Twikitane

Twikitane is were Jeremy's dad was assigned by MCC to work

Twikitane is a vocational school. When they lived there the school taught carpentry and tailoring. Now they have add two computer courses. It was nice to see is has grown in a way of modernness, but from what I understand is that the number of students isn't as high, but still doing well.

The school is kind of run by or under the cap of the monastery where their house was located. They also run a printing press that does calenders, magazines and some books. We got a tour of it all...it was soo fun. They also have a book store that they run. We got to meet some of the priests that remembered the Patkau's. It was great.

This is the house that Jer and his family lived in--it has been expanded since then...you can kind of see where on the roof. Jer also said they had cut down the poinsettia tree in the front yard. I loved being able to see where they are talking about when they talk about the Ndola house and about the fathers.

Here they are talking to a watchmen that had remembered them...it was amazing how many people remember Lorne. It was awesome.

This is the carpentry shop.

This was a newish building. This is where they teach computer classes. They have a beginner and an advanced course.

There is a new shop for the carpentry and an older one near that. Lorne is walking to meet a friend. He explained how everything was going well. This is the printing press. It was pretty busy at the time printing calenders.

There are these cool gazebos across from the church. Jeremy said that he remembers choirs practising out there all the time.

This is.....well I can't remember but Jer says St. Anthony's. It was beautiful. We got a tour from a couple of the fathers that we had had tea and toast with. It was soo great to hear stories new and old. God is good and alive there.

Friends

In Ndola was were Jer and his family had lived, like I have mentioned before. We spent almost all of our time there reuniting with old friends(or could we say our African family). It was sooo good and I miss them already.

14 years ago when they lived there they went to a Brethren in Christ church, and while they were there the church purchased a plot of land to build their own new building on it. It never got built while they were there....but they have now started and we got a tour.

It was really fun driving around and seeing what I have heard soo much about.

This is me after I put sunscreen on Kiera, which I did often she burns easy.

Jer in front of the church building

This is Chipo, one of Derek's friends. He was soo much fun. He likes crazy music tho.(lol)

Mr. Tapula(sp) explaining how the building is going and what comes next. Incredibly smart man....loves to learn.

Jeremy getting creative with Derek's colourful shoes....I like this picture. Jeremy had forgotten how red the earth was there, the picture doesn't do it justice....again tho Jer getting creative....he love photography.

Ok....now this is an ant hill. YES I said ant hill. You couldn't see any ants on it (although I didn't really go close enough to check. They were all over the place, usually this big. In the picture it looks like it has been chipped away...and it has. They chip it away and mix it with water and then make bricks out of it and then heat them up. It is cheaper than concrete but stronger and if they just let it dry. Partially because they heat it up, but also because of what the ants have added to it. There were quite a few "red" buildings made from the ant hill bricks. (if I have that wrong someone please tell me......chipo)

Again Jer's creativity. But it is also the corner of the building that can't be finished until they put in the medal frame that will hold up the tin roof.


Jers dad getting a good view from on top of a wall.

This is Mrs. Tapula(sp). I liked her a lot. She is honest, truthful and accepting. Plus she sooo involved in making her community a better place....what she has done makes me cry.....Love Her.

Two incredible life long friends that can always pick up where they left off...it was soo fun to see.

Mr. T, Derek, Chipo, Mrs. T, and Shupy

These two could talk for hours.

I now have a new part of my family....hehe my African family.

God willing I hope to go back to visit....hopefully with my kids.

I am glad I was given the opportunity to give them a Christmas gift....chickens for their church Christmas party....something soo easy.

Ndola

Sorry it has been awhile...I have been suffering through a head cold.
It sucks...but here is another one.

Ndola

This is the small city where Jeremy and his family lived for three years of his life.

This post is mostly about where we stayed. I will get into the people and places we went in a later post, it just won't take me soo long next time. We did a lot and there are a lot of pictures soo bare with me. I am not computer savvy soo I am not capable of doing too much at one time.

When we were in Lusaka it was very modern. Not like it is here....but a lot more than I had expected. A lot of shopping, eating out, and cell phones. Ndola is different, they haven't caught up as much yet. Yes the cell phones are every where....very few land lines actually. Very rarely did I see females in pants, not many restaurants, and you had to look really hard to find some shopping stores. Lots of road side stands tho....there were some in Lusaka, but not as much as Ndola. It was slower too. I liked that. I loved it in Ndola and miss it.

This is the street we had to turn down to get to our guest house. They had these cool plants that had a type of cactus like plant growing around it or in the middle of it. They had such character.

This was an "awesome" spider that came to greet us in our room. Our "little" buddy seemed to follow me around all the time....they like me...yes I say they, at least 4 or 5 in that guest house did I see.

Around all the houses and yards were walls. Yes it is a kind of security, and privacy. We have fences here...if you don't have a fence you are seen as kind of out of place....well that is the same there...even if you are not worried as much about security you still have some sort of wall otherwise you just don't fit in. You got very used to it. Wasn't scary or a big deal.
This is a blue head lizard...Jer and his brother wanted to see one really bad. They had a cat when they lived there and he would catch one and play with it until it was dead and then eat it. They look really cool tho.

This is the water supply. This is how you get water pressure. Starts here then goes into a geezer(water heater) and from there goes to where it is wanted. Needless to say the water pressure was not great.

You can also see in this picture that they are building another building with more rooms. The couple that own this guest house actually built the building we were staying in for themselves but decided to us it as a guest house until they wanted to move off of their rural property. It was a beautiful building...I would say the my second favorite place that we stayed other than the spider.

This was the view from the dining room. The dining room did not have any windows, just screens. It smelt like roses...I hate the smell of roses....but everyone else liked it.

I have never seen a papaya tree before. They look sort of like palm trees but with different leaves. It was soo pretty. They weren't ripe tho.

Jer took this pic....thought it was soo cool how there were a lot of trees that had vines growing beside it kind of attached or leeched to it. This one is almost half the size of the tree. Soo cool.

On the out skirt of town...or should I say kind of a new development of the city there was a 65,000 seat football(soccer) stadium being built. It is huge. You could see it from a ways away...we ended up driving by it at one point tho....that's how we got some good pics.

The stadium is being built by the Chinese. They have a big interest in the copper mines. Kind of like bp Biliton has interest in the potash mines soo they sponsor stuff for us. That is what they are doing for them....just think it is kind of weird....they could us soo much more useful stuff. But they are helping in other ways too....they fixed a lot of the roads there.

Lusaka

Well we arrive in Lusaka the capital of Zambia.

It was a fairly uneventful flight...except something that Jer's parents had hoped that we would experience.....as the plane touched down on the run way everyone started cheering.

It was incredible how it was not taken for granted....I loved it.

We got here late in the afternoon. We were staying here for one night and then off the our real destination....Ndola.

We were driving ourselves to Ndola so we opted to rent a van.

We were going to use this van to drive everywhere we wanted to go for the next 17 days.

We will be going to many different places. Spent a lot of time in that van.

We also had to change money. Thankfully everything thing was available and open at the airport.

We were planning to take the van over two other border crossings...so we needed the appropriate paper work to get through those borders well.

The company was really good...they didn't have the paper work for us but would get it to us before we would want to leave the country....sooo good of them.

That's the van!!!!

So when we were in Ethiopia for the night there Jer and I couldn't seem to get the hot water running...and after two and half days of traveling...I took a shower anyway.
So when we got to the guest house I really wanted a nice warm shower.....It wasn't plus we couldn't find the light switch.
So before we went for supper we asked where the switch was...and found out that that switch turns on the heater for the water...Hallaluiah....I had a hot shower.
The switch on the other hand was in a very odd place....in the hallway behind a wall hanging.

This guest house was called the Zebra guest house....hence the zebra in the front by the gate.

We stayed there once on the way there and on the way home.

Jer liked to look at the electrical....this was outside.

This is the outside of the guest house....the white metal thing is what they call a geezer. It is the water heater...I think that every bathroom had one.

The gate to the guest house.
We went to a mall for supper to this restaurant that was delicious. When we showed up there was a band playing music near the restaurant....it was sooo cool.
When we came back we drove up to the gate and honked, then the watchmen would come and open the door if they recognized that you have been there before.
My first site of Zambia was in the more modern city of Lusaka....it was different then I expected. More modern and crazy.


Early the next morning we left for Ndola.....

Ethiopia

So like I was saying...when we got to Ethiopia they had everything ready for us

We hopped on a bus and went to our hotel. we were actually really excited. Sleeping in a bed for the first time in two days...a shower...it sounded really good. Not good that we lost a day in Ndola but good for our exhaustion.

We showered, rested, wandered the hotel, and used the internet until supper was served...that is a whole other thing....African don't eat supper before 7pm... so we had some time to wait...it was all good tho...got some fun pictures.

Oohh the smog

This is the safest looking scaffolding that we saw there


This is a restaurant that you could see from the hotel

Satellite dishes on a roof

Our hotel room- it was quite nice

The watchmen from our window, standing at the gate to the hotel
The view from our balcony
If you look close you can see a couple of blue and white vans...those are like a cross between a taxi and a bus. There is a guy hanging out the window of the van yelling which area they are going next, but will pretty much stop and pick up whoever will flag them down....they typically had no less then 8 people at a time in these vans....but usually a lot...A LOT more than that.



Jers mom wanted to take a picture of us in front of the hotel gates...which was cool...but she almost got trampled by a herd of goats that was being herded down the side walk. It was sooo funny.



We were up bright and early the next morning to fly to Lusaka Zambia.........

One day at a time....

so i want to post about our trip

supposedly a lot of people want to hear about our trip

so here it is

i am going to post it for the most part one day or one event at a time

a lot happened soo i want to make sure it is all recorded

for you but mostly for me

so bare with me

and hopefully enjoy a bit

On the way there

Ok so....start at the beginning.


We left just before lunch to Toronto, were we met up with Jer's brother and his girl friend.
Uneventful flight.
From Toronto we got on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. We had a 14 or so lay over. We decided that instead of trying to find a place to sleep in the airport we would tour the town for a bit first. It was raining....but we didn't care.




































































Then we slept and hung out in the airport....got soooo sick of the Frankfurt airport....never need to see it ever again.
At around 10:30 we were supposed to catch a flight to Addisabba, Ethiopia. Yeah SUPPOSED TO. We were warned that it had started snowing and that our flight might be canceled or post phoned...but it ended up that they thought we would take off.....NO.

They loaded us into the plane in hopes that we would still take off...we all thought that it was a possibility....NOPE. We sat on the plane for about 4 to 5 hours waiting for them to reopen the airport and clear the runway of snow. Then we waited another 2 to 3 hours for the plane to get de-iced. Guess Ethiopia airlines is the last in line for this kind of stuff in Frankfurt. It SUCKED!!!!

So we missed our flight from Addis to Lusaka. We took off early morning from Frankfurt and got at Addis late afternoon. Side note:: they were expecting to feed us a supper meal as soon as we got on the plane....but waited....so there for we got asked "chicken or fish" for breakfast...Jer says that he could have chicken slathered in gravy everyday for breakfast. lol.

We thought once we got to Addis we would have to arrange our own hotel for the night, ride to the hotel, the flight the next day and everything.....NOPE... we walked off the plane, got into the Ethiopian airport and they had it all arranged for us. The hotel, the ride and the boarding passes for the next day. The unfortunate thing is that it took away one night in Ndola. Booo.



More in the next post.