Day 15

Thursday, October 2, 2008

My fourth and last day on anti-malarial drugs. We leave the seminary after visiting the farm with Stefan and Rachel briefly and head for Lusaka. Two and a half hours on a paved road with nary a pot hole. Returning to the big city seems both familiar and strange. We go to the best hotel in town (the Intercontinental, where South African Airways has its office) to confirm, and pay for, our new reservations. Baptista seems a bit blown away to be inside such magnificence. We don’t know if she has never experienced a four star hotel before or not, but she is amazed by all the signs of wealth. Boarding passes are obtained and we return to the Kapingila Guest House (where we first stayed in Lusaka) to check in. It is too late for lunch there, so we decide to go out to eat. A block away from our rooms we stop at a little shopping center and dine – at some fast food places. Talk about cultural disjuncture! We share a pizza and Kaoma has fried chicken and chips. So much for African immersion.

After lunch, while Paula and Baptista go shopping for ichitengas (the traditional Zambian fabric wraps that all the women wear ) and crafts, I settle into the Intercontinental Hotel lobby to write my last blogs from Zambia in air conditioned comfort. By the time the shopping and writing are done it is late afternoon. We had hoped to be able to have a brief visit with Father Peter Henriot, a Jesuit priest from Tacoma serving in Lusaka, but he calls and says he had forgotten that he has a 6:00 o’clock mass. So we return to our guest house for dinner and then have a wonderful phone conversation with Peter afterwards. We are a bit disappointed that our schedules did not ever jibe (when we were in Lusaka he was gone, and vice versa), but are grateful to have talked with him by phone at least. Tired and hot, we pack up, give our remaining kwachas to Baptista for her return trip and to share with the sisters, and collapse into bed. Morning will come early with a 4:15 a.m. rising to get to the airport by 6:00 for our early flight to Johannesburg.

Bruce and Paula