Zambia World Wide

We are now coming into the rainy season and the weather has become very hot and humid, it is always a relief when the rains finally start and the temperature drops. On some occasions we have been known to run out into the garden and play with the lads, all of us soaked to the skin but cooling off. The rainy season is not quite what it seems, fortunately it rains mostly at night and only for short periods. Though when it does rain it is really heavy which is why we don’t have gutters around the roofs on houses but storm drains in the ground, this is the only way the amount of rain that falls can clear. When the weather becomes really oppressive we know we are in for a good storm. Watching a thunder storm at night is an experience that few ever forget. The fork and sheet lightning light up the sky and the sound of the thunder causes the house to shake, I don’t know anyone who can sleep through a thunder storm.

We are now well into December and looking forward to Christmas, this will be our third Christmas in Zambia and we are hoping it will be the best. We now know many more people and are much more organised than in previous years. Gary is now almost four years old and Craig is ten months old. As the lads have got older, Christmas has become much more fun. We have also got used to living in the sun and now organise our Christmas break in a different way to the way we did in the UK. This year we are taking the children to the Christmas Party at the fishing club of which we are now members. It was exciting for the boys and certainly different to see Father Christmas arrive in a power boat, it was a good afternoon out and a great start to Christmas. We also took the boys to the company Christmas Party where Father Christmas arrived on a sledge pulled by a fire engine with the siren going and the lights flashing. Before the party there was a fancy dress competition which the parents loved but the children hated. There are no costume hire shops in Zambia and most of the mothers put in a lot of time and effort in making the children’s costumes. They were all hand made and material was limited to what was available at the time.