Week 2 - 8.4.12

Happy Easter everyone! Our first in Zambia.

The Indian take away was lovely. No one got sick from it, so we will definitely go back.

This week has been another busy one as usual. It has been the first week of school holidays.

Monday saw the kids and I busy in the garden. We moved a whole load of rocks and then I dug up a load of soil to put some banana plants in. The banana plants unfortunately have still not been acquired, so hopefully this week we can do that.

On Tuesdays our gardener Clement and cleaner Rose come in. Laura adores Mr Clement and follows him around helping him dig in the garden. He also comes on Thursdays and Saturday mornings. We now have a garden bed around most of the fences, so we can now put some plants in. Rose was away this week, so Gilliness came on Tuesday and Mary on Thursday. I love the fact that I no longer have to iron Phil’s work clothes or anything for that matter. I just pile the clothes on the ironing board and voila, they get ironed and folded!

Wednesday we discovered the Golf Club. So far there is only 1 hole, but I have been told there are plans for 18. How long this will take is anyone’s guess. But the playground is lovely, nice clean sand and covered by trees. Thursday nights are the nights to go there for dinner. Hopefully we will get there soon, when the kids are up to behaving when we go out. The local children behave so well. Mine are incredibly embarrassing.  They are acting out quite a bit. I really am hoping it is just a small phase!

Friday, Sandra a friend of mine was kind enough to take me to the shops here in town with her car, so I could do a full pantry stock up. Spent  1,500,000 kwacha. It’s very hard dealing with so many zero’s. If only it was AUD!!!!! The money is going to change in June and I think they are taking off a zero. You soon get use to walking around with a bulging purse from all the notes as they really don’t have much value. About 1000kwa : 5AUD.

The bank is still an issue, as a lot of days you have to queue for an hour or so, or there is no money. Tom keeps asking why we have to keep going to the bank. I have tried to explain that we can’t use our cards here, but how does a 3 year old understand that.

We also visited the markets on Friday and I bought a beautiful carved wooden fruit bowl and some vegies. You can buy cooked caterpillars, to eat as a snack. I will try them one day, they look very crispy, but not that appetising. But hey I am game!

Friday afternoon was my initiation into afternoon drinks. Gayle and her family are leaving today so we had farewell drinks. It was so nice to sit down and relax and have a glass of wine or two. The kids played and did not annoy me too much, and it was great just to chat and get to know the other girls better.

Saturday, I was out in the garden again. I have managed to clear one strip that runs down our front door path and put some plants in. Today I aim to do the other side. Heavy work as it is all overgrown with grass and full of gravel. So the gravel has to come up, before the plants can go in. I also need to go and collect more plants from another garden. We all share here. Everything grows from cuttings.
We now also have a water tank. It was a bit of an effort, with Phil pushing the wheelbarrow holding the tank and me holding it on from the front. Unfortunately, Phil ran into my left heel and it is now
badly bruised. Bit of cursing at the time I must say. You get so use to having a car and trailer to move things. We have asked another expat down the road who owns a cubby house, if we can have it as his kids are grown up. How on earth we are going to move it, remains to be seen! But the kids will love it. Every time we go past it, they say how they would like one like that. I don’t dare tell them that it is theirs.

This morning the kids had their egg hunt. Easter bunny managed to get my letter that we had moved. They were very excited. We then went to Manyama for breakfast. This is a little village ½ an hour away . The Indian take away does an English breakfast as well. We had cooked eggs, some ham, baked beans and toast. As there was no juice, I drank coffee! Mind you it was very dilute and milky. Not bad, but I still prefer my juice!

On the way home from breakfast, Sandra, Greg, Laura and I stopped in to browse the Manyama markets. So many eyes were on us, but all friendly. We of course were the only non-locals there. We bought some material and a woven mat. A good experience in all and would like to go back and explore more.

Laura now has her first fever. Hopefully it won’t develop into anything.