Well, it’s been three weeks now since Doug’s been gone. The first week, spent in the purgatory of Lusaka and Serenje, was pretty terrible, but once I got back to the comforts of home, it was better. Strange and lonely at first. The days go by really slow. I have to relearn how to cook for one, and I now have twice the chores (and have to absorb twice the Finnigan neediness). I read more. I close up the house a lot earlier at night so the goblins don’t get me. The biggest difference is that I catch the window on fire much more often now that Doug’s not here to monitor the candles.

In fact, I missed Doug so much, that I tried to turn into him. I decided to finish thatching the goat house roof, but couldn’t reach a particular spot on one side. The only solution was to stand on the goat house stand and lean over. (The goat house was temporarily on the ground, to be lifted onto the stand upon completion.) Well, I was thatching away one second and the next second I was on the ground in a pile of goat stand. The stand had slipped off its base, and somehow my foot got tangled up in-between. Essentially, thirty ten-foot trees smashed my foot. I just laid there in agony for a long time before I even untangled myself. Shards of wood had gone under my big toenail, ripping it off three-quarters of the way. My foot was instantly swollen and purple and I could barely walk on it. I couldn’t bend or lift my toes. The tendons felt messed up and if I lifted my foot, my big toe kind of “clicked” and slid as if it didn’t want to be lifted with the rest of the foot. That night, if the blanket even grazed my foot, it was unbearable. I didn’t sleep. I was sure it was fractured.

When I first learned that my site was 140 miles from civilization and with no phone network, I was worried about getting sick or injured. Now, as soon as Doug leaves, I get injured. It was kind of scary and stressful, not knowing what to do. I sent the neighbor with an SOS bushnote to Peace Corps to take to the road and send with any transport that was going to Serenje. I didn’t know what else to do. I waited around just waiting for help to arrive. Nothing. (They ended up getting the note a week and a half later! With an emergency response plan like this, let’s hope I never get bit by a poisonous snake!)

When Doug got injured, Iron Mumba came to my house for the first time. When I got injured, he came for the second. He recommended to me that I wash my foot. I was just tickled and wanted to laugh. Whenever the Mumbas get injuries, Doug and I preach and preach and preach to them to wash the wounds with soap and water. Finally! If the only thing I’ve done in Zambia is teach the Mumbas to wash wounds with soap, then I guess that’s success enough.

Despite my washing, eventually the nail started oozing and my head throbbing, but luckily, my body isn’t as puny and weak as Doug’s and fought off the infection on its own. I sewed up a toe sock to try to keep it clean when wearing my tropicals. Bit by bit, it got feeling better each day. After a week, it felt pretty good, but was still stiff and painful.

Then Peter randomly showed up for a visit and offered to drive me three-quarters of the way to Serenje, so I took him up on his offer. (On the path to his farm, a duiker or suni or some other small deery thing ran across the road! I thought it was a dog! So small!) I called the PCMO, thinking they’d send me to a doctor and maybe get an X-Ray, who instead told me it was probably just a “compressure” injury and to just stay at the Peace Corps House for a few days. I couldn’t believe it. I came to find out what was wrong with my foot, not to sit at the house getting electrocuted for half a week. Completely useless. I’d much rather have continued bumming around my hut than hobbling around Serenje on an injured foot! I’m going to try to get out of here sooner than they say, because I’ll go stir-crazy. Plus, there’s no fuel in Zambia right now, so it’d be better to go sooner than later and end up stranded here. So anyways, that is why I’m in Serenje right now. (And the internet is working again here, so I’m able to post!)

Eventually, bum foot and all, I finished the goat house and put it on the stand. Why? Because I got a goat!!!!!!! After half a year of trying to get a real dairy goat, I finally deemed it impossible and decided to try to just find a large village goat and see if I could milk it. So I went to the road to put up a sign, where I encountered shopkeeper Mwape who was talking to some bwana guy who was passing through. The bwana asked me what I was doing and instructed Mwape that he must assist me in every way possible to get a goat. Zambians love bwana authority figures, so by evening, Mwape sent word that he had located a large pregnant goat and to meet him in the morning. I didn’t sleep, I was so excited. I met Mwape and biked him several kilometers to where the goat was. It was white (my least favorite type of goat) and didn’t look very pregnant to me. My hopes died. Then we randomly came across another house that had a brown (with black trim – my favorite type of goat!) goat which was also pregnant. I asked for them to catch it so I could look at it closely. (I had memorized the lists of “healthy” and “unhealthy” goat traits from “The New Goat Handbook.”) They thought this a ridiculous request and were annoyed when I continued to ask them. Why in the world would a person want to look at something before they buy it?!? Crazy muzungu! Finally they relented and caught it (which they would have had to have done if I wanted to buy it anyways, so I don’t see what the big deal was) and I deemed it to be healthy. I bought it. We walked it back half of the way, and then we strapped it on my bike and I biked it the rest of the way. Of course, it started kicking and bucking, rocking the bike back and forth as I’m trying to ride, which was terrifying. It kicked free and fell off once. I struggled with it for a long time, until finally Chulu came across the pile of goat/bike/Carrie and helped me put it back on.

Once home, I tethered it in the yard and it started crying and didn’t stop crying all night. Immediately, I had goat-buyers-regret. The thing hates me. It won’t let me near it. I don’t know what I was thinking, buying a village goat. These things are practically wild and, like all animals, are abused by Zambians whose only interaction with goats is throwing rocks at them or butchering them to eat. There’s no way I’m ever going to be able to hold this beast still to milk it! No way. It’s not even going to be enjoyable as a pet, because I can’t get near it. (When I tried to untether it, the goat ended up knocking a log onto me, tangling me in its chain, dragging me summersalting across the yard, and trampling me.)

And after all that work on the goat house, Doug severing his toe and I breaking my foot, the goat won’t even sleep there and instead insists on sleeping with the neighbors’ goat. Essentially, all I did was buy the neighbors another goat!

And then, you’ll never believe this. Several days after I bought my goat, the Mumbas bought a male goat!!! They had been talking about it a while ago because their goat was lonely, but it hadn’t happened for months, so I assumed they gave up on the idea. Plus, now that my goat and their goat are friends, theirs would no longer be lonely. I can’t believe it. Now, even if by some odd chance, I’m able to catch the goat and milk it, the milk is going to taste bad. (If a male is around, the pheromones mess up the milk.) And she’ll probably immediately get pregnant again and stop making milk. I just couldn’t believe my luck. It’s unbelievable.

Basically the lesson is – don’t have neighbors. Their dog will eat your eggs. Their chickens will eat your compost and poop on your patio (not that mine don’t, but that’s double the poop). Their rooster will drive you insane. Their goats will steal the food from your goat. Their male goat will make your long awaited for goat milk production project impossible. ACKKK!!!!

I named the goat “Potato.”

No milk. No fun pet. The only redeeming aspect of this goat is that it is going to give birth. I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!! I really want to see the birth. And I just can’t wait to get my hands on those little baby goatsies! Oh my god. They’re going to be so SWEET! Those little goatsies!!!! I just can’t wait. I’m just going to cuddle them up! And they’re gonna be stumbling as they walk because they’re little babies and it’s just going to be so cute! I can’t wait! I can raise them so they are friendly and catchable (and therefore milkable), but by the time they’d be old enough to make milk, I’d be long gone anyway. But I sure will play with those little baby goats while I have them and just love them up. I love little baby goats!!

I started making a garden to plant stuff for the goat, but with my injury, it became difficult. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it really, because Corncob eats all nurseries we create.

In other goat news, Finnigan and Mumba Goat #1 loved to play together. Finny would chase her and she would stomp her feet or head-butt him. (Now that the three goats travel around together, Fins has lost his goat-chasing-valor.)

Also, I can’t remember if I said it before or not, but the Mumbas named their first goat “Remembrance” (in Bemba) after DOUG for giving them the small jobs that earned them enough money to buy it! Can you believe it!!??!?! They named it after Doug! I’m the one who gave them most the jobs and the one who paid them, and they named it after him!

On my first night back in the village, the headman burned my firebreak for citimene. I was so disappointed, because that was such a highlight last year and now I couldn’t even enjoy it. (I begged and pleaded for him not to burn up the piles of grass in my yard left over from slashing because I wanted to use it to teach Joshua to make compost. But he would hear none of it. All must burn.) He citimened his yard a few days ago, so I was able to appreciate that more. It’s such a rush to be surrounded by towering roaring flames with the heat whoosing at your face. Feels like your skin’s gonna melt right off.

I brushed my hair for the first time in over two months. Now it looks stupid.

The chicks are growing so fast. They’re three-quarter chickens now. Three still didn’t have names, so I named one Eggy. Any ideas for the last two?

The bananas finally ripened and --- they’re terrible. Yucky flavor and they have chords running through them like celery. Such a disappointment after waiting half a year for them.

It’s been so dark and cold and windy during the day lately! It sounds silly to be so chilled to the bone in Africa, but imagine being outside in fall weather twenty-four hours a day all week. Even though it’s not that cold, eventually it catches up with you and you just never get the chance to warm up. It’s cold at night. It’s cold during the day. It’s cold inside. It’s cold outside. Brrrrr.

Termites destroyed the book where I was pressing my flower collection. Sad.

The neighbor’s rooster has just been so terrible lately! The chickens all love the shade (and protection from chicken hawks) of the patio, so they stay there and poop all day. The rooster poops and crows all day. A rooster crowing in the background is picturesque (soundesque?), but when it’s ten feet away from you, it just jolts your brain. I can actually feel my brain tense up and retract when he crows. I’m not kidding. It’s just a frequency that clashes with my body’s. Awful. He always wants to sleep with our chickens, so we have to chase him off every evening. This used to be Doug’s duty and now I have to do it. I just have to go back there and as soon as he sees me, he jumps down and starts off for next door, stopping every so often to guiltily look over his shoulder at me. I feel like a parent chasing off a teenage boy who tries to crash his daughter’s sleepover.

Joshua has a similar vice. One day, he requested I loan him my slingshot to shoot a bird that’s living in the tree by the well. He put his hands over his ears and writhed in agony to demonstrate how the bird’s twittering pained him so. He said that someone sent the bird as juju.

The first few days alone, I tried desperately to fill my days with work. But work did not want to be done. I went to the Zonal Resource Center to sort the library books into boxes by subject so that when we actually do get shelves, it will be easy to sort. But the books were piled in a closet and Mr. Chisenga forbade me to put them in the library room until the building is officially “handed over.” So I took the laptop to the school to start data entry, but it wouldn’t work. I tried to start planning for the next community school teacher training, but apparently we don’t have any funds for it, so it’s not going to happen. I tried to plan out some community meetings with Ba Chisenga and Ba Mulenga (clinic), but it just went around in circles. Ba Chisenga doesn’t think that people would come to a meeting during school break. Ba Mulenga says they’ve already taught about hygiene, nutrition, and family planning, so I’d feel silly redoing what they’ve already done. Plus, he said, a family planning meeting would be useless because the government isn’t dispensing condoms to the clinics anymore because women don’t like to use them. (The women, eh? Ya right!) He says their preferred family planning method would be to get pregnant and have a do-it-yourself abortion rather than use a condom.

So instead, I went back home and sorted through my bookshelf, classifying all my Peace Corps manuals that I will eventually donate to the library when I leave. I also wrote a librarian manual, drafted up a possible library policy, and lined all of the record and subject notebooks!!!!!!!!! (Only Doug would understand the magnitude of that statement.)

On a bright note, Ba Ferguson got word that his health training grant proposal has been put on the waiting list for approval. This is the one Doug and I helped him with A YEAR AGO!!! Fumba Community School also got the grant that I helped them with, and I think Chenga Community School will too.

After a few days, we finally got the computer to work. It’s very slow, so I’m not sure I can even use it for library data! I’m giving Mr. Chisenga computer lessons now. He’s never used one (and by his typing skills, I don’t think a typewriter either!)

Charles, the headman’s oldest son who speaks English and who I really like a lot, came to visit for a few days. He asked me how my projects were going and I admitted not so well. Lack of community interest. He said that when I came, people expected that I was bringing money to develop the area, and are now disappointed when all I want to do is teach them things at meetings. That explains a lot. He could tell I was distraught about my projects not going well, but couldn’t understand why I was upset. He thought it was because I was afraid that I would get in trouble from my supervisors, and I couldn’t explain to him that I don’t care a diddlysquat what my supervisors think, but that an internal sense of failure feels bad when you’re excited to make a difference and no one wants anything to do with you. I don’t know if it’s an individual/collective cultural difference or what, but the thought that one could have this personal sense of responsibility separate from what others think, was foreign to him.

He wants to start up a laying chicken project, so I lent him the information I had. (Even though I recommended against laying chickens, which don’t know how to find their own food.) I really wish he still lived in Mpelembe so I could work with him on it!



Handy Hut How To: How To Not Injure Your Foot When Making A Goat House

Information not available.



Dad – Thanks for the Meadville Tribunes. Got the letter about the trip too. That boat ride sounds just like trying to pee through the hole in the floor on the train to Zanzibar. And I would give anything to be in that cheese store right now!

Mom – Thanks for taking care of the ghost book situation. But now, I just got a message from Jenny that the Hotel is opening?!?!? What’s this all about?!?!? You’ve never sent me a picture of your short hair like I asked in March! It may not even be short now, who knows. Also – you need to change the answering machine message. It sounds like you just woke up or something.

Jamie – I read this book by the guy who wrote “The Virgin Suicides,” so maybe you’d like it. It’s called “Middlesex.” It has no overarching greatness and the story is not exciting or anything, but I enjoyed it. He’s just a good story teller – goes into so much detail and character development. And it’s funny from time to time and full of little “truisms.” Now I’ve built it up into something and you’ll be disappointed. Remember, I said it has no overarching greatness. Doug didn’t like it.

Emilie – Thanks for Doug’s birthday present!

Doug – Thanks for the birthday present from Emilie! Hahahahhahahaahha. PS. Try adding a glob of peanut butter to our regular vegetable soup concoction. Phenomenal!!!!!!!!!!!

Mom, Dad, and Uncle Bill - Thanks for working those international postal ties and delaying Doug's birthday package until after he left so that I could eat all the goodies myself.

bo-bo – YES!!!! Falling Down Pants Boy and Patty are one in the same!!! You’re psychic!!!

Bonnibelle – That’s awesome you’ve got a garden now! I can’t wait to garden back in the States where the soil isn’t 400 billion years old. (And instead of retiring, if you want to read books, sew, sit in the sun, and rub your pet’s belly, you should just join Peace Corps instead…) Also, I didn’t know John got married too! Weird…

Sarah & Doug - Hope everything goes smoothly for the bike ride and you have a good time. I'm jealous that I can't do it too...