As I ran this morning I started thinking about the Zambian people…You don’t see too many overweight Zambians, they walk or ride bikes almost eveyrwhere they go, they are hard workers and don’t live in the “safe” environment that Americans do. Everyday could be there last in a much more real way then you and I experience it. They don’t believe in deodorant, so most of them have some serious B.O., and when you get into a setting where you are surrounded by them it can be quite bad! They are in general a very friendly people and love well. They have a great respect for others and I love the simplicity of how they live life. I found out the reason why there is always so much trash all over the streets of Lusaka. There are 2 places for Africans, their personal space and their common space. They keep their personal space such as their home as clean as they possibly can, but common areas they don’t care about because they are not responsible for it, so they throw their trash down anywhere they go. When you greet a Zambian you don’t just shake hands, you also bring your left hand to your right forearm and hold it while you shake.. you also start with a regular hand shake, then you wrap your hand around their thumb and vise versa, then back to the regular handshake. It is also a very soft grip, not the confident strong grip that Americans have when we shake. The left hand on the right forearm is a sign of respect. The women of Zambia are hard workers as well… they pretty much all have babies and carry them on their backs wrapped in a sling around their shoulder and waist. They have no problems with pulling out their breast and feeding the baby in public places which is extremely awkward. I also found out that 50% of all Zambians are under the age of 16. Today we went out to the bush, this is where things get much much more primitive. They live in grass huts and don’t have much of anything. We were there visiting an HIV/AIDS victim that has become bed ridden. When we got there, Troy, who is our guide on this trip, went into the hut and started talking to the man with AIDS, he led the man to Christ through telling the story of Jesus, it’s hard to know whether it was genuine or if the man might have felt pressured into saying the prayer, but I guess that’s not for us to worry about, we are just called to share. After staying for a while and meeting the people of this village, we left and went to a church building where Troy was leading a group of couples on a program he and his wife call “True Love Stays”. These are couples that are struggling in their marriages and have fallen out of “love” with each other. He talked about how God can heal these marriages and how that love is not a feeling the way society tells us it is, but that it is a choice, he compared it to our relationship with Christ, sometimes we don’t have the feelings for God, but we make the right decisions and Love God out of obedience. After he spoke we went to dinner and then back to the Mission House. When we arrived back at the mission house we discovered that the storm had knocked the power out, so we had to light some candles and decided to watch an episode of “The Office” on laptop battery power since Matt had brought the entire 3rd season. Then it was time for bed without any electricity and no fan to keep me cool during the night.
Tags: Africa, Italy, Lusaka, Rome, Sincera, Zambia, Zimbabwe