Mom's visit has come to an end. We had a great time. It started off with me coming out of the village for our provincial meeting. For this meeting we decided to slaughter and bury a pig in the ground to eat. I never realized how loud and strong pigs were until I had to wrestle one into the back of a land cruiser with four other guys. We finally got the beast to our provincial house and slaughtered it. Listening to it scream as it's throat was being slit was one of the worst noises I have heard in my life. After it was dead we buried it about six feet under ground with coals and let it cook for about two days. After unearthing the beast I grabbed some for the road and got on a bus for 19 hours to Livingstone.
Mom was very happy to see me when we met up at the Zambezi Sun Hotel. That day we went and saw the Victoria Falls. There was a lot more water in them this time compared to when I was there in October. That night we ate a massive buffet dinner (I think I ate half the buffet). The next day we went to the falls again and rented rain jackets to go get closer, and went shopping. That night we went on a sunset cruise and saw hippos and elephants and went to an African restaurant for dinner. The next day Mom and Bev flew across the gorge suspended by a harness and went for a microlight flight. The next day we flew up to Lusaka to prepare for our safari in the Lower Zambezi.
At 8:00 am the following morning we started off on our two and a half hour mini bus ride to the Lower Zambezi National Park. I think Mom and Bev were a little freaked out by the mini bus driver, but we survived. We arrived outside the park a little before noon and jumped on a safari boat that took us into the Game Management Area that surrounds the park. After an hour long boat ride we stopped on a small island for a picnic lunch. That afternoon we got settled into our campsite for the night and went for another sunset cruise where we saw plenty of elephants, hippos, and water buffalo.
The next day we went canoeing. I don't think anyone realized that it would be an all day canoe trip stopping for another picnic lunch on an island. That afternoon we reached the campsite where we would be staying for the next four nights. That was an early night, because we were all exhausted from canoeing all day. The following day we spent the entire day in the park bumping around in the back of a land cruiser, looking at animals. We saw just about everything there was to see in the park, including a pride of lions with a kill. They were so fat from gorging themselves on the buffalo they had killed that they could hardly move.
The following day we went fishing, but the conditions were really poor (water was high and merky and it was windy), so we didn't even get a bite. I did however manage to break a fishing pole on some weeds. Ooooops. That afternoon we went for a game walk and that evening enjoyed a barbeque on another island. On our safari there were people from Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, ourselves, and the Zambian staff. We each did a song and dance from our respective countries, which was quit comical. That is the first and last time I will ever sing "She'll Be Comin Round the Mountain."
The next day we took our time waking up and went on a tour of one of the local villages (just what I wanted to see). After that we took the boat back to meet the mini bus and survived the sketchy ride back to Lusaka. Sorry I am blazing through this. We did a lot of stuff in a short time and it is hard to remember all the details.
After reaching Lusaka, I went and bought our bus tickets for the ride up to Kasama the next day. Mom and Bev did great on the bus ride, and we reached Kasama in time for them to buy some material and arrange for a tailor to make them some African style shirts. I even go to do some shopping to take out to my site. They stayed in a guest house and I stayed in the Peace Corps provincial house that night.
The next morning we met up bright and early and I took them to meet some of my counterparts at the Department of Fisheries. After that we drove out to meet a group of farmers that I have been working with about 15 kilometers from my village. This group was very excited to meet them and even made a sign and put it out on the road saying "Welcome Devin's Mummy. Please feel at home." They also built a kind of make shift thrown for us to sit while they danced and drummed and gave welcome speeches. Mom and Bev had to do there rendition of "She'll be Comin Round the Mountain" again, but I sat that one out. After a massive meal of nshima, chicken, chikanda (African bologne), caterpillars, rape, peanut sauce, and beans they said that they wante to present Mom with some gifts. They drums and singing started and a row of about 15 people lined up to present Mom with gifts. These included sweet potatoes, bananas, peanuts, pumpkins, beans, and two chickens presented on a woman's back who came crawling up to my Mom to give them away. The villagers made us drive away slowly as everyone in the village ran along next to the car singing us a farewell song.
That night we were exhausted and went to bed early to wake up early again the next morning for another party in my village. In the morning, I woke up early and started draining my fish pond, so we could eat the fish at the party. People started showing up at my house around 10:00 and the drumming and dancing started around 12:00. Bev was sick and had gone back with the driver the day before, so me and Mom were left on our own. We didn't have much energy left after the previous days happening, and Mom wasn't feeling well either, but we still managed to hammer some Nshima and take lots of pictures of my villagers. A driver came to pick us up around 3:30 that afternoon and we were back in Kasama that evening, where we ate a big T-bone steak farewell dinner.
The next morning I woke up at 3:30 to see Bev and Mom off at the bus station. I was completely exhausted, but was glad that we had experienced so much and had a great time together.
