Saturday and Our Market Adventures

5/17/14 @ 6:28pm-- Saturday

Today we went to town. The closest town is Kalomo which is about 7 km down the dirt road, so of course it takes about 20-30 minutes to get there. It was a very cultural experience. I unfortunately did not get ay pictures this time. 

While we were there we got money out of the bank, I got about 2,000 kwacha (Zambian currency) which is equal to about 300 dollars. The exchange rate today was about 6.25 kwacha to one American dollar. This should be all of the money that I need for the entirety of our trip. I hated to get that much money out but with bank fees it is better to do it all at once. This was a lot of drama. At the local business front was the bank. It is comparable to a strip mall in America with store fronts and everyone was looking at us getting money out. So of course we made a barrier of little white girls protecting the person getting money. Then after the person got money we hid her in the corner while she stuffed it into a compartment in her purse. Needless to say it was a very interesting experience. This whole time the Zambians were staring at us trying to figure out what we were doing. We might have stopped some traffic at that time. 

After getting money we proceeded to an open air market. It was mostly for clothes and shoes with some shitangies (sp?) mixed in. Today I just looked and observed the situation. It was hard to not feel anxiety by all the stares that we received, because lets face it, we stick out like a sore thumb. Cara, one of our supervisors, has been here before and she let us around the market. She was our mama duck and we were her ducklings following her around. I didn't get anything at the market. When we got back to the bus it was parked at the gas station and so I went in and purchased me some Coke. As most of you who know me know, I am an addict. So I bought a reserve to have for this week and next week we will be going to a different town, Chomo, and I will be getting more I am sure! 

When we got back to the bus, B. Weave (what we affectionately call Dr. Weaver) sent us on another errand to find popcorn for our movie night that we are going to have tonight. This led us to an even more culturally enhancing event in which is was a closed air market for food. Mostly consisting of dried fish. We did not find the popcorn on the first try, how unfortunate. Another group left after we got back to try to find it and they were successful so do not fear, we will have popcorn!! After that we went to the postoffice and I sent out a few postcards to the people whose addresses I remember, which really just means Joyce and Mark. Haha! 

That was it for the day. When we got back we had lunch which included spaghetti rice, rolls, and salad. I then took a nice long siesta that was drug induced from the dramamine from the bus trip. After that we unpacked a storage container that we have that had therapy supplies in it. This took all of 30 minutes with all hands on deck. Then we had an excellent dinner of ramen noodles with a peanut butter sandwich and homemade peanut butter cookies and a coke. It was wonderful. Now I must depart, we are going to watch the Lion King, whilst in Africa. This is real life.