Obama Girl

Last night, after catching up on sleep, we went to a welcome dinner at home of Charles and Margaret. For those who do not know, Charles is the local minister at Home Ministries and Margaret and Charles also oversee the community school and orphanage.  Besides our hosts, several other individuals from the school and orphanage attended. Maureen, one of the orphanage staff, showed up in an “Obama Girl” tee-shirt. We loved it and decided to send a photograph of it. We also printed out the photograph with the Polaroid printer that Nancy borrowed from her friend Marilyn. This morning we presented the photograph to Maureen, who was quite thrilled.

This being Sunday, off we went to church for 10:00 services. This also being Zambia, Charles picked us up at 10:35. Perfect!  It is quite hot and humid and sitting in church/ under a plastic blue tarp did not help. Once the singing began, the room was full of happy faces and great music. The music portions lasted for over an hour. At some point, Nancy was pulled into the group of woman dancing and she joined right in. Then it was David’s turn. Once again proving  that white man cannot dance. After a brief rest, we were up again to join the families, dancing and having a great time.  Once the church services were over, Nancy and I distributed over 100 tootsie pops to all of the children and a few adults.

Around 3:00 we went to the orphanage.  We had so much fun. Our appointed task was to take individual pictures of each of the kids and print them out with the printer. This proved to me a more laborious task then we expected. The kids each wanted to ‘review and approve” their photos and all of the staff wanted their photographs taken. Then the printer turned out to be real slow. We got it all done except for a few.

Tonight David and I hosted a dinner for 17 at the hotel. Good thing soccer was on so we didn’t have to do all of the talking. Everyone here is so very happy to have us back and all that Spark has done for Hope. We are treated as if we are rock stars!  Tomorrow is a non-stop day staring at 10ish as we like to say in Zambia. Good night David good night Nancy and good night to all of you in the USA!

Photos coming soon!

Chapter II - Ndola, Zambia

Nancy and I spent seven hours in the London Airport. We hung around the airport lounge, ate, laughed and had  “15 minute” chair messages which were incredible.  Then we left for Lusaka and arrived on time. We have over 300 pounds of luggage, not including the 25 pairs of grey socks she made me steal from first and business class on the flight to London. Somehow, we got all the luggage plus the grey socks, on the prop plane to Ndola without any fee. Charles and Margaret met us at the Ndola airport and helped us to the hotel.

It is quire warm here-80 degrees and humid. We both unpacked and have now spent over two hours sorting through the four bags of items we brought for the kids and gifts for the staff. There are so many books, pencils, pens, frisbees, tootsie pops, mints, chopsticks that it is hard to believe that we could carry all of this.  We hope to get some rest and then we are off to Charles and Margaret’s house for dinner. We are attaching some photos so you can see what we are writing about. For those of you who have stayed or eaten at Michaelangelo’s hotel, the place looks a lot better in the dark!  Also, for a place with two pools, there are no chairs to sit out!

Got to go! Time for a trail mix bar.

- Nancy and David

 

London

we made it  to London now we only have another 16hrs to get to our first stop in Africa. David and John Williams could not believe all the stuff we where bringing but we managed to get it all checked without paying a fine! Once we landed we collected all of the toiletry bags that where not used and the socks;even the used ones. The boys need gray socks for their uniforms and that was the color Amer. now has. David could not believe I made him collect the used socks but he did as he was told. - nancy

Less Than 1 Week Until We Leave!

One week from tomorrow Nancy and I will be landing in Ndola, Zambia and we couldn't be more excited. We have been frantically buying our last minute supplies and working with the Spark-Hope staff on last minute trip details we need to take care of before we leave. While we are in Zambia we will helping with a mosquito net project, helping out at the school and taking on other tasks like sewing uniforms and taking pictures. We will be updating this blog every day so please check back and follow our trip!

- David