!!!!!STOP SENDING LETTERS!!!!!
Thank you all for the mail for the past two years! It’s been the highlight of each month. Bonnibelle wins the prize for most letters, by the way.

I’m in Serenje again, already, for our going away party. There’s four of us leaving. One is from another intake and is quitting early, so that’s why the party is so early.

I just found out today that Mpelembe is not being replaced. They just couldn’t get it together to build a new house. I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s upsetting that all the work I’ve put into the library is lost, because without a Peace Corps Volunteer, I honestly think the books will just sit there. But at the same time, there’s been so many set-backs with getting people to work with me, that I know it’s not really the best place to put a volunteer. Fate has decided, I suppose.

I just read the book “The World Without Us,” about how long it would take nature to reclaim the earth if humans suddenly disappeared. Pretty funny timing, because after being away from my site for a week, nature was already doing a pretty good job taking my hut apart. My patio roof had collapsed. Rats had eaten my pumpkin. Termites were all over. And my bed was infested with mites. It was awful, waking up just crawling with them! I pounded up a mixture of tephrosia (tree used for fish poison) and cassava leaves, which makes a natural pesticide, and splashed it around the house. It was a gorgeous shade of green and worked pretty good.

Then the roof leaked directly onto my phone. It’s actually hard to be upset about it, because the accuracy of the whole thing is really so amazing. So now I don’t have a phone.

My tomato plants are also doing very well. They’re taller than me!!

I think a chicken hawk tried to take away New Chicken! She has a wound on her neck. (I thought maybe someone had beat her, cause someone beat the Mumba dog to death, but the Mumbas are sure it was the hawk.) Now she’s kind of standing upright and is having some digestive problems, but I think she will be ok. What a trooper!

On my birthday, I lit some candles (also lighting the window on fire - oops) and blew them out. I also baked pumpkin cake and invited the neighbors over. Now, I didn’t expect a party or anything, but I did envision us all sitting together while eating our cake. But instead, they each just took a piece and took it back to their house. So my birthday celebration lasted less than thirty seconds. I’ve realized that in the past five years, I’ve only had one birthday in the United States!

And now for a segment dedicated to one of my favorite Zambian words: “Obe?!” (Pronounced like “obey.”) This is an expression of surprise, kind of like “Oops.” So if a person were to drop a pot, they would say, “Obe?!” This just cracks me up every time. Being a two syllable word that just doesn’t flow, it seems like by the time you get it out of your mouth, you couldn’t possible be surprised anymore. And just the way they say it, in question form with such honest excitement and befuddlement. “Obe?!?” Like, “How could that pot have possible fallen from my hand?!?!” Probably this explanation doesn’t do it justice, but it’s something I will miss.

I’ve written a lot about how Zambian and American culture differ and how puzzling Zambian culture can be at times. But the more I think about it, the Zambian side often makes more practical sense.

• Animals: Americans treat animals more like people and Zambians treat them more like trees. It’s just a continuum. We think that animals have actual human qualities, but most likely, they don’t.
  
  
• Preferences: Americans are very particular about things. Zambians are not. Women don’t care what pattern of citenge or what flavor of snacks they buy. (I know this during my stint as shopkeeper.) This seems so strange to us, but really, does it really matter what color clothes you wear?
  
  
• Art: There’s a lot of art in the States. (Even including home decorating and human decorating.) There’s none in Zambia. It used to make me feel sad, but if you actually think about it - what a strange thing art is. It’s just superficial. It doesn’t put food in your belly!
  
  
• Cultural Traditions, and Entertainment: Same as above.
  
  
• Preferences: I always thought it strange to have no desire to eat a variety of food or interestingly flavored foods, but food is for your body, after all, and not a form of entertainment as we see it.

So us Americans are actually the crazy ones. (But I have to admit, the crazerds are much more fun!) And since I've already recieved threats about the above statements, let me say that yes, I DO think that art and animals and all that is very important! I'm just pointing out the sanity of it all!

As my time in Zambia is coming to an end, there’s still some things on my list that I don’t think I’ll get done. For months and months, I’ve been asking people to teach me various trades. How to make charcoal, how to make bricks, how to build an icimbusu, etc. They all just laugh at me and don’t think I’m serious. Why in the world would I want to learn something?! I’ve realized it’s the same mentality that’s attacking the other end of it and making my work here so difficult - trying to spread knowledge to others. They don’t want to learn and they don’t understand my desire to learn.




All - Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Happy Easter, whenever that is!

Brittany - Be glad you’re not in Zambia. Zambians can’t pronounce the name Brittany. Not at all. One of my girls for site visit was Brittany (and another was Carrie! I would have been pretty scared if the third was Stacy or Renee!) and it was pretty funny.

Mom - Is the Park going to be open this summer?!?