No real news from Zambia, just a few misc items that may be of interest….

1.  The rains have begun… sort of.  The last two days it rained a little.  I am told that this is normally how they come, just a little at first and then pretty good rain.  I am looking forward to it as it is very dry and dusty, but I am not looking forward to effect the rain will have on the road we live on.  It was once a good road but they didn’t maintain it so it is now a dirt road with big chunks of remaining concrete everywhere.  I am afraid the rains will wash away more of the dirt and just leave large rocks and concrete.  Even with the truck, we have to drive very carefully until we reach the tarmac (that is what they call the paved roads). 

2.  Fuel problems continue.  There has been a problem for about 3 to 4 weeks now.  First it was petrol that was in short supply and then it moved to diesel.  Now, it just seems to switch randomly.  Some days there are long lines, others you can pull right up and fill up.  There is only one refinery in Zambia and it hasn’t been working so all of the fuel has been imported.  The government has been feeling the heat and has been trying to make it easy for fuel to be imported and it has gotten better.  However I just read that the refinery was a joint venture between the government and Total (a French oil company) and that Total has pulled out because the government hasn’t been keep up their end of the deal.  That isn’t a surprise and I don’t have high hopes for the government to run it well.

3.   Work continues.  We have been really busy with our partners these last couple of weeks.  Cynthia is now working as much as possible which is good, but also requires us to plan our days a bit better as we only have one vehicle and we need to take and pick-up the boys from school each day.  The girls shelter continues to make progress.  We had an event this past week in which a local bank donated a bunch of much needed items.  There is a still a lot more to be done, but it is nice to see some progress and not to worry that they don’t have enough money to feed the girls.  I have been working more with the financial records of one of the schools and I am seeing some progress there.  They want me to stop by each week and check their books to ensure they are correct.  I am glad because I feel that I am forcing my ideals on them so it is nice to hear that they want this also.  Once they are able to keep good records on paper, I will train them on how to do it on the computer which is much, much easier and allows them to generate financial reports with very little effort. 

4.  The boys…  I am very happy that the family has adjusted so easily.  There have been lots of changes for the boys, but they seem to adapt very quickly.  Jason has a good friend name Stephen who he met on the first day of school and they have been good friends ever since.  It doesn’t hurt that Stephen is into Lego’s also.  Stephen has a younger brother who is in Jared’s class and another younger brother who is Justin’s age.  We brought them all to our house after school on Friday and they all had a good time.  Our house is rather small so we force them to play most of the time outside.  I don’t know exactly what they do, but they seem to have fun.

5.   Holiday’s approaching – There are turkey’s in Zambia but you don’t find them in the stores.  I am debating whether we find one for our Thanksgiving dinner or try something new (Guinea foul?).  We are also trying to think ahead for Christmas for the boys.  We have a friend who is willing to bring several items over for us, so we will have some gifts for the kids.  You can actually buy Lego’s here but they are really, really expensive and I am too cheap.  There are few reasonable toys here, for example, a deck of Uno cards is over $30!  We are setting expectations low and the kids really don’t seem to mind.

If you have any suggestions for things I can cover, please let me know.