Christmas Assembly

Wow! Two posts in one day!

This one will be short, but with a few pictures.  On the last day of school we had a Christmas assembly.  It was an awesome show.  It was sort of a musical about Sherlock Holmes.  The setting was in Bethlehem at the time that Jesus was born.  Sherlock is trying to figure out where and when Jesus is born.

After the play Mylon was Father Christmas and gave out gifts to the grades 1-2 and candy canes to other kids. Check it out.

Christmas Plans

I guess I should share a little about our plans for Christmas. We have about four weeks off. So obviously we have to get off the school property and visit stuff!

We are staying here for the first week. Mylon will be busy with others setting tiles in the main kitchen and dining hall. After that, we'll be heading to go to South Africa for about three weeks. This should turn out to be an awesome trip. We have a lot of things planned and a lot of days unplanned. So it will be fun and relaxing. We are going to the Lion Park in Johannesburg. That is where you go to pet baby lion and see other animals and go on game drives. We will be camping there for one night. We are also going on a 4-day camping trip to Kruger Park. It's the largest game reserve in Africa with many animals, including Africa's Big Five (lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros).

After that, we are taking a very long bus ride to Cape Town. There we will spend about two weeks (in a nicer hotel for Christmas then a cheap hostel afterwards). Going to the beach, shopping, climb Table Mountain etc. There are a lot of things to do there. I can't wait. But at the same time, the school term is ending very quickly! I can't believe it is done this Wednesday.

I was busy reviewing all the report cards today before printing them. There are practises for the end of term show, lots of visitors to prepare for.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. I don't know how much blogging I will post while we are on vacation.

Take care.   

Sable antelope

Oh boy. Ok I'm getting behind. It seems like not a whole lot changes around here and there hasn't been much to write about. But I guess there's a few things to talk about. A few weeks ago, Mylon and I went to our neighbour's place, who own a game park. They have many different animals, including sable. Here's a picture of them. Also, a picture of two male sables fighting over the ladies. It was pretty neat to see! And we weren't far away!

Anyways. So on this particular day, we took a day off school to help with capturing the sables for transfer. So there was a vet driving around shooting tranquilizers into the sables. Then a group of workers from the farm would pick them up and put them in the back of a safari-type vehicle, and they brought the animal to the transport. All together, they would lift the animal, put it in a compartment and then I would scan the tag, and Mylon and I both injected the sables in the butt full of sedatives. They had a long drive ahead of them. Here's us and our tools :)

We are so lucky that we live close to these wonderful people. We get to try new things that we would never otherwise dream of doing. It's so neat to work beside these animals.

I will write another blog very shortly about other things. Take it easy!

And Happy December!

SCARY!

I just had my most scary moment so far here in Africa. I was carrying a load of things back to my house just before lunch so that I wouldn't have to bring it all later. And I got to my door and this is what I saw. Luckily, one of the things I was carrying was my camera. So I took a picture and went and found a maintenance worker who had a shovel and he came and killed it for me. I think my heart is still racing. I'm just so thankful that it wasn't inside my house! After the worker killed it, he showed me underneath the spider, you can see the red fangs where the spider would poison you. Another worker said if it bites you, you will be “paining for a long time”. I'm not sure if it's a tarantula. The locals said it is poisonous like a snake or scorpion. Thanks to God for watching over us! (I don't even want to look at this picture.)

KALENE

This weekend I finally went up to Kalene for a short visit. I stayed at a lady's house who is also from Kapuskasing. It was so nice to go visit, it was long over-due. She took such good care of me. I had amazing pizza when I got there a delicious full home-cooked meal for supper. And the next day for lunch we had bacon, sausage, omelet, home-fries and toast. It was so good to have foods that i haven't had since I left Canada. I also got to have a hot shower which was a treat itself. At our place here at Sakeji we only have a bath and the water is heated by solar panels so when it's raining and cloudy, it's much colder outside and then there is no hot water. (This week we've had to boil pots of water to pour into our baths.)

So in Kalene, I got the grand tour of the hospital there. It was much bigger than I thought. And the lab: much smaller. I took a few pictures, so here they are:

For my nerdy lab friends:

The lab is very small because the money is just not there to operate as a full lab. What I understand is they do CBCs, ESRs and cross-matches. I tried to ask what they do if someone has an antibody but I'm not even certain that they do an antibody screen. I could be wrong, the lab tech was difficult to understand, but I didn't see anything that would indicate that they do. They also do ZN stains and Gram stains, but that is it for micro. There is zero chemistry department. I know they do screening tests for HIV. Maybe urinalysis. But I think that's it. Here is a few pictures of the lab.

The road to Kalene was very bumpy and full of pot holes and puddles. It a terrible road, but probably still not the worst it the area. I think we went about 40km/hr on the smooth parts. So a 15km drive took almost an hour. Luckily the weather was good. On the way there there was a puddle no the side of the road and as we got closer, two little pigs crawled out of it. They were so cute! My camera was packed away in the back though.

At the hospital, we went into the children's ward and as soon as a little girl (maybe about 1-2 years old) saw us she started screaming her head off. I thought it was quite hilarious. Kind of made me feel like a huge monster to her or something. But apparently people will sort of threaten their kids when they are being bad that they will take them to the hospital and the white people will give them a needle. So they think we are bad and scary people. It probably worked better before because the staff was all missionaries, but now they are getting more and more Zambian staff, so that will change around a little little.

Sunday we went to church in the morning, which was really neat. I think it's the biggest church I been to around here so far. And everything was translated into English so I could understand what was going on which was nice. After we went back to the house and had our delicious bacon and egg lunch and then relaxed and watched a very sad movie about a dog. Then we went for a short walk to the Orchard Get-a-way. It's a lively place to stay for a weekend with fruit trees, a nice pool and a house-type place which reminds me of a cottage. Maybe one day we will go there. We'll see. I took some pictures of the fruit trees but I will post those another time because it takes so long to upload pictures.

So I guess that will be all for now. Mylon didn't come with me, he stayed in at Sakeji and read his book and went to a friend's to play video games lol. So I don't think he even missed me at all!

Talk to you later. Bye.

Chickens etc.

Oct. 20

This term, one kid came back from his holidays with the chicken pox. Guess what happened. Yeah. Then there was 3, then 6.....now about 22 kids have the chicken pox. And wow, I have never seen so many chicken pox dots on people. And they look sooo painful. I feel very bad for everyone who has the chicken pox here. They are itching an crying all the time. They also use a LOT of calamine lotion. They basically paint their entire faces with it, and arms....and the rest is covered in clothes, but I assume it's all over. I think they should make a calamine lotion that is a dark brown colour, because they are all dark-skinned and have light pink lotion all over. Anyways. Just an idea for someone who want to visit the Dragon's Den I guess.

On another note, about chickens. Here at Sakeji, we raise our own chickens. I guess it saves money in the long run. Yesterday was killing time. So Friday afternoon, instead of playing games, the senior students have to help out with that. Here's some pictures that I took. I didn't get a finger dirty. I'm not there yet. I think they kill chickens once a term. So I have another chance next term. Maybe I'll just take more pictures though. It looked really really gross.

Oh, and after the chicken killing, a jackal came around. They are not common to see as they are very shy dogs. Somebody told me they only come around where people are when they are rabid. So everyone was a little worried. I think it smelled the chicken stew we were making. They haven't caught it, and I think it's gone now. They did leave out some meat with poison (rat poison maybe??) But I haven't been updated with the story. Time for my rabies shot I think though.

Well this is my weekend off. I'm going to have a work out, probably read a book and have a nice afternoon.

Have a nice weekend everybody.

Weekend fun

Oct. 13^th

This weekend we went over to a neighbour's place. They are very nice people and they own a wildlife reserve. We've seen many animals there, including zebras, sable, buffalo, etc. The first time we went over we went on a drive to see the animals. It was really fun, but it came to a quick stop when it started to pour. So we took a break in a chota, then went it was time to head back home for dinner anyways. The second time, which was this weekend, we planned on having a target shooting competition, girls against boys. I've never shot a gun before, so that was cool. Girls won. Then we went back to their place to have a quick swim and play volleyball. Then we had birthday cake and tea on the porch while we watched another storm. It's been storming a little more often now.

It's always fun to go visit them. They are a lot of fun and it's always nice to get off the school grounds and just hang out with people closer to your own age.

Here's a few pictures.

Electrical Storms

October 15, 2012

We just finished our mid-term weekend. It was pretty fun. The kids went tubing down the river, lots of swimming and playing in the playground, games, and sweets. Sleeping in was also very nice.

For the adults, they had a zip line set up over the pool. So you climb this big ant hill, then get a hold of the zip line thing and hang on and then let go over the pool. It was cool. It was a really hot day so it was really nice and refreshing.

It's really starting to rain more. The storms here are quite violent. The other day we had hail with the storm. I managed to take a few pictures.

I'm told that the Discovery Chanel was here two years ago filming an electrical storm (One of the crew actually got struck by lightning!) They are one of the worst in the world, as we are so close to the Congo Basin. I have never heard thunder so loud. And the lightning strikes are almost frightening. But I do enjoy them. It's pretty much impossible to sleep through though, so if it storms at night, everyone is cranky the next morning!

Also, the ground here is very red. I think it's very rich in iron or another metal, I forget. But it makes it very difficult to ground electricity. So when there's a storm, if it's really bad, sometimes you see you plug-ins spark. So you can't have anything plugged in during a storm. Many people have fried lap tops and other things because of this. It's pretty crazy.

Well I will keep this short for now. I need to get back to work.   

Students at Sakeji

Here's a few pictures of some students at Sakeji. Mylon and I spend a lot of time with the Juniors (Grade 1-4) So most of these pictures are the younger kids.  There are about 75 kids who go to this school.  

News from October 8, 2012

October 8, 2012

Hi Everyone,

We haven't had internet in over a week now. So if you haven't heard from us, that is why. First we were told something went down in Kenya, and that was why it was down. But days later we found out that our provider actually went bankrupt. So we had to get hooked up with another company and things don't happen that quickly here in Zambia.

So we've had a lot of time to read in the evening, which is nice.

We were hoping to plan our Christmas vacation last weekend, but now we have to wait. We were debating whether we should climb Mount Kilimanjaro, or visit South Africa. So I think we've made our decision. We're leaning more towards the South African choice. I think it will be a little cheaper and longer and we will do a lot of different thing. I will let you know our Christmas plans when I actually have things booked. But we plan on spending time in Jo-burg, the Kruger National Park and Cape Town. I'm super excited :)

Here at Sakeji, we've been keeping busy, as usual. We had a term birthday party last Wednesday. The term birthday party is a party once per semester and it celebrates everyone's birthday that falls in that term. So this was for September to December birthdays. The theme was Wonders of the World.

So the day before the party, the ladies who were available and some came over from Kalene (a village less than 1 hour away) got together to decorate cakes. I decorated a cake with Northern lights (it did not look like Northern Lights lol) and there was about a dozen other cakes decorated by others, all Wonders of the World. We also decorated the eating hall and assembly hall with balloons and crafts the kids made in art class.

The party starts at supper, where we had a delicious meal of fried chicken, potato wedges and other vegetables. Then we have home-made ice cream and cake for dessert. The kids all get a gift bag with a small toy and a few sweets. Once everyone is beyond satisfied, we head into the assembly hall. Mylon and I were the M.C.'s. (Everyone has to do some M.C.'ing at some point, so we figured this was better than the term-end party and it would be pretty easy anyways.) We didn't have a lot of work to do as we mostly just announce which group of kids is coming up to perform. We had skits, guitar, choir, poems and songs. In addition, all the adults have to dress up as a Wonder of the World. Mylon and I were a Great Pyramid (we each were half). It was an easy costume that didn't require a lot of materials.

All in all it was a great night and everyone was happy. I think Thursday morning was a little rough for the kids though. Too much sugar the night before!

This coming weekend will be Mid-term. Basically the kids don't have class Friday and it's all fun and games starting Thursday evening through to Sunday. All the kids look forward to it. Breakfast is also a little later, so everyone can sleep in a bit.

Well I better go before I bore everyone. Sorry if anyone has e-mailed us and we haven’t' replied. I'm not sure how fast catching up will be as many people will need the internet here when it is back up and it might just be running too slow.

Thanks to all of those who are keeping us in your prayers. So far the time has gone by extremely fast, which I think is a good sigh. We are enjoying ourselves and we have met some great friends that make us feel at home when we need that.

I hope everyone back home had a Happy Thanksgiving. I am really missing pumpkin pie today. I might attempt a squash pie someday.

Until next time!

Ikelenge Market

September 24, 2012

Hello Blog-followers,

This past weekend was our first weekend off. I think it was probably more exhausting than having to be on-duty. But it was definitely fun anyways.

For most people, when they are off, they will stay home and cook their own meals and kind of stay away from all the children and activities at the school. But, since Mylon and I don't really have food in our cupboards that we could make a meal with, we just show up and eat our meals with all the kids in the dinning hall. We don't mind anyways, and the food is prepared for us and it's always delicious.

On Saturday, we are technically only free after lunch. Mylon has a gym class at 9:30am and I assist with the grade 2/3 spelling class. And at 10:30 we both do crafts with the grade 3/4 boys. So After lunch, that's when we're free.

We've been here for about two weeks now and I really felt like going to a village of something and go explore a little off campus. So we got directions to the nearest village with a market and decided to go for a bike ride. It was about a 25 minute ride on the dirt roads. It was a beautiful day, I could feel the sun burning the skin on my arms.

We biked by a pineapple field which was pretty neat to see. There are also a lot of massive ant hills along the side of the road. Finally we started seeing huts and local villagers until finally we heard the music coming from the market and saw where many people of the village were. This market was sort of what I expected (as I had seen pictures of similar markets in Zambia), but also not what I expected. I think what I expected was more food. But I also think most of the produce isn't in season just yet. Most vendors have tiny little shops and they just sell very random stuff. From chiteŋges (African-type wrap around skirts) to second hand shoes, to drinks and odd-looking non-perishable food items. I got myself a chiteŋge and we each got a bottle of something cold to drink (Mylon got AppleMax which is carbonated apple juice with extra sugar, really delicious, and I got some weird Milky Orange Fizzy drink -gross.)

Then we went to the produce part of the market. A few ladies there were selling tomatoes. Some had a head of lettuce or kale, or cabbage they were trying to sell. And some other ladies were trying to sell dried little fish. Some looked like minnows, and some were a little bigger. I didn't buy any of that. It smelled like a pet store.

So when we realized that was all there was to see, we decided to start our bike ride back home. I took out my camera and snapped a few pictures on my way out.

It was a fun afternoon. I have to say I love being in Zambia. It's awesome going everywhere on bikes, saying hello to everyone you bike past. Everyone is very kind. The children all love us. It's very fun and feels adventurous.

I hope everyone back home is doing well.

Take care. Goodbye.

Wild Africa

Well, I have some interesting things to tell you about.

Yesterday, Mylon and I went for a jog with another teacher here.  And we saw a few cool things :)

First, I almost stepped on a grasshopper which was about 4 inches long.  It was huge.

Then, when we were more in a hiking-type trail, we saw a huge lizard. Possibly a Monitor lizard.  I'd say it was about 3 feet long, but we didn't see the whole thing, so it's hard to say really.  They are pretty fast.  Here's what they look like:

Then, as we were jogging up a huge hill, Mylon saw a huge black snake in the ditch.  The other teacher with us said it was a Black mamba, but I'm not convinced.

Then, when we were walking home in the evening, after dark, about 5 minutes after I said I was glad i wasn't  a night watchman, we found out there was a lion in are area, within a few miles maybe.  Apparently it has been tracked from the Congo. It has been killing cattle and goats on it's way and it is currently being hunted. Crazyyy

Activities at Sakeji - Week 1

This past weekend, Mylon and I had the duty to teach crafts to the grade 3 and 4 boys. We had so much fun teaching them how to make “The World's Best Paper Airplane”. The boys were so excited. We had a contest of who's plane would go the farthest and the winner got this really complicated, cool-looking paper airplane that I made before the craft. Here's a picture of our little class. Now I'm stuck making all the boys the harder paper airplanes because they are all jealous. It's kind of fun though, so I don't mind.

We also have to play games with them on Thursday afternoons. We played Capture the Flag. Girls against boys with all the little Junior kids again. They really like it when the adults play with them, so we did. During the game, one little girl excitedly told me “Mr. Ollila is very fast, but the children are faster!” I love the random quotes you hear kids say. Today another girl told me that “yesterday I was wearing a dress as tall as a tree”. Anyway, here's a picture of some little guys racing:

In other news, to our amazement, someone here has a punching bag and gloves! WHATTT?!?!? We were so excited. We've worked out once on it so far. It felt so good to do a bit of boxing again. Me and the lady it belongs to (she's actually a kick-boxer) are going to set a specific time each week so we can work out together. I'm really looking forward to that. And to make the work out even better, Sakeji is located at a higher altitude than we are used to. I'm not sure how much exactly, but it is a little noticeable when you are running with kids etc.

Well I am going to go read my book and then go to bed. Breakfast is a 7am all week, so we have to be ready and out the door nice and early.

Goodnight.

Week 1

So it's been almost a week since we've been at Sakeji. We are both enjoying it here.

There are a few things I need to get used to. For example, there are always bugs in the house. Usually small flies, but they are still there and sort of annoying. Sometimes there are spiders. Gigantic spiders! Here is a picture of a spider called a Flatty.  At least that's what people here call them. They flatten themselves out to go hide behind picture frames on the wall. Then they walk they are very tall. And, they are so fast. I was shocked at how fast they are. Thing is, you aren't suppose to get rid of them, because they eat the mosquitoes. So I know there is a gigantic spider somewhere in my house now. I don't really like that. I try very hard to sleep with my mouth closed!

Here's a picture of the school dog named Sasha. She is part doberman, part rottweiler. Locals who walk by the school get very scared of her and climb up the trees when they see her. But she is one of the friendliest dogs. I think they just mostly aren't used to having pet dogs.

Today we experienced the very famous Sakeji ice cream! They make it every Sunday for dessert after lunch. Mylon and I both had banana-peanut butter. Other flavours they had out today were vanilla, neopolitan, and grape. It was so good.

Overall, the food here has been (to my surprise) quite good. For breakfast we often have a type of porridge (oats, cornmeal, hearty oats) with toast and rice cakes. I'm not a fan of the rice cakes. The kids love them though, and they put honey on them. And for lunch we'll have a lot of vegetables (squash, carrots, corn, green beans, broccoli, coleslaw, potatoes), sometimes we have beans, chicken, beef. Once a day for dessert there is the most delicious pineapple, and bananas. Then we often get baked goods. You really have to pick and choose your favourites because there is so much baked goods that if you ate them all the time, you would gain a few pounds. So My personal favourites and cinnamon buns, and brownies.

Well that's all for now. Thanks for checking in!

African Sunrise

Since we're still a little jetlagged, so we decided it was a good time to get up to see the African sunrise.  What a natural beauty!

Arrival at Sakeji

Sept 10-11

We've finally made it so Sakeji School! What a long day of travelling. Actually it doesn't even feel like a day. More like just a big blur. And after being in the air for a total of about 19 hours, you don't feel much better. We are both pretty jet-lagged and we want to take naps all the time.

So we arrived in Lusaka on September 10^th at about 12:30pm. We taxied over to a guest house for missionaries in Zambia, It was nice and relaxing there. We had showers, a delicious supper and a very comfortable bed. However we had to get up at 3:30am to go the airport.

So today (September 11^th) we flew to Sakeji School. It was in the smallest plane we've both ever been in. Our flight was very smooth and kind of nice because we were flying below the cloudy haze so we could see all the landscape. Africa is so different than anywhere else I've flown. Right now, because it's the dry season, everything is yellow and the dirt is red. So that was very neat.

When we landed at Sakeji on the grass landing strip, we were greeted with a big welcome. First we were shown our new house for the next eight months. Turns out it's even bigger than it looks in the picture. It has 3 bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms, full kitchen, living room and dining room. We were invited for lunch at another teacher's house. And this afternoon we went to a tea/snack break to meet more people. We have supper later and another snack in the evening. But besides that we have all the time in between to relax.

School starts tomorrow with a pancake breakfast at 7:30am. So in our experience so far, I think we will both enjoy it here. So far all the food we've had has been delicious, everyone has been very kind, and the weather has been warm and lovely.

One last thing, we did see a blue-headed lizard today but unfortunately we weren't carrying our camera with us. Hopefully they are common and we will get one another day.

So that should be it for now.

Keep in touch :)

Introduction

Welcome everybody to our blog about our trip to Zambia.  I am thrilled to share our story of this great adventure. We are so blessed to be able to do this.  Everything seems to be working out so well in our planning and we are so excited for this amazing trip. :)

We are flying out of Toronto on September 9th, 2012. We have stops in New York and Johannesburg, and then finally to Lusaka, and Sakeji Mission School. We will be a little bit tight for time as I believe school starts on September the 11th. Our plan in to come back to Canada mid-May.

Today Mylon and I went to the health unit to get our travel vaccinations.  I only had to get one vaccine this time, but Mylon had to get five! Three in one arm and two in the other. I'm glad that wasn't me!

Today (if I post this before midnight) is also exactly one month away from our day of departure! I can't believe it's coming so fast.  We have to move out of our apartment by the end of this month, so we have a LOT of packing to do! We are so thankful to a friend of mine at work who offered to let us store our things in the attic of her barn while we are away.  This will save on either storage cost or hauling all our stuff up north and back next down spring.

A friend of mine from Kap was just visiting in Zambia and she took a picture of what will be our house at Sakeji.  I was so excited to see this! I can't wait to live in such a cute house! Here's the picture:

That's all I'll say for now.

Goodnight.