Afrikan Adventure: Rice and Beans Edition

Another significant accomplishment was achieved this week in the life and times of Shannon Storey. The four of us “single” girls, as people like to refer to us by, embarked last Sunday on “The Rice and Beans Experiment.” Our goal: eat rice and beans for lunch and dinner for seven days and seven nights. My own personal terms and conditions included that I eat each of the meals with my handy, dandy travel chopsticks. This experiment was really just for fun, but it is also a lot easier on the ol’ food budget. Now before you think we are too hardcore I have to let you know that we didn’t eat the rice and beans plain, but with a plethora of other ingredients and some very tasty recipes. The mission was a success. I wanted to eat out of a coconut shell in my bathing suit to really complete the “Survivor” experience but we have no coconuts and cold season is approaching. I will post pictures of our meals on my blog soon.

This week I’ve delved full force into the world of netball. I’ve been playing most every afternoon with the girls and had our first Bible study on Friday which went well. They also started calling me “mzungu” (meaning white person) the other day even though they know my name and they found it to be quite hilarious. So it’s been fun hanging out with them. It’s nice to have a sport to play with them because they don’t really speak all that fluent English so it’s a good way to hang out and form relationships without worrying so much about language.

On Saturday I led some singing with the youth group at the church I attend which was good. They usually sing a capella out of the hymnal so it was nice to spice things up a bit. And then right after that was choir practice so it was a busy afternoon.

As of this week I am now an official “alien” of this country, so now it is more fitting when I “phone home.” We went down to this government building to get our Alien Registration Cards which is quite the little process. It involves traveling to many different rooms, often waiting for lengthy periods within each. As I have observed there really is no such thing as customer service in this country, which after working a Christmas season at the Sears Portrait Studio is kind of refreshing! But people will just stop in the middle of something and take a personal phone call or get up and walk away or what have you. So things can take a little longer. I got my picture taken for the card where the photographer had the fastest trigger finger of the Congo. I’m not even sure how she lined up the shot she brought the camera up and shot so fast. And our experience was complete with a power outage in the midst of things. So the whole process took pretty much all day by the time we got our cards.

I will be heading to Malawi next week for two weeks to visit a family who works with ACTION in a rural area. Apparently they have a thriving youth ministry happening so I’m really interested to see that and it’ll be fun to be in a more rural environment for a while. I am going with the Whitfield family, having three kids under 7, on the 10 hour drive in their 5 seat truck…experience: priceless I’m sure! I probably won’t have internet access while there so if you don’t hear from that is probably why. Or a lion ate me.

So that’s the latest from Zambia. I hope you all are well and had a pleasant Mother’s Day…I know I did (note: I am not a mother, don’t worry).

Take care,

shannon

“I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies”

~ Psalm 57:9-10