Rafting the Zambezi

We were supposed to be at a MV Zambia conference this week but it got cancelled for various reasons, so the three of us (Mike, Stephanie, and I) decided to pack up and head to Livingstone for a few days. We needed a break so we packed the car and headed South. We have been to Livingstone many times and done almost everything there is to do there....except raft the Zambezi. It is one of the top 5 rivers in the world consisting of level 5 and 6 rapids. People, expert rafters among them, come from all over the world to raft this river. We have been talking about it forever so we decided to finally do it.
It was absolutely AMAZING!!! With the exception of one, Suicide Row, all 25 rapids were open and we tumbled through the whole thing. I have been rafting a few times before but it was nothing like this. We went with a total of 7 rafts in our crew. On the very first rapid 4 of them flipped, not us. That’s how crazy this river is. We never flipped our boat, but I fell out 3 times once getting pulled under the boat and praying really hard that I didn’t drown. I drank A LOT of water. I smacked my head on someone's paddle trying to hold on to the Oh Crap Line on the side of the boat and I have a nice bruise on my head and eye with a split lip to remember the trip by. Stephanie and Mike both lost their sunglasses and had their fair share of swimming experiences and tumbles out of the boat. We had so much fun and will defiantly be doing it again before I leave this continent.







You can click the link below to see more pictures of us falling out of the raft.

Rafting Pictures

House Boat

As a mission we all took the day off to celebrate. It was Stephanie's 26th birthday, The Engelbrecht’s 25th Wedding anniversary, and the Myers (the VP’s of MVI who were here visiting) 31st Wedding anniversary. Mike made all the arrangements and he rented a house boat for the day. We went out on the lake and had a braii with lots of great food and good company. We talked about how all the couples met, they gave marital advice to the new couple, we played games, and ate till we were stuffed. There was a beautiful sunset as only Africa can provide and beautiful scenery. It was a great day and a lot of fun.

My House

I realized that I posted a picture tour of the clinic awhile back but I never showed you what my house looked like. If you imagine that you are standing in the rafters of our thatched roof (cause that's where the pics were taken from) and make a clockwise circle or our room then you have a birds eye view of our loft.

How Many Can You Fit?

We do a lot of strange things out her to keep our selfes entertained. It was one of those days that and we needed some laughs. We had borrowed sweaters from the guys because we were on the plateu and were frezzing. It crossed our minds that these sweaters are a little big, I wonder how many people could fit in here. So this is what happened.







Then we moved onto the bigger sweater and it got more interesting.






Then we thought to ourselves, we have other people here we should try and fit more...

Beauty

An amazingly beautiful little girl

HIV Testing

We have preached so many times that people need to be tested and about the importance of HIV education etc, etc, so we figured it was our turn. It had been awhile since either of us had been tested last so we decided to go and be tested again so we could set a good example for the people we treat.

Attack of the Bats

We have a lot of little critters running around lately, some of them even fly. I was going to the clinic one day and noticed some spots on the wall. Upon closer inspection I was surprised to find bats hanging in the thatch under the clinic roof. We have a lot of bats, we see them flying around at night, and smell their putrid urine all the time, but I have never seen one during the day. They were just lounging around taking a snooze.That's what they thought. I went and got Daniel and he shot them multiple times. The first time to get them down and then again cause it was fun to watch their heads explode. A little advice to the creepy crawlers of Zambia, don't mess with our clinic and try to make your home there because I will kill you.