The events of my weekend in Africa Light

There’s this saying that Zambia is part of “Africa Light”—basically it’s “easy Africa”. Many of the things that we are used to in North America are available here (although they may be expensive). On Saturday, after some lesson planning, Chris, Josh and I experienced some Africa Light (and actually found out that many of our Africa Light activities are very reasonably priced).
In the morning we made these Barney Cupcakes that we found a mix for in the cupboard. The cupcakes were green and had purple icing. We laughed quite a lot! After that we headed off to one of the malls called Manda Hill were there was a music store and we looked at guitars and then had a pizza lunch. After that we went to a café in the mall (the Kilimanjaro Café) that has great milkshakes. Boy, I love milkshakes. Especially vanilla ones!
Then we walked to the other mall (Arcades) and bowled. We bowled with more pins and with balls with holes in them. Josh and Chris have only ever bowled this way (8 pin bowling?). After trying to hold the ball with my fingers in the holes and getting gutter balls, I proceeded to play almost the entire game throwing the ball between my legs and I came second! I also snapped off the end of my thumb nail in one of those little holes. The dangers of bowling!!
After that, we had tea in another café and then headed to the movie theatre where we watched Narnia (Prince Caspian) which came out here yesterday. It was the first time I’d seen it and I really enjoyed it a lot. It exceeded my expectations. And the theatre was pretty decent. The movie was late… which was ok because we arrived right when it was supposed to start. The ads skipped a lot and we thought that didn’t bode well, but the movie worked really well.
After that we went to the “Food Fare” (another restaurant in the mall) and ate those messy burgers again… and I had mine with Indian garlic naan on the side… because I could.
It was a delicious and very fun day. It’s really fun to have the guys around. I really enjoy their company.
When we got home, we found that Leeland had managed to get up all the mosquito nets (and there was much rejoicing!). One of the worst feelings ever is trying to sleep and hearing that loud buzzing around your ear and knowing there’s a mosquito right by your head, and then the buzzing stops and you think “it’s landed on me and is sucking my blood and giving me diseases right now” so you promptly (in your semi-conscious state) smack yourself in the face hoping to kill it… and then the buzzing starts again… and then the whole process starts again until you’ve caused yourself much more damage than the mosquito would have. Just saying.
On Sunday we went to a church service where a bunch of churches had come together for a conference. I didn’t know any of the songs, but I really liked a bunch of them. They had really powerful words. We hit the craft market really quickly and met up with Alissa (a girl that was on the safari with us). After some food at the Food Fayre (we’re becoming regulars) we headed off to the youth group at the school. Today I was the speaker! AH! Lots of praying went into that! For someone who loves theatre, I do find public speaking (especially about things that are really important to me) quite challenging. I didn’t know what I was going to speak about, but this morning God really put it on my heart to just do a simple gospel presentation. Sharon translated for me (I really wanted it to come across clearly), and I spoke (over a drunk guy that was calling things into the room throughout the whole thing!). Lots of kids prayed afterwards to accept Christ into their lives. I pray that those decisions will be sincere and that they will be followed up on so they will be able to grow. After that, any kids that wanted to stay behind and pray with leaders individually were able to, and then we divided into groups. Josh and Chris lead some of the kids in soccer drills and a soccer game outside, and a bunch of the other kids stayed in and I did a choir class with them. We were working on that “Alleluia” song (that Michael W. Smith sings), and worked really hard on the harmonies. We performed it for Tanya afterwards and the girls were so happy with the way it turned out that they all started clapping for themselves. It was pretty cool. Then we met up as a whole youth group and prayed together and then it was time to go. The meeting was pretty cool. That night, Leeland did a bbq! Score! And then I got to type to my amazing sister online. And the day ended with watching “Blood Diamond” on TV. It’s been a great weekend.