Chilling out in Petauke

Well today is our second full day in Petauke, and we kind of tried to take the day off and keep things kind of low key, we have been doing a lot of traveling so it was nice to just not do any big trips today.  We received a tour of the Pluger's yard which is very nice.  Peter their gardener does a good job of sweeping up the yard and growing grass in what seems like very difficult soil to grow anything on.  I'll include a picture of Chris holding a cashew nut

It is interesting all the trees they have in their yard, Josh and I ate some guava plants they were pretty good, their lemon tree is always producing some lemons.

Well anyway we decided to take a walk and check out the sites of Petauke.  Here is a picture of us all in our dorky hats.  Aren't we a bunch of cool looking dudes?  It was pretty hot and sunny, like probably 80 degrees or so, actually not really hot but warm enough and it was a nice break from the weather we were having in Wisconsin.

We headed out and we saw a parade, because today is a holiday in Petauke, May Day, not really sure what it means.  But the parade was nice we saw a bunch of women in their church choir outfits marching and singing.  Then we checked out a catholic church which had some pretty neat murals.  Then we headed over and we checked out Chris' office and we met one of the translators, Father Tembo.  Here is a picture of him.  He seemed like a very nice guy enjoyed talking with him for a while.

After that we went to the market which was really quite an experience.  First of all you have to understand that I haven't seen anyone else white here, kind of a no brainer, but there are just absolutely no white people here.  So a white person is really kind of a spectacle aparently, well, everyone here is not tall, I wouldn't say really short, but I don't think I saw anyone who was 5' 10".  And well there are very few people who are big around the waist.  So I'm pretty sure that I was the strangest thing that the people here have seen for a long time, and really no one was trying to hide their amazement at the huge white guy walking down the street.  A little child maybe 2 was walking and she didn't realize I was there till she was really close she looked up and saw and started to scream and cry, I would imagine she has never seen a white person before, especially one who is 3 times the size of everyone else.  People were pointing and it was just very strange, we really stuck out, and that is an understatement. One lady who was working at a salon saw me walking by and she called out to me and wanted to see me, and she called her friends over and she produced a cell phone and asked Chris to take picture of us on her cell phone, that was funny she wanted a picture of me to probably tell her friends about the huge white guy she saw and she didn't think anyone would believe her so she wanted the picture.

The lady in the middle is the one who wanted my picture

Of course I had Chris snap a picture as well.  Then we saw the market and it was filled with food and dried caterpillars and tiny fish lots of strange things were there.  There huge piles of tobacco and all sorts of other things that are grown locally.

It was nice when we saw a big dust devil at least for a moment everyone stopped looking at me and looked at it.

For lunch we went to a local restaurant that served the traditional food, Nsima.  Which is corn mush pudding and chicken and some vegetables.  It was actually really pretty good, It was a little bland tasting and you eat it with your hands but it did fill you up pretty good.

 The white stuff in the bowl is the nshima and you can see the chicken and the greens which are rape, there was also an eggplant relish that was really good.

Well we headed back home after that we just hung out at the house.  It was nice I was able to talk to Crystal on the phone for a while and to hear that things are going fine there on the home front.  It really hasn't been that long actually just a few days I think but the distance is pretty great and being thrown out of your culture makes it nice to hear Crystal's voice.

Later in the day we and made supper pumpkin soup was part of the meal grown their in their garden, Sean (the Pluger's son) had his birthday cake today and it was really good.  We played a game and we are going to go to bed soon, which is kind of early.  Tomorrow morning we are heading out to the game park for a safari.  I don't think that I will be able to post a blog for a few days, probably not till Monday night, there will be no internet access for a while.  I'll take a bunch of pictures of whatever animals I see and I'll post a few the next time that I post.

Well I'm off to bed and I'm going to sleep in my mosquito net, and look who was hanging around on my mosquito net, Dodger's uncle oh man that monkey gets into alot of trouble.  I hope he doesn't get into any trouble with the animals at the game park!  Good night everyone talk to you later.  -Peter