washing and veg watering.

Drought

As many of you have heard, we have not been having good rainfall this rainy season. Southern Province has been particularly bad, there has been better rainfall in other parts of Zambia.
Here are a couple of pictures to show the result.  These were taken at the beginning of March and there has been no significant rainfall since then.  With the end of the season approaching, and harvest coming soon, you can see that the situation is not good, particularly for those families who just have a small plot of land where they grow the maize that usually keeps them for at least part of the year.

This is a patch of very sad looking ground nuts, with some wilting pumpkins amongst them.

A field of maize. This should be tall and dark green, with some good cobs forming by now.

Spelling

This is a little taste of Zambian spelling:

Tiling?  You'll need some Bull Nose Grount!  A very common mistake, adding an 'n' after the final vowell

Space-Age Solutions?

Combination of Zambian and American spelling

Tairoring done here.  Another common error - changing 'l' for 'r' and the other way round

Brown-hooded Kingfisher

Happy New Year Everyone
This is my favourite picture from 2018



Brown-hooded kingfisher leaving its nest hole