Blog #21 Happy Holidays!

BLOG #21

Happy New Year! I haven't updated this in a few weeks because I took some time to relax and get out of the Camp for Christmas and New Years. Daniel and I went to the closest town for Christmas to get cell-phone reception. Then we headed to the Peace Corps house for a couple days to buy supplies for our new house. (We're moving to our own place during January!) And, we stopped by Lake Tanganyika (a Lake that runs along the east coast of DR Congo, the west coast of Tanzania, and the northeast of Zambia) for a few days. It was a very relaxing and much needed break. Though, it is always nice to get back to the quiet and more natural life here in Mwange Camp.

Some of the highlights of my Christmas and New Years include:
- Daniel and I had a surprise holiday party for our Mwange staff right before Christmas. We had tea (which they make with pounds of sugar) and everyone's favorite fried donut hole-like bread things. Good times!
- We had a party with the Mubanga family to celebrate the holidays and to celebrate Daniel and I moving to our new house (really it's a thatched roof hut). We were able to scrap together presents for each of the kids and they were really excited. (I'll write more about our new place later this month.)
- We hung out with a group of South Africans and Peace Corps people in Kasama cooking good food, watching random movies and hearing crazy stories of their travels throughout Africa.
- For 5 hours, we rode in the back of a flat bed truck on a bumpy dirt road through both hard rains and strong African sun.
- When we arrived at Lake Tanganyika we hiked for hours along the shore, only to find the "hotel" we were looking for wrecked by the rains. The owner introduced us to a couple guys who offered to take us in a paddle boat across the Lake to a better lodge. From the middle of the Lake, we could see Zambia, Tanzania and DR Congo in the distance. The Lake is an absolutely gorgeous blue. (Hopefully I can upload some pictures of it soon.)
- On New Years Eve we met a group of fun Zambian government workers, who had us over for lunch the next day. Hopefully we'll be able to visit them again. They were extremely welcoming.
- We went swimming at the rocky "beach" on Lake Tanganyika and ate some great local fresh fish.
- We ended up staying up until sunrise to catch a 3am bus that really left at 5:30am. And, that was the bus that is always "on time." That's what they call Zambian time!
- I baked some homemade banana bread with Zambian bananas in a real oven, mmmmm.

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing holiday season. I missed you!

xoxo