Croc burgers and snakes...

We officially come home 6 weeks from yesterday, which is crazy! Time is really going by really fast and it's hard to believe that our time in Zambia is coming to an end. With that in mind, we have decided that we need to see and do some of the "touristy" things this country has to offer.

So on Saturday we went to Kalimba Reptile Farm for a little visit. We definitely needing some time away, so it was a good place to go. It was about 15 km away from where were are in Lusaka, but it took about 40 minutes to get there because of the condition of the roads. When we got there, we were a bit surprised since we were the only ones there, but that was OK. There were tons of crocs, a few snakes and a couple of turtles. The snakes were not interesting to me at all...I have quite a fear of snakes actually! Chad really liked them though. Most of them were caught locally, but some of them can only be found in South Africa. We saw black mambas, green mambas, cobras, puff adders, pythons, boom slangs and just a little house snake...which Chad held..and they tried to get me to hold too, but I just couldn't do it (I did try to hold him, but then he moved and freaked me out..so I ended up just touching him).



I did, however, find the crocs pretty interesting. There were several different areas for the crocs to live and they were categorized by age, I think. So we saw some babies, which were about 2 years old (almost cute), and then some 'teens', some middle aged crocs and then some older ones. I think they live well past 100 years old. The crocs were in caged areas, however, I was a little concerned with the quality of the cages and how close we could actually get to all of those huge crocs! We got to see our tour guide feed some of the crocs, which was cool. They gave them rotten chickens to eat, and they seems to really enjoy that! I did learn that crocs don't have very good sight at all. The guide would throw the chicken at him, and if it didn't land directly in front of him or even in his mouth, he wouldn't see it at all and it would just stay on the ground next to him.

After our tour, we had lunch...and we actually at croc burgers...which were...interesting. They didn't taste great, but they weren't bad either. I think I'm done with trying new foods for a while though!

I also wanted to give you a quick update about the little boy that I mentioned in my last post (his name is Lovemore...I don't remember if I said that). He was admitted to the Malnutrition Ward at the hospital and has been doing OK. They are very cautious about what food he eats and it is all monitored very closely. One of the issues now is that he has diarrhea as well as a bad cough. They have been running some tests on him, so hopefully this week we can get a clearer picture of his health and what we are actually dealing with. He needs medications, but we aren't sure exactly what meds at this point - it will depend on what they find. We are hoping to go to the hospital tomorrow (Monday) to speak with the doctor to get some more answers, so I will keep updating this blog as I learn more. All I know at this point is this is one very sick little boy and it is going to take a long time, plus a miracle, for him to get through this. We are all praying hard for that miracle!