Afrikan Adventure: Wedding Bells

I have something very important to announce to you all. I just can’t keep it a secret any longer….I went to a wedding reception today! Ha, I got you. I bet you all read the subject and first lines with bated breath and sweaty palms thinking, “could it be true, could it be true, she’s finally met someone!”. Well, maybe you didn’t think that at all, but I hope I tricked at least one of you. But it is indeed true that I went to a wedding reception. It was for our Zambian accountant, Bwalya, and it was my first Zambian wedding experience. Surprisingly it was very westernized. Nothing like what I would have expected. It was pretty much the same as back home with the exception that there were no tables so we just ate sitting in our chairs and the extended families of the bride and groom did this synchronized dance all the way from the back of the hall to the front. Something I think we should incorporate into our weddings back home…and I will be requiring it at mine so you better start working on your routine now cause with my Mennonite roots it will probably take until the time I get married to get it into shape!

In other news…I went to on a little trip to Livingstone this past week, home of Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. Since it has just been rainy season there is a lot of “mist”, more like torrential downpour, and so as you walk through you get completely soaked…it’s awesome. It’s the most water pressure I’ve felt since I got here! I should have brought my soap and scrubbed up. It was also the day there was a lunar rainbow…where you can see a rainbow at night from the light of the moon…I may not have needed to explain that as you most likely got it from the name, but there you go. So that was really cool and we walked through again in the dark and got completely soaked. And being that it’s Africa the safety standards aren’t really what they are at home…so it was a little creepy walking around in the dark on a moss ridden, wet and slippery, stone path right next to this massive ledge with nothing more than an itsy, bitsy rope running next to you. Good times. We also went on a safari which was phenomenal…I’ll post some pictures soon on the blog.

I have also started actually playing netball with the girls in the afternoons. Some of those girls can come off pretty intimidating but I just put the elbows up and tell ‘em “Big Shannon’s” here to play! And so now they are asking me to get them jersey’s because the football team has jerseys that someone donated…so if anyone sees a set of matching jerseys for cheap let me know!

May is shaping up to be a fairly busy month. For one thing today is Cinco de Mayo which is a huge celebration here in Africa…just kidding! Although we did have a little fiesta meal of our own…complete with a worm in the cayenne pepper. The last two weeks of May I will be traveling to Malawi with the Whitfield family to follow in Madonna’s footsteps and adopt a child. Actually, to visit a family that works with Action there and see what’s going on. Apparently they have a thriving youth program happening so I’d really love to see that. It is way more rural there which I am excited to experience. All this while pushing the big 2-5 on the 19^th. Yes, that was your subtle hint to get your birthday poems ready!

So that’s the latest here…three months in. Homesickness comes in small waves, more like small ripples…mere disturbances in the water. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. I miss people more than anything…and nacho’s…for some reason I have this big hankering for nachos. I miss you all and your friendship and support continues to mean more than you know.

God Bless,

Shannon

“And we have this treasure in broken vessels to show this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.”