Where to?

        Ok so here is the low down on how I move about Zambia on a regular basis. I hitch. Hitch-hiking is a lot of fun, and I know it can be dangerous at times. For starters I get a whole lot of crazy stories out of it, but also it is how I really get to meet most people from all over Zambia. Some people have even become close friends, and some of them and I have parted ways while cursing at eachother...

        It is one of the most interesting and unique situations I can possibly think of that I experience on a regular basis here in Zambia. Sometimes when I am in the back of a canter truck packed in with 20 other people, sitting on luggage, people sitting on top of each other, chickens going crazy, and everyone staring at the white guy that begged for a free ride, I look at myself and just can't comprehend the hilarity and awesomeness of the situation. Hitching really makes me feel Zambian, and it is a great way to really become Zambian...


So here are the basics, there are many different signals to give while hitching. Here if you put your thumb out in the air everyone is going to look at you and "thumbs-up" you right back and then proceed to pass you. The thumb in the air is not the hailing sign recognized here, and I have come to learn the "please pick me" sign changes from country to country in Africa and there are many different ones. SO, to get picked here you put your hand down and wag it up and down repeatedly as if your hand or arm (you can use either, just your hand or your whole arm and hand) were a wing on a bird. You can flap fast, you can flap slowly, you can even get really enthusiastic and use your whole body (trust me after spending 6 hours on the side of the road and not seeing one car, you sometimes ARE that desperate). My personal style of choice is at a far away distance I use me whole arm to pump 5 or 6 times the signal, then switch to just the hand moving at the wrist for the remainder of the potential hitch's approach.


        If there is no room they will put their hand palm up and wag it back and forth telling you: "sorry I see you, but there is no room, or I am not allowed to carry you." Then if the car is not actually travelling long distances (where you want to go) they give the signal for "I'm staying local," which is a single forefinger pointed down and moved in a round circle as if you were drawing a circle in the air. If you want just a ride to the edge of town you can give your sign for "chanti chanti" (Lunda for small [distance]), which is your two hands facing each other and spaced just 6-8 inches apart as if you were trying to retell the story of that "fish" you caught long ago to your friend, but the signal is given on the side as if you were estimating somethings height. Often times people want to give you a seat inside the cab as a sign of respect, but if you see there is "no room" but an empty truck bed, you can now use your thumbs-up. You make a thumbs-up with your fist and throw it backward over your shoulder, just like if you were holding a salt shaker in your hand and trying to throw some of it behind you... Then finally there is the flashing of lights, and this is consistent with absolutely nothing. In Zambia it is culturally inappropriate to not greet someone (EVERYONE) when you see them. Even a nod, a tap of your hand over your heart, something to say hello. So some people flash their lights to say hello, or to say they are full, or to say get out of the way, or to say I'm a taxi for hire do you want me to stop?


Now, a car has decided to stop and hear you out. It is courtesy to run! So I run up to the car, which almost always stops 10-20 meters past wherever you are standing, and greet the driver. My tactic is no matter where I am in the country to open up with a Lunda greeting such as "Mwazatanga Mwani," "Mudi naghi mwani," or "mwendangahu naghi?" Almost 100% of the time (except in Solwezi to Mwinilunga stretch) the drivers will be impressed that you are greeting in local language, but will have no clue what I said, so I then switch to Bemba and quickly greet "Muli Shani?" They say "Bueno" and the negotiation begins.


Negotiating gets easier and more fluid in time, and I know the first 20 hitches I have caught were very rusty and rough. But, with a little fenesse and sweet talking, I always aim for a free ride. It is very common that people pay for rides here, and sometimes if the hitch is going a long distance or per chance directly to my destination I will entertain the idea of paying, but as low of sum as possible (and NEVER more then the bus fare!). Because I am stubborn and patient though, I will often let cars go on if they insist on payment, and I wait til someone is willing to give the free ride. Often times the negotiation starts with hey where are you going, and then if they can take me towards my destination I ask if they don't mind dropping me as far as they are going (I am typically travelling a lot farther than the ride itself). Then I ask them if they can take me for free, that I am just a volunteer and that I have very little money. They usually counter by asking how much I have and strategically I always put anywhere between 15-35pin in my pocket (that is 15,000-35,000 kwatcha or $3-7). It is a part of my act, because, even though it is true that I am poor and make very little money, I usually do travel with somewhere between 100-150pin ($20-30). When they see my small stack of low numbered bills they often sympethize and are willing to take me for free. Actually, sometimes they even buy or get stuff for me, but more on that later.


After negotiating for the hitch's price you are off. If the ride is free I make sure to talk the person's ear off. I want to be friendly with everyone, but I am especially friendly with those to help me out. Also a part of this factor is that most 90% of the time, if the hitch is free you are with someone incredibally interesting, rather wealth, of an important job, unbelievably friendly, or bat-shit crazy and/or a combination there of. Drinking and driving is a very common thing here. I am often asked to partake in these "on the go parties", and sometimes do. But, you need to be careful in picking your hitch. There have also been hitches that have stopped and I have had to refuse to go with because the driver is blackout drunk, tires are bald, or the situation just feels wrong.


Overall though, I would say that I have incredibly good hitching luck. I have gone to the road at 16:00 before and still made if to my destination before dark, I have been paid to hitch before by my gracious escort, I have even been driven directly to my front door at site even though the driver was going 80km out of his way... So you probably are now wondering when the heck I am going to share a few of the interesting hitching stories of mine... Well I don't know where to begin, but to say that I have now hitched literally 100s of times and every one of them was unique and interesting, and I remember most all of them when put to the task of thinking about it. Also before the stories, I need to explain one more thing, distances and difficulty.


So hitching from my site West or East is very very tricky and difficult. There are buses that go East every morning, and West every afternoon, but they are disgustingly hard to use because they are always over crowded and very uncomfortable. Where I live it is not uncommon to sit on the road for 5-6 hours just waiting for a hitch. A motor car might come by every hour, and one in 3 or 4 will stop. I can't count the number of hours, pages read, and life spent just sitting waiting on the side of the road between Kisasa and Mwinilunga. It is a stretch of the road very seldom travelled. but with the new mines going in everywhere traffic has become more frequent since I have been here (but I use the word frequent in a very liberal manner). So I can spend a full day from 8 in the morning until 6-7pm just trying to move 100 miles from Solwezi to my site. During that same amount of time I can easily make if from Solwezi all the way to Lusaka which is about 450 miles. It is just the fact that there is much more traffic in certain areas and routes in the country. AND no one place is the same, in Southern province there is a boat load of traffic but rarely do people pick you, where I am there is no traffic, but most people will at least stop to say hello (even if their car is full and can't pick you), Northern province has lots of Tanzanian drivers who insist on getting paid, and Luapula province is just a black hole of hitching, BUT one of the easiest routes to travel for free just so happens to be between Lusaka and my provincial capitol Solwezi so that part is always easy.


Real quck, common routes I take are as follows. Often you get to pass several of the villages or cities in one hitch, but sometimes you are just puddle jumping between them. The ones in the bush (mwinilunga to solwezi) it is more common to get direct hitches and not drop in every village. Also note, that in each and every large city or small boma there are "hitching posts" on either end of town depending on what direction you are headed to. If you are lucky your hitch will drop you at them, but sometimes I am stuck taking a taxi or walking an hour or two to get to them. But basically this is how it goes.

• If I am headed to my site from Solwezi: Solwezi --> Mutanda --> Muheba (refugee camp) -->  Manyama (often dropped here) -->    Lumwana East (also often dropped) -->  Kisasa or Chisasa* (where I spend the most time anywhere in the country waiting road side for a hitch) -->  Chitungu -->  KANZALA

        *Side note, in Chisasa is the turn off for the new Kalimbela mine and also my Chief's palace. 9/10 hitches drop me at the turn and I have spend days and days of my life sitting there waiting for traffic to continue straight forward towards Mwinilunga to take me to my site.

• If you continue from my site to Mwinilunga: Kanzala --> Lumwana West*  --> Silunga --> Minyana --> Samuteba --> Catiola --> Mwinilunga

       *Lumwana west is a place that sells lots of pineapples. It is also the village where a Peace Corps volunteer, Elizabeth Bowers, died some 6-8 years ago. She was hit by a car while riding her bike, and her parents have started a foundation that sponsored a memorial library that currently operates in Lumwana. Also, all of the above villages mentioned except Lumwana are currently hosting volunteers, and some of my close friends.

• Lastly if I want to go to Lusaka: Solwezi --> Chingola --> Kitwe --> Ndola --> Kapiri --> Kabwe --> LUSAKA

        *From Lusaka you can travel east, west, or south (to Livingstone and Victoria Falls). But if you are headed to Central province, Luapula, or Northern you would stop in Kapirir and proceed NE from there.


OK, OK, OK!!!!!!
Now, the stories (some of them):


1. My first and greatest success story is probably my trip from my site in Kanzala to Mpulungu in Northern province. It was a round trip distance of 3200km (or for you all back home about 2000 miles), and from my site all the way there and back all the way to site I only ended up paying 35pin ($7) to travel 2000 miles!!! I was road side in Chitungu at 7am with Joe my closest PCV (volunteer) neighbor. We didn't catch a ride until about 10:30. We got dropped outside of Lumwana mine, where an off-duty taxi took us 4km up the road to the refugee camp at Muheba. At the police check point we asked the officers to stop a vehicle for us and get us a ride to Solwezi. Turns out he stopped a young man named Sedrick, who little did I know would soon become a very close friend of mine (probably my best friend here outside of other volunteers). We got into Solwezi a little before 1pm, and I was still on my way to Luwansha (half way between Kitwe and Ndola where there is a volunteer I was going to stay with for the night). So I got some food, and headed out again, this time walking to the hitching post (the Royal Solwezi sign) for all south bound travellers. I got a hitch with some Quantum (a mine) workers that were repairing the road about 30km out of town. They dropped me in the middle of no where. I then caught another hitch to Chingola where I stopped for the bank and to hit up Shoprite (our grocery chain) and then had to walk an hour out of town to a south bound hitching spot. At this time it was fully dark out and all of the traffic going past me could barely see me, and after 30 minutes I was a little worried I was stuck, but a friendly man picked me named Bruce. He was very nice and very vocal. We got to talking about China and international politics, and eventually turned to his wife and the current divorce he was going through. Turns out that I ended up being a psuedo councilor between his wife and he, and actually had to spend a considerable amount of time on the phone trying to convince her to show up to court so that she won't subject their daughter to further trauma. Well about 22:00 (10pm) I made it to Nick's, and after a delicous meal of pasta and mushrooms I passed out.


Day 2 was a very long one. I was meeting up with another volunteer, Carlsie, headed to the same vacation spot (there were 6 of us from the same intake all planning to meet in Mpulungu) in Kapiri. So at 6am, I walked to the road and got some police to stop a car for me to take me all the way to Kapiri. Around 9 we left Kapiri on one of my first white hitches ever...


*SOOO many small things to add in. White people almost NEVER pick me up. It is very rare, even with empty cars most white people will just completely blow you off... Zambians are some of the nicest people in the world and usually will bend over backwards to help you, but not so much with my white "brothers..."


He dropped us, and we got yet another ride from some white farmers (so I need to change what I said a little. In Zimbabwe the situation is rough and the president an total idiot. As a result all white farmers were exiled and many of them settled in the Central Province of Zambia. So in Central between Kapiri and Serenge there are many white farmers and all of them very friendly and pleasant people). They only took us a little ways, and a Peace Corps cruiser posting some new volunteers for their second site visit also took us just 30 or so km up the road. So we were making many many small short jumps on the way north. Finally a Zambian business man picked us and dropped us in Serenge. Our goal was Kasama, so we continued to hitch after a short recess to wait out a passing rain storm. A truck finally stopped and took us for free all the way to Mpika. They were headed to Mpulungu, but stopping in Mpika for the night. It was a sad situation though, because they were hauling cement, and we drove through one of the craziest rain storms I have ever seen in my life, and when we stopped, they opened the back and it was a swimming pool. They drained out 1000s of gallons of water, which basically means that they were now hauling one giant brick... In Mpika, we waited for 3 hours (now it was dark out) and finally some young man coming home from Dar-es-salam where he just bought a new car stopped and agreed to take us all the way to Kasama for 30pin each. So for the first time during the trip I had to shell out a little money, but it was late at night and I was getting pretty damn desperate. We finally landed in Kasama at 1:30am!!!! I had spent nearly 20 hours straight on the road!


Day 3, we met a really neat father son duo from Uganda. They were selling herbal medicines all over the country to support the international mellenium goals of health and food security. They were super nice and took us all the way to Mbala. The father, though I now forget his name, was probably one of the most sincere and generous persons I have ever had the honor of meeting in my life. He was not living in an amazing situation, and drove an old beat up truck on the road all the time, but he was so happy and enthusiastic about his situation and the situation of his home land, Africa. A man no doubt in God's good grace. FINALLY, our last hitch was a qucik and beautiful one down into Mpulungu.


On the way back It was a much easier go. One hitch out of Mpulungu, one to Kasama, one to Mpika, one to Serenge, one to Kapiri, one to Kitwe, another to Solwezi, and one to site. So a total of 23 different hitches got me 3200km for the cost of $7... Definitely a long trip, but totally worth it.




2. I think I will quickly talk about a bad hitch that was not fun. On my way home from Solwezi one day I caught a hitch with my friend Kinsie. We were headed out to my site, and she would continue on to Mwini the next day. We flagged down a canter that offered to take us for a very cheap rate.


*Just a quick note, a Canter truck is a very common mode of transportation here. they are basically a box truck, but with an open bed. They come big and small, and they almost always want money. I get very few free rides from canters, but they are common, and usually cheaper than the bus.


It was still rainy season, and as luck would have it, it was rainy out during our hitch. Turns out though that they are hauling a ton of fish up to the congo or Angola to sell and the only place to hide from the rain was under that damp, dirty, and stinky tarp with all the fish. It was absolutely miserable, and sometimes I would suffer getting pelted with rain just so I could breath some fresh air time and again.




3. Another Terrifying hitch I was with several volunteers on our way from Lusaka to Solwezi, and this preacher man picked us. He was trying to make it all the way to Ndola in time for a service he was expected to be at. There were multiple things that made this ride terrifying and uncomfortable. I like to talk, so I naturally volunteered to take the front seat and keep the man entertained. I don't know if he suffered hearing loss, or if he just didn't think we understood him, but his voice was so loud and sharp I thought it was going to shatter the windows. He literally would yell every word he said, so loud that my ears actually pained with the decibals coming into them at 2ft away (I might have ruptured my right ear drum, cause all the cars here have steering wheels on the right side of the car, and passenger seat (shotgun) is on the left). We all immediately thought he was a nut case, but then if got worse. He was not a very good driver. He was racing to make it to his service in time, but would also over take other cars at times that I questioned if I was going to meet the lord that very day. He would also fly over speed bumps so fast, that if I wasn't buckled in I was probably going to put my head through the roof. To make it even more interesting, and at no fault of his own, on our way out of Kabwe there was a drunk man riding his bike. His load on the back of his bike (it is amazing what a zambian can strap onto a bike. Honestly an ability that leaves me awe struck every time) suddenly slipped off to the side sending him turning into the road. I swear to God we missed hitting that man by an inch. I know volunteers who have been in cars as they have hit pedestrians, but I have never come that close in my life to being a material witness in the death of someone. We were all very thankful to him for the free ride, but even more thankful to God to be out of that car when he dropped us, graciously, at the north bound hitching post in Ndola...




4. Ok so one of the fastest and lucrative hitches I have ever had was in Kabwe. A missionary working in Kabwe from Montana (or Minnesota, Michigan, one of the northern states starting with an M) picked us and help two girls and myself get to the edge of town. The conversation was stimulating, because it is pretty rare to meet other Americans outside of PC. He understood who we were and what we were doing, and 5 minutes later when we reached the hitching post he helped us unload and insisted on giving us money. We kindly refused, but he wasn't having any of it, and the 3 of us (after everything was split up) ended up with 43pin each. I was pretty grateful because I actually was travelling that day with almost no money and it bought me a lunch when I reached Kapiri... So a hitch that lasted all of 5 minutes from the center of town to the edge paid me!




5. I should probably tell you about the fastest ride I ever had. Mom, kindly skip to the next story. Well, I was doing a go come to the provincial capitol during my community entry to do some business with the co-op and a grant that they are getting from the ADF (African Developement Foundation) at the Embassy. I started walking from my site towards Solwezi at 5am, thinking as long as I am headed in that direction, all is good. Well a sunrise, a rosary prayed, and 3.5 hours later only one cruiser passed me and didn't stop. I walked 15km all the way to Chitungu, and my first "ride" was a slow and easy ride on the back of a bike petaled by a Zambian headed 25km to Kisasa. We actually walked almost the entire time, but sometimes were able to get on, and though we were not going more than 5km/hr, it was something.  Both buses headed to Solwezi passed me, and it was turning into what I expected to be a very long day...BUT, out of no where a car (VW Golf) flashed by and I was just able to give off the hitching sign. They kept driving but then slammed on the breaks and reversed. The driver was a man named Baldwin. He had two friends with him, and they offered to carry me all the way for free, no problem. I could barely get my seatbelt on and we were flying! They averaged about 180km/hr the whole way. There were stretches of straight road that we topped out at 220km/hr! I held on tight, and really enjoyed the company. My first instinct told me they were gem runners because every police checkpoints waved us through 100m before we even reached them. They gave me a CD of some Lunda rappers, and bought me some fritters. Turns out I made it into town before both of the buses and ended up having plenty of time to get my business finished!!! I have yet to be in a single car that was that fast, but then again I am not sure if I would want to go that fast again...


*Funny, the thing is the same day on my way back to site was one of my favorite Zambia moments I have had hitching. I was walking again (I walked a little more than 25km that day) after being dropped somewhere near Muheba, and a nasty storm came in. I just walked into the village I was passing, and they took my bags, we sat down under their chota and we talked for 2 hours. They fed me Kasava nshima with a kasava leaves relish. It wasn't much, but it was the hungry season, and I am sure it was all they had to offer. I was very thankful and had a blast, getting the chance to sit down and meet a completely strange family. They are very representative of all Zambians though. No matter where you are you can pull over or stop into any village and they are going invite you in with the most genuine hospitality in the world. It is rather comfortable knowing that you are never really stranded no matter where you are in this country.




6. I guess lastly I can talk about the Korean Catholic priest who I became friends with. Ryan and I were hitching to my site, and he picked us in Lumwana. It was a great hitch, he was a fast driver, very friendly, and just sat their chain smoking cigarettes. We got so well aquainted that at the Chisasa turn off where I normally wait for hours and hours and hours every time on my way home, he stopped and decided not to drop us here. He drove us 40km to my site, and returned 40km back to the turn off where he lived 70km down the road. That was a very fortunate and lucky ride.






Typically hitching is safe. But it is also very common for me to have to sit in the back of a truck or canter. Recently I was on my way to Mwinilunga, and the driver insisted they had room. I was literally sitting half over pavement passing by at 80km/hr and half on the truck, holding on to dear life with one hand and to my heavy bag with the other. I see accidents all the time, but I just don't think they are as common as in America. Well, all things considered Zambia has a population around 15 million people. So maybe 6-7million cars on the road in a country the size of Texas. So accidents are not very common, and usually are caused by people driving too fast, in cars that are not well maintained, or just someone inexperienced or drunk.


I have meet so many very interesting people in my hitches too. Just a week ago I met a truck driver who has been working very hard to support his 3 children and his wife who is getting a degree in college. He is just the blue collar working folk and everything he does is to give his children a better life. I have met bankers and business men who are very educated and it is easy to talk to them about world politics, American politics, and other complex things that the typical villager couldn't even begin to understand. I have also met an agent who worked for the national Chipolopolo football team of Zambia, Missionaries, Office of the President (basically their CIA), all sorts of people. Recently I even got a free hitch from Lusaka to Kitwe with a man attending a wedding of none other than BRUCE himself!!! After talking a while I found out that the man that I gave some divorce counseling to, happened to be marrying the sister to the man giving me a hitch months later! Small world...


The typical converstion has to do with how much I don't like Obama, because almost every Zambian will bring up the topic of Obama. For the most part all of them are heavily PRO Obama when we first talk, but by the end of the conversation they dispise him and agree that there are more qualified black people in America that could have the job instead. Zambia is a very Christian nation, and it is not hard to convince them how bad Obama is for the Christian agenda... I don't much care what gay people do with their lives, and I am actually an advocate for them to have equal rights just like any other married couple in America. But, homosexuallity is illegal here and most every Zambian is adimately against it, so that is one easy selling point. The most important though, and the one that I drive the hardest is how Obama is pro abortion, and promotes legislation and an agenda that promotes the murder of innocent children. This is where ALL Zambians agree and usually is the point where they begin to deny Obama being such a great man. I always start saying that it is a great thing that America has elected a black person to the office of the presidency, and it truely is. As a beacon of equality and freedom around the world I think it is awesome that we have finally come to a point where the presidency is not only a job for rich, politically connected, white males. BUT, that doesn't mean I support Obama and his extreme left wing agenda. The fact that most Zambians are not well enough educated to truely understand the American political system is no reason they should blindly follow such a fool just because he is black. So, I make it a point to educate.


Also I almost always try and bring HIV/AIDS awareness and education into all of my hitches. It can be talking about how the disease works, high/low risk behaviors, condom use, etc. I ask people about their children, how old they are, how many, how many years apart. If their kids are of an age where they are sexually active (in this country it is very common, especially in rural areas, to be as young as 11 or 12), I talk to them about ways to approach their kids to talk about condoms and healthy sexual behaviors that will keep them at a low risk level. I ask them if he/she and his/her spouse have been tested for HIV/AIDS and/or if they test often, because knowing your status is important and critical for slowing the spread of the disease. Knowledge is power, and when they know their status they can be counselled and guided into living positively.


        !!!!I know you are now saying, well Bryan you are such a two-faced liar, how can you be against abortion (because I am Catholic) and be ok with promoting condom use (against the teachings of my church)!!! Well, it is as simple as conscience. Yes, I shouldn't promote condom use as a Catholic, but I also can't allow thousands and millions of Africans to die simply because I wanted to ignore an effective and healthy way to prevent the spread of one of the most deadly epidemics plaguing Africa right now. Is it worse to promote condom use, or to allow someone to die? I know it is not that matter-of-fact. But education even in the form of just a few individuals on a hitch is an affective way to spread the news, and to get people thinking about the topic that is highly sensitive and shrouded in all sorts of local stigmas here in this country. I do think God will forgive me.


        OK, well I am sure I am forgetting plenty of the nitty-gritty details about hitching and hitching etiquette. But I will save whatever is left for when I see you again in person and you can bombard me with as many questions as you please. If you have a question that you think everyone is asking, comment on the blog and I will respond.

Miss you all, next is a blog about juju and the dark magic that happens on this continent!

Blue Skies

Hey everyone, sorry again I haven't been able to post more frequently like I continue to promise. It is finally the dry season and we have clear blue skies over the country. Grass here is 8-10 feet tall now, and is beginning to dry up and get cut to save for thatch. Soon it will be burn season and this entire continent will be on fire again. So I have a ton of stories to tell, and I really want to write a few blogs each focusing on individual social or cultural topics. Thank you Brianna for organizing and getting me a new netbook computer. It will be here soon and I will be able to start writing blogs as they come to mind in the village. I am also soon to have a new solar panel from Voltaic Systems so I will have power on the computer even in the village.

OK so enough rambling, now that is it dry season I am very excited to be getting very busy. All of the villagers have finally come back from their fields and my little village is once again active and full of people with not a lot to do. So, let me tell you about some of the projects I am doing/have planned for the near future, then we can get into a few stories. I finally got a chance to harvest a pond! It was on my birthday, and it was so much fun! I have been trying to convince my co-op that it is ok to harvest, and I always hear the same thing "but we must wait for hammer mill," "we must wait til we have market," "we must wait til tomorrow..." I was getting really sick of hearing about how we have to always wait wait wait, so I asked them to do a partial harvest on just one pond and lets start selling fish by the side of the road and see if we can't start making money. WELL between just villagers and teachers in Kanzala we were able to sell everything we harvested! We did only one pass through the pond and it yielded 25kgs!!! I think my farmers really enjoyed seeing 500,000kw (fish sell for 20pin/kg or roughly $4. About $2/lb...) flow in for a very easy day's work. So now that they have seen the money, they are enthusiastic about harvesting more often. So we are aiming to begin harvesting 2-3 times a week now.

In order to capture a market that is not there, I have begun the project of building a little shop for them on the side of the road to use as a center for business. This shop is where we will have the hammer mill for the co-op to develop fish feeds, where we will eventually have a holding tank for the sale of fresh fish, and also where we are building a smoker so that we can preserve any fish not sold during a day. It will basically become their fish "store" where they can begin operating together as a business.

Because my farmers are so good at what they do, World Vision and myself are cooperating to make a center for people to people education of fish farming in the province. We are going to begin (next week is actually the 1st one) hosting 3 day workshops in my village where we bring in farmers from other villages who want to learn how to farm fish and teach them. We are starting with some farmers from another volunteer's village, but we will be hosting hopefully 1 workshop of this type every month with other volunteers' villages or villages that World Vision has an invested interest in. The workshops will have only about 2 hours of class room work, but then the rest of the entire training will be hands on in the field. We do this because rural Zambians can't learn from sketches and writing on a board, but rather they are really good at picking up skills when they can see it and do the work physically in a practical. The other advantage is that all of my farmers speak the local languages much better than any of us volunteers can. So I will not really be the one teaching the workshop, instead it will be Zambian to Zambian, people to people, education.

During these workshops we will have farmers stake ponds, help dig, slash grass (and learn all the other steps to maintaining ponds), harvest, and also do a small species identification class. My co-op wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea initially, but I had to explain and convince them that they are trading their knowledge for man power. Hopefully by the end of every workshop visitors will have a very strong grasp on all fish farming concepts from site selection through harvest, and in return hopefully my co-op will gain one extra pond. If they do 6-8 workshops like this a year that is 6-8 ponds more than they had last year, and that just means more fish for them to sell...

Another thing I am working on is trying to get even more local Kanzala farmers to take an interest in fish farming. An easy way to motivate Zambians is jealousy. When other people see us harvesting and selling fish, they become jealous and really want to be able to do the same. It is a similar concept with my chicken house and my garden.

OK, other things, I am working in the schools to do a letter exchange with children from my 8th and 9th grade classes with 3rd and 4th graders from Jackman, Maine back home. This is all to promote cultural exchange and give the kids some practice in writing formal letters. I have also gotten the head teacher to agree to 3 condom demonstrations a year with all the children grades 6-9. This is to promote better health practices concerning HIV/AIDS, as well as to prevent young girls from getting pregnant and ultimately dropping out of school. Every volunteer in Africa has to do some HIV/AIDS wrok because that is where we get the majority of our funding. I also have a large dam construction project going on in a fellow volunteer's site 60km away. I plan to do a lot of work in other volunteer's sites. Here in Zambia we have 4 different programs; Health, Education, Environment, and Fish Farming. So volunteers who are teachers or clinic workers who do not have the training to help local farmers with fish farming have been asking me to come to their sites to do consulting work and/or workshops.

Enough about that, lets get into some fun stories.

Not in chronological order, because, well, just because. So I recently took a very awesome vacation to Lake Tanganyika in the northern past of Zambia. It was an awesome hitching experience, but a long one. So I started off from Joe's site only 13km from my own. We got to the road just a minute too late to catch a hitch I am very certain I have taken before, and we ended up having sit out for 3 hours before we saw another car headed towards Solwezi. We caught a hitch and I made it to Sol by mid day. After getting lunch, I continued on to a fellow Volunteer's site in the middle of the Copperbelt province. I ended up hitching out of Chingola after dark because I had to stop for money and the grocery store before showing up to Nick's place. well, I caught this one hitch all the way, but the man's name was Bruce and he was going through a divorce. Me being friendly get to talking to him, and before I know it I am counseling him and on the phone with his wife trying to mitigate between the two. I had to explain how she needed to show up to court, and that is she got arrested think about you little girl... It was the most interesting 2 hours I have ever hitched in my life here, but it was FREE so I didn't mind.

>>> Side note, I plan on writing a blog, just about all of my hitching adventures, but so you know I took a total of 23 rides to get me to and from, and I remember them each, but can't possibly get into explaining them all now... BUT I DID GO ROUND TRIP 3200KM (2000MILES) FOR ONLY 35,000KW!!!!!!! THAT IS $7... 30,000 TO GET THERE, ONLY 5 TO GET BACK <<<<

ook, so I got to Kasama the following day by 1:30 in the morning, and finally Mpulungu by 1 the next day. I really enjoyed the lake, we ate fresh fish for dinner almost every night. I walked right down to the lake side market and would just pick the largest fish from the day's catch, pay for it, and that was dinner. The water is warm and crystal blue. We all spent a lot of time down by the water and walking around town. I went to the port one day and was trying to locate some local water charts, which they didn't have any. Then I tried to get permission to climb a tower there and take some pictures, but that too was shot down. WELL everyone in Zambia believes that all white people work for the CIA... So on my way out of the port the police wanted to question me about what I was doing there, and what I was searching for, and why I needed picture, and on and on... Finally we shook the cops, and I went to the local Dept. of Fisheries, and not long after I was buttering up all the people in charge, they agreed to let us volunteers to rent out a boat for FREE!!! all we had to do was cover fuel, and pay for a guide. So the following day we showed up and spent the entire day on the water. It was amazing. We asked them to stop constantly so that we could jump out and swim. We also got to visit some islands and local villagers on them. BUT, (the reason I am telling this story first) I LOST MY CAMERA!!!! I lost my camera in about 100 ft of water out in the middle of the lake when I put it on my wrist and jumped in the water to take a picture of the group. By the time I was situated on my life vest and ready to take a snap, I realized my camera no longer was on my arm! Oh,well. So you won't get any new pictures in this blog post. No pictures of Mpulungu, none of my new Rhode Island Red rooster, none of the progress on digging my cave, nothing new at all :((...

Ok well other fun story I have been building again. I have started to dig a cave in a termite hill in my back yard. Here in Africa there are hundreds of thousands of termite and ant hills that are the size of small houses in America. So Joe and I one day just said what the hell lets start digging. Well, my tunnel into the middle is finished and about 10 ft long. I have also begun to dig out the actual cavern part. I hope to be finished with it in a month or two.

Oh, and you don't have pictures of my chicken getting eaten alive by ants... One night Ryan and I were passed out, and around 3am the cat started hissing violently in the house. I immediately thought SNAKE, and jumped out of bed to get a light on and kill the thing. Well, the minute my feet touch the ground I start getting bit up like crazy by ants. They were not army ants and they were not red ants, they were a mean cross between the two. these ants are no longer than 5mm, but 1 out of 10 is a much larger protector ant with pincers strong and big enough to draw blood. My WHOLE house was covered in them, and my WHOLE yard was just alive and moving with trillions and trillions of these vicious things!!! One of my chickens had come down from the chicken coop, and was completely destroyed by the ants. I went back to sleep for a an hour or two to wait for the sun. When I got up again, the ants had not gone anywhere. I called over my host family and we started lighting thatch on fire and trying to burn them, as my host mom used her hoe to clear grass. The whole process took 2 hours to clear "most" of the ants out. It was a very strange experience and I went back into Solwezi for a night to pick up some cleaning supplies and insecticide.

Cool, well lets see here, I have read a bunch of books, and cemented my front porch, but those are just small things I have been keeping myself busy with. Life is good, and I am going to let this be the end to this post. When the new comp comes in you will see more I promise (again). I love you all! TUKA DEMONA, MWENDANGAHU MWANI!!!! I apologize in advance about any miss spelllings or gramatical errors in the above p

Free fallin'....

Hey everyone, I am sorry it has been almost 3 months! well, I was in community entry for the last three months, but I am finally out, and a full blown volunteer for the next 21 months...

I am a little concerned how fast time is flying by. I still pinch myself every time I think about how I have already been here for a half of a year!!! It does seem like I just got here a little while ago, but time is actually flying by!

The last three months of my life have been full of fun, fear, frustrations, cuts and bruises, and beauty. I might have to write several posts to cover it all, but I can talk about some of the everyday stuff, and leave specific stories for later.

So community entry is just 3 months where new volunteers must "remain" in their village and get to know the people, the layout of the land, and get accustomed to live in the village. I visited my school, clinic, and farmers a lot. I also went to the river often to do laundry and to bathe, but it is now rainy season, so the river is running too hard for me to swim and wash until the dry season. I also spent most all of every day reading, gardening, and building stuff. So let me break this down into a few sections and then I can add more later

I ) KIDS:

I typically don't mind children. I don't like Zambian children very much. First of all they are the ones who carry all the diseases that can put me on medical leave back in the states for months like TB. They are typically very dirty, and if you give them anything at all, they will keep asking you for more and more. I do have a little friend names Manuel. He is my "hired" help, and he gets water for me when my rain catch does not provide enough water for my American demand for water. He also slashes grass, and helps me build stuff. I send him into the bush (and very often go with or on my own too) to cut down trees, or make bush rope. When I go on vacations, it will be his job to feed my cat, feed the chickens, collect chicken manure, change the liter box, collect eggs, etc.... He is an honest kid and it helps to have a little helper to get things done. Another thing that really frustrates me is my trash pit being robbed. Kids love to go through my trash for little hidden treasures, but instead of taking the trash they want away, they always take out the trash and litter my yard with it all. So now I save up trash and have trash fires. The look on their face is one of serious misery, anguish, and sadness. But I do put out all of my plastics and tins out front of my fence and it is always swept up quickly by my host family. Education is very localized in Zambia. People that grow up in Copperbelt where there is a lot of money, have much better education. Also in town. My school and my clinic have no power... So kids build these little toy cars out of trash they find. It is funny to see the differences between village and city cars, because the kids in the village will build them and they will not have moving wheels, and they are usually just a few pieces of plastic with sticks pushed into them so that the kids can "drive" their cars around town. In the city, the toy cars become much more elaborate with wire, and moving wheels, some even have wheels in the front that turn when they use their long stick with a steering wheel at the end of it.

II ) So a real quick one is the lack of critical thinking, and education in the general populace. A quick story, I was in Lumwana West trying to catch a hitch out of town towards Chisasa and eventually my site. While I was waiting Ryan and I wanted to buy some drinks from a local shop. we pull out 4 drinks, 2 waters, and 2 orange drinks. The next 15 mins of my life were the most frustrating in Zambia thus far. with the aid of a calculator and with 4 drinks sitting in front of her, and two college educated Americans both yelling the total sum of the drinks, she still kept adding up the cost of 6 drinks... I literally sat in front of her counting 1,2,3,4... and adding up the total for her time and time again, even using the calculator for her, and she was COMPLETELY lost!!! Drove me crazy!

III ) Rainy/Dry Season:

So When I first arrived at site (you can see in the pictures) all the grass was brown, the earth was just arid dirt, and you could see distances when walking through the bush. NOW, rainy season literally changed my site into a jungle. Grass is now taller than I am, all the trees are full and fruiting, weeds are taking over everywhere, and the bugs have come out! Literally you can not dream up bugs that are here in your wildest imagination. I see moths that have 8-10" wing spans, beetles the size of my fist, spiders as large as CDs and small as a tic-tac w/ really scary bodies, all sorts of different colors, and body sizes. When walking in the bush you never see them, and all of the sudden your face is stuck in a huge web 5ft wide and thick. The spiders are so scary, they even make a "heavy duty" silk that is yellow and really strong. I get stung by little wasps once a month, but those are just annoying, nothing serious. I have seen 3 more snakes since the incident at the river. I have also been attacked by army ants and the red ones too. Army ants are everywhere and I battle them frequently. It is fun because they make a collective hissing noise that is really weird, and they are very sophisticated with their organization. The red ones are really interesting. they are a colony of maybe 5 million ants, and every 5th or 6th on is a slightly larger ant with massive and very painful pincers. They come up out of the ground and will just dominate an area 15x15m or larger. If they move into your house, you literally just have to leave and stay somewhere else until they decide to leave.

IV ) Making my home homely was a very large part of my community entry. I started a garden, and almost everything I planted came up. I have peas, carrots, beans, lettuce, beats, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumber, watermelon, pumpkin, garlic, spinach, broccoli, and onions. I usually spend the early hours of my morning (if I wake up early, I typically sleep into about 8) weeding my garden while the sun is down and it is not so hot. I will have to make a smaller garden that I can water easily during the dry season later, but for now with all the rain, my garden can be huge.

I also build a lot of things. I have built a really nice cat bed for Honkers and her kittens, a 3 shelf bureau for my bedroom, so I can finally put my clothes away and organize my life. I have built a shelf for my bath so I don't have to squat down over the bucket any longer, now I can take my bucket baths standing up. I have carved out a giant upside down V in my chota (cooking shelter) and put a awning coming out from it so I no longer have to bend over 30 times a day to get in and out of the chota. I put my flag pole up, and fly Ole Glory every day. I constructed a really nice rain catch, that when it rains, I can fill both jerry cans, and my 70L, bucket so that I have a total of 150L of water on hand. I have to treat the water with chlorine, but that is because all sorts of bugs and weird water worms grow in the bucket if it sits for a while. The process of filling just entails putting a rag over the jerry can hole, and pour through that to filter out the bugs and water worms, then treat it with the chlorine. I built a 6 ft long bench out of just bush wood and some string, it reminds me of the camp furniture we would make as kids. Lastly, I also built a really nice chicken coop, and two 5-room hen houses to go along both sides of the coop. I built them all my self using trees, mealie meal sacks, bush rope, a few nails, and grass to thatch the roof. It came out really well, it is a beautiful home that I named the "Hen House Hotel."

In all seriousness though it is more of a rehab center than a hotel. The chickens I am buying are hybrid birds that are bred to lay eggs (layers) and grow fat full of meat (broilers). But they have no instincts to look for food like the village chickens, raise chicks like village chickens do, and in the case of the broilers, they don't know how to walk! So I spend plenty of time during the day trying to feed them and get them to wander around outside my fence, and getting the broilers to walk around more and use their legs. I bought 5 chickens thinking that all broilers are cocks, but 4 of them died on the way to site, because I put them in a zam bag  (plastic 2x1.5x1.5ft bag with a zipper on top). Then with the one remaining chicken I realized was a female too, so completely worthless for me (or so I thought). So I ate chicken for 3 days straight after that and realized I need to be more careful. The remaining chicken I took with me to Mwinilunga one day, and it is very funny, because here in Zambia you can go into any restaurant and hand them a live chicken over the counter. They take it, butcher it, and cook it for you. Imagine walking into a KFC or nicer restaurant in America and handing them live animals for them to prepare for you... That is one of the really neat cultural differences here.

Well, a week later I came into Solwezi to update my visa, and I bought 2 layers and 3 more broilers, but this time I put them in nice plastic carry baskets and gave them water often so that they didn't die. Again, it is alike a rehab center spending time getting these chickens used to the village life. The goal of mine is to fatten all the birds up and get them wandering around like other birds, so that my host father's cock will mate with them and fertilize their eggs. Because they don't have the instincts to rear their chicks, I will get a few village hens who are laying, and when they decide to sit, I will eat the eggs from the village hen, and put the hybrid birds' eggs under the village chicken who WILL raise the chicks up. So I am hoping eventually I can inject some of the good and strong hybrid genes into village stock.

My Chickens!

bench

Cat Bed

My garden, chickens, fish ponds are good for me, but also tools I am using to get my village interested in better gardening and animal husbandry practices. After all I am here to improve food security, so that has become my main goal.

Wanna see pictures?

And here are some of the links to my facebook albums. It's easier for me to put them online there, and just share the links.

Pictures of the Hut, Oven, and Solwezi before posting

&

Africa in general from arrival into training...

&

Here is my site BEFORE I came to it

Enjoy!

Quick, but lengthy update...

Hey yall, I am really sorry I havn't been able to post about all that has happened in the past month. ALOT has happened.

To start, I finished training. I scored intermediate low on my language test, which I was ok with, because after 2nd site visit I lost all motivation to study and keep up. I knew I was already passing, so I just kinda let it ride... I also passed my technical exam, obviously. Swear in was a blast! My intake was invited by the newly elected president of Zambia, Michael Sata, to join him and a ton of other foreign dignitaries at the State House (their White House...). It was pretty cool, was broadcasted nationally here and on the radio. The actual swearing in took only 20 mins, but then moved outside to a huge banquet where they fed us some amazing food (not nshima!!! yay) and all of the other dignitaries and the president got a chance to make a speech. It was a huge deal, because it was Sata's first official State House function of his presidency, it was the first time in P.C. -Zambia's history of a swearing in ceremony hosted by the president, AND it was (I think, or I was told) only the 3rd time in P.C. history of such an event. PRETTY awesome.

Ok so the days after were spent shopping in Solwezi for my move in. I bought all sorts of things, but didn't have to worry about much, because the previous volunteer left me a bunch of stuff (I will explain my house later in the post). But some of the items I really am happy I got was a little bush hoe/axe (the blade can be knocked out and turned 90 degrees to change from hoe to axe whenever I want), a new mattress, lots of food, and my big ticket item: a flag pole! Welding in this country is done on the ground by metal workers that do not wear anything but sunglasses... it is crazy. but after 20 mins of my trying to explain to them what I want, it took another 45 mins to fabricate it, but finally when all was said and done, and 250,000 kwacha later ($50), I had myself a flag pole ready for pick up by the land cruiser. The pole is made up of two 3m lengths (18ft), that one pole slides into the other, and there are 2 sets of holes that go through both poles where I can secure them together with bolts. All I have to do is buy some paint, and wait for my American flag to get here.

I was suppose to post on a thursday, but instead last minute they asked if I would be cool with going on Wednesday a day early, and of course I complied with the request. My village is awesome, it is full of as many motivated and hardworking farmers as drunks. But I guess the mix is what makes it so homey. I am located in the middle of no where, but I am only a stones throw (literally) from the main tar-mac. I live right next door to my local headman (not a chief, but the guy that has to deal with all the local issues and disputes), and behind me is nothing but miles and miles of African bush until you hit the Congo. I have a huge avocado tree inside my fence in my front yard, as well as 2 clusters of banana trees and two single banana trees I transplanted recently outside my fence towards the bush. Here is a small layout I made on my computer just now with paint (took me forever, so enjoy!):

I had a full day to move in, and I spent the whole night putting up mealie meal sacs (they are pure white) on my ceiling to increase the brightness of inside. I also hung up a few shelves, decorated the walls with my map of Narragansett, and other things. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my co-op had finished the construction of my fence around my new home which we can call "Fortress America" for names sake. I also got to work immediately on staking out where I wanted to have my garden, and putting to work my army of little children, cutting down, carrying back, digging holes, and erecting all 50 of the support poles for the fence. as well as cutting down,...,...,... all of the bamboo to line the fence with to keep the goats out. Over the following week, my co-op cut grass and put up grass about 4 ft high, so the goats can't see what I am growing and be tempted to push through or down my fence...

I also had the chance to make myself a little mud brick oven out of soil from a termite mound (clay) and water. It took me a total of 5 or 6 days, but I successfully baked 3 loaves of bread when I fired it up for my trial run. It worked awesome and I am really happy I can now have fresh bread on a consistent basis, because it is really hard to get fresh bread in the village. RAIN RAIN RAIN, I haven't had too much of it really, BUT the times it rains, IT POURS! Literally these storms are so intense they almost scare me.

OH, and the best part of my day, going down and swimming in the river. Now instead of my regular bucket bath, I was shown the swimming hole by my closest PC neighbor, Joe. The top part and bottom part are slow moving (where crocodiles hangout), but in the middle is a 25-30 yard set of very fast rapids. Over the years Adam (the volunteer I am replacing) and Joe, have dammed off some sections here and there, so that the water is still rushing through, but there are little jacoozi pools where we can sit and relax, and recently where I take all of my baths and now wash all my clothes. I should have pictures of this place, and all the above soon on facebook, and I will be sure to share a link on the blog.

SO, everyone might be wondering what am I doing online when I am suppose to be in my village for community entry for 3 months... well, Adam (again, the previous volunteer in Kanzala), had started a project where he got a grant to purchase a hammer mill and supplies to build a Chigayo in Kanzala. So I was cleared to go to Solwezi with 3 members of my co-op to begin work with the project. It calls for me to have quotations for all items to be purchased, opening a bank account, ect. So, yesterday after unsuccessfully catching a bus to Solwezi, (another long story I will write about in a sec), we came to Solwezi this morning, and found prices, haggled, and quoted door frames, doors, nails, roofing sheets (metal), lumber, concrete, hammer mill and engine, jerry can's to hold diesel, diesel fuel itself, and other little extras. we came out under budget considerably, so we think we will get extra cement, roof sheets, nails, door frame, ect and build an office of business next door to the chigayo for the co-op to manage itself with. Should be good.

Before I go, a quick story about waiting for the bus yesterday (Tuesday). So I got up at 6:30 to get ready, we planned to begin waiting road side at 7:30, and the two big buses that come by usually arrive between 8-9. So 7:30 I am by the road side with my 3 counterparts in my co-op, and there are 10 people completely shitfaced, and another 10 villagers drunk, some are sober, but they are the ones opening up their shops and selling Jilli-jilli packets to these people.

 ---side note--- Jilli-jilli is really cheap booze that is 50% alcohol made from cane spirits. they come in little packets that are 3ounces (ish) and they are dirt cheap, and what most of these people drink, because it is affordable and packs a very heavy punch. there are many down sides; it's cheap enough that they drink all the time, it keeps people from being productive (obviously) even though some claim to be very functional even while drunk, and the worst part is that the ground around the tuck shops and the road are littered with not 100, 1000, but 10,000+ empty 2x3inch plastic packets... I meanthink about it my village drinks combined probably 50-100 packets a day, and the ground never gets cleaned up... ---- long side note, sorry----

So anyways, all morning long I am listening to drunk after drunk asking me to give them things, which every time the answer is always no. They will get upset every so often, because "I don't like them" because I don't give them tons of free shit, but they understand eventually after my counterpart and I begin trying to explain to them that I am a volunteer, not an ATM. well regardless "I want your glasses," "Give me just one pin" (for a packet), "give me this, give me that..." It gets old quick. Well anyways this one guy showed up during one of my quick visits to my house, and he looked horrible. Poor guy, had no shoes, pants and a shirt that were both at least 10 years old, no one would talk to him, he sat alone in the middle of the pull off staring at the dirt. He wasn't close to me, but close enough, and all of the drunks thought they were impressing me when they started making fun and saying jokes about this guy. Everyone but he was laughing... I got so mad, I think I scared a few of them, because immediately it was me yelling at them. I asked them all if they were Christian, and they all agreed. And I told them for about 5 minutes, what shitty Christians they are, and how they should feel ashamed of themselves. Also, and this is a trick for anyone who ever goes to Zambia or a Christian African country, tell them that God is watching and that he is judging them. It really freaks them out.

After my scolding, I returned to my house, got a nice button down shirt of mine, and filled a quart size zip lock with an oat trail mix like thing I had, and returned to give them to the poor man in the dirt. Well, I hope they learned a few things from my example, but the sick thing is that I could see in some of these drunk people's faces they were upset that I refused giving them stuff all morning, and gave the poor outcast a ton of stuff. My counterpart later explained that the guy has a mental issue (which I don't really believe), and that he roams from place to place staying with anyone who will take him in, but all I saw was a guy who needs friends and a job (HE was one of the ONLY people there NOT drinking... might be a hard worker if anyone gave him half a chance). Regardless I will be sure to follow up on this guy, and see if I can't get him tending to someone's gardens, or something.

OOOOKKKK, well I wish I had time to tell another 20 stories just like that one about all the other crazy stuff I see and do each day, but I got to go to sleep, because tomorrow is a very long day. OH, wait just one last thing. I saw my first snake yesterday. I was so tired and hot from waiting by the road for 4 hours, that I went and sat in the river for 3... on my return home I was walking my bike on the bush path, and out of no where a snake was all of the sudden in the grass running away from me. Scared the daylights out of me, but at the same time it was cool to finally see. It was pitch black, and all the villagers concurred that it was a cobra. of some sort. it was about 4 ft long, so big, and probably dangerous. It won't stop me from going to my watering hole every afternoon, but I will probably tread carefully, with my eyes peeled.

Love you all! hope that this will quench any of your thirsts for info, until I get back to the house in a few weeks for our provincial meetings and Thanksgiving. Shalenuhu!!! OH, please forgive any spelling mistakes, I don't have the time to read through this whole thing and spell check. If there are any questions that need clarification, please feel free. Love

So Close, yet soooo far....

I am so close to finishing training and swearing in, but yet so far from the end of this journey.

Where to begin...

I guess trainging. training is almost over. I am in Solwezi now with internet, after finishing my 3rd and final site visit where I got a chance to live alone in the village I will spend the next 2 years of my life in, but more on that later. Tomorrow we return to Chipembi to start are final 2 weeks of training. I have to pass my final language exam, as well as take my technical training test, but I am not worried about either. Two Land Cruisers have flipped over in 2 weeks. Only once was it full of trainees, and, thank God, all are alive and well. I am anxious to gtfo of there and get to site.

3rd site visit was amazing. It is a very long car ride to get to my district and site. One day we spend on the road from Lusaka to Solwezi, spend the night, and then the following day head out further west. When I showed up, no one really was expecting me to be there, so for the first hour I was entertained by a local drunk. There is alot of drinking that goes on here in Zambia. Culturally is it only acceptable for the men, but it is very prevalent due to the lack of work. Too many people are out of work...
Finally my counterpart, Edward Ngundu and my headman Mr. Kapupa came with my house key. I was home at last. I was able to unpack some things, and sweep the hut. I found my cat, Honkers, and discovered she has 5 baby kittens. They have all been claimed already by other Volunteers, and one for the provincial house. They are really cute, and it helps keep me less lonely at night when they are there meowing and crying for mom. I didn't really do much my first day, but walk around and see the fish ponds, and also refuse drunken request after drunken request from people that see the white guy as a free ticket to anything they want.

One man, wanted me to send him to Tanzania to continue school, so that he could then go and take car of his mother who "is crying, she's crying right now for me..." Constantly saying "God is great and God loves all, and shares." Christianity is all well and good, but anyone could lead these people to believe anything so long as it was in the name of Jesus. I went to my Catholic church on Sunday, and the "priest" was (I didn't know at the time) one of my fish farmers. He was dressed in a Green Bay Packer's Jersey with a cross around his neck. The mass was quite entertaining because customs here in Zambia say that all the women sit on the left side, and all the men sit on the right. I tried to "break the gender roles" like they want us to do, and I sat with the women. BIG mistake. there was a young girl about 14 (age to begin thinking about marriage here in Zambia) and she sat right next to me. she kept sitting very close, and every time I would inch over she would inch with me... Then all the other women kept handing me their babies to hold and play with, and this sucks because I am not the biggest fan children here in Zambia. PVCs who play with the kids and spend time with them, are known to be chronically ill throughout their service. They cough, and are really dirty.

>>Side Note: This is also one of the things I really admire though. American mothers are overly protective of their children. 99% of them, and if any mother wishes to contest that, please come visit, because what you consider not being overly protective, you have no idea. Here kids are allowed to be kids. they play in very dangerous places, they drink and eat out of and off of very dirty dishes, they run around all the time bare foot, kids 10 years old swinging axes.... It is awesome.<<

So anyways mass went on with alot of singing, with drums and guitar like instruments. But only scripture was read, there was no Eucharistic part of the mass, because like I said the "priest" is actually more just like a leader of the readings.
Also on Sunday I had my first meeting with my co-op. We started by introductions, me introducing myself and my family back home in Lunda. It took a while but I explained what I used to do, what I went to school for, who my brothers and sisters are, where they live, what they do, and how old. Also all about my parents and about Manie. Then it was on to business. The previous volunteer Adam has put together a very capable group of fish farmers. They have many ponds and are highly organized. He also started a project that was awarded a grant, but to see that through to completion is up to me. The farmers are concerned about getting a hammer mill to begin producing fish feed. It is a really good project but it requires bank accounts, lots of invoices, and logistics to transport and build everything. The last part of the meeting was bitching about how I do not want to be annoyed by drunken men wanting cigarettes or whatever else this miracle worker can do for them. It was a serious discussion, and the conclusion to the meeting was that I will build a very large fence around my house, AND that anyone who would like to have words with me, must first go to my Headman (my closest neighbor and the boss of the entire village) and ask permission to see Mr. Bryanie. Only if he deems them of a clear mind and with important enough business, then they may come ask for me.

So, that said Monday I went to visit the school and the clinic. I met all the teachers and discussed the possibilities of building a library in Kanzala. I also met the local doctor who is a very bright young kid. The trouble with age in Zambia is that is it very hard to tell how old someone is. It is nothing like in the Western world. Literally a man might look 30, but is actually 21, or he looks 25, but is actually 40. There are kids, adults (no matter what age they look about the same), and then the very old... Spent the rest of the day reading, cooking, doing laundry, and contemplating where I wanted my fence to be built.

Today, the final day, I decided to stake out where I wanted my fence to be, but instead I put to work an army of young kids and we went hiking into the bush to cut down trees. We dropped 25 perfect trees; straight, strong, and thick. Then I had them dig 25 really deep holes, and put the posts in. A project that was really simple and only suppose to take 10 mins, turned into a huge project that would have taken me 2 days on my own, but instead it was finished in 2.5 hours. Now that I am gone, I have left it in the hands of my headman and the co-op to cut the bamboo and grass, and to thatch the actual fence all the way around. It is going to look really good, because my Chota (cooking shelter) is very big and round, and has a beautiful new thatched roof. the fence intersects it perfectly through the middle, so I have a semi circle "castle" like thing sticking out of my Fortress America. I can't wait to return and see how it came out.

Lastly the RAINS!!!! Holy holy holy RAIN. I had my first real storm, because it is the beginning of the rainy season, and it POURED. I think I have seen it rain that hard maybe 2 or 3 times in my entire life. and the lightening was out of this world. for 5 hours straight huge loud claps of thunder would shake the area. I would look our my front door into pitch black, and every 1-2 seconds a flash would temporarily light up the entire area! I felt like I was in a movie about Vietnam, waiting for some viet cong to come creeping out of the banana trees towards my hut. I am really looking forward to the rains to come.

OK well, I don't have my camera, I left it in Carlsie's backpack in Lusaka, so I once again can not post any pictures. But, when I do there might be just a few on here, but most of them will be in the form of albums on my facebook page. It is easier to upload lots of pics there. Love you all and hope this suffices for a little while!

Sorry that my last post was so short, but it is very hard to upload pictures where I was because the internet is very slow. Zambia has taught me many things, but the biggest thing is that time slows down and nothing is immediate.

I just got off of second site visit, where I actually got to go to Hunter's village and hangout a while. On he way I also got to stop and visit my village that I will be posted in! Might site is pretty amazing. I have a cat named Honkers that just gave birth two 5 kittens that are not even a week old. I also have 50ish fish ponds in my area owned by a very motivated fish farming co-op.

There are too many things I see everyday to talk about, but I did hear a pretty interesting story about witchcraft at site visit. The low down is that any animal that is active at night is probably possessed or owned by a witch. Also women are more powerful witches then men. Witch doctors are ok because they help the villages find witches. AND all witches are afraid of tobacco, so as long as you are chain smoking cigarettes walking around at night, you are safe... but the story is about these "things" that walk around my area at night. I don't remember the exact name but will begin writting down these tales when I get posted. They are masks, that are made by very powerful witches. They have to collect the hair, heart, and shadow of someone so that with these items they can inchant the mask. Then, at night they command the mask to go out and either kill someone specific, or protect the area. It is said that you can die just looking them in the eyes, and if you see one in the woods to run. But basically these maskes come alive and walk around looking for people. The freaky thing is that there are some volunteers that have actually seen AND been chased by these things before! Its pretty wild, how far into the African bush I am being posted. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am being placed directly in the heart of Africa.

Country elections are happening this week. It is a wild race between 3 big parties and tensions are running pretty high. It is pretty exciting to watch their process at work, but 29 people have died as of today! Don't worry though, we are all safe! But politics are so different here it is insane. Cars drive around all day with loud speakers ontop of them broadcasting campain speaches. Different parties will show up in our villages every other day and hand out chitenges (skirts/blankets), bikes, fertilizer for farmers, t-shirts, or anything else to get people to vote. In the village where we are training they just brought in a bunch of construction vehicles to "build" a road that they have been promising for years. They parked the bull dozer infront of the watering hole for a week and rebuilt the road about 2 miles to convince everyone in the area to keep the ruling party in place. But, the sad thing is that they only made the road look nice and added no gravel to it. So, come rainy season a month from now and after elections, everything is going to wash away and the village will have the same old shitty road. I won't mention party names, and I do not actually care who wins or not, but it is just fun to observe a political system so different.

Don't worry, By January these posts will be come much more regular. I have been kind of lucky to have extra access to computers recently, and I should be able to post again soonish. Love yall!