How does one explain what toilet paper is?

Well we are certainly off to a running start. John, David, and I landed in Lusaka on Thursday morning our time (11PM USA time) and had a huge day! We ran many errands, bought water, met with local schools and churches we will be working with,and had a great time with our Zambian team! John and Bwalya are long lost brothers and have discussed more business plans for Arise Africa.

We have laughed alot, been made fun of and thrown it right back, learned a few important songs in Nyanja, taught kids how to use a phone camera, and already been called musungu (white person) by kids in the compounds about a thousand times. David is butchering Nyanja but is definitely getting an A plus in trying!

We also have had some awkward cultural barriers such as trying to buy toilet paper and asking where it was located only to get a blank stare by the store attendant. Then trying to explain what toilet paper is can be very entertaining.

We already hit up the one and only Mexican food restaurant for dinner. Tomorrow (Friday) is our last day until the rest of the team joins us on Saturday morning. David has an official visit to the largest hospital in Zambia, to learn about medicine over here and we are really interested to hear about it. I will be doing last minute errands. (the beds are SO hard here at the lodge, I hope I can help do something about that!)

We will continue to update, and thank you for all your prayers. One last minute prayer request that is trivial in the whole scheme of things is that I have lost my voice as of this evening. Maybe God is trying to tell me something; but it would be really nice if I could rebound before our team arrives!

In Him,
Alissa