Zimba

This post is to give you a little taste of what our life looked like while we were in Zimba!  We were there for two weeks (Sept. 14-28)  It is about a one hour drive from Choma.  It actually took us two hours to get there because our bus had two flat tires on the way there.  Of course our driver just took a quick look at them and we just kept on moving. 

5 of the 16 of us stayed at a different house than everyone else.  (along with Bud and Judy)  I was really disappointed at first because we were down the road from everyone else, but we quickly realized we kind of had it made at our house!  Not only did we have air conditioning, but we had nice, big rooms with our own bathrooms! (Disclaimer: the air conditioning didn't work half the time and the power goes out daily...so we weren't living it up all the time!)

This is the front of the IVV (International Vision Volunteers) house that the 5 of us stayed in.  We also had our classes in the living room.

Jamaica and I shared a room in the IVV house.  I loved it!

 

The spiders really weren't too bad in Zimba but there was one on the ceiling right above my bed so we had to kill it!  And by we I mean Jamaica killed it. :)  

This is the main mission compound everyone else stayed on.  It was less than a five minute walk down the road.  It gets dark around 6:30 so those of us who stayed to hang out at this house in the evenings had to walk back with the guard .  I wish I had a picture of him...he was the nicest guy!  We got to know him pretty well on those short walks each night. :)

This is the living room in the main house.  Our cook, Gertrude, was amazing and she made Sarah a cake for her birthday!

 

One of our Saturday night activities was movie night...we watched Hitch!  Love that movie.

This is Jock-the adorable little dog that lives on the compound.  He was a little timid at first but warmed right up!  It was so nice to have a dog to play with and pet!

 

This is Pongo ("goat" in Tonga) or some called him Pippin.  He was a gift to the Mission from Gretchen and Ryan!  Gretchen and Ryan were both doctors in their third year of residency.  They were in Zambia for a total of three weeks!  We really liked working with them at the hospital.

Pongo and Jock obviously became the best of friends.  Except when Pongo decided to take off running and drug Jock around the yard.  (it was hilarious)

We had chapel at 8am every weekday morning.  It is for any hospital workers/patients.  The benches were always packed!

 

Zimba is a super small town so the hospital was literally a two minute walk from our house!

 

This is one of the nurses at the hospital.  This is their typical uniform

Male Ward

Casualty is the Emergency Room.  We didn't really have any major emergencies come in while we were here.

The delivery room!

The beautiful tree again!

This is a poster hanging up in one of the Wards.  I think I cracked for about five minutes!  They have many posters hanging up that are equally funny! 

We had a slow afternoon and decided to go find the library.  This was right behind the hospital!

There were tons of nursing books there.  Chrissy really wanted to check this book out.

 

This is the textbook for one of the classes we are taking here!  Except it's the 1989 version. 

This is the market in Zimba.  It was very small but we spent a lot of time here!

 There have been several Veterinary Shops in the markets so I finally stopped and asked some questions.  The lady who came in was really confused by what I was asking so I didn't learn much!

 

This is the inside of the Vet Shop.  The only thing I could figure out is that people have to come to the shop to get the meds.  I have no clue if the vet actually goes out and sees the animals or not!

 This sweet lady's name is Grace.  She helped hem some of my chitenges!  There are lots of seamstresses at the markets and we have been putting many of them to work making bags, aprons, dresses, etc.

Tons of chitenges! There are so many cool patterns.

 

These are the people who stayed in the IVV House. 

 

We decided to lock Bud and Judy in the gate. (this was their idea...haaha)

We also added another member to our group while in Zimba!  Carla Lovett is a professor who is here for 3 weeks to teach African History.  She is a professor from Wheaton College but is with her family in Kenya for this fall semester.  She been a great addition to our group!

While in Zimba, we began our obsession with watching Lost.  They had the first season at the Mission so we began watching an episode every night.  Selinda..the missionary on the compound, let us borrow it for the rest of our trip so we can finish the season!  I have seen the show before but it is still very addicting!  We also play a lot of euchre in the evenings.

God has truly been blessing us on this trip.  We have had our fair share of conflict and issues but He is faithful and we are doing well! I would greatly appreciate continued prayer for our team!