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.