Bush Camp Reflections
Not sure if this will make it to just one post. There was a lot of action at bush camp and I am sure I will remember other things to share in a few days. As we prepared to depart Lusaka, we were all reminded "this is Africa" (TIA). Our bus showed up 2 hours late and apparently was not the bus that was ordered but we all piled in anyway and set off for new adventures. The ride was fairly uneventful and as we were riding through the countryside of Zambia, I was amazed at how the landscape reminded me so much of Northwest Arkansas. Of course there were grass huts and elephant grass everywhere but the mountains/hills looked so familiar.
We arrived in Petauke late in the afternoon and were pleasantly surprised at our accommodations. We had 2 tents facing each other with a small landing between them, there was a lot of space. This was a good thing since we had just left dorm style living arrangements. It was also much nicer than the tent we threw away last summer! :-)
Now to describe the toilets...please do not read this if you are eating! There were several "outhouses", complete with a hole in the ground. The staff who prepared camp graciously covered the stalls with a shower curtain and reed mat for the door so thankfully it was semi-private when you did your business. I was okay with this arrangement until 3 a.m. when I had to go! Unfortunately, our director did not warn us about shining a flashlight down the hole. Being the curious American that I am, I wanted to make sure nothing was going to surprise me when I squatted. Well, this was a BIG mistake! I shined the light down the hole and saw movement...now this hole is probably about 10-12 feet deep and the movement was near the top. So, I took a closer look and suddenly a bat flew out at me!!! I thought I was going to have a heart attack as I ran, yes ran, back to the tent. I woke Tim up with my heavy breathing and made him go and look to see if they were still there. There was an entire family of bats living in the toilet!!! Over the next several days, I got used to them being there...I did not use it at night, that was just too weird but I could hear their wings flapping during the day. Using the choo (toilet) bucket in the tent was also a great adventure.
Another new adventure was the outdoor showers. They were pretty fancy for the girls, not so for the boys. The girls had canvas panels surrounding the showers and there was a bucket with a shower head attached and a rope/pulley system to raise and lower the bucket. First we went to the borehole to pump our water and carried it back to the shower area, if I wanted a warm shower, I had to heat my water on the fire that was kept going all day nearby. I tried setting our buckets out in the sun all day to heat the water and that did okay but it was much cooler during the day than I expected so the water was still pretty chilly. The boys mainly took bucket showers and we usually bathed Nathan at the tent in our laundry basin.
Thankfully, there were some local women from the village who are willing to do laundry. So I paid them to wash our clothes...no, I did not have a maid! It was well worth the money...do you know how long it takes to wash laundry by hand for a family of five??? These ladies did it in a fraction of the time it would have taken me. I was able to focus on our cultural assignments instead of survival. I am very thankful that the program is not about survival anymore, I think I would have failed!
The staff took great care of us and I appreciate all of the work they did for us to make our experience easier. Don't get me wrong, there were many moments when I was ready to go home...TIA! Life is very different, even with a nice tent.
Not sure if I ever mentioned the participants of 40/40 but there were 4 families and 8 single women. We were in Richmond with most of the participants so it was a very sweet reunion. The kids had a great time together and we love them all.
Every day, we had a cultural assignment. The assignments in Petauke were to show us how to interact with people in rural Africa. We learned that everything is about relationships, this is also true in the city but it is super important in the bush. Our first assignment was to go out and meet government officials, it was interesting and very formal.
The next day was about meeting tribal leaders, we had tea with the senior chiefs wife. In the bush, it is very important to contact the proper person of authority to gain access to certain areas. For instance, we were in an area of many villages and each village has a headman who reports to a chief. These chiefs then report up to a head chief. Many days when we went out to villages, we would first seek out the headman or headwoman to show our respect and let them know we were in the area. I am sure the boundaries between tribal authority and government authority is very clear to Africans, but I am still quite confused about it all.
Another day, we had the assignment to go out and talk to people about sickness and illness. What do they do when their child gets sick. The main idea was to find out if people chose to go to the witch doctor (traditional healer) or the local clinic. Interestingly, no one actually admitted to going to the traditional healer but we talked to the daughter of one. I can honestly say at one point during our conversation I was completely speechless. We asked where her mother got her power from and she said, "from 4 spirits, 2 from the devil and 2 from the Holy Spirit". When I commented that we do not believe that the 2 coexist within a person, she quickly changed and said 2 of them come from ancestors...I was not clear as to which 2 she was referring to! It was a very oppressive moment, I felt this woman crying out silently for help and we prayed for her in the name of Jesus that she would understand the truth. It seemed that she did not want to let us leave and we felt very strange. Apparently, the gift of healing is passed down in the family and she has been chosen as the one to be her mothers apprentice. She has lost one child and another of her children was lying at her feet battling malaria. I cannot express all of the feelings I have about this encounter, it was overwhelming and I am just praying that the Lord will reveal the truth to her.
The people of Africa live in constant fear and the spiritual darkness is overwhelming. As Americans, sin is understood as being wrong but here, the people fear for their lives; they fear that their ancestors/family/friends/neighbors will put a curse on them. Whenever someone dies, they seek to blame someone for it, so there is a lot of pressure to attend the funeral of someone you know. If you do not come to pay your respects to the family, you could be accused of casting a spell on them that resulted in their death.
When a woman is pregnant, no one acknowledges the pregnancy. The baby is not considered human until after it is born and has survived several months. They do not recognize God as the giver of life and He is the one who decides the number of days you have.
Please pray for the people of Africa, that the darkness and lies of Satan will be shattered by the gospel of Jesus Christ!
We arrived in Petauke late in the afternoon and were pleasantly surprised at our accommodations. We had 2 tents facing each other with a small landing between them, there was a lot of space. This was a good thing since we had just left dorm style living arrangements. It was also much nicer than the tent we threw away last summer! :-)
Now to describe the toilets...please do not read this if you are eating! There were several "outhouses", complete with a hole in the ground. The staff who prepared camp graciously covered the stalls with a shower curtain and reed mat for the door so thankfully it was semi-private when you did your business. I was okay with this arrangement until 3 a.m. when I had to go! Unfortunately, our director did not warn us about shining a flashlight down the hole. Being the curious American that I am, I wanted to make sure nothing was going to surprise me when I squatted. Well, this was a BIG mistake! I shined the light down the hole and saw movement...now this hole is probably about 10-12 feet deep and the movement was near the top. So, I took a closer look and suddenly a bat flew out at me!!! I thought I was going to have a heart attack as I ran, yes ran, back to the tent. I woke Tim up with my heavy breathing and made him go and look to see if they were still there. There was an entire family of bats living in the toilet!!! Over the next several days, I got used to them being there...I did not use it at night, that was just too weird but I could hear their wings flapping during the day. Using the choo (toilet) bucket in the tent was also a great adventure.
Another new adventure was the outdoor showers. They were pretty fancy for the girls, not so for the boys. The girls had canvas panels surrounding the showers and there was a bucket with a shower head attached and a rope/pulley system to raise and lower the bucket. First we went to the borehole to pump our water and carried it back to the shower area, if I wanted a warm shower, I had to heat my water on the fire that was kept going all day nearby. I tried setting our buckets out in the sun all day to heat the water and that did okay but it was much cooler during the day than I expected so the water was still pretty chilly. The boys mainly took bucket showers and we usually bathed Nathan at the tent in our laundry basin.
Thankfully, there were some local women from the village who are willing to do laundry. So I paid them to wash our clothes...no, I did not have a maid! It was well worth the money...do you know how long it takes to wash laundry by hand for a family of five??? These ladies did it in a fraction of the time it would have taken me. I was able to focus on our cultural assignments instead of survival. I am very thankful that the program is not about survival anymore, I think I would have failed!
The staff took great care of us and I appreciate all of the work they did for us to make our experience easier. Don't get me wrong, there were many moments when I was ready to go home...TIA! Life is very different, even with a nice tent.
Not sure if I ever mentioned the participants of 40/40 but there were 4 families and 8 single women. We were in Richmond with most of the participants so it was a very sweet reunion. The kids had a great time together and we love them all.
Every day, we had a cultural assignment. The assignments in Petauke were to show us how to interact with people in rural Africa. We learned that everything is about relationships, this is also true in the city but it is super important in the bush. Our first assignment was to go out and meet government officials, it was interesting and very formal.
The next day was about meeting tribal leaders, we had tea with the senior chiefs wife. In the bush, it is very important to contact the proper person of authority to gain access to certain areas. For instance, we were in an area of many villages and each village has a headman who reports to a chief. These chiefs then report up to a head chief. Many days when we went out to villages, we would first seek out the headman or headwoman to show our respect and let them know we were in the area. I am sure the boundaries between tribal authority and government authority is very clear to Africans, but I am still quite confused about it all.
Another day, we had the assignment to go out and talk to people about sickness and illness. What do they do when their child gets sick. The main idea was to find out if people chose to go to the witch doctor (traditional healer) or the local clinic. Interestingly, no one actually admitted to going to the traditional healer but we talked to the daughter of one. I can honestly say at one point during our conversation I was completely speechless. We asked where her mother got her power from and she said, "from 4 spirits, 2 from the devil and 2 from the Holy Spirit". When I commented that we do not believe that the 2 coexist within a person, she quickly changed and said 2 of them come from ancestors...I was not clear as to which 2 she was referring to! It was a very oppressive moment, I felt this woman crying out silently for help and we prayed for her in the name of Jesus that she would understand the truth. It seemed that she did not want to let us leave and we felt very strange. Apparently, the gift of healing is passed down in the family and she has been chosen as the one to be her mothers apprentice. She has lost one child and another of her children was lying at her feet battling malaria. I cannot express all of the feelings I have about this encounter, it was overwhelming and I am just praying that the Lord will reveal the truth to her.
The people of Africa live in constant fear and the spiritual darkness is overwhelming. As Americans, sin is understood as being wrong but here, the people fear for their lives; they fear that their ancestors/family/friends/neighbors will put a curse on them. Whenever someone dies, they seek to blame someone for it, so there is a lot of pressure to attend the funeral of someone you know. If you do not come to pay your respects to the family, you could be accused of casting a spell on them that resulted in their death.
When a woman is pregnant, no one acknowledges the pregnancy. The baby is not considered human until after it is born and has survived several months. They do not recognize God as the giver of life and He is the one who decides the number of days you have.
Please pray for the people of Africa, that the darkness and lies of Satan will be shattered by the gospel of Jesus Christ!
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