8 January

8 January

Choma

0 Miles

Steph:

He woke up with a sore throat. Boo. It's not really a big deal though. We're not in a hurry to get to Lusaka and this place is a good place for Erik to recover. Sixty Five miles is a long way to go when you can't breathe, need to blow your nose every two minutes and are in pain. It's actually been nice to really get to know a place before moving on.

Again, he slept forever this morning and I pondered a lot of things while staring at the ceiling. One of those things was what to hang on our huge turquoise wall. Ha. How silly. After breakfast we headed back into town to pick up cough drops and check out the market some more. The owner of this hotel offered to give us a lift. We gladly accepted. Her name is Susan. She is a very fashionable woman who really likes the color purple. Her build is tall and large and her hair matches it. She drives a very fancy mini-van that looks slightly silly driving down a dirt road covered in pot holes. She played very loud gospel music on the radio while telling us about how they came to own Racheal's Lodge. Rachael was her mother in law who sadly passed away due to a heart condition. As we turned into the main road she explained that a lot of neighboring smaller villages come to Choma to do their shopping which is why it is getting so congested. It's true, there was quite a bit of traffic. We got dropped off, got the cough drops and walked downthe muddy dirt roads to all the smaller shops.

Most shops are repair shops, pare parts, bicycle repair, farming supplies and equipment, seeds... that kind of thing. Almost everyone stares at us, some say hello, others just smile. Most people just mind their own business though, which makes it easy to observe. We walked by one shop that had a table in front of it with two baskets filled with small little balls. One basket had white ones and the other beige-ish colored ones. They looked like quinoa seeds so I stopped to look. A big man quickly came forward and asked how much I needed. I asked what they were and he said they were for the maize.

"Oh ok, what do you do with them? Do you boil them? How do you eat them?" He looked at me like I was stupid so I added, "Sorry, I don't know what they are."

Laughing, he said, "Oh! You do not know? No, no, you do not eat, if you eat, you will die."

Haha! Oops! Now people around us were laughing at me too. He kindly explained that you store them with maize to keep it fresh. But never eat them, because they are poison. I thanked him and as we walked away, he said, smiling, "See? You come to Africa and you learn these things".

We've decided to stay yet another day. When we got back, Erik passed out again for a few hours. There's really no point to cycle when we're like this. The staff here are now all aware of his condition and have been very kind. We had a kettle with tea, coffee and sugar delivered to our roon earlier. I'm sure it was on Susan's orders. Everyone keeps asking me how he's feeling. It's very thoughtful and we're quite comfortable here.

Downtown Choma

Watching the clouds roll in

Sitting in the garden updating the journal