Souls, dreams, life after death... things to think about.

Singing and dancing to the song "Fellowship"

So not much has really happened since my last post, but I thought I would say a few things that have happened... or what I've learned in the past few days. Shaudi and her mom just came to Banani yesterday and it's really nice to have a parent around... we cooked her a Zambian meal consisting of rice, sauce and chiwawa (sp?) which is cooked pumpkin leaves! Yesterday night we went to the Moores' place to help cook dinner, and we made the most amazing food... curry chicken boiled with apricots, prunes, dates, raisins, nuts, and lots of spices... and a ground beef stew with chilli peppers and tomato sauce... and lots of spices. We also made a fresh salad from various greens from the garden outside that was drizzled with pickled sweet lemon juice... and a mixed berry & apple crumble. Sorry. We've accumulated a new appreciation for food since we've got here. Lets just say that I ate so much that my stomach was in revolt probably for the next 6 hours.... silly me.

While we were having dinner at the Moores, we had a really deep conversation on sleep, and the progression of the soul, and life after death. We talked about how the body is merely a physical temple for the soul, after we die, our soul being immortal progresses on to the many spiritual worlds of God... being in this material world, Earth, is just one stage. I'm definitely not an expert, but that's how I interpret it, and that's what I believe. It's interesting how sleep is linked so much with the soul... in that when your dreaming, it's like a connection to the world of the spirit. Even though the body is shut down, the our souls are still enlivened. It's interesting that God has ordained that we spend a third of our lives asleep... there surely must be more of a reason than just rest. We talked about how dreaming is like a lake in which we see reflections of the spiritual world. However the surface of the lake isn't usually clear, and so our images (or dreams) are distorted and need interpretation. Every dream has meaning and will be of significance in the future, there is no doubt about that. The soul is something where I'll never be able to understand the capacity of. Anyway, this subject is certainly something to think about and I am definitely not one with answers... I guess I'm just typing out whats running through my mind I guess. There are so many things that I've learned to look at from different perspectives since I've come here, and it brings up so many more questions... about life and its meaning.

The other day I stepped on a lemon tree branch with my barefoot! If you've ever seen a lemon tree branch, then you'll know that it has thick gigantic thorns. Yep, it hurt.

We went to Kabwe last weekend and stayed with the Patel family and they fed us so well! They make the most amazing Indian food. On one of the days we drove to one of the farms that they owned and we got to stand up on the back of a pickup truck, holding on to dear life to a rail and screaming at the top of our lungs while the driver whipped 50 miles an hour through the vast lands of Africa. It was so much fun, and was a huge adrenaline rush! After the driver went around half the farm (about 300+ acres -- its huge) we begged him to take us around again because it was so much fun... so we did it again!! He sped through these dirt roads between the crops, splashing through muddy puddles and streams.... the wind whipping through our hair and faces... screaming the whole way. It was definitely a highlight. They gave us sweet corn from their farm, some chilli peppers and 2 huge bags of mangos for us to take home.

Anyway, I was just talking to my parents on the phone last night and back in my area I hear that there's a foot of snow!! It's crazy to think that considering that I'm dying under 90 degree heat everyday... honestly it doesn't feel like December. I feel like I've been stuck in summer for 7 months.

I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and happy new year! Drive safe ;)

Ants on Toast... a delicacy! -- NOT.

So we've been SO busy this break, which is really good because we are being productive and full of service, but I am so exhausted from what has happened in the past 2 weeks! So I'll start off with a story that happened about a week and a half ago.

We have this huge ant problem in both the youth kitchen, and the kitchen in Neda's house. If we don't immediately wash up after we eat and put the dishes away, the ants will smell the food left ou and just attack. It's disgusting because the food is black from ants and looks like it's moving. It's pretty gross. So we came to the house one day just famished (I couldn't remember what we had done...) and so I decided to make some toast. I pull out some bread, pop it in the toaster without noticing that the loaf had been just attacked by ants... so when the bread popped up, it was beautiful enladded with toasted ants, lodged inside the bread... but I was so hungry that I just buttered it and ate it. I didn't really realize how shocking that was until AFTER I ate it, thinking "What have I done?" Because at home, I wouldn't even drink milk a day after the expiriation date.
The shocked didn't last long, because I ended up putting 2 more pieces of ant-filled bread in the toaster.... yummyyyy...

I'm starting to realize that my standards are much lower than I thought they were... everything new that I try... like living in the bush, bathing in cold water, killing cockroaches, eating mouldy cheese, anty bread or powdered milk... it's really not so bad. You get so used to it.

Some youth from New Zealand are here to visit -- Nina and Viviene (sorry I can't spell their names!) and funny enough, they both know Natalie Kutches who went to New Zealand/Tonga for her year of service... anyway, it was Nina's birthday one night so we baked her a chocolate cake and decorated it with Smarties and took it to the institute!! It was kind of sad because the power went out half way through cooking the cake. There were a bunch of youth there already, and we stayed out late playing games and eating half cooked birthday cake. It was so fun.

For the past week and a half, we have been staying with a Baha'i Family in Lusaka preparing probably the most stressful, challenging and mind straining project of our LIVES. Basically, there are junior youth & childrens classes due to happen next week with the arrival of 200+ kids and so we were asked to prepare a 40-lesson curriculum for those kids. We had to type up the lesson plans, make examples of the art projects, and even hand copy some things because it was too expensive to get them photocopied in town. On top of that, Kat and I went back to Banani about half way through to record a CD of our songs that we have prepared so the kids could learn them ... from scratch. Voices + guitar + percussion + harmonizing... and we only had one day to do it. Funny enough, the power decided to go out and it stayed out for 12 hours all day and so we had to stay up all night recording. I barely remember what we did because we were so tired, but I remember making lots of coffee during the night... and taking Facebook and dancing breaks. That morning we had to leave at 4:30 am to take Nora to the airport (She met her parents in SA). When we arrived back in Lusaka at about 7:30 am, we were so tired that we had to literally drag ourselves to the nearest coffee shop La Mimosa, and I ordered the strongest thing they had - an expresso. It worked a little bit and I had some energy for the next two hours or so until I felt like I was dying again, and then I had some more coffee. By the time Marcia (the lady we were staying with) picked us up, we both fell asleep in the car and then we got to her house in the afternoon. We just went to bed around 3:00pm and didn't wake up until the next morning - TOTAL ACCIDENT. The next day we had to definitely crack down back on the curriculum and we spent 12 hours every day for the next 2 days until we finished the entire thing. I was so tired.

The last night we stayed at Marcias, Mr. Taherzadeh invited the youth over to his house for dinner and a deepening. Dinner was spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and coke - a rare treat, with tea and cake (sorry - after being here for 4 months I've started to obsess over food)... and Mr. Taherzadeh told us many stories of the early Baha'i followers, and about his grandfather, who actually had the priviledge of meeting Baha'u'llah Himself. After working so much in the past week it was so nice to just sit and relax with all of these wonderful youth, sip tea and listen to Taher's stories... We also had an interesting dicussion of the progression of the human soul... the difference between a man and a Manifestation of God... life after death... the unknown I guess. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him!

We got back to Marcia's around 11:00pm to find the gate locked, and the guard was apparently sleeping!! We honked the horn, tried everything... but one one opened the gate -- so we went back and crashed at Ester's house, a youth who lives close by.

Our whole time in Lusaka... we would work like crazy all day... and then Nora, Kat and I (we shared a room) would gorge on chocolate, play cards and pretty much laugh all night long. It was the first time that all 3 of us were rooming together and we were so tired yet sugar hyped that we did some pretty crazy things.... I have never laughed so hard. If I blogged about it, it wouldn't seem funny because only the 3 of us were there.... I remember my stomach muscles being sore the next morning from laughing. Ah, I'm laughing as I type this. Ha ha ha. We had such a good time rooming together. But now Nora's in South Africa for the next two weeks. I'll have no one to punch until then (we like to punch eachother when we are mad... or happy)! I miss her.

This morning I just got back to Banani. It's good to be back. Our plans for the rest of break are still in the air so I can't talk about it just yet... but I just hope everything works out! I feel like I'm forgetting to type down a lot of things that have happened... but I honestly can't remember. I'll post again soon.
Love to all!

December Already....

Rainy season! (Notice how everythings green)

Rockin' the corn rows with Lucia... ohhh yeahhhh

Wow I can't believe that it's the end of the year for the Banani students already!! Time is going by so fast.... only one more day until our whole month break starts ... on Dec 5th! There's a staff party that all of us will be attending at a nearby restaurant called Fringilla. Still haven't gotten the chance to eat there yet, but I've heard so much about it -- AND we get a free meal! Yippee!

So let me summarize what's happened in the past couple of weeks: First of all, we had our Children's Class celebration, which turned out to be close to a disaster because absolutely no one showed up! But it was all good in the end.... we turned on some music, and gave the kids sweets. It was a bit harder on the older kids who actually knew what was going on... because all of us had worked hard for 5 weeks on this presentation. It wasn't all that bad though, because they ended up performing most of their material at the Fundraiser that was hosted at the Institute a few days ago, which was quite successful!! Nora, Shaudi, Kat and myself got sponsored many times to go up and sing for everyone... from our time here, we had about 10 or more songs perfected on our repetoire so we kept getting called up. One of the times I announced that the little kids wanted to dance while we sang the song "Fellowship" and it was just too cute to watch.

Of course, I must say... on November 28th was the "I've-Survived-In-Zambia-for-3-Months" Anniversary! Wow. Three months. It went by so fast, yet it seems like I've been here longer. I'm seriously starting to enjoy every minute here. I think the two-month mark was the hardest month I ever had encountered regarding homesickness, but ever since the conference then everything has been so great. Talk about Divine Assistance.

I think it's nice that it's over 90+ degrees and sunny... and I can lounge by the pool & palm trees... and say it's DECEMBER! I really feel like I've been getting away with something, hehehehehehe. All of us have some pretty awesome plans for this break, but I'm not going to let any out until everything is set in stone. Next week Shaudi's mom is coming on Dec 6th for three weeks and I'm so excited so see her, because it's sort of like my mom is coming too! I must say it's going to be pretty interesting to see another person from my hometown here. Zambia is just a completely different world from the one I once knew....

...And I'm mad right now because it's not letting me post any more pictures... my FAV pictures... darn it. Will post em soon.

Love to allllll!!!!! xoxo