4 countries in one day...along with another busy week!

Let me get to the title in a little bit! First I want to start by telling you all about my week! I hope yall read and enjoyed my birthday post! It sure was a great day! Thanks to everyone who wrote sweet words on my Facebook or sent emails! They made my day that much more special!!

The sweet new babies we have here at Zion are 6 weeks old this week! And that means clinic checkup time! Since there are two of them, I went along with Lorna to the clinic on Tuesday morning. What an experience! Holding two babies down the road that we travel to get to the main paved road was an adventure!! At the clinic they brought us all in one room to weigh all the babies! So Lorna and I are in there with like 7 other mothers to get the babies weights! It was so precious putting their tiny little bodies in these huge slings so they could hang them from the scale! I so wish I had a picture of that! And the best news is that they now weigh 3kgs!!! YAY! After the weighing we had to wait a bit to actually have their checkup, so we sat in the car and fed them! Once we saw the nurse she checked out the babies, prescribed some more medicine and then gave them their first injections. Oh man, all you mothers out there, I don’t know how you handle it with newborns getting shots! It about made me cry! I was holding Manyando and his little lip was just quivering and he was crying so hard! Broke my heart! After their shots they had to be HIV tested. Luckily, in babies it is rare, especially since we don’t know if these twins were ever breastfed, and more than likely their mother was on medicine. Holding the boys while their little heels were pricked was another heart-ripped-out moment! Once we were done there we ran some errands around town before heading back home! That afternoon I did some spreadsheets for the medicine the boys get and then played with the kids!!

Wednesday, I started the morning in Auntie Josephine’s kindergarten classroom! It is so fun being around the younger ones! They have all sorts of fun songs for their letters and learning to write and spell things! That afternoon we had gym class so our class, and Heidi and Laura’s class all went on a walk out to the bridge! We saw our crocodile friend we affectionately call “Caroline.” She was just floating in the water below the bridge so we really didn’t have to worry about her! It was super hot that afternoon so that walk zapped everyone of their energy! That night the girls decided to try braiding our hair. Wow, those girls can braid! Talk about painful!!

Thursday was another day in the classroom. I started out with the 1^st – 3^rd graders and then went back with the kinder class! That afternoon the girls and I went into town with Travis to go to tutwa and book our Victoria Falls trip! We walked from the bank where he dropped us off to the travel agent and then back to the shopping center for milkshakes! We all decided we felt very African after our walking through town! Haha! That night during dinner meds, sweet Maria lost a tooth! She was so excited about it and the fact that she got to write the tooth fairy a letter!

Friday was a true typical day in Africa adventure for me and Lorna. We had a few kids we had to take to the local hospital for check ups and med refills. Let me tell you, the hospital is quite the experience! There are all sorts of ques that you have to be in, and you have to watch carefully or you will lose your spot in the que and then you’re in trouble because it will be hard to get in between someone else. So the first stop is registration to get the kids medical passports stamped. Then we move to the clinic area and sit in line for them to get their temps taken and wait for a consult room to open. When it’s your turn you duck into this room with a nurse and they ask what is wrong and they decide what you need to do. Either you will be prescribed meds or you will have to wait in more lines to see a doctor. Mattius, one of the boys, was only prescribed some meds so we got his filled at the pharmacy and then waited to see what Toba was going to have to do. Unfortunately he had to get meds filled, an injection, and see a doctor. So once we got his meds we moved on to the terrifyingly long line to see the doc. As time inched closer to one, and we knew they would all leave for lunch, so we decided to head home and eat lunch and then come back. So that afternoon we came back and barely had any wait to see the doctor, so that worked out nicely! The girls and I spent Friday night playing Rummikub and getting our things ready for our day trip to the falls!!

Saturday morning was an early start to our “4 countries in one day” journey. Our guide picked us at 6:30am to begin our fun day! Our drive from Zion included passing into Botswana, which means driving through the wildlife reserve, so we got to see a lot of animals! Tons of elephants, Cape buffalo, and a few Giraffe! Then we crossed the border into Zimbabwe! We had about an hour or so drive from the border to the falls, also known as the Smoke That Thunders. Victoria Falls town is a very touristy town so the city had tons of shops and opportunities for excursions of all sorts! I definitely need to go back while I’m here to do some adventurous things! Like ride an elephant!! We got to the park and had about 2 ½ hours to walk along the falls and take a ridiculous amount of pictures! It was seriously the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen. It took my breath away when I saw them for the first time. They are so grand, and so LOUD and beautiful that when you look at them you suddenly feel incredibly tiny. Looking at this, one of the 7 wonders of the world, Gods artistry and greatness is so magnificently displayed! All I could do was praise Him! We walked from point to point, and got wetter and wetter as we walked! Before we knew it we were drenched!! We got to one of the further points called “Danger point.” You basically walk down this path that leads right to the edge and there are really no fences or plant buildups along the side. It is just open and unbelievably breathtaking. It was so close to the falls though that I couldn’t get my camera out to take an actual picture! But there I am standing on a rock overlooking the largest waterfalls in the world drenched from head to toe with my arms spread wide just screaming, because honestly it felt as though that was the best response! I seriously hope that everyone at some point in their life has the opportunity to see these falls! It is so gorgeous!

Once we left the falls we drove out to the Victoria Falls Lodge. On our drive we drove past some elephants. They were literally like 5 feet from our car! I had my head and camera stuck out the window and I guess my elephant friend didn’t like having his picture taken and he made it known!!! He flared out his ears and stamped his feet and blew his trunk at us! It scared me half to death, but it was about the funniest thing ever!! The lodge we ate lunch at was incredible! We sat out on the back bar deck that over looked a watering hole and we could see Livingstone, Zambia from the deck. It was like being in the Lion King, and we all know how much I love Disney movies. It was incredible! We had a fantastic meal and watched as a storm from Zambia rolled in!

After lunch we drove back into town and went to a local craft market. It was hilarious because all of these guys swarmed us to come and look at their booths. We were hounded like no other!! But we did get some great stuff! Then we drove back near the falls and the bridge that connects the two countries over the water. We got to walk out on the bridge and over look the river and the huge gorge. It was beautiful. You could also see the Victoria Falls Hotel off in the distance. We stood near the bungee jumping area, and I can’t even imagine ever doing that!!! Especially after watching the news about that girl who fell! It is SO far down! The best part is that halfway across the bridge is the Zimbabwe border then “no mans land”, and then Zambia. So we had fun taking border pictures!!

From the bridge we drove to the Victoria Falls Hotel. It is the oldest hotel in the area and it is a colonial style hotel that is stunning. Walking through that hotel we definitely felt as though we needed to be royalty to be in its midst. But the views that this hotel had were remarkable. As we walked closer to the edge we ran into a girl with a “Tyler’s” Austin Texas shirt on! Of course I had to ask! She was from Houston and went to A&M… SMALL WORLD! We finally left the hotel around 3:30 to begin our drive back to Namibia. You see the Namibian border closes at 6pm so you have to get there in time. And it’s about a 2 ½ hour drive to get to the border, so we knew we were going to be rushing against time! Luckily we made it through the packs of baboons on the road, and all the other random roadblocks to make it back to the border at 5:47! Talk about arriving in the nick of time!

We finally got home from our adventure around 7pm! We ended up skipping out on Saturday night movie night, that way we could change from our wet clothes, eat some dinner and SLEEP!!! It was an exhausting day but the most amazing at the same time!

Yesterday in church we talked about the parable of the lost sheep. How precious are we that our father would leave behind all to come and find just one, me. I am so thankful that my Heavenly Father holds me and my life in such high regard.

That afternoon we took the kids on a walk before they had lunch and rest time. The rest of the day has been laundry, cleaning, and catching up on emails, journaling, and uploading pictures.

So far this week I have been working in the school. Yesterday Laura and I organized and inventoried all of the children’s work books we received! That took us all day yesterday and it was terribly exhausting!! Today, I met with our Principal who just got back from a training in South Africa, about what I will be doing in the school for the next year! He let me know that I would be taking over the Preschool class!! I am very excited about this! I think it is really going to help me find a purpose here at Zion. I will hopefully start teaching on Monday which means the rest of this week will be planning and getting ready to take on the classroom! So I’m sure in blogs to come I will have fun stories about my new preschool class kids!

I can’t believe it’s another week gone, and almost a month since I left! They are flying by most of the time! Of course there are days that just drag on and on, but for the most part it’s hard to believe I have been here 3 weeks already! Only about 46 more to go!! Haha!

Continue to lift me up in your prayers. Continue to pray adopt over me.

Love to you all!

Here are so pictures from the week!