in which I share too much information.

Yes, the blog has been silent.  Why?

On the 26th of June, we brought home two German Shepherd brothers, whom we have named Merry and Pippin.  They are so much fun to have around!  Adorable personalities and already learning fast. 

The first week that they were here, we spent constantly supervising them.  Why?  Two reasons: first of all, the resident dominant female German Shepherd, Lassy, who has lived here for 5 years and whom we are taking care of until the M family can come back and get her (probably the beginning of September).  Lassy was not too happy about her new "nephews" and was quite aggressive towards them for several days, so whenever we had to let the puppies outside (which was frequent) we had to chain Lassy up so that she wouldn't terrify them.  Otherwise the puppies wouldn't do their business outside because they were too frightened!  The other reason we had to constantly supervise the puppies was of course house-training them.  They were just not getting the idea of going outside to do their business.  So I spent the first week constantly cleaning up piles and puddles all day long.  What made it worse was that, because Lassy hadn't accepted them yet, the puppies had to sleep inside.  We confined them to an empty bedroom so that they wouldn't be roaming the house making messes, but that meant all the mess was. . . inside.  So every morning at 6:30 I was scrubbing the floors and removing more piles and puddles from their night's stay.  For a week!!

At last, Lassy and the puppies (after days of constant hard work by David and myself to teach them to coexist happily and play together) decided that they could be friends.  The situation changed for the better.  We could let the puppies sleep outside, and they housetrained themselves after a few days! 

But then, week two arrived. . . and Pippin got sick. He started vomiting one day.  The next day he was still vomiting, and stopped eating.  The next day the vomiting stopped.  When he hadn't eaten for almost two days, we got him to eat a little bit but the vomiting started again.  By this time he had lost a huge amount of weight and was growing weaker and more unresponsive by the day.  Realizing that his condition was worsening instead of getting better, we decided to contact the local vet (in the town) and take Pippin to see him.  Yesterday (Thursday of this week) David took Pippin to the vet, who diagnosed him with tick bite fever (it's quite common here and the vet described it as the animal's equivalent of malaria).  The vet gave him an injection of antidote for the disease as well as injections of vitamins and pain medication, and said that he fully expected him to recover.  After the visit to the vet, Pippin grew worse and worse.  He had no strength, and though his vomiting diminished (didn't stop completely) he was suffering from severe diarrhea.  We kept him in our room at night to keep an eye on him, so I spent the nights cleaning up vomit and diarrhea.  He still refused to eat.  Since last night I force-fed him soft foods, as well as giving him liquids (chicken broth and rehydrating drink) using a syringe. He was becoming more and more unresponsive and acting confused (probably because of the drugs in his system) and could hardly stand.  He resisted me when I tried to feed him and wouldn't even swallow.  This morning we were getting more and more worried about him but the vet said "he'll be fine!"  Even my efforts to give him something to drink using the syringe were hopeless.  He was immediately gagging and vomiting everything back up.  After 10am he never sat up again.  He was so weak that he soiled himself with diarrhea because he couldn't get up.  There was blood in his stool.  I was checking on him every ten minutes, trying to coax him to eat and drink once every half an hour, but all my efforts were fruitless.  When I checked him at 12:30, he was dead.

I share this because it's been a hard week.  I feel like I've done nothing but clean up vomit and diarrhea for days and frantically try to get a dying puppy to accept food and drink.  I'm worn out and emotionally cut up about having nursed our new puppy (whom we only had for 12 days) night and day and still couldn't save his life.  I did everything I could to keep him alive, but there was obviously something seriously wrong.  Whether or not it was actually tick bite fever we will never know. 

And of course so far I've only written about the puppies.  During the past two weeks, I've also spent time baking and preparing to have friends over for Elijah's first birthday; gone to a kitchen party (bridal shower) for the bride of a local chief; and hosted an Independence Day barbecue for our colleagues.  And kept up with my weekly Nyanja language lessons, which are really difficult.  And caught up on all the laundry and unpacking from our trip.  And moved Elijah into his own room, and rearranged our bedroom and his new room.  And I've missed my brother's wedding, knowing that so many of my relatives were gathering there and I was so far away and haven't even seen more than two photos of the occasion yet even though it happened a week ago!  These things all pile up.  And that's why I haven't posted again.  Plus, I didn't want to use up too much of our limited bandwidth at once, so I've been waiting to put up more photos.  I will do it at some point, when I have a chance to catch my breath.  Now that I'm no longer nursing a dying puppy, maybe next week I will have a chance.  Then again, next week I need to put in my vegetable garden. . .

photos from our trip! (part 1)

The sign says, "Water is gift from God. . . use it do not abuse it. . . conserve it." And indeed we were reminded of how precious water is during our week of camping when we had to bring our own drinking water and rely on buckets of water from the river to wash our clothes and dishes.  You suddenly start to realize how much water you go through in a week!

Our first destination: Kasanka National Park, where we spent one night.

David at the top of Fibwe Hide (tree hide) at Kasanka

one of the elephants David saw at Kasanka

the other elephant

 washing the dishes in the dark

part of the road from Kasanka to Shoebill Island - that's Heinrich's vehicle in front of us

the road to nowhere - Shoebill Island.  At the dead end of this road, we reached the front gate of Shoebill and then had to leave the vehicles and take boats to our campsite.

Hundreds of black letchwe antelope as far as the eye could see

 Getting into the boats

 view from our campsite

 setting up camp - with 5 tents this was always a marathon!

 our campsite

 boating around the island

 Elijah thoroughly enjoyed himself

 slogging through the marsh barefoot to find the Shoebill

 the guides carrying the children

 the Shoebill Stork

 and another view

 in flight

beginning the long trek back to the boats - I'm carrying Elijah on my back.

to be continued. . .

Day 9: Kapishya-Kabwe

Day 9: Kapishya-Kabwe (Tues 21 June)

Today was another long day.  We got up at sunrise and packed up camp yet again.  :)  We managed to hit the road at 8am for the very long drive back towards Lusaka.  Most of the trip was on tarmac, which was nice – no more horrible dirt roads!  However, the tarmac itself was pretty bad.  You could hardly describe them as potholes – it looked like the road had just disintegrated, the entire width of the road surface was gone and it extended for a sizable chunk, so that the vehicles had to nearly come to a complete stop to navigate it safely.

On the way, about halfway to our destination, we took a detour down a very bad road to see Kundalila Falls.  After eating a bite of lunch together we hiked the short distance to where we could view the falls.  It was quite spectacular, from what we could see of it, which was hindered by the very steep angle of the waterfall and all the trees.  We climbed around a bit but to reach a really good viewing spot we would have had to hike for hours, so after taking a few photos we returned to the vehicles and left.

We finally reached Kabwe (about 2 hours north of Lusaka) around 5pm after travel time of 8 hours!  We were all very ready to get out of the car, the adults no less than the squirming children.  Our hosts for the evening were the Kellers, friends of Marjanne’s who are involved with a Christian school in Kabwe.  Marjanne had contacted them to see if we could camp near their home and visit the school on our return trip to Lusaka, and they were very welcoming.  We set up our tents on their grassy lawn!  Thankfully though we were setting up the tents after dark by the time we finally arrived, their outside lights made the job much easier.  The Kellers were very hospitable and opened their home to us.  And Ashley Keller had very kindly made dinner for us, which was an unexpected and delightful surprise.  We had planned to throw together a pasta salad when we arrived, but having a meal ready meant that we only had to unpack the tents and everything else could stay in the vehicles!  It also meant we could feed the children and put them to bed rather than having to spend time cooking.  Our evening of fellowship with the Kellers was very enjoyable. David and I particularly enjoyed meeting them since they are both American and we’ve met very few Americans since our arrival in Zambia.  We stayed up late into the night getting to know each other.

In the morning (Wed 22 June), the Zwemstras and Marjanne left around 7.45 to visit the school before they continued on to Lusaka.  It was nice to pack up the tents for the last time knowing that soon we would be sleeping in real beds and no longer freezing cold at night!  David and I, had important business waiting for us in Lusaka that morning, so we left the Kellers at 8am and drove straight there.  The next 48 hours were full of errands in Lusaka and then we were finally on our way home on Friday morning, 24 June, reaching Covenant College that evening around 4:30!

And that is the story of our camping trip.  I hope to post a few photos shortly.

Day 7 & 8: Kapishya Hot Springs

Day 7 & 8: Kapishya Hot Springs (Sun 19 and Mon 20 June)

These two days were the most relaxing of our entire trip. 

On Sunday, we asked about a local church but there were no good churches nearby.  So instead we all gathered together and had a time of Bible reading and prayer.  This was one of the sobering things we realized on our trip – the church situation was quite grim.  Most villages we passed through had a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witness.  It was sad to see the extent to which this cult has penetrated the African bush.

The rest of Sunday was spent resting and soaking in the hot springs.  We were amused by the 5 horses belonging to the owner of Kapishya, who came trotting through the campground to drink at the river.  We got a good photo of Marjanne’s tent, which was pitched just beside the riverbank, surrounded by this herd of curious horses! 

On Monday, Phil left us and drove the l-o-n-g way back to Lusaka, as he had business awaiting him.  The rest of us, who were staying at Kapishya an extra night, decided to take a short drive (about 15 kilometres) up the road to see a scenic waterfall nearby.  We had been told that soon they would start construction to dam it up for a power plant project.  When we reached the waterfall we discovered that construction had already begun!  A friendly construction worker greeted us and when he found out that we had come to have a picnic at the falls, he invited us to come take a look.  We carried the kids and all clambered through the construction zone full of piles of rocks.  The series of waterfalls and rapids were impressive to see.  After staying a few minutes to take photos, suddenly another construction worker appeared frantically waving his arms and shouting at us.  Thinking something was wrong, we quickly hurried up the hill to find out.  “Hurry!  You must leave!  They are going to set off an atomic bomb!”  It soon became apparent that his English wasn’t very good and they simply were going to be laying some explosives on the bank further down.  J  Thankful for the warning, we hurriedly scooped up the children and left, chuckling about such a crazy experience – welcomed into a construction zone, escorted through piles of debris, and then warned of an impending explosion!

While wading from the hot springs down towards the river, David spotted what he thought was a crocodile swimming away from him.  The crocodiles, which are around (there were signs posted), won’t come near the hot spring because of the temperature, but further down as the water cools you might find them.  Later David realized that while it might have been a crocodile, it could just as possibly have been a monitor lizard, also common in that area.

Our last afternoon was spent mostly luxuriating in the hot spring. The spring is about 40* Celcius (approx 104* F) at its deepest point and cooler along the edges. It was well shaded by tropical trees and had such a welcoming feel!   After dinner, Marjanne, who was sitting by the fire reading, offered to keep an ear out for the sleeping children if Heinrich and Jacomien and David and myself wanted to go relax as couples in the hot springs without children in tow!  That was very kind of her and we enjoyed one last peaceful soak in the starlight on our final night.

Day 6: Mutinondo-Kapishya Hot Springs

DAY 6: MUTINONDO WILDERNESS-KAPISHYA HOT SPRINGS (Sat 18 June)

Mutinondo really served only one purpose: to break up the journey from Shoebill to Kapishya, since those were our two  main destinations but the journey time would have been a bit intense to take it all in one fell swoop.  So, having spent the night in Mutinondo, we packed up camp the next morning.  Phil made an early start around 8.30 with Marjanne and Jacomien accompanying him, the three of them planning to visit Shiwa N’gandu (Africa House), a historic Colonial British estate built in the middle of nowhere in Zambia.  The rest of us (Heinrich and the kids and ourselves) made a slower start to the morning and packed up tent more leisurely, not feeling like rushing.  We left around 10am.  Kapishya was not too far away and mostly on tarmac, so we anticipated a reasonable and easy journey.

Everything went smoothly until we tried to stop to buy some more bottled water and a few groceries for the remainder of our camping trip at a town along the way.  We mistakenly turned off the tarmac before we reached the town, and ended up bouncing along on narrow dirt roads, winding through neighborhoods and not seeing a single shop anywhere.  After asking for directions four times, we finally got back on the right track after wasting more than 20 minutes driving in circles.  Once we reached the tarmac, we easily found what we were looking for!

The end of the drive was a very pretty scenic wooded road in the country, winding through part of the Shiwa N’gandu estate.  Kapishya Hot Springs was about 30 kilometres off the tarmac.  When we reached the campsite all of us breathed a sigh of relief, since this was to be our last major destination of the trip and it would be good to stay put for a few days!  The campsite was very nicely maintained and located next to a rushing river (signs were posted to be wary of crocodiles).  And unlike all our previous campsites, this one provided flush toilets, real showers, and running cold AND hot water, for which we were all immensely grateful!  The Hot Spring was right around the corner from the campsite, so while David set up our tent I took Elijah, who was cutting teeth and a little bit out of sorts, to play in the Hot Springs for a while.  We had reached the campsite around 3pm or so, one of the earliest arrivals of our whole trip, and we all felt at liberty to relax and enjoy ourselves for a bit of the remaining afternoon instead of frantically trying to set up camp and sort out the cooking.  I was soon joined in the hot spring by several others!  It was a very restful start to our stay at Kapishya.

Day 5: Shoebill-Mutinondo Wilderness

DAY 5: SHOEBILL-MUTINONDO WILDERNESS (Fri 17 June)

We got up at sunrise to pack up the tents.  The boatmen arrived at 7.15 to carry our stuff and pack it into the boats.  We left around 7.35 and when we reached the vehicles, everything had to be carried off the boats and packed back into our vehicles.   At 9am we left the front gate on our way to Mutinondo Wilderness.  As we left, the herds of black letchwe antelope were grazing as far as we could see, and there were 5 zebra mingled among them!  That was an amazing sight.  

 Originally the plan was to retrace our steps and go back the way we came, which was a very roundabout way of getting to our next destination, but was the only way the GPS indicated.  However, a very helpful Shoebill guide told us about a shortcut which would save us hours of driving on horrible roads.  We were delighted to find that it cut at least 2 hours off our driving time.  

We reached the turn off to Mutinondo Wilderness in good time, between 14 and 14.30, but from there things got a little muddled.  We drove for almost 20 kilometres into the park and at some point stopped because it was unclear whether we were supposed to take a turn off to go straight to the campsite, or continue straight to reach the lodge and check in.  It was decided to turn around and drive to the campsite, but within 10 kilometres we turned around again because no one really knew where we were supposed to go.  The GPS indicated that the road to the campsite went a certain direction, but the road disappeared into a marshy grassland which looked treacherous and none of us wanted to get stuck.  The scenery was well forested but when we turned around at the marsh, there was a stunning view of large rocky bluffs jutting up from the flat grassy plain.  Eventually we reached the lodge, which was situated on the edge of another scenic rocky bluff, and after a few minutes found the owner of Mutinondo and paid for our stay.  Mutinondo is actually private property which has been made available to the public as a campground and lodge.  It offers an endless selection of hiking trails, waterfalls, rapids, and opportunities to go horseback riding and exploring in the scenic surroundings.  The owner gave us instructions to reach the campsite and we set off again.    There were some stunning views as we drove. Being in the hills was a complete contrast to the few days we had spent on flat, marshy, waterlogged Shoebill Island.

After another half hour of driving, by which time we were wondering if we’d taken another wrong turn and if we would ever reach the campsite, we finally found it.  It was located on a wooded knoll leading down to a cold, fast-flowing river.  As usual we were scrambling to set up camp and make dinner before it got completely dark and we had to put the babies to bed.  Heinrich, who had decided to follow the GPS into the marsh, got stuck and had to winch himself out, and so they arrived later than the rest of us.

The campsite was very similar to the others we’d stayed at, having a long-drop toilet, a bucket shower, and a shelter to serve as a kitchen.  The camp attendant brought us firewood, cold water for washing, and warm water for the shower.  This one night we spent at Mutinondo was probably the coldest night of the entire trip.  A few of us couldn’t get back to sleep past 4am because the temperature had plummeted and it was impossible to stay warm enough in the tents.  Thankfully, we all survived, and the next morning found us huddled around a campfire  - the only instance during the whole trip when we found it necessary to build a fire in the morning to stay warm!

Day 4: Shoebill Island

DAY 4: SHOEBILL ISLAND (Thurs 16 June)

We originally planned to leave today but decided to rest for 1 extra day here after the arduous trip.  This morning we took a walk around the island, mostly bird-watching.  Heinrich, David, Phil, and Marjanne were especially keen but Anel and Elijah were heavy and unsettled so Jacomien and I returned to camp after 45 minutes.  We made an early dinner (spaghetti) to facilitate easier packing later.  The afternoon was relaxing with a welcome chance for a siesta.  In the evening we all tried to get as much packed ahead of time as possible so that we could get an early start in the morning.  In all, it was a quiet, uneventful day – just what we all needed to finish recovering so that we would be ready for more driving the next day!