Man vs Snakes...

It’s amazing to watch the seasons unfold here in Africa. Unlike the fairly distinct summer-autumn-winter-spring of many parts of the world, Zambia has more of a cooler, dry season (or dust season), moving into the hot, dry season (or very dusty season), eventually changing to the wet season (mud season) that we are currently enjoying.

The wet season brings some welcome relief from the extreme heat of October, helping to put an end to the dust, and transforming the local environment. The trees and grass spring to life with vibrant splashes of green. The flying ants emerge from the ground in great swarms every evening. The frogs come out to devour the ants. And of course, the snakes come out to complete the picture.

Unfortunately this ecosystem occurs in the midst of our Mukinge neighbourhood, and inevitably results in some rather unwanted encounters.

Our first experience with one of these little critters was around dusk about 6 weeks ago, when a small, grey snake tried to come through our front door. Thankfully our great gardener had left his grass cutter nearby, and I was able to easily dispose of this little reptile. To be honest, I actually derived confidence from this experience. After all, we’d had our “snake experience” now. We could tick it off our list of things done in Zambia. Dave 1, Snake 0.

This picture doesn't do the size of the snake justice!

He had it coming

8 evenings later, Mary and I were have dinner at about 1930hrs. The power went off, and we commenced the struggle to find a light in the darkness. Eventually I found my headlight and we moved to the kitchen to find the matches, only to both leap back as a rather large black snake came slithering under our front door and into the hole down the back of our kitchen bench. This was a significantly more unsettling experience than our first snake encounter for a few reasons. 1 – the snake was in our home (how rude!) 2 – we had literally had our front door reinforced two days earlier to prevent this exact thing from occurring. And finally 3 – the position this snake was in, completely blocked our path to our outer room with every snake slaughtering weapon a man could dream of (African grass cutter, rake, shovel, broom, you name it…)

After we regained a little composure (ie – I worked up the courage to go past the kitchen to get some snake whacking gear, and Mary repositioned herself on top of the dinner table with the torch in hand), we commenced the serious efforts to rid our home of this beast. Following about 15mins of stalemate in which neither hunter nor the hunted gave an inch, we decided to call in the United Nations. Shortly after, we were joined by fellow missos from India, the US, the UK and of course another Aussie. Sadly after a further 2 hours of trying every trick in the book – boiling water, noise (including Toby Mac cranked to 11), sticks shoved up holes, pulling the kitchen apart, etc – the elusive elapid remained intact and out of sight (possibly in our kitchen, bathroom, roof or Toby’s room).

A google images impression of what the black snake may have looked like

Thus to cut a long story short, we became refugees of the snake season. Our much-loved “Pool House” was now the snake house, and we couldn’t be sure that the next thing Tobes picked up off the floor was not a black snake.

Whilst we quite confidently won the first battle of the snake season, the snakes did win the war, and like any self-respecting citizens we packed up our belongings and moved house! - D

Some great friends...

Over the past few months I have had the real privilege of running a Bible study each Thursday with some of the 2nd year nursing students from the Mukinge Nurses Training School.  It has been wonderful getting to know each one of these girls.  They have become great friends and I will miss them dearly when we leave Zambia.  

Last Saturday we had a great social get-together where we enjoyed an afternoon of swimming followed by a scrumptious meal.  These lovely girls made some traditional Zambian dishes for us to enjoy.  The dishes were so delicious.  Nshima, cabbage & tomato, sausage & gravy, curried chicken, meat balls, and wait for it......... CATERPILLARS!!  Uhuh.  Bear Grylls move over.  Dave led the way by a quick swallow, followed by Zeke and then Toby.  Due to the intensity of the pressure to try these fried morsels, I managed to swallow one.  Not quite my favourite dish with nshima, but I'm glad I gave them a try.  - m

The yummy selection for dinner

Catepillars before being fried

After...
Dave wants me to make special mention of the fact that he ate 4 of these things!! 

Plating up...

The girls also made a delicious "wacky cake" from the Cooking In Zambia cookbook. :)

a bub to remember...

Around 4 months ago I had a couple of lovely ladies come to my front door. I invited them in for a cuppa and biscuit (or cup of tea and cookie as our US friends would say:). The pregnant mum and her sister had come to Mukinge Hospital in preparation for the arrival of her second baby.  It was a joy to meet this beautiful little baby girl a few weeks after we had first met.  She was gorgeous. 

Just yesterday I was playing outside with the boys when I noticed a very familiar face.  Walking up the path was this good friend with her baby wrapped on her back. How exciting it was to see them again and to see how much this beautiful girl had grown!!  She was thriving (to say the least)!  After we had exchanged greetings, mumma said, “and this is my little girl, Mary”!!

Wow...that just made my day!  How cool to have such a little cutie with the same name!! :)  - m

A reality check...

I vividly remember sitting in a missions night for medical students back about 4 years ago. I was very excited about medical missions, and was looking forward to the stories and testimonies of a number of returned missionaries.

However, probably my only lasting memory of the night was that of a middle-aged GP. This sincere man shared about his 2 years of service in a mission hospital during the 80s. There were plenty of great stories, but he also described how he ended his time of service stressed, depressed and burnt out. The experience obviously had a profound effect on him (and he was still active with helping send-out missos), but he himself never returned. A catastrophic experience with an obstructed labour seemed to have been the final straw, and he left the country in distress.

At the time I remember trying to convince myself that it was good to have a “balanced” view on the realities of missionary service. That perhaps at times I had a tendency to romanticize the excitement of missions life, and it was good to realize that it wasn’t all smooth sailing. However being the eternal optimist that I am, I probably didn’t think that this man’s story was something that I would ever be able to identify with.

Well - 6 months into life in rural Africa, I certainly can identify with some of the challenges this good doctor described. Life as a bush doctor is constant and demanding at times. There are long days, late nights and long stretches without days off. The work is difficult and often tragic.  The resources are limited.  Home life also has it's struggles with the distance from family and friends at home, and the regular lack of things like electricity. It's often easy to feel so consumed by life in our little corner of Zambia, that seeing the big picture is difficult.

I certainly don’t want this post to be taken out of context, as although some of these struggles have been very real during these past 6 months in Zambia, overall my (and our family’s) experience here has been one of great blessing. There is so much that we have enjoyed about living here! In fact we would whole-heartedly recommend this sort of experience to others, and we ourselves will leave here knowing that God may very well lead us back to this sort of work in the future.

To finish, I thought I might share a few short lessons that I pray I am learning through the challenging times here, and also a couple of verses that have been a great comfort during these darker and more difficult moments.

-    That God’s characteristics are not bound by my feelings

-    How to better bear the burdens of others

-    To be honest with myself and others regarding how I’m traveling

-    How to rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn

-    How to be genuinely empathetic to those who are suffering depression and anxiety

-    To consciously commit every concern I have to the One who is able to bear these burdens

-    That God doesn’t promise a smooth ride in life, he just promises to be there through it all

-    Psalm 42:11 – “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.”

-   2 Corinthians 1:3-4 - "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."   - d