Thursday, May 19, 2011

Honesty

I re-read the posts below and I feel the need to be honest about the goals I made for myself while in Zambia.

I did shop and cook for us - and we did NOT eat with the staff and students on the YWAM base more than three times - and two of those times were celebration meals and did not include nshima.   I cooked mostly roasted chicken because that is the healthiest, cheapest meat that was readily available to me.     Cooked vegetables were not as easy.....one bag of carrots tasted terrible and had to be thrown out, many of the vegetables are quite foreign and the ones of those that I've tried do not taste good to me.   The veggies that I do like (marrow, for example) is not readily available.   We did not go to the large grocery stores often - most of the fresh produce (tomatoes)  was purchased from roadside 'ntembas' - not a lot of variety there.  

I drank more Coke than I should have, I'm sure.  Zambians drink LOTS of coke!  and Fanta.  We attended 3 'parties' while there - all served Soft Drinks as the beverage.   But beyond those times, I also drank Coke on my own once in awhile.  What can I say?  It is hot.  The Coke is cold and fizzy and makes me feel less hot.  And it is cheap - which is at least partly why the Zambians drink it so much.

So, my food was not terrible.  In fact, it was passable.

Exercise......I did not even pull out the printout of the strength training exercises that I took with me.   We did not go for regular walks, although we did take a few walks.    Probably all told I walked far more than normal.

On our way home from Zambia, we spent one full day in London, England.  We planned to walk 2 1/2 kms from Paddington to Buckingham Palace.   We took a wrong turn and wound up walking about 15 kms.  Kind of made up for many of the days that we did not get up and go walking.

Maybe.

Of course, the fact that Jim was sick for 2 weeks may have had some impact on our walking plans.

Now to get an exercise routine well established before my Zambian family arrives to live with us in less than a month.