Christmas Nativity Play

Yesterday was the children's nativity play at our church. Our girls were angels - in the literal sense. Much to our surprise, the shepherds had real, live sheep! We remarked to others that we would never see this in Winnipeg and they responded "Really?" The sheep were terribly cute and you can guess that by the end of the morning Danica and Erin were begging for some new pets: "But Daddy, then the lawn wouldn't have to be mowed!"

Regional Retreat

We've just returned from our MCC Southern Africa Regional Retreat. It was held just outside Lusaka, at a place called "Pioneer Camp", which (unlike the Canadian Pioneer Camp) is a guest lodge. We had MCCers come from Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

It's very interesting learning about MCC work in this part of the world. MCC is doing all sorts of things, everything from drilling wells by hand and building sand dams to working with HIV/AIDS support groups, education, and agricultural development. MCC has a special emphasis on working with local partners, so a lot of the work is at a very grass roots level. Perhaps the most interesting part of the retreat was hearing first hand about the situation in Zimbabwe. Needless to say, it's very difficult for everyone but especially for the poor. Runaway inflation has destroyed the economy, and now starvation is a very real possibility for most of the population. Meanwhile, there are groups of people who are benefiting from the chaos and are amassing great wealth. It's a place where there is a great cry for justice, please remember the people of Zimbabwe in your prayers.

It's also great getting to know the MCCers themselves. The stories about how people got involved in MCC in the first place are interesting and uplifting. One of the nice aspects of the retreat is that local MCC employees also attended, and they had all sorts of interesting stories to tell as well.

The entire Southern Africa MCC Team

The MCC Zambia Team

We also had an opportunity to have a bunch of fun together. One day we all went to Zambia's only water slide park for a slide and a picnic.

The traditional "talent show" was a big hit with many laughs.

The Limbo contest was one of the less serious moments of the retreat

The 5K fun run was held on a nice hot and steamy afternoon with the sun coming out to make the country side look like a shimmering emerald. Even the kids completed the run!

Finally, a big Christmas dinner and a time of reflection and sharing was a wonderful way to end our time together. Being part of a team has been a big positive part of our MCC experience, and retreats like this are a big and memorable part of team building.

A Taste of Zambia - by Charlene

There are several purposes for this blog:

1. to introduce you to the culinary experiences of Zambia
2. to show how adventurous “we” are (meaning John)
3. to really freak out our friends Dave & Ruth who are visiting later this month

Miriam, our maid, cooks her lunch at our place and often eats together with some of the other people who are working on our property. Today they were eating at our house and as I was making my salad in the kitchen they invited me to come and taste their food.

from left - Rape Relish, Nshima and Chinkubala

The two staple foods of the Zambian diet are Nshima (bottom centre) which is a corn maize product and Rape (upper left) which is a green leafy vegetable (from the Rapeseed and Canola family) which when fried in oil with a bit of onion and tomato is called a "relish".

Mmmm....Chinkubala!

I hesitated because Zambian food is not my favourite, but when I discovered today’s menu included Chinkubala I suddenly remembered some urgent emails that needed to be sent! Chinkubala are caterpillars, picked from the trees and dried. To cook them you soak them in water for a while, and then fry them up with onion and tomatoes.

Luckily John drove up just in time to save the day, his adventurous palate was more than happy to give it a try. While the Zambian ladies were disappointed that I wouldn’t taste the caterpillars, they all had looks of horror when I offered them a taste of my salad . (A lot of Zambians don’t really eat raw food or fresh vegetables). We decided to call a truce and each stick to our own foods!

Mmm, crunchy on the outside, soft and tender on the inside

Also in season now are the flying ants known as "Inswa", they are on the top of John's "Must Taste" list (apparently crunchy and buttery) . So, we've asked Miriam to make a "special" Zambian meal for when Dave and Ruth come.

The Snow Queen

ISL had their primary school production of the play Snow Queen last night. The kids and staff had all put forth a huge amount of effort and it was a great show. Erin was thrilled to be cast in the title role of the Snow Queen.All dressed and ready to go

Katrina (the witch of Finland), Erin and Shanelle who had the lead role of Gerda

Erin as the Snow Queen surrounded by her Sprites

Erin delivering her address of her desire to capture a boy and freeze his little heart!

The entire cast delivering the final song

A congratulatory hug from her sister, time to go out for ice cream now

November Potpourri

Hello Dear Readers - almost a month has gone past without a post on our blog. We had a bunch of technical problems with our internet connection which pretty much prevented us from posting anything, but that seems to be behind us now, so we will do our best to catch up.

Lusaka Halloween - this is a very, very late entry. We didn't really celebrate Halloween here, but we did carve a "pumpkin", well, it's a watermelon. Someone emailed us and demanded a picture, so here it is.

Oooh, the worlds scariest (and tastiest) jack-o-lantern

Teaching Systems Administrators - I (John) have just finished teaching some of the staff at our partner schools and the ISP partner in basic systems administration for the Linux computer systems we have installed in the schools. Despite being eight or nine years old the computers are performing pretty well, but when they do break, the schools always call me. This training is an attempt to get the schools to be more self sufficient, to be able to create and delete accounts on their own, to set up printers and so on. We had eight students for eight classes and it went pretty well. Some students were very quick on the uptake, but everyone seemed to have a good time. We'll see how effective the course was by how well the computers keep running.

The happy students

Team Meeting - One of the great things about MCC in Zambia is that we have regular team meetings. It's great to get together with all the far flung MCC volunteers, this year there are more than ever with the Smith family working up in Kitwe. This time, after a day and a half of meetings we went to "Adventure City", which is Lusaka's (and probably Zambia's) only water slide park. Everyone had a great time.

It's all downhill from here

Putting up the Christmas Tree - Christmas trees are really not available around here. Christmas time is the right time for mangoes, avocados, lychees and guavas, not pine trees. However, friends of ours are in the US for Christmas and lent us their fake tree for the season. Erin and Kristina had a great time putting it up, and now we have a lovely fake tree, and no needles on the floor.

We have to figure out where the branches go....

Tada!

Coming Events: We are looking forward to our big MCC Southern Africa regional retreat starting next weekend. Our friends Dave and Ruth and their two boys are coming out mid December and we will be taking a trip to Zanzibar with them - we are also very much looking forward to that. December will be very busy!