Epidemic AIDS

Some facts and depictions of the AIDS epidemic in Africa narrowing down to the Caprivi Region of Namibia, where Children of Zion Village (COZV) was started. COZV now cares for 58 children physically, emotionally, medically, nutritionally, and most importantly, spiritually. All pictures were taken in the villages where the the COZV kids came from.

Planet Earth

Soooo I was playing with google earth a little too much recently and discovered you could make videos...and then I discovered I could upload a link to it and share it with the world! So anyway, if you are interested in seeing a lil satellite fly-in view of Children of Zion Village, Merry Christmas! :-) You can get to it by either clicking on the following link or pasting the url at the bottom of this post. Once you get to the page, simply find the black "Attachments" title (near the center) and click the first link below it (it will just be a bunch of numbers.kmz). That is the google earth video file.

The main building in the middle is the actual children's home with the middle part being the large central area and the 2 wings off the side being separate living areas for the boys and girls. The rest of the little pins around it are just a couple of key spots around the compound.

Please Note: You must have google earth in order to view this...sorry :-/

And Random Sidenote: I will be speaking at my church (First Baptist Church of Perryville, MD) about my trip this coming Sunday, June 27th, at 6:30 PM if anyone is interested. Directions can be mapquested at 4800 Pulaski Highway, Perryville, MD

Video Url:

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1343543&#Post1343543

AfricaTube

New videos from this past year have finally been posted. Videos include a wide range of things; everything from what hippos and elephants sound like, to traditional and Kwaito dancing, to acapelo African youth choirs, to what bushman "clicks" sound like (Khwedam), to just kids being kids. You can view them by clicking here or on the link to the right. Click on the titles on the right to see more in those categories.

If the link doesn't work, copy and paste the following http://www.youtube.com/user/BCM2Thousand5#p/p

Mufasa Picasa

I have finally posted pictures for anyone interested. Sorry it has taken so long, but in my own defense I had to sort through a whole year's worth--for me meaning 10,000 of them. Things such as Christmas, sports, traditional festivals, an African wedding, animals, girls nights, village visits, the Mafuta feeding center, the flood, travels, and, of course, the kids! All this and more can be found at my Picasa site. Enjoy :-)

If the above link doesn't work, copy and paste the following: http://picasaweb.google.com/103673567852941394636

O Yea, That...

I made it home safe'n'sound bright'n'early Sunday morning and am now working on adjusting back to life on the other side of the Atlantic. Strangely enough it kinda feels like I never left...but there are those few exceptions where I am strongly reminded, "O yea, that..."



-Coffee shops. Surprise, surprise...Starbucks was the first thing I saw upon landing.
-Bagels. Yum.
-Pre-sliced Bread. Well, you can get it sliced, but you have to ask them to open it and do it for you once you buy it.
-Stoplights. What does red mean again?
-No sand in my shoes!
-Drinking water straight from a spicket.
-Flipping the light switch up to go on, not down. Why is it suddenly darker in here?
-Dishwashers. The plug in, electric type.
-Driving on the right hand side of the road...this is really going to get me in trouble. Aaaaand i keep turning on the windshield wipers when i want to turn...
-Not having to count the seconds I'm online. I love unlimited FAST access.
-Having to write today's date as 5/25/10 instead of 25/5/10. That will be a perpetual state on confusion for quite a while.
-The roads are huge. And they curve.
-Dryers. I prefer a string and some great African sunshine on this one.
-The washing machine doesn't give you a nice little medley to start off the washing.
-The microwave isn't narcoleptic...
-There isn't 'fresh' meat being sold along the side of the road.
-TV shows in their original language, not crudely translated from Spanish by the same 4 people.
-There is no bleach water to dip my dishes in when I'm done washing them...no matter how much I keep trying...
-Driving to town in a car. Sure beats a boat.
-Church only lasts for an hour...not hourS.
-Amish Buggies...something that really should be in Africa. But I guess donkeys are close enough.
-Street Names. There is more than one in each town aaaand its not Hage Geingob St.
-Waking up to the sound of silence. Deafening actually...I'm a little too used to Petro? :-P

But on a more serious note, I don't even know where to begin in expressing my gratitude and thanks toward those who made this last year of my life possible; and I know there are alot of you. Whether it was the daily prayers, the notes of encouragement, keeping in touch, or supporting me financially (or d. all of the above); all played a cumulative role in making the last year of my life my biggest adventure yet. I miss the kids, the staff, and life there like craaazy! They were all my extended family and home away from home. But anything good that came of my time there was a team effort led by God, not anything I could have ever done on my own. So for that, thank you all for letting me be a part of what God is doing around the world!

Quintupled

The constant decibel level in the children's home has quintupled overnight as the first lot of kids were brought back yesterday from their villages. With every one that Jenny and I picked up yesterday, the van got louder and louder with more and more stories and more and more laughter as they quickly picked out who had gotten chicken pox and who hadn't...yet. So with 14 more kids in the home, all with 14,000 stories to tell, its no wonder. They all had a very nice holiday and can't wait to go back in December for the next one. "Wonderful, excellent, & too amazing to describe" were responses I heard alot of. Since it was harvest time during the holiday, they brought home and learned to cook many different traditional vegetables, milks, and nuts, all of which I can't prounce (me and bushman !clicks are not friends...). Many got to see friends and family they had not seen in a long time and some even meeting parents and siblings for the first time. Overall a very memorable and valuable experience for them all.

Pictured here is Beerina & Djolo (in greens) with their siblings & cousins.

Bones'N'Eyeballs

Mafuta is a nearby village in which there is a feeding center that we provide food for. There are local volunteers who do the preparing of food, serving, and teach the preschool. Since Jessica has been gone on furlough, I've been the delivery/firewood girl and yesterday was my last day there. Shortly after they had made me do the final stirrings of pap (corn meal) for the kids (exhausting...seriously), a guy rode by on a bike selling tiny little fish. The largest was maybe 1 inch long and were N$1/cup. So the makuwas threw in N$5 for the experience on how they are prepared and, of course, a taste test :-)

First you separate out all the large (1 inch) ones from the small ones then put them in water a bit at a time and start squeezing handfuls to remove their innards. Then you sort through them and pull out any grass or large pieces of dirt. To cook them, they are all put into a pot together over an open fire and fried with oil. They are stirred for a while before finally getting mashed up and adding salt to taste.
The final outcome included everything from bones to eyeballs, but all eaten mashed onto a handful of pap. I have to say, I had my doubts, but it was extremely delicious and definitely worth the experience. Pictured above is me with the Mafuta volunteers enjoying our meal of pap and (tiny) fish.