Lake Kariba Trip: Day One

 
Monday, March 25 we headed out with Pastor Benson at 6:30 a.m. to visit Lake Kariba. [standing next to Cory]

We let him plan the trip, as he grew up in the areas we planned to visit.

Right out the gate of the Bible school we found a student waiting for a ride to the paved road, saving him a 12 mile walk, and we picked up two more a bit further down the road.

One student, Austin, had started with us and we would drop him off at the Chabbobboma Mission Station. [left in the photo, blue shirt]

A bit of shopping on the way delayed us a bit and the roads kept getting more challenging.

Pastor pointed out points of interest along the way, and we came across Pastor Mano walking between his house and a small shop he is running to support his family. 

We knew him from when he was a third year Bible student. [Middle, red shirt]

It was good to cut down his long walk, catch up with him, and pray over his business.

We continued down the road to the Chabbonbboma Mission, after buying some line, fish hooks, and worms, giving a few other fellows a short ride.

At the Mission Cory was shown the girl's dorms and asked about what trees would be best for a wind break to prevent the roof from blowing off, again.

While waiting for our fishing poles and lunch to be prepared, I visited the Rural Health clinic and the accountant gave me a brief tour.

I wrote down some questions and passed them along to the district overseer to help us learn more.

The high school boasts over 300 students and there is also an elementary school.

After a great lunch of corn meal, chicken [we brought with us], vegetables we said our good-byes and headed to the lake, accompanied by the overseer.

Stopped by the police station to pick up life preservers and then on to the lake.

We learned a lot about farming fish in cages from our boat operator. Over 15,000 in one cage that measured about 25x25x25 feet. They were overcrowded and needed to be split up.

A short boat ride took us from the small bay to the big lake, after which we returned to see the feeding of the fish in a cage and to feed worms to some of the fish outside.

No luck there so moved closer to shore where a handful of tiny fish, no bigger than 3 inches were pulled in amid much laughter and joking.

We did get to watch the birds and saw a crocodile sunning on the bank as we were leaving.

Dropping the overseer back at his home we back tracked a bit to where we had made arrangements at a small 5-room hotel for supper and bed.

The area being warmer and about 1,500' elevation supports the growth of large baobab trees.