monday monday

yesterday was definatley a monday!

the day started off in the usual way, me trying to sleep in and the workmen determined that i won't by driving the noisy deisel 'tipper' back and forth by my window and dumping loads of bricks. when i finally decided that i wasn't sleeping anyways and i should get up i found Lina scrubbing the floors and dishes, trying to get rid of the damp stinky smell that has taken over our house since it was flooded. she did a good job though, the smell is no longer there. :) i went down to my classroom and worked a little more, rearranging furniture etc only to find a 'nest' of 'whiteants' (aka termites)...oh goody. it was a good thing i moved the bookcases b/c they were just starting to build and so were fairly easy to get rid of once i obtained some pif paf. after lunch Lina and i decided to take a little break and drive into "town" and get some cokes. being 'good' missionaries we went around the station asking anyone if they needed anything and so we were given a list of errands to run as well. after a quick trip to the orphanage we were on our way. i was a little leary of Lina driving as this was her first time driving right-hand drive and only her 2nd time driving stick shift, add to that the 'amazing' zambian roads and i figured we were in for an adventure ;). lina did a very good job though, with the exception of forgetting to take the hand break off a few times, things ran smoothly. we were disappointed to find there was no coke to be found in Ikelenge. there was also no mail at the post office, two big let downs. we were able to do all our other errands though. on our way back home we stopped at the clinic and picked up a lady and her baby who wanted a ride back to the farm (which was on our way). Lina was getting a little more confident with her driving and was driving a little faster then on the way in. all of the sudden she hit a rather large pot hole which jarred the truck and put us into the ditch! it happened so quickly there wasn't much time to recover the truck and keep it on the road. i should mention that at this particular part of the road it is really just like a narrow laneway with ditches on either side of it. when i jumped out and inspected the problem i realized it wasn't that bad. the two left tires were off the road, but that was it. we asked the lady to get out of the back (just in case) and then lina got back into to drive while i tried to push. we were able to move the truck but the middle of the road was a huge hump that the right tires couldn't seem to get over, which would get us out of the ditch. a few times i thought the truck was going to topple into the ditch on top of me, but thankfully that didn't happen. just as we were about to give up and call back to the school for help and man happened along on his bicycle. he stopped, checked out the situation, looked at us and said "we push, then chechiwahi (it is well)". he turned to the small crowd of people that had gathered around (non of whom had offered to help) and told them to come and assist us. with about 5 or 6 of us pushing we were able to get the truck out of the ditch in no time. after thanking everyone (which takes some time with all the 'mwani mwani's') we were ready to be on our way. much to our surprise the lady with the baby jumped back into the truck and a young teenager also jumped in. man. they must have been desperate to get to the farm! anyhow, the rest of our little drive was pretty uneventful. but when we got home we found they had had some trouble of their own. Mr. Poidevin, who has been taking down several unsafe gum trees in the area was taking down just one more before he left. As usual they dug up the roots, attached a cable to the top of the tree and to his truck. then he started to reverse his truck and the tree started to fall exactly where he had planned it to go. however, there was a smaller tree in its path, which he had assumed would just get knocked over, this is not what happened. instead the large gum tree hit the smaller tree, bounced off and landed in the middle of the library! well, not quite in hte middle. it took out a huge corner of the library walls and roof. thankfully no one was hurt! there were no books destroyed, but a lot have some repairs needed or are covered in dust. i couldn't believe it that the tree somehow missed the large window yet smashed the couch located underneath the window! it missed the tv/vcr/dvd player and really there was no damage that can't be replaced. Unfortunately this caused another building project to be needed. It seems like just when we get ahead of things, something else falls apart. The cottage will have to remain how it is until we get the library built up again. hopefully this will be done soon or the next big rain we have will ruin all the books! what a day! as i said, it must have been a monday!
today has gone much better! i was actually able to sleep in because all the workmen were at the library cleaning up the mess! :) then Helen from the orphanage brought 5 of the older children (4 & 5 yr olds) to come and visit us. they are SO cute! we gave them all juice and cookies to which they said, "thank you mama!" with the biggest grins! they entertained us for awhile just horsing around and playing with the dog. just before they left they sang "jesus loves me" it was so adorable. i got some of it on video and will try and see if i can get it onto the blog. if not, then i'll try and put it on facebook tomorrow. 5 of our staff leave tomorrow, leaving all the bandwidth to be split between just 4 of us :D yay! so i'll probably be on facebook a lot more for those who are interested.