Thanks for all of your prayers. We had a fantastic trip to Zambia. Only took us about 29 hours from Wooster, but most of that was spent on the new Dreamliner. Great food, service, and very comfortable. Arrived in Lusaka, Zambia at 2pm and were greeted by a large contingent. Fr. Pierre from the Sunflowers Orphanage, Fr. Wilfred, Brian (Mark and Dorene's Zambian son), Belgiums Johannes, Terry, and Luc, Mama Chantelle, and Andrew (a taxi driver). It was great seeing so many friendly faces. I realized immediately that agriculture is really important in Zambia when the very first sign out of the airport was one for John Deere Tractors welcoming us to Zambia.
Our first stop was Fringilla Farms which reminded me of the kibbutz we stayed at in Israel. Cottages, restaurant, cattle, dairy, pigs, and most any other animal you would want to eat. We were hosted by the owners, Minnie and George, and it was nice to get our stomachs fed, a warm shower, and get to know our new friends. The manager of the restaurant is the splitting image of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) from the BBC show Fawlty Towers. It was hard to keep a straight face when he came to our table and asked how we were doing. Jo and Margie got their picture with him and his buddies got a laugh out of it. I'm sure we weren't the first to tell him. WiFi, breakfast buffet, milking cows, feeding calves, and holding baby pigs were on the schedule this morning. A lot of practices (hot water, biogas, dairy) are things that Fr. Pierre would like to get started at the orphanage. Hot water sounds great to me!
This trip is teaching me how to go with the flow. One of our travelers, Katie, was flying on a different flight then the rest of us and her plane had mechanical problems so she missed her connection in D.C. to Ethipoia and will be coming a day late. Dorene is heading back to Lusaka to pick her up, exchange money, and buy some groceries. The rest of us are headed to the "boosh" as Fr. Pierre says. The children at Sunflowers are expecting us for lunch at 1pm. I hope we get there by 2pm. We are stopping at Kabwe to run a few errands.
One of the things that I didn't expect to see was the large scale agriculture that is present here. Zambeef is a large company that has a huge farm across the street from where we stayed. Center pivot irrigation was watering large fields of wheat. This is winter is Zambia (75 degrees and dry) so they need to water anything to grow this time of year. The farm went on for miles and miles. Saw a demonstration plot of Pioneer Hybrids on the road to Kabwe.
Hey, hey Pioneer!!
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