First Week In Zambia

So here we are at the end of the first full week in Zambia. The rest of the team are all great and have been very encouraging and thoughtful in helping us start to settle. We are learning that things that may take just a short time in the West can take days here.
We have a reasonable house in a part of Lusaka called Olympia extension- a good size three bedroom place (good size for Brits, probably small for Americans!). With it comes two dogs, a daily house help and 24hr guard. We are already beginning to realize what a responsibility and financial commitment it is having four people work for us and it could be tough on our budget – it is a huge adjustment having been used to having the house to ourselves, but it is not really an option not to employ here. It is normal to provide a sack of mealie for each worker each month and we delivered those at the beginning of the week and met the families of our workers. It was very sobering to go back to the compounds and see the living conditions. We will post a few pictures with the next update but the internet cafe is running so slowly today we won't risk trying to upload pictures!
A few days later we visited with a pastor in Matero district of a compound and got our temperamental and somewhat scruffy Toyota landcruiser scratched quite a lot as children scribbled on it using cooking charcoal. The pot holes and lack of roads in the compounds would eat up a regular car so we are glad we have the 4x4, but we still can’t quite believe how much we have paid for our car! But then so many things are expensive here – we were checking out broadband connection for our house and there are only a couple of possibilities. The one that gave all the costs would set you back $675 to set up and then an additional $90+ each month – so we will be hanging out here at the internet café pretty frequently…
The children have started school now but aren't telling us too much on how there days go but hopefully as they settle in we can add a school posting soon.