Bush Camp

Home Sweet Home

Fun in the Truck

    After ten joyous days in Lusaka, crowding on to buses, talking with many people and learning lots about Zambian culture, it was time to head to Petauke. Petauke is a town about 6 hours away from the capital city Lusaka. Just outside of Petauke is a small campus that has a few buildings one of which is used as a church. Across the entire grounds, green tents had popped up all over to form what we called Bush Camp. Each family had one or two tents and the singles each shared a tent with one other person. I was housed with Krista, we barricaded our tent against the bugs and spiders zipping our mesh door at all times and stuffing a sock on the small hole at the base of the door. We also periodically doomed the outside edges of the tent. At bush camp, we got to pump our shower water at the bore hole, heat it up over the fire, and shower with ingeniously rigged bucket showers. These were very convenient contraptions unless you happened to lose the rope before tying it off, as Tracy discovered one day. Luckily, we happened to have a Doctor in our number, who sowed the top of her head up. Ouch! I would have screamed like a baby. Tracy was back on her game the next morning.  At bush camp, we had a similar schedule, breakfast at 7am, small groups at 8am and the off to DFA’s. The first few days we took a truck to the town of Petauke to conduct our DFA’s.

Buckets siting in the sun to warm...
for those of us to lazy to heat water
over the fire

    One of our DFA’s was on Witch Doctors. We went to a local women witch doctor to ask her questions. The lady told us of how when she was a young girl, she was taken into the air and left in a body of water. She said no one knew how she was able to get so far away from home. She said her parents followed the water and found her very far away from home. After that day, she said she began to dream about the trees, and which ones had the power to heal. We asked her if she prayed anywhere and she claimed to be a blvr. Karissa asked if she minded if she shared some stories with her about J.C. Than Karissa fearlessly told the witch doctor the story of how J.C. cast out demons and healed the sick and how J.C. was the only one to turn to in times of need. The many customers gathered around were listening with wide eyes. The witch doctor was not as pleased. Soon we took our leave. Later that evening during debrief we heard many similar stories to our own; lots of superstition and dreams. People might go to the clinic, than the witch doctor and then to a religious leader.

The Evil bucket that busted Tracy's head