MOM’S MEMOIRS – IRENE LOUISE (NEE KUCKKAN) MUELLER
(Continued)
 
Mom’s Autobiography – Chapter 14 – In Book, Page 33

Thieves on Storrs Road, Barney, Vehicle Troubles, International School, Sports, Boys’ Friends, Lusaka 2003, Kids’ Outings, Pets

We had a burglary during the night while living on Storrs Road. We had gone swimming one day, and I had put the children’s watches (birthday gifts) into my purse. During the night our little dog went under our bed (which had never done before), and yipped softly. Dick got up, looked around, and saw nothing. But little Nippy kept yipping. So Dick got up, and this time he saw that the front door was wide open (the window next to it broken, and my purse and its contents strewn on the lounge floor). The burglars must have been hiding on the long indoor porch on the front of the house when Dick checked the first time. It was a blessing he did not check out there. We called the police, and they told us that the burglars had gone down Storrs Road that night robbing houses. The police found a sewing basket of mine which they dropped along the way. THE SEWING BASKET, AND MY PURSE, HAD BEEN IN OUR BEDROOM!

One day Dick was at the African compound, Matero, conducting an African funeral. I wanted to be there too, so I took little Steve and headed there. At the gate of the cemetery, Steve was acting like he was sick, so I turned around and took him to Dr. Foster. He had measles! Measles are very bad for Africans to get. Thank God that He moved me to turn that car around!

There were two English men who worked at the bank in Lusaka and were our neighbors. They were gone all day long, so their little puppy, an Alsatian, would come over to our house and play with our children. He would lay on the neighbors’ veranda and let anyone into their yard. However, if anyone would try to enter our yard, the dog would come charging out at them in a flash. The dog’s name was “Barney”, and all of us learned to love him. Well, when it came time for the Englishmen to go back to England, they asked us if we wanted Barney. Would we??? Yes!!!! So he became our dog, and followed our children wherever they went. There was no law against dogs being locked up or on leashes in Lusaka at that time.

As I mentioned before, Dick was in charge of vehicles. One of the mission vehicles had broken down in Zimbabwe, so we went over the border to get it. Dick (and the children) pulled the car which I was steering with a tow rope. It started raining, but the windscreen wipers didn’t work! I could not see, and blew the “hooter” (horn) so they would stop. I blew it and blew it! Finally, one of the children heard it, and they stopped.

And so our lives were very busy, as usual, as I am sure all of you are too. Dick was busy going every morning to the Bible Institute and Seminary to teach there, going out to the bush churches (taking us along Sundays), now to supervise many congregations because evangelists were now preaching and teaching. One time I (the children with me) was driving behind Dick on the way to one of the congregations. We had to cross a stream. It had rained, so there was more water than usual. Dick got through and told me to follow where he drove through the stream. Sure, Dick, I can do that. I tried, and kerplunk, there we sat in the water! I joked about it with the children and said, “Hold up your feet so they won’t get wet”. The Africans again helped us out by getting a team of oxen and pulling us out of the water and up the hill. One time we took our shoes off to wade through water to get to one of the churches. What an exciting life we had, eh?

Now it was time for our Susie to start first grade. She still attended the government school and made life-long friends there even at her young age. (One of them is Tina, a Korean, whom she looked up after she started Northwestern Prep in the States. She found her.) At this time the International School was in the process of becoming a reality. So, in 1966 the International School was started. Mr. Joseph Blackman, a graduate of Stanford University, was the Principal. Debbie and Dickie had teachers and classmates from all over the world, an education in itself. Debbie and Paul Wendland, son of Missionary Ernst and Betty Wendland, and President of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary now, played lead parts in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare. They were awesome!

Swimming was part of the school curriculum, so the teachers would walk the students over to the pool which was not far away. One of the highlights of the year was when the swimming “Galas” were held. Everyone knew the Mueller children as the best swimmers, and got the most awards. Those Galas were so exciting! Soccer and swimming were the main sports of the students at the International School.

Our boys played soccer with their African friends in the park (we had moved back to the house on Mambulima Road). I always kept bottles of cold water in the fridge for when they would come barreling into the kitchen after their games, very thirsty. (Imagine Dick and Tim’s chagrin when they went to Northwestern Prep later on, and there was no soccer yet. Oh, yes, there was soccer the last year of Prep when our son, Dick, attended. He played BAREFOOT, just like he had in Africa and scored many goals).

By that time we had two hours of television a day in Zambia, so they would all flop down on the floor in the lounge and watch TV. I think it was Timmy who would lie there with his head on Barney, our dog. Some of our boys’ friends were Peter Katende (he practically lived at our house, sometimes overnight), Fanowell, and Robert Masiye (the Ambassador to Ghana’s son). Sometimes all the boys would be all over the lounge floor playing with our boys’ Scalelectrix set. They had a lot of fun with that. Can you believe, while we were all relaxing in the lounge, burglars were busy in the bedrooms? They would cut through the screens, go in through the windows, and help themselves. We were forced to put burglar bars on the windows by the insurance company; otherwise, it would not cover our losses. Dick’s motorcycle, which he used to go on bicycle paths inaccessible by car, was almost stolen. Thanks to our dog, Barney, who sounded the alert, Dick and the dog chased the burglars away. Timmy’s bicycle was stolen, but thanks to his African friends, was able to get it back. The mission in later years sold that house.

(When we went back to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Zambian mission and the 40th anniversary of the Malawian church in 2003, it was one of the places Missionary Steven Lawrenz was kind enough to take us to. He also offered to take us to the congregations Dick had served, other houses we had lived in, the schools the children had attended, the swimming pool, etc. We asked to go to Cairo Road so we could walk down the street window shopping like we used to, but he told us the missionaries and their families don’t go there – it’s too dangerous now. All the houses in Lusaka, sad to say, are now surrounded by high walls and have steel gates at the entrances. There are little doors in the gates which you tap on to announce yourselves. We did that. The Securicor lady did not let us in the first time when the missionary went to the little door, but the second time, Susie (who went with us to Africa) and I went to the little door. We told her how we had lived there with our family for quite a few years, and how we would love to just walk around the outside of the house. She opened the big steel gate, let us in, and actually allowed Dick and the other missionary to drive the truck in! Wow! That was great! But, we were disappointed. There were more burglar bars (even on the bay window in the lounge) on the house. We did walk all around it, but where were the trees, bushes, garden, and children???? We found out from the Securicor lady that the house was a company house where it entertained its guests. We were very thankful though that we had the privilege of again seeing that very house which held so many of our memories).

We had a tent shipped to us from the United States. We used it when we went camping with our family on vacation trips. We also used it when missionary families came to Zambia when there were Missionaries’ Conferences. Our children would sleep in the tent with the visiting children. Also, our Timmy and Dickie decided with their African friends to go on a camping trip along the Kafue River. I had asked them if they wanted food to take along, and they said, no, their friends were going to bring food. It turned out that their friends brought live chickens, killed them, and roasted them over a wood fire! Tim told us that he was walking along the river and came face to face with a HIPPO! He said he turned around and ran as fast as he could away from it! Ah, yes, Africa is quite an education in itself.

Our Timmy raised chickens and loved them. Yes, I had watched my mother get the feathers off the chickens in boiling water, gut them, and clean them out. No, I did not kill them – our boys did that. Our Susie raised guinea pigs and loved those. She was devastated one day when she stepped on one of them wearing my kid sister, Janet’s, cowboy boots which our mother had sent. That guinea pig ran around in circles ever after – shame!

When I went grocery shopping, I went to ZCBC (formerly Kees). One day I saw a rat running in there, and told the clerks. Pretty soon they were chasing it with brooms! Sometimes people would sidle up to me (and others) and try to get money out of my purse. For meat I would go to the “butchery”, next to ZCBC. One day I bought the meat first, put it into the car, locked the car, and went to buy our groceries. When I came back to the car, a lady in an upstairs window over the butchery shouted, “Someone just took your meat out of the car, and handed it to someone on a bicycle!” I came home in tears that day because we didn’t have the money to replace the groceries.