Every time I hear a car in Mpelembe, I get worried that it’s Peace Corps bringing bad news from home. I run it through several tests. First I check to see if it’s Peter’s car or if it’s the Peace Corps Land Cruiser. If it’s the latter, I then check the faces of those in it to see if they look happy or sad. This morning, my paranoia turned out to be true. They had come to tell me that grandma had died. So they gave me some time to pack up and brought me to Serenje so I could talk to mom on the phone. It’s a strange thing to be here separated from everyone. (And a strange thing to be writing this on my blog.) It seems less real in a way, I suppose. It’s hard to believe that the person I spent nearly every weekend with as a kid is gone. Driving out to see the buffalo, eating creamtoast, going to “the end of the road,” playing at the school, having tea parties with Mrs. Danks on the Moonbird table. Grandma was always on the kids’ side. A person who was so generous that she was usually begging to buy me things rather than me begging her like a normal grandchild-grandparent relationship. She was the author of quite a few classic songs such as “Green and Yeller” and “Put it in the Trash Can,” and the enthusiastic singer of many more – “Thank You Very Much,” “Folks are Dumb Where I Come From,” etc. And we cannot forget the Titanic trick which she showed to a quarter of America. I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for the funeral.

I feel guilty going on with the rest of my blog as if nothing has happened, but I shall because if I don’t, the next one will be five thousand pages long. I realize that many will not be reading this time and that’s ok, but I blog not only to keep those at home updated, but it’s also my own record of my Zambian experience. My memory is so bad that if I don’t have photos and the blog, I won’t remember.

So, the biggest thing since sliced nshima has hit Mpelembe. One day, the village kids beckoned me, so I went outside to see them holding a gray kitten. I went over and reached out to pick it up, but as I looked into its face, I realized it wasn’t a kitten, but a bushbaby (small nocturnal primate.) Not only a bushbaby, but a BABY bushbaby. It’s mother had been killed by a dog. They sold it to me for the equivalence of about $1.25.

I fell head over heels over head for this little critter who had the head of a bat/raccoon, the body of a chinchilla/koala, the hands of a treefrog/human, and the tail of a monkey, with a little opossum and cat thrown in there. Basically, what it comes down to is a combination between a furby, a gremlin, and the little handheld alien from Flight of the Navigator. I named her Changa, which is simply the Bemba word for bushbaby.

Being the furry mess that it is, she thought that my head was her mother and insisted upon clinging there to sleep. If I tried to remove her, I would be scolded with a “click,” “squeak,” or “mumph.” If I were to set her down across the room, she would run back over to me and climb me with her little rubber hands and feet until she was happily perched back on my head. So sweet. After awhile, she decided that Ngwi and Finnigan made suitable mothers as well and would cling to their backs or bellies. This unnerved the cats to no end, trying to walk around with a firmly attached baby primate stuck to them. Mostly they would tip over.

Bushbabies are tiny, but they’re known for their loud cries. Changa was no exception. Come night, she started chirping ridiculously loud in the stereotypical “oo oo oo AH AH AH” sequence. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep.

After several days of enjoying my new pet, I had to make a very hard decision. She was eating fruits, but I couldn’t get her to drink milk, which I thought she would definitely need. I also realized that she was a danger to herself. Her calls could be heard throughout the village, and that means any predator could easily snatch her up. Perhaps an owl, but more likely a human. As soon as word would get out that I had a bushbaby, I don’t think she would have lasted very long. So I made the sixty kilometer bike ride to Kasanka National Park where I handed her over for them to raise and release back into the wild. My eyes welled up as I said goodbye. I really became attached to that little bugger. I plan to visit soon.

News of the bushbaby makes news of my new kitten seem dull, but I also have a new kitten! Last time I was in Serenje, I saw a kitten in the same shop that I got Finnigan, and just had to have it. A little black and white bugger named Ngwi. A “ngwi” is the smallest Zambian currency. So small, it doesn’t really even exist anymore. It’s worth a thousandth of a cent or something. I was hoping that a playmate would make Finnigan a little less insane, but it was silly of me to try to do this by bringing in his sibling. Ngwi is, of course, crazy too. Though she was voraciously eating solid foods just fine, she tried to start nursing from my armpit. (Bushbabies. Cats. My body must just exude some “motherly” chemical.) After awhile she gave up on that and now thinks that Finnigan is her mother and Finnigan thinks so too. He’ll lay down and let her “nurse” from his now engorged nipples. (I rechecked to make sure he’s a boy and he definitely is.) Maybe the Milk Gods felt guilty for giving me a useless milkgoat and gave me a milkcat instead.

One cannot gain an animal in Zambia, however, without losing one. Potato and kin like to pal around with the Mumba and Mwelelwa goats. They all travel around together to eat the other neighbors’ crops (who then insist that I, and only I, pay them for the damage.) When this happened for the umpteenth time, the neighbor kids decided that I should tie up my goats and proceeded to chase them around and around and around the village in an attempt to catch them. In the midst of all this confusion, Pegasus got separated from the rest and I haven’t seen her since. (The kids then demanded that I pay them for their catching services.)

In Zambia, if one wants to make a village announcement, one does so at night when everyone else is quiet and at home. This is done by simply standing in your front yard and shouting. I was touched when Iron Mumba announced to the village to please return my baby goat. A man also stopped by my house to inform me that he as investigating “the case” of my missing goat, as the Mumbas had reported it to their “offices.” What “offices” this could be is beyond me. Do we have a Missing Goat Investigation Bureau in Mpelembe that I don’t know about?

I started to get confident after the bees had stayed put for a week and, inspired by the collective naming of Jamie and Julie’s compost worms, named them Stingsworth. They soon absconded.

So in the matter of a month, I gained a cat, lost a goat, lost a swarm of bees, and gained and lost a bushbaby.

Staying true to her name, Eggy has started laying. Funny small little eggs!

In other animal news, I saw a dog that resembled an African Wild Dog. That unusual black and copper tortoise-shell look. I highly doubt it was an actual African Wild Dog, as they are nearly extinct, I think. But perhaps it was the great great great grandchild of a wild-domestic mix. Or more likely, I’m just dying to see wildlife in Zambia. Here’s a list of the animals I’ve seen so far.

I didn’t think that it would happen, but my toenail did fall off after all. It looks rather strange now.

It’s now tsetse fly, rash caterpillar, and big creepy spider season. Finnigan swatted a tsetse fly right out of the air and ate it!

The fence surrounding my old garden has been permeable to chickens and goats for a long time now and has finally just completely fallen down. I decided to give zamgardening one last shot and converted the old brick bathing shelter (filled with two feet of compost) into a mini garden. Forget French Intensive Gardening. This is Carrie Intensive Gardening! Bugs are now destroying the seedlings.

Someone has put juju (witchcraft) on the headman. Also, did you know that there are two types of crocodiles? One is a “natural crocodile” and one is a “man-made crocodile” which is the product of juju. The way to tell the difference between the two is when someone is killed by a crocodile, then you know it’s a man-made one.

The timing just didn’t work out for me to leave the village for Halloween, so I celebrated alone. Well, not alone. The cats and chickens all took turns wearing a mask of Laura’s face. I think New Chicken really liked it. I also marked the day by walking on hot coals. I didn’t intend to mark the day by walking on hot coals, but my clumsy subconscious thought it was necessary.

I sewed a citenge wallet and it turned out quite exquisite!

I visited Kapiria’s family in a neighboring village. They own a tuckshop (small shop) and let me play shopkeeper for the afternoon, selling soap and sweeties. It was quite fun.

Last month was the annual Cibwela Mushi festival, which is the traditional festival of our tribe. Our tribe is the Lala, which means “sleep.” You can guess how much fun this festival was. The only redeemable part was climbing to the top of a rocky hill to get a birdseye view.

And last week was Zambia Freedom Day. I thought it was the 44th anniversary of Zambia’s independence, but the sign at the school declared it the 44th “universary.” I’m not sure what a universary is but I’ve got it narrowed down to either the remembrance of the universe or, being “uni,” the remembrance of a one time event, which would be in essence the event itself. Hmm. I spent the day at the school were there was an all-day assembly of dancing and singing. I learned at this celebration, that the hot new fashion statement for teenage boys is in fact the fanny pack. Either worn over the shoulder or, better yet, work backwards so it actually rests on the fanny. This helps accentuate the fanny when dancing.

Zambia’s election was on the 30th. There wasn’t much interest in voting in Mpelembe. It’s caterpillar collecting season, so people were more concerned about that. Sata was ahead for a long time, but then at the last minute, Banda pulled ahead and won. Foul play is assumed. There were reports of trucks filled with false ballots heading to the polling stations. Peace Corps has issued all sorts of warnings and restrictions in case there’s political riots. “Zam2K,” as I like to call it.

The US election is of course coming up as well. Most of the Peace Corps volunteers in Central Province are heading to a hotel in Mkushi (about four hours away) where there’s a TV to watch the results.

In other political news, my head teacher is encouraging me to run for governor when I return to the States. After living in Zambia, I will be famous, he says, and then I can easily win. Like Arnold Schwartzeneger.

After happily and successfully living in a bubble for the past year and a half, I decided to give in and buy a radio to listen to the BBC, so that when I return to the States I can pretend to be a real person. There’s eleven waves and it takes a minute or so to tune through each one. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason as to what station is on what frequency. It’s not the same from day to day. Even when you find a station, it will be there one second and gone the next. You have to kind of “chase” the station around as it moves. Religious stations and sports coverage are easy to find. There’s also a ton of stations in foreign languages (probably covering foreign religion and foreign sports.) It’s kind of fun though.

This is what I’ve learned on the radio: Apparently some deadly mystery disease broke out in Lusaka, but it’s thought now to be “contained.”

Things with work are pretty good. We formed a library committee and sat down to set the policies for the library. I’ve put together a “librarian manual” as well as a ton of record notebooks. I’m a real librarian now!

We also had our first computer lesson (sans computer because the guy that had the key to the room was nowhere to be found) which went really well.

After several failed attempts, I started about thirty trees in a nursery with the grade 8 and 9. (I then added about fifty more myself.)

I also prepared a beekeeping workshop for the one person in Mpelembe interested in beekeeping. I spent a good deal of time on it, so was pretty disappointed when she never showed. We rescheduled and again she didn’t show. Frustrating.

Changes2, an NGO here who works with schools, asked me to visit some schools where they had donated books to see if the books were being used. Embarrassingly, I had to monitor my own school where the books are still piled in a closet. It gave me a chance to see more of Central Province, though. I traveled around, staying with other volunteers near the schools I needed to visit. It’s interesting to see how different the lives of different volunteers are. For example, there are several volunteers clustered around this one town with electricity and internet. They’ve befriended a bwana family there, so they just hang out there all the time watching satellite TV. So odd.

In Peace Corps news, Central Province has lost about a fifth of its volunteers to illness and quitting and such. The Peace Corps budget is doing equally well. They’re canceling medical site visits and denying already-granted extensions to volunteers. I might be able to sue them for the rest of their money as well! A while ago, the Peace Corps Times newsletter emailed me asking permission to quote my blog. I replied that they could only if they first ran by me what quotes they wanted to use. Never heard back, and then I open up the newest newsletter and whose blog do you think is in there?!

I’ve read some more good books lately. If I wasn’t already a vegetarian trying to avoid unorganic processed foods, Fast Food Nation would have done it. Did you know that the lowest grade meat is the meat they use for school lunches? That’s the meat that so bad that even the fast food chains won’t buy it. Boy I’m glad I always packed!

I read another book by the author of Collapse. This one was Guns, Germs, and Steel, which attempts to answer the question of how some societies advanced and came to rule the world and others didn’t. It’s perfect timing to read it, because I’d been sitting in my hut wondering, “If humanity started out here, why is Africa the furthest ‘behind?’ Wouldn’t they be the most advanced because they’ve had the most time to develop?” (For those of you who are planning on reading the book, don’t read on.) Basically, it comes down to luck that Eurasia had the easiest plants and animals to domesticate, so they moved from being hunters and gatherers to farmers. Settling down made a type of society where governments, language, and technology could develop. These developments could spread across Eurasia because the climate was similar east to west. It was slowed moving into Africa because the climate changes north to south and mostly stopped at the Saharan Desert. So then the “developed” societies were able to take over others through weapons, technology, and germs (formed from livestock as well as living clustered in a sedentary setup), which the others didn’t have.

It’s also just amazing to think how long humanity has been around. A long time! And how slowly things like agriculture, writing, civilization, etc, have taken to develop. Then just look at the past 200 years. Electricity, radios, cars, computers. Then the last fifty years. The last ten years! Everything we know is just a speck in human history. Yet more has developed in that short time that the rest combined. And we’ve managed to completely change our whole world in that time. Roads, cars, skyscrapers, supermarkets. And most people just take that as given. That that’s how it’s always been. But only 150 years ago – one and a half lifetimes – there were no cars. And now it’s the dominate life form on this planet. If the world can be transformed in that short a time, then maybe it is possible to change the course of the future after all.

On a similar vein, I’ll leave you with a fable that is essentially another version of The Lottery.

Once upon a time, there was a kitty named The Professor. One day, he was given a treat of peanut butter that was stored in a bucket in the kitchen. Loving it so, since then, he associated the sound of the bucket with peanut butter. No matter where he was, he would come running every time he heard the bucket being opened, even though he received no more treats. One day, a new kitty named Finnigan came to live in the same house as The Professor. Finnigan saw The Professor run to the bucket when it was being opened and very quickly learned to do the same, though he had no idea why he was doing so. By and by, The Professor was murdered. Finnigan lived alone and continued the bucket routine. When he had grown into an adult, another kitty, Ngwi, came along. Ngwi also learned “the way” from Finnigan and began running to the bucket whenever she heard the telltale sound. By this time, peanut butter was no longer even stored in this bucket. But that didn’t matter. It was just the way things were done. The tradition that The Professor (whom she had never met) had started two generations ago was dutifully carried on. And nobody knew why.



Handy Hut How To: How to Process Wax

After processing your honey, add the empty combs to a pot of very hot (but not boiling) water. Stir them around until they’ve melted. Have ready a dish with a cloth or screen over it. Pour the melted wax onto the cloth. Squeegee the liquid through the cloth by whatever means possible. (Usually resulting in some burns.) Remove the ball of gunk from the cloth and repeat to get the last drops of wax out. Then discard. The wax in the dish will float to the top and after it has cooled and hardened, and can be separated from the dirty water. Wash any gunk off of the bottom of the wax chunk and repeat the process.



All - Happy Halloween and happy daylights savings!

Mom – Happy belated birthday!

Pookie - Thank you again so much for doing the pictures. I don't know why some didn't work. I don't have any more CDs, but maybe I can scrounge one up and try again.

Stacy – Thanks for the book and letter! It was exciting to get all the updates.

Bonnibelle – Thanks for the nutella, honey, tea, etc. I didn’t know lemongrass was such a wonderdrug. That’s so cool that your fish had babies! In all of my years of fish husbandry, why didn’t that ever happen to me? Thanks for the Hotel Conneaut article too. I always get a kick out of it when articles quote me or use the names that I have given the ghosts.

bobo - Congratulations on the new job! My friend Jamie lives in Squirrel Hill, so you can get a hold of him if you get lost.

Jamie and Julie – I know you write scripts for film, but there’s a BBC contest for a radio play. Thought I’d let you know since you’re on such a hot streak.