Friday 14 March 2014

Zambia- Final Blog!

Tuesday

Sanchie kept telling me she will miss me loads today- the feeling was mutual!
It was sunny again today, after all the rain yesterday! Sunshine for our last day :)
We began the day with giving out certificates to the I.T class and English Lit class, this was great!
They were all dressed up and very excited about receiving their certificates!
In the afternoon we gave out some more lollies to all the school children, whilst saying goodbye to every class! We then popped into town to exchange our left over money and get the family we stayed with some chocolate! We also picked Gladys up, who had been shopping for our leaving meal that evening- in a carrier bag she had 3 live chickens! She put them in the boot of the car, and I couldn't help jumping every time one of them squawked- needless to say I couldn't wait for dinner time ;)

For the rest of the afternoon, we spent some really lovely time with the children. Malama and Suzen disappeared, and came back with a letter for me- telling me how much they love me and will miss me. So lovely!
Another of the girls, Lilian, gave me a bracelet which says 'God bless you.' Such lovely girls. We shared the last of our sweets out with them all, and they were very happy!
When it came to 7 pm, George arrived to collect us. The goodbyes were the hardest thing! All the children walked with us to the car, and little Catherine started crying and whispered in my ear "I will always remember you Auntie Hannah". I couldn't stop crying after this... and Ali was really upset too. Eventually, after hugs all round we got into the car and went onto our next destination- our leaving meal at Glady's house!
We turned up a bit late and most people were already there and waiting for us. The gathering was basically all the Pastors and their wives, all just wanting to thank us for our work there. It was a lovely time- and the chicken tasted good too ;)
After this we said more goodbyes, seemed to be never ending and really hard!
This night we didn't get much sleep as we wanted to stay up and be with the family for the last time. In the end we went to bed and got a few hours kip before getting up to travel home!

Wednesday & Thursday

We said goodbye (more goodbyes!) to the amazing family we stayed with, and said we hoped to see them again sometime... and piled into the car at 8 am.

Next we picked up Farayi and James and George and Yvonne came with us also to the airport (Yvonne was going to make sure George stayed awake on the way home!)
A long, bumpy drive to the airport and we were finally there! We said our goodbyes to George, Yvonne and Farayi who was staying on for a few more days.
Finally, we arrived in Kenya where we met Len... it was good to catch up with him and hear all his stories... we had a 7 hour wait in the airport, so it gave us plenty of time!
After this we travelled back the UK, which took about 9 hours. Then we waited in Heathrow airport for another couple of hours... then finally headed home! (27 or so hours later).
Got in about 10.30, and was very happy to see Livs and Esther coming to greet me... it was so good to be home!
Went into my room and there was a big welcome home banner and lots of yummy food on my bed... happy days! Have spent the last couple of days just catching up with people and it's been great. Been very busy though and haven't had any time to just sit and process anything yet- time for that will come though :)
It's been an amazing two weeks, and it's good to be home :)





2 comments:

Amazing daze said...

Yes, I'm looking forward to the sitting/processing time too - much to work through eh bud? :)

Han said...

Definitely :) don't know when there will be time to do such a thing tho lol x