Monday, January 24, 2011

Off The Road

As many of you know, I haven’t been in Zambia for the past month, but rather off seeing the world. It just so happens that much of the world, for me, exists in Pleasant Hill, Oregon. I was home for Christmas and came to realize through conversation with family and friends that a lot more people read this blog than I originally thought. So, I’m feeling a bit guilty about leaving my readership hanging. There are several blog posts I’ve began over the past few months that I never finished or published so perhaps I’ll post a “lost posts post” (make sense?). Either way, let’s play catch up.
After a great Christmas/new years at home, which needn’t be explained because many of you were a part of it, I hopped on a flight back to Africa. I flew into joburg, got in around 5pm and rushed to the central bus station in hopes of catching the last bus to Lesotho where I was meeting up with a couple of friends—one a peace corps volunteer and another just visiting. Upon arriving at the station I was confronted with the reality that there was no bus leaving for Lesotho that evening and that I’d have to find a place to sleep. I’m usually a bit short on cash these days, but joburg is not a place to spend the night on the street, so I splurged on what I think amounted to, what they call in asia, a love hotel. The first room I was assigned had bedding strewn about and somebody’s abandoned nshima dinner sitting in the corner. I was tired and thought about just crawling into the used bed and perhaps picking at the forgotten food but the idea of the absent minded restless sleeper coming back at 2 in the morning prompted me to exchange rooms.
Anyway, I considered my night spent in joburg as a tactical retreat from my travel plans and the next morning I was up early in hopes of making it to Lesotho and finding Kali and Brittany. The small issue was that I had no phone and the number Kali had sent me for her phone was not working, thus I figured I’d just show up in the capital city, where they said they would be, and attempt to track them down. I mean, you’ve seen Lesotho on a map, it’s small, so how hard could it be to find two white girls who also happen to be looking for me? Well… I took a mini bus to the border and then crossed, took a taxi to the hotel I knew they had been staying the day before, only to find they had checked out earlier that morning and hadn’t left tell of where they would be headed. At this point I thought I might just be having a solo Lesotho vacation. However, I made it to an internet cafĂ©, where I found kali had left a note for me indicating I should meet them outside a grocery store that afternoon. I found them.
Lesotho is a beautiful mountain country where most of the villages are built at the base or part way up the side of the mountains, I think in order to protect them from the wind. I spent much of my time traveling around, and a mean around as the country is a circle, Lesotho visiting various peace corps volunteers with Kali and Brittany. I found most of the volunteers in Lesotho have gas stoves, which is a huge quality of life improvement over sticks and charcoal, in my opinion. I also found volunteer moral there to be a bit low. There was recently a volunteer murdered in the capital city. From what I can tell he was well loved and his death has had a huge impact on the volunteer community as a whole, especially those that came to Lesotho at the same time, such as Kali and many of her friends I visited. It’s not really my place to comment on the current situation as I’m an outsider and saying too much will probably get me in trouble, but the support volunteers seem to be receiving from peace corps has been coming from the shape up or ship out mentality and as a result their numbers have dropped by about a third due to volunteers quitting or being administratively separated. This aside, my trip was a lot of fun and I even ended up saving a girls life by giving her the Heimlich maneuver after she choked on a large mint. Who knew that people really pulled that move in real life?
Following Lesotho, I hopped back on a bus to joburg where I had to, once again, try to track down a girl in an unfamiliar city, sans phone. Only this time I had never met her—I figured I couldn’t fail. Again I had the address of where she was staying so I figured I’d just saunter up to the front desk and they’d direct me to her. However, upon inquiring, I was told there was no record of such a guest at the hotel and that perhaps I had the name wrong. I wanted to meet up with this lady because she would be flying to Zambia with me the next day, where she was going to work at a clinic in my province as she’s a registered nurse back in the states. Also she had said I could stay in her hotel room and bum the ride she had arranged from the airport. Given the incentives, I decided not to give up on finding her too easily. I managed to finagle free internet from the hotel and proceeded to facebook stalk the girl. I found I had the name right and that the message she had sent me in fact did indicate she would be staying at this hotel. I went back to the front desk and asked them if they were sure that she wasn’t here. And the lady I asked this time said “oh yes of course, she just left”.
I was hungry so I decided I’d pull a stake out from the nando’s across the way from the hotel. How hard could it be to spot a 20 something white girl I’d never met? As I sat there intently (creeply?) watching every young Caucasian lady pass by as I dined on a chicken burger and beer, I came to realized I hadn’t done a sufficient job facebook stalking this girl. I couldn’t even remember whether her hair was blonde or black. I had also chosen a seat in the back of the restaurant so as not to appear too creepy when scoping out those passing by. I had several hunches that I wanted to act on and approach but my location meant I would have to abandon my dinner and chase them down the corridor. So I resigned myself to finishing dinner and then walking back to the hotel. As luck would have it, there was a young lady in the lobby who made eye contact with me, we pointed, laughed and proceed to go out to second dinner. The rest of my trip was pretty uneventful except for me missing my flight the next day.
I’m back in my village now, waiting out a rain storm before I can go get my sweet potatoes planted. Yesterday I spent in the boma where I met with the business association who got a large grant to start up a commercial honey project. I’m excited to be working with them as they have the resources and the initial drive that could help take the honey business here to the next level. Also I got the chance to taste the beer I brewed (thanks Rox) before I left and it’s highly drinkable. I brewed it in a container that used to carry gasoline so there is a slight petrol aroma to it, but I think that adds to the complexity and unique experience… plus it’s the only beer in town. I also found a pretty sweet mountain yesterday about an hour from my front door. I got some good photos of the surrounding landscape in which I live but as you may or may not have noticed, my photos have become a bit messed up both on the internet and here on my computer. So next time I have electricity and internet I’ll try to fix that and get some new ones up. Happy 2011!