Life in Kabwe

It is hard to believe that we have been in Kabwe for almost a month! Time sure is flying by!
We are "enjoying" the summer heat, full force. I think that last year during the hotest part of the year we were at the lake. It was extremely hot but we had the benifit of being able to visit the beach each day if we wanted to. This year we have the extreme heat, but no lake so it might just seem hotter than last year.
Kaleb played the guitar in church this morning! He had fun and the piano player noticed that he has his own way of doing one of the songs, Shout to the Lord. I knew that this was Kaleb's Brazilian roots coming out...that is where we learned that song and I have never heard it played better than it was played in Brazil!
The household chores are taking their toll; we just can't get them all done. This house is much smaller than our other house, but is just harder to keep clean. You can sit in the livingroom and do nothing (we were sick for a few weeks so I know this for sure) and still be covered in dirt by the afternoon (it is so dirty; we have no grass in the yard so the dirt just finds its way into the house; it seems like it could bring a cool breeze with it). After the boys haul 8 big buckets of water from a bathroom (well, it is kind of a bathroom; there is running water; no toilet or shower...) to the outside room where the washing machine is to do just one medium sized load of washing, they don't have a lot of energy to do other chores. We also can easily do 2 loads of laundry a day after we finally catch up with our laundry (after not having a washing machine for 3 weeks I still have piles of towels, sheets, quilts and clothes that need to be washed) which is just a lot of work until we get the water hooked up in there.
We have been sick but now are all better! A few coughs and sniffles are still hanging on, but we are all well enough to go to church and do school.
Jasper is one of the most scary dogs in the neighborhood! He has a big bark and looks pretty fierce so we don't really worry about security here. Some teen boys were seemingly getting ready to use a slingshot on him one day but Joel saw them and chased them away. The problem here is that when people are really scared of your dog they might just throw some poisened meat into the yard to kill him. Sadly, our missionary friends' dog (Jasper's brother) was killed just that way a few months ago. Because of that we actually have Jasper sleep inside since we got here.
I started attending a Tuesday morning ladies bible study again. It is a small group and that is nice. It is also just a short walk from my house so I am away from home less than I was for our bible study in Lilongwe.
Joel has been doing a lot of traveling and he will leave again soon for another trip. I thought it would be harder having him gone but having my two almost grown sons around really helps. They made sure that the doors were locked up at night and that we always had drinking water (they would haul it from Babu and Bibi's)...two very important things! We don't have a car when Joel is gone, but we are close to friends and I know that if I need anything from the store I can get a ride from somebody.
I would put some pictures of our new house but I don't have any. It is probably just as well. ;-) When we were wanting to go to SeaWorld way back when Anna was 2 (almost 9 years ago!) we went to a timeshare thing to get cheaper tickets (not worth it) and one thing I remember the guy saying is how important location is. Well, this house might have its problems, but the location is great, so that makes up for a lot, I guess. When Joel is away I know that Lyle and Jetta are right across the street (in the Roth house until they return from their furlough; Lyle and Jetta are moving into their new house right next to us in a few weeks). Then just a few doors down are Babu and Bibi and just next to them was Dan and Tina (who left just the other day for 3 months in the US). It is nice having so many good friends so close. When I was sick Bibi and Tina sent food. When Jon fell down and scraped his knee he got a lesson on how to care for it and a bandage from Bibi. Joel loves to sit down and talk politics with Babu and until the Moyer kids left my children were in heaven being close enough to play together every day. Seth and Joshua were great frog catchers (they cought bucket loads and would take them to Bibi's to eat the bugs in her yard), Jon, Seth and Josh like to clean all the tadpoles out of her fishpond as well. Kaleb, Andrew, Alissa, Anna and Nadine love to play capture the flag. Nadine and Anna have become great friends and love to do lots of things that I don't even understand (probably the same types of things I did with my sister and cousin when I was 10!). Alissa, Andrew, Kaleb and Natalie like to play card games and board games and running games. They are all lonely already even though their friends left only 3 days ago.
Wow, for a blog post this has gotten long. I don't get a chance to post much anymore so hopefully this will catch you up on what has been going on here in Kabwe!