Here ye, here ye, it’s been the month of icilanda (injuries).

Icilanda #1
While cutting down trees to build the goat house (We’re crossing our fingers on getting a milk goat. The house is practically done, but we still can’t get a hold of the farmer who sells them), Doug whacked his foot with the ax. Pretty bad. We even built a crutch out of a tree branch for him to use, but using only one crutch was difficult and useless. I don’t know how Tiny Tim did it. Then about a week afterward, Doug came down with what we thought was Malaria. But the test came up negative. Thanks to Where There Is No Doctor, we decided that it was a full body infection! After a few days of no staff at the clinic, we finally got antibiotic and after another week or so or immobility, it finally healed up. When Doug informed Ba Mulenga of the clinic – in Bemba - that he had an “infection,” Mulenga was very confussed and later told me that Doug had told him that he had been inflicted by witchcraft. He was still retelling the story to everyone a week later. Like word of anything in Zambia, word of Doug’s icilanda spread far and wide. People as far as Cikandakanda (several miles away) came calling. And the most amazing part of all – for the first time ever, Iron Mumba himself came over to our house and even sat on our porch to mourn Doug’s wound.

Icilanda # 2, 3, 4
Oh little Fins. He’s a very “sensitive” little cat. One day New Chicken pecked him on the top of his head, causing him to go into a fit – writhing around, moaning, finally going unconscious and ceasing to breathe. He simply decided he could not live in a world cruel enough where a chicken could peck a kitten. Luckily he came back to life. Another time, he accidentally got sat on and again went into a fit for an hour or so. The latest incident (besides moaning when he has a hairball), is still a mystery. One night, we heard a terrible clatter outside and then the sound of Finnigan having one of his episodes. We thought he just got scared by something falling off the porch, but after holding him for a long time, we realized he had a wet spot on his side. Upon closer inspection, it turned out he had a tiny puncture wound which was leaking some kind of organ fluid. I don’t know how he got injured (neighbor’s dog, the Professor, a nail, alien probe?) but he seemed to think it was all over for him. The next morning, he was bounding around the yard playing as usual. Crazy crazy little cat.

Icilanda #5
The next night, the Professor also got a mysterious injury. A swollen up eye, as if he had been pecked by a chicken or got in a fight with the dog. It looked pretty terrible, but healed up quick. (Let me tell you what, the Professor is one strong healthy cat. He’s pure lean muscle. Heavy. Shiny. Such a difference between feeding an animal real food (he especially loves squash) and Dads.)

Icilanda #6
When harvesting our field of peanuts (most were eaten by termites), I came across a huge grub and called the chickens over to eat it. A chick went for it and the grub went for the chick’s eye. Apparently it had little pinchers on its mouth. So the chick ran around with the grub hanging from its eye until Doug caught it and pulled it off. The chick is fine now. The grub is not.

Icilanda #7
We got a new chicken, Corncob, who quickly lost pecking order. She lost so bad that she also got her eye pecked. Very badly. Infected. We gave her eye drops for several days and it healed up. She looked like a pirate and we almost renamed her Pegleg.

When the guy was selling us this chicken, I asked when it started laying, and he answered “mailo,” so I thought, “Oh good, it started laying yesterday!” Then later Doug said, “That’s such as lie. How does he know it’s going to start laying tomorrow?” and I realized that, oh joyous Bemba, the word for yesterday and tomorrow is the same. The chicken hadn’t started laying yesterday, and of course he can’t know the exact day it’s going to start laying. He just said that to sell us the chicken! It’s amazing to me that Zambians can be so good in some ways – very helpful, generous, friendly – and so bad in others – completely untrustworthy, lying, deceitful, etc. Maybe the old “Tell me what I want to hear” thing is the answer to peaceful relations. “Oh yes, the shelf will be done in one week” – when they know that’s not true. It sounds good, and that’s all that matters to them, whereas for me, it makes me so angry that I’ve been lied to! After the neighborkids were driving us up the wall one day, we wondered, “Do Zambians ever get annoyed or feel wronged, as we do every other day?!?!” It doesn’t seem so. Emotions aren’t expressed much here (except mourning a death), so are they just not expressingannoyance, or do they really not get annoyed when people lie to them, beg from them, steal from them, bother them, etc? I doubt the neighbors are over there badmouthing Doug and I as much as we do them. We have to experience all that negative emotion and they don’t at all! Anyways, Zambia is peaceful and Zambians are content, and much the rest of the world isn’t, so there must be something to it.

So, the big news!!! The chicks hatched! Eight perfect chicks! Well, except for Wee Wee Wee, who we think has a little brain damage. She can’t seem to figure out how to eat food. There’s also Artic, Chipmunk, Vulture, and four unamerds. It was such an exciting and amazing experience! One evening, still several days shy of when we thought they were due to hatch, we heard some faint cheeping and scribblescrabbling from the eggs! Right from inside the eggs! By the time we went to bed, two had pecked microscopic holes through their shells. It was like trying to sleep on Christmas Eve. In fact, we had to get up during the night and peak. They all hatched by afternoon the next day and it was just so amazing. Terrible looking little monsters until they dry off and puff up. Then they’re just the sweetest cutest little things you ever saw! Little weightless puffballs! (Why do humans think other animals’ babies are cute?) Now I know what it’s like to be a grandma. Seven of the chicks are Fireballs and only one is New Chickens. New Chicken is the mother though. Not very fair, but she doesn’t know the difference. She’s a good mother. The chicks even jump up on top of her and try to ride on her back! Poco got in on the game a little too late. We tried to strap her eggs to the Professor’s belly to finish incubating them, but he just tipped over.

We now live in fear of the chickenhawk.

We also live in fear of weevils.

Finally built a proper tippytap for hand washing out of a bucket, wine box spout, and beeswax. Quite exquisite!

The headman’s dog had puppies again. Such funny little squawking sausages of dogs. Zambians don’t name their dogs with nouns like we do, but instead with phrases or proverbs. One of the headman’s dogs is “All In the Future.” Justin’s dog is something along the lines of “Food Security,” and the Mumba’s dog is “I understand.” I don’t understand.

We shocked the headman and Mrs. Mwelelwa, like so many others, by scooping up a chameleon in front of them. Mrs. Mwelelwa was one hundred percent positive that we would die. This led to a discussion about the different animals in Zambia and the US, Doug and I trying in vain to describe what a bear, raccoon, etc, was. Then, we told them about the beaver. This rodent animal that chops down trees with its teeth and drags them under water to build its house. Thoroughly astounded, the headman declared it a very “clever” animal, saying “That rat, it is going to eat someone!”

Another example of a clever animal is Peeps. We’ve been feeding her all along so she’d make nice eggs, but she’s actually a rooster. Now we don’t know what to do with her! If Chulu Kaiyaya ever gets his chicken club together, I think I’ll give her to them.

Peg has a boyfriend now! She’s forever coming over to borrow our pot to make him food. It’d be cool if she got married while I’m here. A Zamwedding! I don’t know much about Zambian weddings themselves – just the wedding night. --- Stop reading now if you don’t want to hear this. --- Zambians think they invented sex and no one else has figured it out. They must pass down every minute detail to the next generation – including unknowing Peace Corps Volunteers. Luckily, I never got the sex talk from Bamaayo Sinkwaya, but others have from their host parents. Lessons complete with citenges wrapped into phallic forms and bamaayos squatting over each other in demonstration. From the various recollections of horrified Peace Corps Trainees, this is what I can piece together: The new wife presents her new husband with a dish of nshima – naked. She must hold the dish so that her arms push up her breasts, and ever so slowly kneel to the ground. They then proceed to shave each other. Something about a crabwalk. And then the woman carries the man to bed, slung over her back. All the while and the rest of the night, the sex teacher is sitting in the adjoining room, in case she hears the man in pain. Then she knows something went wrong and will intervene to straighten out the issue.

On the other end of cultural happenings, we had to attend another funeral. This one for a baby. Again, the body was laid out on the floor and everyone gathered around, but this time, it was uncovered so you could see the face and all. Pretty sad. Instead of just paying respects and leaving like the last funeral, we had to stay for the whole day. Men and women were separated. Women wailed (this very strange loud fake sounding wailing/singing) and waited; men dug the grave and built the coffin. Then everyone preceded to the burial, where they finished by smashing a cup over the mound to indicate it was a grave.

Since we’re on negative topics, I hit a low point with the neighbors a few weeks ago. Just absolutely fed up with the neighbors wanting me to give them things every day. Not giving me any privacy or peace. The final showdown occurred one dark night as I was cooking dinner. My headlamp caught two glowing red dots up in a tree and I knew instantly – it was a bushbaby. The thing I have been waiting a full year to see!! No sooner did I shine my “torch” into the tree, however, did the neighbors come crowding around, asking what I was looking at. I answered “Nothing,” turned off my light, and headed back for the house. But it was too late. They saw it. Soon the whole yard was set ablaze, sticks were sailing through the air, and people were scrambling up trees. I yelled that since I was the one who found it, it was mine, and I didn’t want them to kill it. I told them that I had just seenpiles of fish laying in their yard, so it wasn’t necessary for them to eat this animal. I told them in my best Bemba that I was not happy. They just mocked me. The next few hours turned into a nightmare. Throwing this and that at the poor thing, cornering it into this tree and then the next. People from all over the village filtered in to see what the ruckus was. Thankfully, so that I didn’t have to swear off all Zambians, two were on my side. Kapiria said it was a shame that “if people kill all of these, the young people will never know them.” And Wizzy (who declared the creature a “baby cry”), while holding Finnigan, told me, “That one looks just the same as this one. If I catch it, I will keep it!” He assisted in Doug’s and my efforts to scare the bushbaby back into the bush, look and point at the wrong tree to confuse the enemy, and put out the fires they had started. He even told me not to use Bemba when speaking of our counterattacks so they wouldn’t know what we were saying. It felt like full fledged war. Finally, someone successfully hit the baby cry with a stick and it plummeted from the tree in slow motion into a pile of weeds. Not an instant passed before every person pounced on that pile. A race between good and evil (or at least against vegetarians and carnivores) ensued to snatch up that animal. The search proved futile and later Wizzy told me that he saw it escape back into the bush while everyone was scrambling for it. Whew. I felt pretty bad for being the cause of a very stressful evening for that baby cry. (Note: My goal was actually to see a Lesser Bushbaby, and this was a Greater Bushbaby, but I don’t know if I’ll go Bushbaby spotting again anytime soon.) One of our watermelons was trampled in the battle. I swore I’d never give the neighbors anything ever again after that. But a few days later, I was buying notebooks and pencils for the kids for school.

I also stood up to their oldest son Victor (drunkard, liar, just bad guy) last week. I was inside and heard the terrible but distinctive sound that can only be an iwe being beat. I went outside to see Ngosa (the only Mumba girl, maybe nine years old) wailing with her dress pulled up to cover her face and Victor trailing behind her with a stick. I stopped him and asked what was going on. It was hard to decipher, but I think the issue revolved around Victor telling Ngosa to bring sieve to him and she didn’t, so he beat her. I scolded him, telling him he was a very bad person for hitting a little child. I told him if we were in the USA, he would be going to jail for what he did. (Sometimes I exaggerate those “In America” statements for my own purpose because I know people look up to the USA. Is that wrong?) He mumbled that he understood. I doubt it will stop him from beating kids, but at least he was totally shocked and humiliated to have a woman stand up to him.

I talked to Mr. Chisenga one day about the problems with the neighbors – mainly the begging, leaving trash in my yard, not giving me space, and stealing my fruits (We didn’t get one orange off our orange tree and last week we saw Patty probing our bananas!). I told him that I thought the only reason they agreed to me living there was because they thought I was going to be their own personal Peace Corps Volunteer. He then told me that the ones who agreed to me living there were the ones who gave up the house I’m living in and that the Mumbas were a “totally different village.” He also stated that Mrs. Mumba was insane. Ok, so not only do you not even ask the people I’ll be living next to if they want me there, but you put me next to someone you believe is insane?!!?! This explains SO much.

I’m now in the process of building a fence, complete with a roof so I can actually do things outside in the shade and in privacy. “The patio,” I call it. I’m pretty psyched about it. For awhile, there was a rumor that I had a “video” in my house, and people kept coming by wanting to see it (probably they heard the sound of strange American music that couldn’t possibly be music, so must be a video). Once I started building the patio, the new rumor going around is that I’m building a movie theater in my yard to show the video.

I also hit a low point with work. First the whole bike project falling through. Then not one person came to my HIV meeting, because I had indicated in the announcement that food would not be given out. The only people who showed up were me, Mr. Chisenga, and one of my community school teachers who I asked to help get the word out for the meeting, along with his troop of kids ready to perform songs about HIV. Not even the Community AIDS Task Force member who was supposed to facilitate the meeting showed. After waiting for an hour, Mr. Chisenga and I decided to just give up and have the kids perform for us, so that they hadn’t traveled all that way for nothing. They then proceeded to do provocative dances about abstinence. (Only young children are permitted to do such dances in public, Mr. Chisenga said, because they don’t even know what it means.) At first I was extremely discouraged, because I wanted to use this first meeting as a launchpad for future meetings – health, beekeeping, fishfarming, family planning, etc. I had pretty much decided to give up, but then decided to give it one last chance and retry two of my no-show meetings by combining them into one – Jatropha and HIV. The meeting is in two days. Cross your fingers.

I also became pretty discouraged by people only seeming to want things. Mr. Chisenga even said that people only want handouts, and that he’s never encountered people in other parts of Zambia such as these. Ba Mulenga also claims that the people of Mpelembe are “hostile.” Anyways, Chulu Kaiyaya, a Congolese man, came to me asking for assistance with income generating activities for his club. He said they needed funding to start a chicken IGA. I asked if everyone in the club kept chickens (no one in Zambia has less than five chickens running around their yard), and he said yes. I suggested that each give one chicken to the project and they’d be set. Once new chicks hatched, they could even make back their original investment if they wanted. He didn’t like that very much, so he suggested some other IGA idea. Again I gave ideas for how it could be done without startup fees. Again, and again, and again. Finally, he straight out admitted that the members just wanted funding. After sending him off empty-handed, I felt bad and wrote him a letter telling him to come back so we could discuss it further. I sketched out a whole little plan for how to carry out IGA’s and thought I could just meet with his club. I haven’t heard from him since.

On top of all that, Mr. Chisenga has been pretty unreliable lately. Since he got a motorcar, I guess. I’ll show up for a meeting we had planned and – he’s in the boma. One day I didn’t’ find out about a teacher training until the day of, and had to run home to plan my sessions! The latest thing has been waiting for him to determine the school’s timetable so I know when to teach Life Skills. It’s three weeks into the new term already, and I haven’t taught once. Shouldn’t the timetable should be determined before school starts, not halfway through the term? Stacy?

SO, I was feeling pretty useless, unwanted, used. Feeling better about it now though I suppose. Just enjoying the chickens and cats, reading, anticipating the goat. (Although the neighbors just got a female village goat and plan to get a male one. Now I’m worried about disease, unwanted pregnancy stopping our milk flow, and the milk tasting funny because of the presence of a male goat. C'est Lavie.) I’m hoping to start a milk goat cooperative of some sort, so I’m looking forward to that as well. I’ve also had some leads in people interested in bees, agroforestry and sustainable agriculture, and HIV. Haven’t heard back from any of them yet.

Still sorting books for the library. I finally got some books from people besides Mom, Bonnibelle, and Grandma!!! (I think we probably have enough books now, so you can stop sending them. It’s too expensive for you to do so anyways. But thank you thank you thank you! Much appreciated!) Three organizations I wrote to came through – Zambia Library Services (lots of boxes), Changes2 (3 boxes), and Operation Bookshelf (a few books). It’s a little bit sad, some of the things they just try to get rid of to charity. Sooooo many teacher’s textbook guides - without the student versions to go with them. Absolutely useless. And best of all - - - - - a television instruction manual.

At least we can thank Mpelembe Basic School, beacon of education, for teaching Joshua one English phrase. I overheard him practicing one day: “How are you, Mr. Patty?” Patty, taken aback, quickly stammered, “Kwisa?!?” (“Where?!?!”)

Doug has mastered iwe communication as well. When one kid wants to contact the other kid, they’ll call out their name and the other will answer with a “wooo-oooo!” or “a-kwisa!” Doug now gets a kick out of answering the iwe call randomly to bewilder and bedazzle the kids.

Been doing some more cooking experiments. Peanut butter, macadamia nut butter, bagels, icikanda, peanut butter cookies, mmm!

So one of the reasons we came to Serenje was to buy our train tickets to for our June trip to Zanzibar! We arrived only to find out that a cargo train crashed last week, mangling up the railway beyond Zambian repair. We even paid for our Visas already!!!!!!

Doug says my blogs are too long, so I’m going to stop now and save the rest for another time, so that my next blog will be even longer than it should have been…..

So, I’m sending home the second CD of photos! Finally! A years worth! The ones of the hut are pretty bad – very hard to photograph – and still incomplete, so I’ll try again.


Handy Hut How To: How to Dig a Post Hole
Get your ax and bang it against a hard stump, hitting the head above where the blade is, until the blade falls out. This takes between 7 and 30 hits. (Mini How To: How to Figure Out How Long it Takes to Cut a Tree, Dig a Hole, Hoe a Bed, etc: Divide the time it takes Doug to do any task by two, and you’ll have the time it takes a Zambian to do the same. Double the time it takes Doug to do a task by two, and you’ll have the time it takes Carrie to do it.) Use the ax blade to form a square hole, cutting up the sides and middle, scooping out the loosened dirt, and repeating. What will form is a perfectly square tubular hole, with no tapering of the sides whatsoever. Put your post in the hole, push some of the dirt back in. Wiggle the post around a little to let it settle, and pack it with a big stick. Put the rest of the dirt back and repeat. Stomp it down to make sure it’s tight. Watch out for the stinkpods that Finnigan will lay in the loose dirt around the base.


Mom – Happy Mothers Day!

Pookie – Happy Birthday!

foo – Happy Birthday!

Mom and Dad – I just got the Easter package yesterday! Thanks!

Mom and Grandma – I also just got the library books you mailed back in January for the school. Thanks! Doug and I devoured the scrap of Meadville Tribune you used as packing. Funny.

Christy – Thanks for the labels!

Jon and Lori – Thanks for the package! I’m gonna try to send you a message if I get the internet working ok!

Anyone – How do you get the smell of cat pee out of fabric?