Visitors round 2: Mum and dad

September 25, 2018

Sorry about the silence, good people. The day Oupa left we collected my parents from Victoria Falls International Airport, and since then we have been running around playing tourist which meant hardly a moment for writing.

We kicked things off with a few days of rest, letting mum and dad get over the 36 hours of transit between New Zealand and Victoria Falls!

Next, we showed them around the place, including Victoria Falls, and just enjoyed sharing every day life together. We checked out Shongwe Lookout, the local eateries, and hit the national park after church on our first Sunday together.

We were blessed to see a giraffe not 5 metres from us, and all ohhhed and ahhhed at the views of the Mighty Zambezi.

The following week involved Will and I running around like headless chickens sorting paper work, the generator (for power cuts), and saw mum and dad do a few things around the house to help out.

The swing is still a favourite!

Our friend Phil also took us on a village tour, which you would ordinarily pay megabucks for through a local tourism company.

Instead, we got to float around the village, by ourselves, asking all sorts of questions while Kepler made friends with a little boy a year younger than him.

The family who lived in this village have, with some help from Phil, been doing all sorts of experiments to try to make life a little healthier. There is the manure-fuelled gas stove, for example, which prevents women from having to cook in smokey conditions inside the kitchen over an open fire, so keeping eyes and lungs a lot healthier. The hand-made clay kitchen, with coloured plates, was stunning!

There was the innovative “tap” outside the toilet made of a big plastic bottle tied by a string to a foot pedal, which when pressed tipped up the bottle and poured out the water. With no need for dirty hands to touch things, the risk of passing on contagious disease is greatly reduced.