Happy Valentines Day!! Mine was spent at a funeral of someone I didn’t know. I don’t even know if it was a man or a woman.

This past month has been a good one. For the following reasons:

• 1) Food. For a good two weeks or so, I ate mangos for at least two meals a day (not including the mangos in my oats every morning.) Then an avocado tree came into fruit in the village (imagine a maple-sized tree loaded with avocados!), so I ate avocado-cabbage wraps for two meals a day. My new favorite food. Might have been the best month of eating in my life!
  
  
• 2) Fun. I asked Kapiria to teach me “Nsolo” and “Pacibulia,” two games played in the village with holes and dried seed pods. (Similar to Mangala.) Joshua refers to the pieces as “babies” and taking the other player’s pieces as “eating,” so essentially, it’s the “Eat Your Babies” game. My first few games were against a blind woman and I lost all of them, so that was a little disheartening, but eventually I got the hang of it. It’s really fun and addicting, so I took a hammer out to the insaka and hacked up the floor to make my own board. Now I play with Joshua and/or Kapiria nearly every day, which is really relaxing and fun. I’ve only been beaten at Pacibulia once!
  
  
• 3) Work. Things have been pretty busy. I have computer lessons twice a week, Life Skills class once a week, and am monitoring community schools twice a week. (In theory, that is. Usually only one or two of these things actually manifest.)
  
  Life Skills is going well. I’ve found that my Bemba has gotten good enough to teach nearly the entire class in Bemba.
  
  We had a class about nutrition, which went really well. I compared the different types of nshima (maize, cassava, sorghum, and finger millet), promoting the indigenous ones which are more nutritious and grow well without the use of fertilizers. I had the students guess which one they thought was the healthiest. They guessed cassava and were shocked to learn that one is actually the least nutritious.
  
  We planted the orchard, which was satisfying. But the students haven’t watered it, so most of the trees have died.
  
  We also had a class about how to not kick your dog. I think they were a bit bewildered by that one.

I just got back from a grand adventure. I set out to visit “Wonder Gorge,” which is a view from a mountain looking down into a canyon where some rivers meet. I hitch-hiked for two days, then biked down a dirt path for two days (about fifteen hours, and at least 150 kilometers) up into the mountains. At one point, I was directed onto a “shortcut.” As I’ve mentioned before, Zambians and Americans have different ideas when it comes to efficiency. This may or may not have been less kilometers, but I had to wade across two knee-deep streams – with a bike. It was up and down and up and down ridiculously steep hills, where I had to pull and drag my bike up rocky embankments. It may have been the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done. After the shortcut, it was better, but still difficult. Rocky, muddy, sandy, hilly. I was either screeching my brakes to coast down very steep hills or getting off to push my bike up very steep hills. Hardly any level ground. This was true mountain biking. Really incredible experience. All signs of civilization stopped and I continued for another thirty kilometers into the bush. No people, no villages. Just bush. It was really cool biking for hours on end alone through the mountains. Biking is suddenly your purpose in life and you are at one with the path, swerving to miss this pothole, swerving to miss that sandy patch, and so on. Completely in tune with what you are doing. (I can’t admit that my tuning is very finely tuned, however. I crashed my bike no less than ten times.) In the end, I didn’t get to see Wonder Gorge. I was directed onto a wrong path near the beginning of my ascent into the bush and ended up at an abandoned mine and then a tent made out of plastic bags where someone was living way out in the middle of nowhere! It started to get dark and rain and only having a hammock, I finally gave up and camped out in the shack and prayed that the person wouldn’t return. I watched the sun set over the mountains, singing all the songs I could think of that mention “hill” or “mountain.” (Now I have an urge to watch The Sound of Music!) After a sleepless night, I watched the sun rise and began the bike ride back. I caught a 3 AM lorry and came out with a film of red dirt over my skin, which looked like a botched tan job. (I bet this could be the next big thing for tanning! Forget cancerous tanning beds and lotions – just stand in a spray of red dirt!) Basically it just ended up being a huge biking and camping trip. I was one rough looking creature when I emerged, let me tell you. Filthy ripped clothes, plastered in spiderwebs, dirt, and grass, bruised and bleeding. (It was nice to be told, however, “Ah, even when they are dirty, they are beautiful!”)

At a stopping point along the way, I met some nice people at a power plant along the river who gave me a tour, which was really cool. It was built in the 40’s by the British, I suppose. There was this thing like the incline (only wooden and open air – really scary!) that went down the side of the mountain at a 37 degree angle. (I got my awesome view afterall! Amazingly gorge-ous!) There was a rickety old bridge and cat-walk over the raging river. They showed me the turbines and generators and stuff. Pretty cool.

After that three hour shortcut, I feel like there’s no road, path, or non-path that I’m not capable of biking. There’s been a lot of moments like that in Zambia. After waiting for transport for two days, there’s no amount of time I can’t pass. After regularly hitching hundreds of kilometers, there’s no distance I can’t travel. After staying in some real hole-in-the-walls, there’s no place I can’t sleep. (Even the Hotel Conneaut!) After basically camping for two years, there’s no inconvenience I can’t handle. After not bathing for two week stretches, there’s no amount of uncomfortableness I can’t endure. After having meeting after meeting fall through, there’s no amount of frustration I can’t get through. After living with bugs and rats and eating bugs (usually not on purpose), there's nothing that can't gross me out. And most of all, after standing in front of a group of forty blushing Zambians and saying “semen” and “vaginal fluids,” there’s really nothing I can’t do.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The lighting during rainy season is just beautiful. One evening, I was huddled in an insaka waiting for the storm to pass. Looking out one side, the sky was a deep saturated blue. Looking out the other side, it was red. And not just the sky. Somehow the air itself seems to take on the color. Beautiful.

My bees are still here, but they’re not very nice. I went out to check on them one night, and they chased me back to my house! I felt like I was in a cartoon. I had even brought them a dish of sugar water! Ungrateful little buggers!

Oh, and I saw the weirdest bug in the world. A caterpillar type thing that had built a house out of sticks and was dragging it behind him like a snail shell. Totally bizarre.

I read about an interesting way to propagate trees instead of by seed. You cut a slice in a small branch, then wrap soil around it and the tree will get confussed and make roots. Then you just cut it off and plant it. I’m trying it with a mango tree.

The latest citenge is out! The Barack Obama citenge! One of the Zambian Peace Corps staff members had a whole dress suit made from it! Hilarious!

I thought it’d be a good idea to get a video of the village kids dancing to 80’s pop, but they were so bewildered by the noise that they were frozen.

One day, Kalunga came by to borrow my lighter. He wanted to light up a cigarette of “medicine” because he had a cough. I tried to explain the irony of it to him. I think he understood, but it’s hard to tell, because no matter what you say to him, he grins and responds “Ye-es.”

So there’s this old tale about when the Queen of England came to visit and the Zambian women lined up along the road to greet her as her car passed. They were told to cover their breasts, as this wasn’t respectable. So as the car drove by, the women lifted their skirts to cover their breasts, and instead exposed other things. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it seems really relevant to cultural interference and “development” work here in general. Adopting structure but not function. Like my fuel efficient stove. Neighbor Lady excitedly came over one day to tell me they were trying it out. I went over to see, and sure enough a pot of food was perfectly boiling away on the stove. And three feet away --- their usual fire was also blazing away. Yes, they are using the stove, hooray, but the idea was to use less firewood. Now they are using more because they are burning both the stove and the fire at the same time. I take this as the final summary of how my two years of service have impacted Zambia.

A few more cultural insights:

• I’ve written before that childhood doesn’t really exist here. That children are just small adults who have to work in the fields and carry babies on their backs. That’s true, but kids do do some kid stuff as well. Girls play some kind of hopscotch game and occasionally make mud dolls. Boys make soccer balls out of plastic bags (and condoms), toy cars out of wire, and these clickityclack things they pretend are motorcycles. The craftsmanship is pretty impressive, really.
  
  
• In daily life, Zambians have good memories. But every so often, their memories completely fail them. About things that just seem impossible to forget. Like their wife’s name or the village that they live in. Very strange.
  
  
• I’ve also written about how Zambians don’t drink much water or pee much. (They’re very well adapted to this climate.) But when they do drink water, there’s certain quirks I haven’t been able to figure out. First of all, they must be served water. A man will tell a woman to serve him. A woman will tell a child to serve her. A child will tell a younger child to serve them. Second, a cup of water must be served on a saucer. Third, the drinker will slop water all over (hence, the saucer) and let it run down their neck as they drink. As a rule. Finally, the drinker never finishes the last bit of water and tosses it out.

And some more language observations:

• Bemba doesn’t use the letter R. When village Zambians speak English, instead of saying L as L and R as L, as one might guess, they say L as R and R as L. Literally, always. Ritelarry, arways.
  
  
  • There’s several Zamlish phrases I’m going to miss a lot. All of the following crack me up inside when I say them, so I use them every chance I get.
    
    
    • “Just ok.” This doesn’t mean “only ok,” as it may seem to us, but actually means “good.” It’s a handy phrase to use when someone asks you how something went, because it appeases them that it went well, but you don’t actually have to lie if it didn’t go so well. “Ah, my neighbors, they are just ok.”
      
      
    • “Fail.” If a Zambian doesn’t do something or can’t do something, they will say they have “failed.” Now this is true, of course, but it just seems so dramatic to us. It’s just not the same connotation. If I get stuck in a mud puddle on my bike: “Ah, I have failed to cross!”
      
      
    • “Too.” This might be my favorite one. “Too” actually means “Very.” So I can say, “Ah, I am liking mangos too much!” This simply means, “I like mangos a lot,” but I can’t help but snicker inside: What exactly are those dire consequences of liking mangos too much?!!? I love it.
    
    
    
  • Again, another ammendum. I’ve written much about Bemba’s lack of vocabulary. How one word can mean many things. But I’d like to point out that there’s actually three words for “good” and two for “thank you.” Now isn’t that nice?

Now that we’ve said something nice, we can also say that last time I was in Serenje, someone stole my firewood, a lighter, my toilet paper rack, part of my fence, and my dishrack. Yes, my dishrack.

In Peace Corps news, I hosted first site visit again. This is when the new volunteers first fly into the country and immediately go visit a current volunteer. I had three girls (who also all read my blog!) and it was a nice time. We went to a soccer game, had computer lesson, taught life skills, watched an IRI lesson, made peanut butter, and learned how to fix a flat tire and clean the water filter. I brewed a bucket of lemongrass spice wine (which turned out quite delicious, as far as homebrew goes – which isn’t saying much, though, I suppose), but we didn’t end up drinking any of it, so I had to dump it all! I wonder what wine will do to my compost…

Speaking of Peace Corps news, here’s a silly saying for Zambia. They just can’t pronounce Peace Corps. I’ve gotten “Piscope,” and “Peace Choir.” They just can’t seem to grasp “corps” as “core.” It’s usually “corps” as “corpse,” which is just pretty sad that we represent that “Peace Corpse.” Other say “Peace Cops,” which seems rather oxymoronic. Both are rather telling of our time, I suppose.

We’ve chosen a new village where the house should be for my replacement. It’s about five kilometers away. They are supposed to have finished site prep by now, but they haven’t even started, so it’s now up in the air whether old Mpelembe will be replaced or not!!

And backing up to my Close of Service Conference. I was surprised to find that they put us up at an actual lodge for two nights! Kind of a congratulations and thank you. Nice food. (I even broke my vegetarianism again and tried the Puku. It’s free range, after all.) Nice lodging. Activities to do. It’s private land, so they have some game there, which was neat. I even got to see a hyena!! Oh my gosh, I had no idea that hyenas are the cutest animals ever!!! Just big fuzzy teddy bears with goo goo faces! So cute!!!!! The conference itself was alright. A lot of administrative stuff. We also dealt with readjusting to the United States, which is supposedly much more difficult and emotionally taxing that coming to Zambia in the first place. We practiced answering questions like, “Were there lions in your backyard?” and worst of all, “So, how was Africa?” As if two years of one’s life can be summed up in a sentence or too. It made me pretty sad and worried.

Note: I am in Mkushi now posting this. The Serenje computer seems to have crashed, so I’m not sure if I’ll be posting again before mid-April! Keep your fingers crossed!


Carrie’s Book Club

I read a humorous book about grammar, if you can believe that. Here’s a neat little trick I learned:

Every lady in this land
hath twenty nails on each hand
five and twenty on hands and feet
and this is true without deceit.

Confussed?

Every lady in this land hath twenty nails. On each hand, five. And twenty on hands and feet. And this is true without deceit.




Handy Hut How To: How To Bake

Light the coals on the babula (metal container stove fire thing.) Make your batter/dough/etc. Put a lid on the pot you’ll be using to cook. (If using a pan, use bicycle spokes and a lid.) Pile hot coals on top. Put a metal can in the babula, leaving a few coals underneath. Place the hot on top of the can. Bake!




Mom – Thanks for the package of treats! The little sandwich cookie things got squished flat as paper, but taste the same!

Bonnibelle – Thanks for the Silly Sayings book!! The cat-thief and the ski-lift articles were hilarious. I posted them at the Peace Corps House and we all got a kick out of them.

Pookie – Happy Presidents Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stacy – I hope I get those letters before I leave!!

Vince – I hear you have to do your classroom observation soon. You should go observe Stacy! She’s teaching in Northeast.